By Swami Shrutananda Saraswati

If you are in pain (physical, mental or emotional), you may need tangible and personal support. Like a person with a broken leg, you need crutches.

I have been trained to provide this support. And I love to do so! I check in with you, “Are you doing your 20 minutes of Ujjayi twice a day — every day?”

Often, when I pose this question to students, the answer is “no.” I am surprised by how many students, and even teachers, have amnesia over this protocol. With any kind of pain, you must add this second time period to your day.

Ujjayi spreads prana — life force — through your whole body. Where you hurt is where your healing energy, prana, is low. When your body and mind are full of prana, your pain will be gone. So, I help you figure out where to fit a second 20 minutes of Ujjayi into your day.

I also encourage you to take not merely one yoga class a week, but two. I know you can do more yoga at home. However, will you? More importantly, who will fine tune your propping, check your alignments, and give you an adjustment for deeper openings? Who will see what it is that you need? Only a yoga teacher.

You can’t see what you don’t see. A teacher can see where you are stuck. The benefits of taking two yoga classes a week, or more, is not merely cumulative. The benefits are exponential.

Two 20-minute Ujjayi Pranayama practices daily plus at least a second weekly yoga class really work for you. I have seen it so many times, simply doing Ujjayi twice a day and increasing their weekly classes, they heal quicker.

Recently, a student came in with pain in her neck, level 8 out of 10 possible. She increased her Ujjayi practice to 20 minutes twice a day. And she came to class twice a week for three weeks. The predictable miracle happened. The pain level in her neck is now gone. Doing more yoga really works!

Even better, your teacher will motivate you to do poses you don’t want to do. But, for your body and mind to be healthy and vibrant, these are the poses you need.

A teacher will motivate you to do abdominal poses as well as poses that strengthen your legs and your arms. These poses will keep your spine open between classes.

At home, typically, students only do the poses they like and can do easily. They don’t realize that they never get into their stuck areas. At some point, those areas will make you eligible for a formal diagnosis by your doctor, if it hasn’t happened already.

Who will motivate you? A teacher who has been through the same process. Teachers teach from their own experience. They are kind, motivational and in your face when needed. A teacher cares about you. This is why we teach.

I challenge you to double up during this season. Start with doing 20 minutes of Ujjayi twice a day and take an extra yoga class each week, for one month. Tell your teacher your plan. She will motivate you to follow through.

You will be amazed at how you will feel by month’s end. Gurudevi says, “Vibrant health, vitality and enthusiasm follow, like when you were a child.” [March 2026 Teachings Article You Have a Body]

Take care of your body. You only get one body in this lifetime.

Your mind is made of cosmic Consciousness but mixed with your individual prana. Which means your mind accesses only a limited part of Consciousness, only as much as your prana allows.  And that means when you’re low on prana, your mind is dying on the vine.  So, your mind brings up all the threatening things that could happen, or have happened, giving you thoughts that match… 

—  Gurudevi  Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Prana – Life Energy“

It is your soul, purusha, that reincarnates from one lifetime to the next.  Shaktipat gives you freedom from the cycle of lifetimes, freedom from the limitation of feeling separate from others, freedom from the feeling of being separate from God.  For God is being you, and me, and everyone and everything.  When you look all the way inward, you find…

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Body, Mind & More“

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

You have earned your current condition. Yoga calls this your bhava, meaning your state of mind and body as well as the circumstances of your life and status of your relationships.

You have invested your time and energy into getting what you’ve got, which includes the good, the bad and the ugly. It’s called karma-phala, the repercussions of your prior actions.

This is karma-bhumi, the world of action. Bhumi means land, literally earth, also referring to our planet. Karma means action. You must have a body to exist in this plane. Having a body means you are propelled into action.

This plane of existence is based in perpetual motion. Even if you decide to abstain from external activity, your mind keeps going. The key question is — what is your motivation for any of your actions? Your motivation determines what your karmic repercussions are.

Being a good person is a primary motivator for most people. They will forego pleasures in order to take care of their loved ones and handle other obligations. The Bhagavadgita, an ancient yogic text, focuses on you being a yogi while fulfilling your dharma — your roles and responsibilities.

Classical yoga systems begin with morality and ethics. The yamas and niyamas are lifestyle practices that clean up your act. My Baba summarized them succinctly:

They are nothing but rules of self-control: living a regular and disciplined life, going to bed and getting up punctually, talking less, speaking the truth and eating only as much as you can digest. Now who in the world doesn’t need these rules?

When I met Baba, I hadn’t been following the rules. I had invested years in breaking every rule I could find. As a teenager in the 1960’s, I took rebellion seriously. Fortunately, tantra is for everyone. Even if your lifestyle isn’t yogic and your karma is a bit messy…

I describe it this way: you are more than what the world tells you that you are. You are more than you think you are. You discover who and what you really are, oh Shiva, by looking within. And you still live in the world. You still have experiences, but they don’t make you who you are. Now, based in Self, you draw on Divine intelligence within to guide…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Self-Mastery“