Monthly Archives: July 2021

What Have You Learned?

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

After more than a year of pandemic precautions, what have you learned? You probably learned to stay home more, to spend less money and how to use technology to connect with others. Hopefully you also learned how you feel when you do more yoga.

Your priorities have been rearranged. You didn’t choose to do this. It was thrust on you and it’s affected you. What is that difference? Notice what you’ve lost and what you’ve gained. The way you put yourself together has changed.

What you do, where you go, who you spend time with, what you care about – these are all vital aspects of who you are in the world. As you reassemble your mosaic, choose your colors and patterns wisely. You are recreating what yoga calls your “self,” who you are in the world.

Yet something has not changed. Your deeper essence is the same. Your own is-ness, your own beingness, what yoga calls your own “Self” is steady, always present, what we could call pure presence. When you abide in your own Self, you can handle anything, even a pandemic. Even reentry.

Hopefully you’ve learned how to abide in your Self more fully. You’ve learned how to lean into your own Divine Essence for the inner support and clarity that makes your life work. As you make decisions about how your life will look now, lean inward and find the inner answers. What will bring you closer to your own Self? What will bring you closer to God, inside?

This is yoga’s specialty. This is yoga’s goal and purpose. This is the union that the Sanskrit word “yoga” is often translated as. To live in the union of your own self and Self is the most meaningful and blissful way to live. To bring your Self with you and share from your deeper essence is a way of serving the world. To get there, do more yoga.

Ashram Profile

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By Carolyn (Karuna) Beaver

Ashram is a Sanskrit word that names the place where the Guru lives. Ashram also names the place where the fatigue of worldly concerns (shrama) is cleared. A-shrama means without shrama.

Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram lives up to its name. This is the place where the clouds of shrama are lifted. They’re lifted by the enlightened Guru who resides there. They’re lifted so that you may understand and reside in the knowledge of your own Self.

How does this happen? It starts with our Guru, Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati. We call her Gurudevi, which means Divine Teacher. She is a Kundalini master and internationally renowned teacher. The Ashram houses her physical being. It also houses the divine energy of Grace that flows through her. It’s contagious! You can feel it. In a program with Gurudevi or by reading one of her articles, you palpably feel the Grace.

The Ashram operates Lokananda, which means Bliss Place. It also lives up to its name. It’s a full-service retreat center in Downingtown PA. There, we offer meditation and yoga healing retreats. Gurudevi offers Shaktipat. Many of these immersions are also available online.

The Ashram offers professional training courses for yoga teachers, yoga therapists and meditation teachers. Visit our online Calendar to see that the offerings go on and on. There’s a course or program for everyone — from new yogis to experienced practitioners.

One of my favorite things about the Ashram is that so many of Gurudevi’s profound yet accessible teachings are free. You have podcasts, written materials and free online meditation programs. As a Svaroopa^® yoga teacher, I look forward to Gurudevi’s monthly articles. Along with the article, I receive pithy quotations pulled from it to share with my students. I’m not teaching only poses. I am teaching the profound promise of yoga.

For more than 30 years, Gurudevi has met the needs of seekers in so many ways. She and our Ashram staff are dedicated to delivering the teachings. They’ve been passed down to her from her Guru, Swami Muktananda. These ancient and yet so relevant teachings are delivered in a multitude of formats and price points.

They meet us just where we are. Then the Ashram clears the weight of the shrama we’ve been carrying. Through expert and compassionate teachings, we come to understand who we are and where we’re going. The Ashram indeed lives up to its name.

Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation

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It’s an inner knowing. The knowing of your own Self is a deep inner feeling, a knowing beyond thought. In Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation, you meditate on your own Self, on your blissful essence of pure beingness. You become more you, experiencing the bliss of Consciousness that is your innermost essence.

Making You More You

Finding your Self involves knowing where to look as well as how. Step 1: Turn your attention inward. But this can leave you trapped in a busy mind. Step 2: Learn how to glide deeper within by using the tantric tools provided by yoga’s sages. Result: Discover who you really are at the deepest level of your own being.

The Bliss of Consciousness

If you’re not experiencing bliss, you’re just not your Self today. Learn to find your Self within, in the bliss that is ever-vibrating at your core. Discover the Consciousness that you are and learn how to live from that inner dimensionality in all you do.

Discover Your Innermost Essence

Your essence is Divine. You are an individualized expression of the One Divine Reality. That which has always existed is existing now, being you. Learn how to look deeper within, to discover your inherent Divinity. Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation makes it easy for you to discover your innermost essence, your own Self.

Why I Need a Guru

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By Frances (Jñani) Amery, interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain

Taking Foundations of Svaroopa^® Yoga, then YTT 1, became a launching point to learn yoga philosophy. Like a sponge, I soaked up teachings such as the 36 tattvas (Kashmiri Shaivism levels of reality). Rather than studying the poses, I soon realized I wanted to focus more on the sutras (philosophy aphorisms). Then, not long after completing YTT 1, I fell and broke both legs. While recuperating, I took Gurudevi’s “Yogify Your Life” phone course. It gave me access to the teachings I was longing for.

A few years later, I tripped and broke my foot. This “fortunate fall” was pivotal. Once again, as I convalesced in bed, I was able to study yoga philosophy with Gurudevi. I listened to the Shiva Sutras online. I felt totally supported by the sound of Gurudevi’s voice delivering these profound truths. Even though I do not recall many details, the sutras got layered into me somewhere. It was amazingly fantastic!

Conversing with other yogis about the Guru, I had a sudden and clear inner knowing that Gurudevi is indeed my Guru. I realized I had had this inner knowing from the moment I first met her. Being in her presence, I feel drawn inward with a strong force like the tractor beam in the old “Star Trek” shows. This force is called Guru’s Grace. Guru’s Grace shines through her words and teachings.

They help me in my daily life, in every way. By having a Guru, I feel my thinking process and behaviors are being restructured. For instance, I was always an ethical person. In grade school, I was the first to fess up about any mischief! Yet practicing the yamasand niyamas with Gurudevi’s guidance has brought me deeper. My understanding of myself and my world is clearer. As time goes by, ever deepening insights unfold. The inner lnowing was always there; I just couldn’t yet perceive it.

Gurudevi is my teacher. She understands me in a way no one else does, which startles me at times. During her Year-Long Programme discussions, I feel her speaking to me directly, no matter whom she is addressing. It’s like the spiritual DNA of the lineage is in my very constitution. This makes Gurudevi my spiritual mother. She holds the promise of all that is yet to come — enlightenment in the midst of life. And I love this promise: it excites me and keeps me focused on this inner path. I am grateful for the great gift of a Guru! I’m so blessed to have crossed paths with Gurudevi.