By Peter Gallagher, Ashram Board Member
Twice yearly, I reach out to you to ask for a contribution. Your donation supports the many needs of your nonprofit yoga organization. It supports the profound work of our founder and spiritual head, Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda.
Our modern-day sage, our Guru, does not take any payment for her teachings. While you pay fees to take courses with Swami Nirmalananda, these monies go directly to support the organization. She is not compensated for her teaching time or the background support she provides. Our fees apply only toward the costs of offering the courses and other services we provide.
Our course and program fees unfortunately do not cover the costs of supporting the Ashram’s whole infrastructure. This essential substructure enables dissemination of our Guru’s free teachings to you and seekers everywhere. Physical buildings need improvements and maintenance. We pay property taxes, insurance, utilities, faculty and the support staff that are needed to run programs.
Many of you make a monthly donation. In making his pledge, you make a solemn promise. It is a commitment, a sweet promise that you uphold month-by-month. Your monthly gifts allow the Ashram to budget confidently, providing security for our organization. We are grateful to you beyond measure.
Providing important support for Swamiji’s work in the world, your monthly gift gives even more. You ensure the continued stream of teachings from Swamiji. You provide her with the faculty, staff, supplies and facility that make her service to the community possible. Through these conduits, her Grace is unwaveringly available to you, to your whole Svaroopa® community and to seekers beyond. Guru’s Grace empowers you to do more and to be more than you think you are.
Consider seeing your monthly pledge as a necessity, not as an extra. Reflect on the ways that your yoga deepens your inner experience. Remember the Ashram programs, retreats and courses that have opened you to ease and peace within, freeing your mind from need, greed and fear. What is more important than your progress on your yogic/spiritual path? Is it worth $25, $50, $100 or more a month? You decide.
Whether your response is a new pledge, to increase you current pledge or to offer a one-time donation, give from your heart. Give because it fills you up from the inside out. Give and be filled with the Grace of our yogic tradition. In this season of gratitude and Grace, you can have it all, because you ARE all of THAT.
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