An Unexpected Breakthrough

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By Margot (Manikya) Garritt

Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

After years of reduced mobility and difficulty standing upright due to tension, I decided to amp up my Svaroopa® yoga practices.

For extra support, I added online classes to my home practice. Walking improved a little, yet nothing seemed to reach completely into the tension in my jammed right hip.

Then last year, my online classes began to include the new YogaBody poses. I became more grounded and present in my body. Clearly, I needed the support from these deeper YogaBody poses and the Ashram swamis as well as local teachers trained to offer the new poses.

I was well prepared for immersive YogaBody teacher training last spring. Being able to learn in person with other teachers and our Teacher Trainers made a difference. I got the precise alignments and encouragement I needed. Away from home responsibilities and settled into being a student, I had a genuine breakthrough.

My “aha” moment happened in Parshva Setu Asana (Angled Bridge Pose). Not your average bridge pose!  It was a more challenging pose, but the changes were instant and obvious. Afterward, resting in Shavasana with my legs outstretched, the hip tensions were gone as my right leg extended long and soft into the floor.

The magic of this deeper pose had released some formerly ingrained pattern. As our training material explains, it allowed me to engage my “biggest and strongest muscles to move and release the tightest areas” in my body. Now, as I continue to practice this pose, I experience a new ease in standing and walking.

Corresponding emotional and mental patterns were unraveling as well. At home, family complications and old memories had been rising. Going back to the YogaBody poses and sitting with japa afterwards led to a huge shift inside. My breath opened up. I was able to let go. I have more clarity now and can move forward without hanging onto the past.

So much Grace flows through our lineage and these teachings. I feel so much gratitude for it all. These poses carried me through several travels since the training.

I feel empowered by the greater capacity for self-care that I have developed as a result. I look forward to continuing online classes in addition to the Ashram’s yoga therapy sessions.

The current discounts for online Ashram yoga therapy are also a great incentive for this radical self-care!

Traveling can cause my hip to tighten up again. Yet the YogaBody poses restore my yoga miracle. So I will continue online Ashram weekly classes with our swamis as well as online private yoga therapy.

Ashram Yoga Classes
Yoga Therapy Sessions

Spiritual Living

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You see, you don’t have compartments inside.  There’s not a spiritual you, and a real you.  Inside, in the deeper level called turiya, you find you.  Now you show up for life, including spiritual practices, as well as relationships and responsibilities.  Spiritual living is that you bring your wholeness with you everywhere you go — open mind, open heart, open breath, deep inner center, grounded in the inner infinity of your own Divinity. 

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Bliss & Beyond“

Watch Full Discourse Here

Conduits of Grace

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If the Guru shares their home with others, the residents live in a microwave of Grace. And they’re usually quite busy with many and varied responsibilities. Baba kept us very busy. No time for idle hands. No time for idle tongues. No time to nurture old habits and self-defeating patterns. Beyond the benefit that the residents get personally from their immersion, they serve as conduits of Grace, making the Guru able to uplift more people and support them in their inner process.

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Sacred Site“

Watch Full Discourse Here

I Love Wednesdays

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By TC (Tattvananda) Richards

After the opening chant, a Swami welcomes us in-person and online attendees.

Then she introduces Gurudevi and reads a quote from Baba Muktananda, Gurudevi’s Guru. As a satsang subscriber, I’m there online every week.

For her discourse, Gurudevi unpacks Baba’s quote, explaining its layers of meaning. She calls this riffing on Consciousness!

Gurudevi has an incredible ability to make these ancient teachings pertinent to modern life.  Whatever she is saying always feels like she is giving a personal teaching for me. It’s always exactly what I need.

I know in reality she is speaking to the One Self in all. I am not alone in feeling these teachings are just for me.

I feel that I am sharing a private moment with Gurudevi as I’m listening to her profound teachings. I love her informality,  which opens me into Self. So I receive her teachings deeply. I am shifted inward by the meaning of her teaching as well as her presence.

She has told us many times that when we are based in Self, Consciousness shines through our mind. We get to see this in her satsangs. The light of Consciousness clearly shines through her genius mind.

Her devotion to Baba Muktananda also flows through her teachings. Feeling this gives me an even stronger sense of connection with Gurudevi as my beloved Guru.

Wednesday satsang is complete with a long chant, a delicious teaching and deep meditation. This supports me through the hardest part of my work week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday.

Settled into my Self, I can do what needs to be done to serve clients effectively.  My energy is not depleted. I can bring living yoga into my work.

Aug 26 Meditation Program

Regain What You’ve Lost

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By Swami Shrutananda

Have you lost some of your flexibility and strength, mental clarity, vitality and happiness? Most people lose more every year due to stress, illness, a chronic condition, an accident or simply getting older.

Yoga therapy sessions help you to regain it all, as a recent client describes:

After the 3rd session I began to feel a return of my self-confidence. I was getting my mojo back. As my body began to soften, I could feel the changes happening in my mind. I was feeling stronger and empowered both physically and mentally.

Each session includes therapeutic yoga poses. They are specifically tailored to begin the decompression of your spine at your tailbone. Your session continues the release up your spine through your sacrum, waist, ribcage and neck.

This release improves your whole body, from toes to head. You become more flexible and stronger at the same time.

Benefits go beyond physical. Your mind gets a rest from habitual worries, running memories of the past and planning for the future. Releasing tension along your spine quiets, soothes and settles your mind. After your session you have more clarity. You can focus and make effective decisions.

Your session frees up your own energy. The energy that was sustaining tightness — the muscular contractions — becomes available to you.  Prana, your own life force, is amped up. You have more vitality and energy to accomplish what you want in the world.

With tensions released, there’s an upwelling of happiness from within. This happiness is independent of anything happening on the outside.

Joy, creativity and enthusiasm arise from deep within and overflow into your life. This upwelling is your own mystical power. You feel more like you.

Mojo is your personal power, confidence and enthusiasm — the spark that makes you more alive!  Get your mojo back!

Therapeutic yoga sessions are available online and in person.  Sign up today.

Yoga Therapy

Divine Energy

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The mantra is the portable Guru, because the word Guru means energy.  A specific type of energy, Shiva’s Divine Energy of revelation, revealing your own Self to your Self.  The person of the Guru is a concentrated form of this energy, like a lightning bolt is a concentrated form of energy.  It isn’t about…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Spiritual Power“

Watch Full Discourse Here

Sunday, September 27th — Save the Date!

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Marinate in Grace at Gurudevi’s Swami Sunday meditation program (On-Site or Online).

You slip easily into meditation by chanting with her and receiving her teachings from the ancient tradition. Her talk always applies to living well spiritually in our modern world.

Sunday, September 27 is especially auspicious for your spiritual advancement. We formally celebrate Baba Muktananda’s Punyatithi. In yoga, we celebrate the life of a Great Being on the anniversary of their departure.

We remember the greatness of his service to the world. Gurudevi honors Baba as the one who gave her own Self to her, the one Self being all. Thus, she can give you your own Self.

This program also celebrates Gurudevi’s founding of Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram on September 28, 2009.  The Ashram houses the Guru’s physical being, as well as the Shakti, the Divine energy of Grace, that flows through the Guru.

The Ashram’s purpose is to support you in finding and experiencing the Divine within. All of Gurudevi’s guidance and teachings serve this ultimate purpose.

Through the Ashram, Gurudevi makes herself and the teachings available in so many ways. She brings them to us through an amazing network of programs offered On-Site at the Ashram as well as Online.  I love the availability of her writings and talks.  I am blessed by the Ashram that gives so much. — Barbara (Girijananda) Hess

Online or On-Site — this satsang is not to be missed!

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Gurudevi Connection

Use the Mantra

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Just like Baba said, “Most people who meditate make the same mistake. When they sit for meditation, they do not focus on the Self, instead they run after the mind trying to find out what it is doing.” So, focus on your own Self. Use the mantra, this ancient sacred formula, to pierce through the mental activity that you usually find so intriguing. Mantra gives you your own Self.

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Sublime Spiritual State“

Watch Full Discourse Here