By Peter Gallagher

Interviewed by Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, Yogaratna

I began signing up for Shaktipat Retreats as soon as Gurudevi began offering them, more than a decade ago. Two per year, both Online and On-Site, has been my pattern.

My introduction to Gurudevi was at least two decades ago. A massage therapist told me that he could not feel the difference between muscle and bone in my back.

Fortunately, there was a Svaroopa^® yoga teacher in my town. I began classes with her and learned that Gurudevi periodically offered yoga programs at a yoga center, only a two-hour drive away.

When I returned home from the first one, my wife took one look at me and told me to sign up again immediately. “Why?” I asked. She replied, “Because now I see the guy I married.”

Thus Gurudevi’s teachings drew me back again and again. After Gurudevi took sannyasi vows in 2009, she taught meditation primarily. She knew stuff I wanted to learn!

I would enroll in her programs whatever she was teaching. She was teaching Truth. I was getting bliss, though I didn’t know what to call it. This is how I became a regular Shaktipat Retreat attendee.

This summer, I traveled by train to Downingtown PA for her On-Site Only Shaktipat Retreat. I had a powerful mystical experience after receiving Gurudevi’s first Shaktipat offering.

During our “Jyota se Jyota” chant, I did the arati (candle flame circles) to the photo of Baba Muktananda. I stood on the low platform to the left of Gurudevi’s teachings’ chair. I slowly moved the silver tray with the candle in clockwise circles.

There were points at the top and bottom when the tray briefly blocked my view of his face. Each time his face was revealed again, Baba’s facial expression changed. I received the darshan of his ever-changing countenance again and again. I was saturated with Guru’s Grace, enthralled by Muktananda’s presence.

I stayed in my inner depths even as I recognized my closeness to the back edge of the platform. This practical discernment in the midst of mystical awareness seems appropriately tantric.

Beholding Gurudevi’s Guru in this way settled me inward to a sense of deep peace. I took the train home the next day. My state of inner depth remained undisturbed — even as I changed trains in a busy New York City terminal on my way back home. Still deep within…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Your relationships are pivotal to your life. You may see them as the purpose of your life or you may have a more solitary lifestyle. The reality is that others have a powerful effect on you.

When I was seeking to escape that effect, I pursued solitude. I lived in a small place in several acres of woods, so I saw more deer than people. Yet relationships were still the crux of my life. My work revolved around other people. Even driving to the grocery store showed me there were people all around.

One day I realized I wouldn’t have food without other people. While I never actually meet the people who grow the food, pack it up and ship it to the market, I buy and eat it. I am in relationship with them. At the store, I smile and chat with the cashier, another relationship. I abandoned the idea I was a hermit.

It challenged my idealism. Yoga’s history highlights many sages doing intense practices in solitude. I had unknowingly picked that up as an ideal to live by. Now I see that the stories of such iconic yogis always included other people.

One modern-day story described a Himalayan yogi who was immersed in meditation all through the day. When he opened his eyes and stepped outside his cave, he found a plate of food waiting for him. The dal (bean soup) and rice were frozen, but they warmed up in his belly.

The food had been dropped off by a yogi from a nearby cave. He’d picked it up just down the hill, at the Ashram which served free meals every day. Similarly, last time I was in India, I was honored to serve food to over 100 yogis and pilgrims.

The yogi should practice hatha yoga in a small room, situated in a solitary place, being four cubits square and free from stones, fire, water, disturbances of all kinds, and in a country where justice is properly administered, where good people live and food can be obtained easily and plentifully. — Hatha Yoga Pradipika 1.12

While this yogi lived alone, he relied on others to feed him. In this way, my Baba did 34 years of sadhana (spiritual practice), being housed and fed by others. He dedicated his spiritual autobiography to his “many mothers.”

You are always in relationship. Your body needs food and water. You bathe and need clothing. If you’re not growing the cotton, where would you get clothing without other people involved? For that matter, how would you have taken birth if others weren’t involved?

I have devoted myself to doing and sharing yoga practices for decades. Yet it is your interest in the teachings that makes me able to continue to offer them. It’s another reason that I…

Yet each time you experience samadhi, any level of samadhi, it leaves a Consciousness imprint in your mind. Gradually, your mind is able to expand into the inner dimensionality. Your mind is a contracted form of Consciousness. It becomes less and less contracted, expanding into the Consciousness of which everything is made.  So, your inner experience becomes progressively…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Deep Meditation — Samadhi“

In opening your eyes at the end of your meditation period, if you feel an ease of being, expansiveness, peace and bliss, these are qualities you bring with you when your awareness extends outward again. Your peripheral vision expands. Your breath is more open. You took the shortcut to Self. It’s called Grace. Thank you, Baba.

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Sleep & Meditation“

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“