By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

Yoga gives you recipes.

 Just like scientists, for your inner experiment you do what has been proven to work by those who have preceded you.  When you apply proven methodology, you will get reliable, predictable and replicable results.  

What are those results?  A deeper dimension of your own being opens up for you to know and experience within.

It’s not that you sit on the surface level of your being with your mind peering deeper inside.  Instead, you settle inward to a deeper level.  It is like you are leaning into your Self, or opening into your Self, or even like you are backing into your Self.  As you apply your mind in this inward direction, the opening is very easy.  It proves the methodology works.  

As you deepen into Self, your sense of who you are is “Oh, I am me.”  It is not a sense of discovering something new, fantastic and different inside.  You become more yourself.  You experience an inner freedom from all the stuff that you are not.  

You get free from all the limitations and fears, negativities and resistances, all the paranoia, obsessions and compulsions.  You discover an inherent Beingness that yoga calls Shiva, your own Divine Essence.  This is your own capital-S Self.

Excerpt from Embodied Spirituality, pages 26‒27

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

 The universe exploded out from a Big Bang, they say. This scientific theory was proposed in 1927. Scientists studied it for decades with a critical piece of evidence provided in 1964. It was enough that a press conference was held. The next-day newspapers announced, in big headlines, “Big Bang Proved.”

Since then, the scientists continue to refine their theory and come up with new terminology. They now say there was something there before the bang. I call it the “something that banged.”

What was there? What banged? It was a single point, a dot. They call it a singularity. In Sanskrit it is “bindu.” It still exists. It was not destroyed in the bang. You find the bindu inside. It is blue.

My Baba called it the “Blue Pearl.” When you see it in meditation, you are assured of liberation in this lifetime. It is the mystical form of your own Self, which is the source of the universe yet containing the whole.

The sages drew this as the mystical syllable OM. A multilayered sound, you may hear it or see the character when in a deep meditative state. It shows what preceded the Big Bang.

The two stacked semi-circles (like a numeral 3) are the vibration of the One, echoing itself within itself. You can replicate this sound by…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

The quality of your life is determined by how you use your mind, not by external events and situations.  

One person can feel crushed about losing her or his job, while another person feels grateful for the chance to reinvent herself or himself.  When you lose someone dear to you, a person or even a pet, you can focus on the loss or you can focus on your gratitude for the way they enriched your life for so long.

Because of the complexity of the mind, yoga offers many tools to help you with your mind.  Yoga has more tools for your mind than for your body.  

One of the most important yogic techniques for your mind is substitution.  Whenever you notice that you are caught up in thoughts that tighten your body or upset you, you can choose to substitute something better.  For example, you may be a worrier. Instead of worrying, you can say a little prayer or send a yogic blessing.

This is a very simple, yet sophisticated technique.  It is based on the understanding that you only worry about people or things that you care about.  The worrying is a way of reminding yourself that you love them.  Unfortunately, every worry makes your body live through the experience as though it is really happening, even though it probably never will…

Excerpt from Yoga: Inside & Outside, pages 166‒167