Monthly Archives: August 2023

Standing in Presence

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By Rosemary (Rudrani) Nogue, Yogaratna

The standing pose Virabhadrasana 2 (Warrior 2) is one of my favorites.  Moving in, I become absorbed in its physical angles and alignments.  Any mind chatter drops away.  I feel my feet and legs grounding down into the support of the earth.  Engaging my abs and raising arms skyward, I feel solid and uplifted at the same time.

I become aware of the interconnectedness between my body and mind.  I settle into equal balance between my feet, and my mind feels balanced too.  It feels circular.  My physical balance creates mental balance, and mental balance creates physical balance. 

My spine is freed to soften and lengthen.  With the crown of my head over my tailbone — Voila! — I am even deeper inside.  There is only quiet. 

Staying in the pose uncovers my stamina.  The pose feels powerful while being challenging.  I feel clear, strong, resilient and elated.  I experience standing in total presence, right here, right now, being the Beingness I am. Moving out of the first side, I am more than ready for the second side.

Continuing in Virabhadrasana 2, a sense of inner presence arises.  It unwraps an experience of my inner warrior.  As my heart expands, I feel strong and powerful yet kind, loving and open at the same time.  This pose prepares me to move into my day.  It gives me Me!  No wonder Virabhadrasana 2 is one of my favourite poses.

Breakthrough in Perspective

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By Margie (Maitreyi) Wilsman

Beginning yoga in 2018, Kathy kept her right hand at her waist in Seated Side Stretch.  She needed to sit on the highest possible blanket stack.  In Alternate Leg Diagonal, her right leg couldn’t move to the diagonal angle.  In a yoga therapy session, she reported high pain levels in her right leg, knee and shoulder.

During Covid, Kathy’s lifestyle and mobility became restricted.  No more riding bikes or playing four-square with her granddaughters.  She could no longer even walk to the end of her driveway safely unless she used walking sticks.  

When I reopened my studio, Kathy immediately requested Overlap Healing, a series of yoga therapy sessions.  For the first time, I learned about her 2013 low back injury from doing a flip.  I asked to see her MRI report and used it to guide subsequent discussions and sessions.

In one session, I moved her slowly into the diagonal angle in Alternate Leg on her right side.  She felt tingling and pulsations in her hip crease and buzzing on the outside of her right knee.  She told me about losing bowel control.  I urged Kathy to see her primary physician and request a new MRI.  It revealed the need for a right hip replacement.  I supported her in pre-surgery toning per her physician’s handouts as well as Ujjayi Pranayama along with a few “safe” poses.

After hip replacement and PT, Kathy arrived at yoga without walking sticks.  She said, in addition to her new hip, she had gained new perspectives on her body and mind.  She’d thought exercise could correct any pains.  She could not believe how she’d denied and rejected her pain.  She had wanted to look strong to her family and friends.  She credits Svaroopa® yoga for teaching her effective body awareness.

In a conversation after class recently, she said she no longer pushes herself through injuries and pain.  She first does Ujjayi Pranayama, or comes to class or a therapy session.  Then she decides what to do next.

Trained as a Svaroopa® yoga therapist, I move clients through their own healing process as well as empower them to keep it moving.  To do this, I engage deeply in the Svaroopa® Sciences practices to stay based inside in the One Self Being All.  I know that all breakthroughs come from this inner source.  Hearing Kathy speak of her miraculous changes I said, “Thank you, Self.”

Telecourse: Leaps & Bounds 

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Learn and grow in this multi-media course. This course draws out the meaning of Shaktipat:  what it is and how it works, as well as how you maximize the blessings it brings.  Be filled up by classical teaching stories as well as verses from Sanskrit texts. 

Go at your own pace in this multimedia course, comprised of substantive articles and teaching videos,.  Your password is current for three months after you enroll.  

Enroll in any of the three modules or sign up for all of them:

Module 1:  Growth Spurts — Leaping forward, bounding into Consciousness, making fast progress easily 

Module 2:  Living Spirituality — Riding on the shoulders of spiritual giants, how do you incorporate their great gifts into your everyday life?

Module 3:  Ordinary Monks & Mystics — Outgrowing your past & shaping your future. The loom of tantra: interweaving spirituality through life.

Bonus Video:  Resting on Your Laurels (free when you enroll in all 3 modules).

Gurudevi taught this course in 2019 as her Year-Long Programme.  New videos and updated Teachings Articles make it fresh and totally relevant to your needs today — that is, if you’re not enlightened yet

FREE Intro Video 

Leaps & Bounds

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Breakthroughs are not dependent on receiving Shaktipat.  Grace is not so limited.  Grace is part of life, always available. 

You’ve been lifted out of your small-s self so many times by Divine Grace.  Shaktipat is the form of Grace that awakens your inner meditative energy, so the upliftment keeps coming, again and again, every time you meditate.  It arises within.

While Svaroopa® yoga specializes in Shaktipat, you were uplifted and sheltered by Grace before yoga.  Your life has had many moments of Grace.  Like a child sitting on daddy’s shoulders, Grace shows you what you could not see.  Yet you still have to come down to earth and go through the process of growing into your own future. 

It’s easier to navigate to your future when you’ve seen where you’re going, and even easier when you have a GPS.  Yoga’s teachings provide both:  the description of your goal as well as how you get there.  They describe levels and stages that can help you understand where you’re at, and give you practices that help you make the next leap forward. 

That’s what I’m presenting in this Telecourse – the levels and stages of your upliftment.  It tends to happen in leaps and bounds.

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Sutra on Pain Avoidance

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Pain is part of life.  This is why most of your energy goes into pain avoidance or pleasure seeking.  Fortunately, yoga excels at both!   

The physical practices of yoga are incredibly pleasurable, though you may go through a learning curve before you discover this. 

Especially when you are in-person classes, your teacher can adapt the pose to your body’s readiness as well as give you a prop or adjustment that melts through your accumulated tensions.  Svaroopa® yoga excels at this.  Regular practice of yogic breathing and the poses protects you from future pain in a magical way. 

Yoga’s meditative practices focus on getting you past your mental and emotional pains.  Using the enlivened mantra of this tradition cuts through your inner turbulence and carries you deeply within.  You find your deeper essence, what yoga calls “your own Self.”  Once you’ve experienced the inner infinity of your own Self, you have a different perspective on life and its events.  It’s easy to agree with the book title, that it’s all small stuff. 

That’s the gist of this sutra, a concise teaching with a great promise: 

Future pain can and should be avoided. 

Heyam duhkham anaagatam. 

— Yoga Sutras 2.16 

My elders expected to be in pain as they aged.  When I tried to give them a few yogic tricks that would diminish or relieve their pain, they said, “No thanks, honey.  I’m old.  I’m supposed to hurt.”  The sage Patanjali disagrees.  He not only promises that you can avoid pain, but that you should.  Good news! 

How do you avoid pain?  While yoga poses and breathing practices help you with your body, meditation is the key.  This is Patanjali’s focus, getting you past your mind so you experience the greater reality within.  All the yogic sages throughout time have focused on meditation as well as how to bring your own Self with you into life. 

Instead, our sense of self gets locked into worldly definitions. When I was in my twenties, my parents said it was time for me to get my boxes out of their garage.  I had completely forgotten about those old possessions, childhood treasures. One box was full of stuffed animals.  As I unpacked them, I was shocked to see how meaningless they were.  Yet they had meant everything to me when I was 12.  What happened?  I outgrew them. 

So many things have come and gone in your life.  You’ve already learned how to move on.  Patanjali says you can use this ability now, right in the midst of whatever you are currently going through.  Recognize that the ticking clock is moving on.  It’s time to outgrow your old needs and dependencies.  It’s time to grow into a new you. 

It’s meditation that makes this easy because you experience the greatness of your own essence.  When you tune into your own Self, the profound depth of pure Beingness supports you from the inside.  Now, whatever is happening on the outside, you take it in stride. 

You are more than these events seem to make of you.  You are more than others understand you to be.  You are so much more. 

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Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Shaktipat Is an Invitation

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By Judy (Jagruti) Goodkin

Interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney

I felt like I was getting an invitation when I received Shaktipat from Gurudevi.  When she placed her thumb on my forehead, it was as if she said, “Follow me.”  In her Q&A session later, someone asked about discipline with yoga practices. Gurudevi’s encouraging response has stayed with me.  It feels like the time for me to be more disciplined.  This willingness to be more disciplined is powerful, both in daily life and my practices.

At a recent Swami Sunday, Gurudevi talked about the gift of Shaktipat.  She gives the gift, but we have to open it and look inside.  It feels like I’m truly opening Gurudevi’s gift of Shaktipat and looking inside.  I’m taking Gurudevi’s “Living Sutras” course.  The course is very deep, and I am experiencing much awakening within.  Ordinarily, I would have more resistance to course assignments.  Yet now I feel very open to them.  I am even adding more than is being asked for.  My awareness of what I need to do for my body and mind is greater.

I appreciate how the Ashram Swamis also help us process our Shaktipat experiences.  Each time, their answers help me greatly.  I asked Samvidaananda about Kundalini in my meditation.  I had been waiting for Kundalini to stop moving me so I could meditate.  Samvidaanada said, “The Kundalini is your meditation.  Just repeat mantra while that is going on.”  

When I returned home and meditated, I let Kundalini have her way.  I experienced powerful movements.  During these kriyas, I was grateful for Samvidaananda’s guidance, and I repeated mantra.  Within a week, my body settled down.  I still get kriyas in meditation, but they are gentler now. 

I’m so grateful for Gurudevi’s invitation.  Opening the gift of Shaktipat has me settling into a deeper place.  Everything I do feels more purposeful.

Shaktipat Retreat begins 9/29
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A Juicy Life

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Juice squirts out of the ripe peach I cut into, dripping down my chin as I bite into a chunk.  Yum!  It’s called rasa — the juice, the nectar or blissful essence.  Similarly, every chef will tell you that it’s the sauce that makes the dish.  In the same way, you want your life to be juicy, vibrant and meaningful.  Yogis get their rasa from the inside.

Meditation is the direct path to the rasa of Self-Knowingness. By delving into your own inner dimensionality, you tap into the source of life, the power of love, the delight of creativity and the peace of timelessness.  These fill you from within.

Yoga poses and breathing practices make this inner exploration easier. Svaroopa® Yoga poses target your spinal tensions, dissolving them to open up interior space in your body.  You breathe easier.  You get taller as you get happier.  You move freely as your joints glide due to the synovial fluid lubricating them more effectively.  It’s called rasa.

Your laugh is deeper and more frequent.  Your eyes shine with light, especially after meditating.  Your heart overflows and you act on your compassionate impulses.  Your synapses fire, making connections that give you…

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The Shavasana Course Is Relaxing – and More…

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By Jessica Soligon

Interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney  

I love Shavasana.  My life can get very stressful, and relaxing can be a challenge.  If things are crazy and I have a half hour, I turn to Shavasana.  I play Gurudevi’s Shavasana track on my phone, lie down and relax.

Earlier this year, I took the Shavasana Course.  The first night, Swami Prajñananada asked each of us to say why we were in the class.  I said I hoped to be still and relax.  I thought the course would teach me to slow down, and I’d learn more about relaxation.  What I got wasn’t what I expected.  

Six nights in a row, we did way more than relax.  I was submerged in my true Self.  I felt very calm and connected to something bigger than myself.  Sometimes I went within so deeply that I lost awareness of Swami P’s voice.  Those two hours and a half every night were an amazing and transformative experience.  I’m so glad the course didn’t meet my expectations!  

I loved the course and looked forward to it every day.  On really stressful days, I was especially grateful to go home and let go of the stress.  No matter how I felt during the day, the evening session left me feeling so good.  Since taking the course, I am more confident.  I know what to do to get centered and be in my Self.   

Now I’m more connected with my personal journey.  I have a better understanding of myself as a yogi.  My practice has deepened.  I am more comfortable and can participate freely without overthinking. Before I was always trying to figure things out.  The Shavasana Course helped me trust the process more. 

10/8 Shavasana Course
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This Stuff Works Miracles

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By Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, Yogaratna

Sherry began weekly Svaroopa® yoga classes with me due to mild, occasional sciatica. During the Covid 19 lockdown, she continued with online yoga classes and wasn’t bothered by sciatica.  

In March 2020, however, Sherry was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia (CLL).  To complement her medical treatment, she continued online classes and dedicated time to home practice. 

In October 2021, Sherry began in-person yoga therapy to address stiffness and ache in her neck and shoulders.  She believed the tightening of those muscles was a side effect of her medical treatment for CLL.

Though she was asking for help with her neck and shoulders, I planned her sessions for lower spinal opening, following our “it starts at the tailbone” sutra.  And it worked.  Sherry noticed sweet relief in her neck and shoulders.  

At the end of her sessions she reported, “Tension throughout my body is diminished, relaxed … Openings in waist and shoulder area.  Openness through back and shoulders and neck … Zero pain; more relaxed, less tension throughout body.  Neck and shoulders feel normal.” 

With a deep remission in September 2022, Sherry stopped medical treatment for CLL due to side effects.  By October, her pain level was only 1 at her session’s beginning and 0 at the end.

However, six months later, Sherry reported extreme pain from sciatica in an online class.  I hadn’t seen that coming.  She was using a walker when I arrived at her house to give her a session.  At the end, she could put a bit of weight into the affected leg.  Fortunately, she agreed to Embodyment® Overlap Healing (a series of private sessions). 

After the first four sessions, she no longer needed the walker.  As the “overlap” concluded, she was walking without discomfort of any kind.  Her neck and shoulders were pain-free too.

In her last session, I could hear her miracle.  Her voice had a tone of deep peace as she said she felt calm and normal.  “It’s like all the cancer medication is gone from my body.”  Her long-term goal is to stay pain free and in deep remission.

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