To discover who you are is the purpose of meditation. It is an inner exploration that takes you deeper and deeper within. But at the end of your meditation, your peripheral vision is wider. Your focus didn’t shut you down. It opened you up. Your capacity for caring, compassion…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Peripheral Vision“
By Swami Satrupananda
More reps. Heavier weights. Longer distances. This is what we’ve been taught will give us physical health.
You get more by doing more. You push your body further and harder. You push through the pain. Grit your teeth and bear it.
And then once you’ve pushed your body as much as you can, you rest. You’re exhausted and maybe even in pain. You rest so that your body can heal from what you’ve done to it.
Is there another way?
Yes! Svaroopa® yoga starts with the resting. We begin every class with Shavasana, yoga’s relaxation pose. Lying on the floor, you prop your legs up, which supports your lower back. You put a blanket under your head. You rest and settle.
Your teacher then offers you a Guided Awareness: “Become aware of your toes, all ten toes, all at the same time . . .”
In this relaxation pose, your physical tensions melt away. As you are guided through being aware of your own body, your mind settles. Your mind slows down. You clear away the physical and mental fatigue of life.
Your class continues with an ease-full breathing practice that builds your reservoir of energy. The yoga poses target muscular tension in your spine. For this release, you move your body into easy angles. You prop your body with blankets and blocks. And then you soften into the pose.
Even in the standing poses, you soften into it. The goal is not pushing further and trying harder. Instead, the purpose is to open up to an ease of being in your own body, which is health-full, bliss-full and powerful.
Our classes end with Shavasana, and you experience the Guided Awareness again. This practice is so important that we do it twice. And you need the practice! You need the practice in resting, in settling into an easy state of being.
At the end of Shavasana, students sit up. As their teacher, I ask for comments. Their most common feedback is feeling peaceful, relaxed and full of energy all at the same time.
Yes, that is the way to live — all the time! You can feel that way too, by practicing Svaroopa® Yoga.
I wanted something that my parents didn’t want. I wanted something that my school teachers never talked about. I wanted something that wasn’t described in church. Joseph Campbell rescued me from my self-doubt. In a series of television interviews titled “The Power of Myth”, he explained that everyone longs for something greater, but only a few…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “A New Normal“
You are invited to a FREE informal online discussion about our Meditation Club.
Gurudevi Nirmalananda, along with Swami Shrutananda, will explain how it works and give you a taste of it.
Our Meditation Club meets online daily — 365 days in the year (Leap Year, it’s 366!). While this introductory program is free, Meditation Club is by subscription, with a three-month minimum.
In this free program, ask your questions and see if our Meditation Club will give you what you’re looking for.
FREE Join Our Meditation Club
ONLINE Tuesday September 16
4:00-5:00 pm (EDT)
When you meditate with a master, you dive deeper within — easily. The specialty of Gurudevi’s tradition is to open you up to the deeper dimensionality of your own being. She was taught by a master, who was taught by a master . . . back through the generations.
Sign up for this free introduction to gather valuable information. It can help you decide whether it feels right for you.
By JoAnn (Chaya) Gibson
In early June, my adult son was diagnosed with aggressive metastatic cancer. The prognosis for recovery is extremely poor. The shock of it felt overwhelming and unreal.
He had gone to the emergency room with stomach pain. Something simple, I thought, maybe an ulcer. He is 62 years old, engaged to be married and looking forward to retirement.
I expected to spend my remaining years with him as part of my family and life. As the reality of his diagnosis sank in, I experienced the first waves of grief.
These waves came with a kind of fury. They reminded me of being a child at the seashore. A wave would pick me up, spin me around and pull me under. Then it spit me out on the shore.
Now, however, I am not pulled under. I have a buoyancy that comes from the practice of exploring Beingness.
In my yoga class, during the Guided Awareness in Shavasana, I feel my toes. Feeling all ten toes, I know that I have toes. Feeling openings from poses lets me know I am more than my body and personality.
When I meditate, I connect to an energy that supports me through the day. I am supported while I go through this grief.
When I’m in a program with my Guru, Swami Nirmalananda, I feel a presence, peace and a power. Her gift of Shaktipat gave me the experiential knowing of my Self.
When we chant, the problems of the world sink into the background. Then I am in the now. By staying based in Beingness, my heart can stay open. I can go on this journey with my son without fear.
As a therapist, I worked with people coping with present trauma or recovering from past trauma. We would explore together whether there was a “gift” in the event. Did the pain provide an experience that changed how they lived their life? Was there a lesson that needed to be learned? Was the pain a doorway into a new way of being in life ?
Now I say yes when answering this question for myself. As the waves of grief continue, I am aware that I am more based in my heart’s energy.
Music affects me more deeply. I feel more connected to people, plants and animals. I am aware of feeling more empathy and compassion for my fellow travelers on Earth’s plane.
My heart feels broken, yet also more open. I am grateful for my Guru and the Svaroopa® Vidya spiritual path.
Your mind is so powerful. It creates whatever you choose. If you choose to repeat the litany of your pains, you can do this. If you choose to repeat the litany of your pleasures, you can do this. Yet, yoga recommends neither. You see, both of these litanies are still about…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Your Mind’s Greatness“
By Phil (Krishna) Milgrom
Over the years, many of my students and clients have testified to the healing power of Svaroopa® Yoga and Embodyment® Yoga Therapy. It’s magical. It always amazes me.
A new yoga student wrote:
After two weeks, I can now get out of bed without my back killing me. I had been intent on buying a new mattress. You saved me plenty!
Another new student also reported that after a few classes her back pain had vanished. It had been nagging her almost constantly. She was finally able to sleep “wonderfully well.”
Hearing testimonies like these after classes, I have sometimes responded with a joke. I say our yoga studio’s closet is full of crutches — left behind by other students. But it’s really no joke: these wonderful practices really work.
Recently, a student asked us for help. She hadn’t attended classes for a year or so. She read about Embodyment® Yoga Therapy on our website. There we explain how Overlap Healing through Embodyment® Yoga Therapy sessions works.
This series is recommended when you’re feeling “stuck” physically, emotionally or even spiritually. She said her dad died several months back and this was exactly how she’d been feeling since.
She was definitely stuck. She had been suffering from severe joint pain. Her right hip was especially bothersome. She was losing hope. She said she needed help getting back to her Self.
For her first Embodyment® session, she could barely walk into our studio. Yet, immediately after, she felt tremendous improvement. She was smiling again. She was able to walk back to her car comfortably. By the third session, she had absolutely no pain. She said, “This was nothing short of a miracle!”
Since her Overlap Healing series, she has been practicing the Magic 4 regularly and remains pain free. She has found her “old Self” again.
This miracle is simply the Svaroopa® Sciences at work. They constitute a systematic methodology validated and based on evidence. As one of my t-shirts says, “Science: Because you can’t just make it up!”
Now you can no longer think of God as something you earn with lifetimes of purity and striving for perfection. You don’t earn God. You are God. You’ve simply been looking in the wrong place. You’ve been looking at the ceremonies, at the rituals, at the mountains, the rising sun, the full moon. Yes, Yes! God is…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Sacred Acts“
By Gurudevi Nirmalananda
Yoga teaches surrender. This is how you get enlightened. It is also how you fall in love.
Surrender is how you experience God, whether you’re looking outward or inward. This is why we formally teach the art of yogic surrender in every Svaroopa® yoga class – twice.
In English, the word surrender means you have lost the battle. As the loser, you now stand to suffer even more. Sanskrit has words that mean this but yoga doesn’t use them. Yoga’s texts use different Sanskrit words:
avasrj — to let off, let loose, let go, send, dismiss, abandon…
tyaj — to get rid of, free oneself from…
da — to give, grant, bestow, offer, to hand or deliver over…
parida — to surrender through devotion, to deliver up, to entrust…
sharana — to take refuge, to get help, shelter or sanctuary…
Some of these terms point to becoming free, a central theme of my young adulthood. Others mean bestowing or granting something precious to the care of another. The terms for taking refuge, shelter, sanctuary and protection are also paired with devotion.
King Vatsaraja described this in 1000 BCE in the Kamasiddhistuti:
I seek refuge (sharana) with the glorious Goddess Sundari, the benefactress of prosperity, the secret heart, whose heart is soaked with compassion. She is blazing with an utmost tenacity steeped in joy, and consequently beaming with plenteous light that shimmers spontaneously.
What a Divine surrender! Yet you must go through stages in learning how to give over. Few are able to begin with being wonderfully overwhelmed by the glorious Goddess Sundari. Most start simpler. Bottom line, it is the experience of surrender that yoga values — not to whom you are surrendering. Why? Because each time you surrender…
practice & grace: giving you your Self
revealing the mystery
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