OM Guru, OM Gurudev

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By Barbara (Girijananda) Hess, Yogaratna

Chanting brings me to a blissful inner space, especially Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s kirtan – call and response chant – “OM Guru, OM Guru, OM Gurudev.”

This chant attunes you to the Divine Grace that flows through the one who serves as a spiritual teacher and leader – the Guru. Gurudevi and we members of the Vowed Order of Svaroopa Vidya Ashram recorded this chant during an annual retreat.

Daily, in the early morning hours before I join our Meditation Club, I play this chant. Chanting along, I am honoring Gurudevi, my beloved Guru. In this way, I arise from a night of slumber into such a sweet space. I am experiencing vyutthana — the “in between” space.

This prepares me to sit and meditate with Gurudevi and fellow yogis. Beginning with this chant, I am transported to the Ashram, sitting at Gurudevi’s feet. I linger in the sweet space of timelessness this brings. Chanting and thinking of our Master Teacher opens a doorway inside that is ever expanding.

I reflect upon our lineage of Masters who also sat at the feet of their Guru, marinating in the nectar of discipleship. Gurudevi sat at Muktananda’s feet, who sat at Nityananda’s feet.

The devotion, dedication, and deep gratitude that arises from discipleship is interwoven into the melodious, ecstatic repetition of simple words: OM Guru, OM Guru, OM Gurudev.

I often play this chant again in the evening. Beginning and ending my day with this chant to the Guru sandwiches the sweet nectar of Divine living in between.

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Shining with Bliss

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By Lynn (Gurupremananda) Cattafi

You love to see a child’s face light up with joy.

It’s even better to see a child shining with bliss as they settle within. Due to our charitable project, the Ganeshpuri Yoga School, thousands of children are learning how.

Your donations help make this possible. The Ganeshpuri Yoga School makes a huge difference in the lives of these children. Please join me in donating to this highly beneficial charitable project.

Gurudevi created the Ganeshpuri Yoga School program. Our India teaching team, headed by Mohini Rao, serves over 2,500 underprivileged schoolchildren every week. We provide free yoga classes in the schools, right in the middle of the school day.

I have observed many of the classes during my trips to Ganeshpuri. Not all schools have the space to hold the yoga classes indoors. Often, classes are held outside. The teachers lay large tarps on the ground, and class begins.

Each class includes classical yoga poses and some chanting. Then students sit in stillness. You can see the bliss in their shining faces. They know they are getting this from their yoga classes.

Additionally, Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram has received letters of thanks from the headmasters of several schools. They report that the yoga classes are increasing the children’s focus and learning ability.

They even report that overall behavior throughout the school has improved significantly! They attribute this to the yoga classes.

What a gift you can give by supporting the Ganeshpuri Yoga School Project. Please give today.

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An Inner Process

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So, there is an inner process you go through. The process is that you’re flipping life on its head. Most people look for outer things to change the way they feel inside. A yogi finds the Self inside and then shares their Essence with others. Instead of waiting or wanting others to fill you, you come from fullness, your own inner Essence. Oh, Shiva.

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Death, God & Self“

Watch Full Discourse Here

The Wonders of Kundalini

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By Margie (Maitreyi) Wilsman

I have attended numerous Shaktipat Retreats offered by Gurudevi Nirmalananda, Online as well as On-Site.

Gurudevi is a Kundalini Master, a Shaktipat Guru. She has the mystical power to awaken the energy of Consciousness that is lying asleep within each of us.

Receiving Shaktipat from Gurudevi over more than a decade, I’ve experienced the wonders and importance of Kundalini. This cosmic power lies asleep coiled below my tailbone. When awakened, she uncoils and rises up the spine. Along the way, she clears your spine of karmic blockages stored there.

I first became aware of Kundalini when I experienced spontaneous Shaktipat during an Embodyment® Yoga Therapy session. Kundalini was opening through my left leg, ankle, foot and hip on the tightest side of my body.

Having already experienced Kundalini, why have I taken numerous Shaktipat Retreats? I did not understand what was happening at first. When immersed in Gurudevi’s Shaktipat Retreats, I’ve received revelations that are light years beyond my initial experiences in Embodyment® sessions.

Being in Gurudevi’s presence, meditating, listening to her talks, and chanting the Sanskrit verses of the Kundalini Stava.h were occasions for Kundalini to show up. They still are. Her arising sheds light on blockages that still need work. She continues to clear my karma on physical, emotional and mental levels.

In my first Embodyment® experience of Kundalini, I certainly did not recognize what was happening. I did not know the clearings on my left side were due to Kundalini. She was clearing karma seeds from areas of my spine associated with my left side. Plus, I did not know that was a sign of Gurudevi’s Grace flowing in me.

Over the years, I’ve learned more about Kundalini in various ways. While at Lokananda, I purchased a hand-carved wooden murti (statue) of Kundalini that now sits on my altar. I developed a practice of honoring her daily.

I learned that the dormant Kundalini is active at every level of my being: my eyes, ears, head/brain, heart, digestion, and more. She operates in the activities of my daily life. Once awakened, I can feel how she transforms mundane life activities into mystical ones.

Experiencing Kundalini’s inner movement requires strength and proper nourishment. When I enroll in Online Shaktipat retreats, I look forward to receiving handouts of recipes for delicious, nutritious vegetarian dishes. We get to eat the food that Gurudevi eats.

After a Shaktipat Retreat, I do the homework given to us. For two weeks, I chant the Kundalini Stava.h. And my daily meditation is for Kundalini to continue to do her work.

At first, I thought Shaktipat was only about Kundalini, Gurudevi as a Kundalini Master, and the burning away of karmic blockages stored in my spine. Next, I began to understand how these entities are intertwined.

Finally, I understand the part I play in being open to the most powerful, fullest movement of Kundalini burning karmic blockages. I am opened to the flow of Gurudevi’s Grace. Bring it on!

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14-Mile Bike Ride

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By Swami Samvidaananda

My client came in limping, actually limping.

She had come for an Embodyment® Yoga Therapy session. A friend, seeing her in pain, had recommended it to her. So she signed up for a series of sessions even though she had never done Svaroopa® yoga before. She was willing to try anything. She was normally a very physically active person. The pain was really limiting her.

At the end of the hour, her pain was gone. She felt great! She was not limping as she left. She practically skipped out. However, when she arrived for her Overlap Healing session the next day she was limping again.

What happened? She felt so good, she went for a 14-mile bike ride!

I get it. The pain she had been struggling with was gone. With the pain gone, she had the energy and ability to do something she has really missed being able to do. So she went for it. And it felt great. Until, those 14 miles on a bike re-installed all those muscular tensions we had released in the Embodyment® therapy session. Then, of course, the pain returned.

What she didn’t understand after her first session is that the deep muscular tensions creating her pain had been accumulating for a long time. She loved long bike rides as well as workouts and hikes. These had laid in patterns of muscular tension in the deep muscles connected to her spine.

Those tensions built and built, until one day there was a tipping point. Her tight spinal muscles compressed a disc in her spine enough to put pressure on her nerves. Then, unfortunately, “Hello, pain.”

The good news is that Svaroopa® yoga therapy releases the tensions in those deep spinal muscles. You are freed from your pain! We excel at releasing the tensions in order to decompress your spine. We call this core-opening.

But it is a gradual process. Tight muscles have a tendency to spring back into their pattern of tension. Thus, they need time to get used to a new pattern of a long, relaxed openness. A series of yoga therapy sessions is best, to get you going.

We also encourage you to do yoga poses and yogic breathing at home. That way, every day you reinforce the new patterns and speed your progress to a whole new you. Plus you save money by needing fewer sessions.

Not only will you have less pain, you will have greater flexibility. You will literally be standing taller. And you will feel renewed, relaxed and revived, from the inside out.

Yoga therapy clients and students feel lighter, calmer, more optimistic, more cheerful and energized. That’s because, as you release deep tensions at the core of your body, you deepen into the core of your Being, which Svaroopa® yoga calls your own Self.

And it all begins with a yoga therapy session. Are you ready to give it a try?

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Why a Guru?

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Why a Guru? To set you free. The Guru doesn’t make you Divine. The Guru shows you that you are already Divine. The Guru doesn’t make you great, but shows you that you are already blazing with Divine Light. Baba said it this way, “Just as the wind disperses the clouds, but does not create another blazing sun, so the Grace of a Siddha simply removes the veil of ignorance so that you realize you are already perfect.” If this is what you want, you need a Guru.

 — Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Guru? Ashram? What? Why?“

Watch Full Discourse Here

Embodied Consciousness

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I call it embodied Consciousness, that you know your own Divine Essence while you participate in the world. This approach to spiritual development is not a process of transcendence. You don’t rise above the world. You live in it, but in a new way. You don’t…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Your Cosmic Birthright“

Watch Full Discourse Here

My Heart Opening

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By Anna Ranish

I’m starting to feel grateful that I live with chronic muscle pain.

Saying this has taken years. It’s not because I’m a masochist! I feel grateful because the pain has caused me to search really deep inside. Thus, I have done many practices that helped to transform me into a more compassionate person.

One of those practices is Supported Fish (Salambha Matsyasana). I have probably done it in yoga classes only twice. However, I often don’t learn things when I do them in class. I need a lot of repetition.

I got plenty of repetition when I went through excruciating back pain in 2023. Physical therapy couldn’t help me. That’s when I signed up for a long series of Overlap Healing yoga therapy. I had 35 sessions over 3 months.

My therapist had me do Supported Fish often during that time. I really came to love and enjoy the feeling of my body spread across two Svaroopa® blanket rolls.

I continued doing the pose at home daily. After a while, I felt a powerful shift in my heart. It felt as if someone reached in, took my old heart out and put a new one in. This was a much gentler and more compassionate heart!

I no longer do Supported Fish pose daily. However, I monitor myself to recognize when my heart is feeling a bit rough, not as compassionate as I would like. Then I self-prescribe myself for a week or more of Supported Fish poses. What bliss!

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Deepening Inward

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

“I lost my Shavasana,” a yogini complained to me. I was opening a weekend workshop, but she came to talk before I got started. “My teacher told me to explain that’s why I’ve come — so you can give me my Shavasana back.”

I responded, “You’re probably still going deep, but not unconscious. You’re being conscious in Consciousness.” I promised to check on her in our first yoga class, which I was starting in minutes. After an hour of spinal release poses, I led the Guided Awareness in Shavasana, also called Yoga Nidra. She was settled deeply within.

She came to me after class, “You’re right. I was deep, and I knew I was deep while I was deep.” This inner experience has a name in Sanskrit — samadhi. It is a deep immersion into the Consciousness that you are. In the beginning, you may go unconscious at this depth, but you expand into it as you return to it again and again.

Samadhi is the end-goal of the practices listed in the Yoga Sutras.

Yama-niyama-asana-pranayama-pratyahara-dhara.na-dhyana-samadhayo’shtavangani. — Yoga Sutras 2.29

Impulse-control, choice-full action, posture, breathing practices, turning inward, contemplation, meditative flow and meditative absorption are the eight aspects.

This sutra acknowledges that you master things in stages. This is true of worldly skills as well as your inward exploration of your own Beingness. Yama and niyama free you from mental churning. Posture is not only health-giving, it uplifts your attitude. Breathing practices enliven your body while clearing your mind, like a good breeze clears the skies.

Beyond these preparatory practices, the real yoga begins when you turn your attention inward. When you begin with meditation, turning your attention inward is challenging because you haven’t cleared your mind first. It tends to regurgitate your life for you. You’re trying to look inward but all you get is an internalized version of the external world.

Tantra makes it easy. In Svaroopa® Vidya meditation, we repeat mantra aloud, then you get it going internally and… bloop! You’re immersed within. You skipped through Patanjali’s three stages: contemplation (dharana) and meditative flow (dhyana), to land in meditative absorption (samadhi).

You are settled into your own Divine Essence. Ease of being, expansiveness, peace and bliss are qualities you bring with you when your awareness extends outward again. You took the shortcut to Self. It’s called…

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