Something keeps your breath moving and your heart beating, even when you’re asleep. Oh, Shiva. The whole point of yoga is to know who and what this is, that makes your body be a living body – that makes the screen of your mind be so…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Inner Self“
Join us for a yoga class On-Site or Online.
Every class welcomes new students of all body types, while also inspiring experienced yogis.
Sign up today.
or call one of our Swamis at 484.678.2078
By Kristine (Dhairyavati) Freeman
Ashram Board Member
Our “Gift of Grace” Ashram fundraiser has begun. Please join me in donating today.
Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s birthday was November 15th. Of course, you want to celebrate and wish her health and happiness! While she appreciates your well wishes, she needs nothing from outside, for she is filled from within. She is fueled by the light of Consciousness.
What Gurudevi wants is for you to be supremely happy and filled with the light of Consciousness all the time. She offers you this gift. It is the gift of Grace.
One who knows can give you the knowing. She gives it freely, every time you are in her presence, whether in person, online or even when connected to her in meditation or deep reflection.
But how do you receive this life changing gift? You do the practices she recommends. Thus, you step into the river of Grace she offers.
I receive this gift when I do yoga poses, or meditate, or watch one of Gurudevi’s videos. Doing seva and offering dakshina (financial gifts) also drops me into the river of Grace.
But nothing is as saturated with Grace as spending time in the physical presence of my Guru. Just walking into Lokananda, I feel so joyful. I am profoundly nourished by the gift of her Grace.
Embrace the gift of Grace and the yogic practices Gurudevi has given you. Don’t forget who you really are, oh Shiva.
In the midst of your daily life, rely on the clarity and wisdom that arises from within. Seeing with Divine eyes, you can make a difference in this world.
You can start with gifting back to our Ashram, the organization and the teachers who lead you on this path. Grace takes care of you. Surrender to and thus accept the gift of Grace by donating to the Ashram today.
Donate online or call us at (610) 644-7555. Or send your check to Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank you again and again!
Your essence is Divine Consciousness concentrated in a unique and individualized form, but you compare your individuality to everyone else’s, and you can always find someone who…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Response Ability“
By Gurudevi Nirmalananda
There are so many different ways of working with your body. They are not all compatible.
The physical conditioning that produces an Olympic gymnast does not produce a good football player. The physical changes that you get when you begin snowboarding, perform as a dancer or do Pilates don’t help with sciatica or with childbirth. A furniture mover is not conditioned for playing tennis.
Similarly, different systems of hatha yoga (physical yoga practices) are not all compatible. One system emphasizes strength and stamina, another emphasizes constant movement, and yet another emphasizes attaining a photo-perfect pose.
All of these activities are based on contraction. You contract certain muscles to accomplish certain types of movements, and along the way (knowingly or unknowingly) you compress your spine. Svaroopa® yoga decompresses your spine. It is a completely different process, for a different purpose.
Process and purpose: exercise uses the process of contraction for the purpose of accomplishing a specific type of activity.
In Svaroopa® yoga, in contrast to exercise or other styles of yoga, we release contraction. Every class is carefully choreographed to release tensions in the muscles connected to your spine, from your tailbone progressively all the way to the top.
The reasons for this are multilayered and exquisitely complex, the most important of which is that your body is made of atoms…
Excerpt from Yoga: Inside & Outside, pages 35–36
Rosemary (Rudrani) Nogue, Yogaratna
I donate to our Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram out of gratitude.
The rare, priceless gift of Guru’s Grace flows through Gurudevi Nirmalananda, our Spiritual Master. To receive that gift, you need only to be in her presence, in person or online. Or you can think of her deeply to be in the flow of her Grace.
Please join me in donating to our Ashram’s year end fundraiser, “The Gift of Grace.” Experience how both giving and receiving become sacred acts.
The bliss of your own Beingness fills you from within giving you something worth sharing.
—Gurudevi
This is my truth: Guru’s Grace fills and nourishes me. This fullness moves me to give from my Self in many ways, including offering dakshina (selfless financial giving) to our Ashram.
Grace opens me to a greater ME, clearer, more enthusiastic, more compassionate, more present and more generous. I am ME in a whole new way.
Gurudevi’s online daily Meditation Club, together with Sunday and Wednesday satsangs, are so important to me. Through them, I can be in her presence from my home in Calgary. Amazingly, other online Ashram programs present opportunities for staying in the flow of Grace every day.
After repeating a round of mantra recently, I offered arati (flame circles) to Gurudevi’s picture. I looked deeply into her eyes. The tangible flow of Grace uplifted me. So I give back out of gratitude. Donating is one of many yogic practices that expands my capacity to receive Grace.
Practically, our financial gifts support the Ashram infrastructure that dispenses the Grace of our Guru. Our gifts subsidize the maintenance and operational costs of Lokananda (our Bliss Place). It serves as our training and retreat center for in-person and online programs. It is also the home of Gurudevi and our Swamis.
Please give from your heart to our “Gift of Grace” fundraiser. You could raise your monthly donation, become a monthly donor or give a one-time financial gift. I invite you to be generous within your budget!
Donate online or call us at (610) 644-7555. Or send your check to Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank you again and again!
Join us for a yoga class On-Site or Online.
Every class welcomes new students of all body types, while also inspiring experienced yogis.
Sign up today.
Or call one of our Swamis at 484.678.2078
I begin my 80th trip around the sun today, having completed 79 years. I know many yogis who are ahead of me and I celebrate their presence in this world.
As I thank so many of you for your birthday greetings and well-wishes, I know it’s not about my birth. When I was born, like all babies, no one knew what I might choose to do with my life or how it would affect others. It is my yogic dedication that makes my decades worth celebrating.
For this, I thank my Guru, Swami Muktananda Paramahansa. His gift of Shaktipat was like a second birth for me, giving me clarity and purpose — a direction for my life. The years before that great event were confusing, even frustrating in their purposelessness. Once he turned on the light inside me, I knew where to go.
One of my favorite verses of Shree Guru Gita explains it perfectly:
Guu.dha-vidyaa jagan-maayaa dehe caaj~naana-sambhavaa,
udayo yat-prakaa”sena guru”sabdena kathyate. — Guru Gita 10
Birth is into not-knowingness, spellbound by Maayaa’s worldly dance.
Giver of the upwelling light of your own Self is called Guru.
I did my best to max out on the not-knowingness, looking for a sense of self-worth in other people’s eyes. Baba gave me my own Self, freeing me from the neediness and fear that consumes most people’s lives.
Now it is my honor and privilege to share his great gift with you. I am deeply touched when you accept the gifts I offer, through our Ashram’s publications and programs. Thank you for letting me serve you.
Learn to teach deep meditation.
Our new course format features seven months of Online classes. They begin after an On-Site training retreat where you lengthen and deepen your meditations.
This new training format makes it easier for you to become a Meditation Teacher. With yoga and meditation being online so much in the last few years, Gurudevi designed this schedule to offer the best of both worlds — Online and On-Site.
Experiencing your own Divine Essence is the key part of the process. This is done in the On-Site Retreat, which includes a Shaktipat Day.
Returning home, you are able to marinate in Consciousness online with weekly class meetings. In addition you benefit from daily group meditations and weekly satsangs (meditation programs) with Gurudevi Nirmalananda.
Your teacher training culminates in a two-day online retreat, which you do from home. It gives you everything you need to begin teaching. Plus you get mentoring afterward, supporting your first class series.
When you are based in your own Self, you see all the different things, all the different people like different blossoms on the one shrub. For there is only One, being all. And when you don’t see the One hidden in Her divine disguise, as the person sitting next to you, as the driver of the car turning into your lane, as the neighbor walking their dog…
— Gurudevi Nirmalananda
From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Beyond Measure“
practice & grace: giving you your Self
revealing the mystery
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