By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

You must develop your intuition, but for different reasons than you suppose. Intuition is the inner knowing by which you know your own Self. It’s called in-sight. However, using intuition for external things sabotages your spiritual progress.

The siddhis (subtle powers) are inner obstacles in the way of samadhi, though considered to be attainments by those with outward-turned minds.

Te samadhav-upasarga vyutthane siddhayah. — Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras 3.38

Siddhis are subtle powers, meaning they are the subtle level of your sensory abilities. When you see a tiger in a dream, you are having a visual experience while your eyes are closed. This happens through your inner power of seeing. Maybe you don’t really see the tiger or other phenomena, but you have a sense of its presence. Similarly, you may say, “I see” when you mean you understand.

When you intuit something, it means you know it without having an external source for your knowledge. You just know. This knowing is the goal of spiritual practice, that you know your own Self without thinking, without theorizing, without belief or faith, without praying or repeating mantra. You just know.

This is the original meaning of the word “intuit.” It comes from English in the 1400s, meaning spiritual insight or immediate spiritual communication. The Latin root, intuitio, means the act of contemplating. All this is very yogic. It’s about insight, the ability to see inward.

There is another type of intuition. This is when you “just know” about external things, like what’s going to happen next, or who is thinking of you, or the closest parking space, or which road to take to avoid traffic. It’s called your “sixth sense.” Don’t do it. Just don’t.

When you apply your subtle knowing to mundane things, you don’t get any deeper spiritually. You won’t get enlightened. And you’ll create terrible karma for yourself. It is a double whammy…

That’s because yoga meets you where you’re at.  And if you’re having any trouble with it, if you’re experiencing pain, it’s because yoga is excavating, digging up your own patterns to clear them away and free you from them.  In a pose, Svaroopa® Yoga may get into some gnarly stuff. But it’s merely finding what was there and would be causing…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Sensory Pleasures“

This is how you use your senses. You get them running around outside — looking this way, looking that way, listening to the sounds, aware of smells as well as the temperature of the air around you. It’s like your senses are roaming out there looking for something that…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Your Ten Senses“

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Don’t beat people up with your spirituality!

If you were truly a sannyasi (spiritual adept), you would watch the football game with them, serving them by sharing the time with them.

The feeling that you don’t want to be there means you haven’t yet renounced your desire to separate yourself from others, nor your desire to choose your own pleasurable activities. Sannyasa is when you know, “If no one was home, I would meditate, but they are home, so I am going to sit with them.” Sannyasa is renunciation, not rejection and not abandonment.

The good news is that you don’t have to be a sannyasi in order to become Self-Realized! Neither do you have to be initiated as a sannyasi, nor do you have to wait until you age into it. Gurudevi says, “My Baba often taught about the householder-saints in yoga. You can become Self-Realized today in the life you are already living. You have my permission and my blessing.”

How do you weave your spirituality into the stage of life you currently inhabit? You begin with accepting the stage you are in. The bottom line is, “Be Here Now.”

You can focus on “Be,” which is the ultimate mystical Knowingness of who you are. Or you can focus on “Now,” a popular way of pointing you inward toward your own spiritual essence. But you also have to focus on “here.” You are in the stage of life that you are in. Enjoy it.

Live a spiritual life and progressively deepen your spiritual practices. This is a beautiful life.

Excerpt from A Yogic Lifestyle, pages 243‒244

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Your senses pull you outward in a constant search for bliss. But the bliss is inside. Crazy-making?

Fortunately, these two things work together. They are perfectly paired to keep you in bondage and delusion. By contrast, yoga sets you free.

I experienced the power of the senses with the scent of honeysuckle. I was walking briskly but a cloud of fragrance stopped me in my tracks. I stood there and breathed it in. Motionless for a long while, I felt deeply centered and peaceful. It is a mild state of bliss.

When I opened my eyes, I turned outward again, looking around to find the source. After that, every time I walked through there, I paused and sniffed the air to see if the honeysuckle was blooming. I looked outward for honeysuckle, thinking it was the source of my bliss. But what really happened is that delicate fragrance stilled my mind so I experienced the bliss that is always inside.

Your senses are always scanning outward: your eyes, your ears, your nose, your tongue and whole-body sensation. Think of it like a radar screen, with your senses looking for the little blip — looking for something you will enjoy.

The word enjoy could be spelled in-joy. That’s really what you want — to be in joy. I wish for you that your whole life be joy-filled. But that will happen only when you find the source of joy. It doesn’t come from outside.

When you in-joy something, it’s because inner joy is arising to fill you. To live a joy-filled life, tap into the inner source of joy so it fills you all the time. What is this source? It is your own Self, your inherent Divinity. The yogic sage Patanjali explained this over 2,000 years ago…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Over a thousand years ago, the great Tibetan yogi Milarepa got teachings from his Guru, Marpa the Translator.

As a young man, Marpa had left his home in the Himalayas to study in India with the yogis. He memorized Sanskrit texts and copied them down.

Marpa then took those texts back to his homeland and translated them into the local language. He wasn’t making up new teachings. He brought the teachings from India up into the Himalayas and shared them with those who had an interest.

Similarly, I am a translator. Yet I am not translating from Sanskrit because I do not know the language. I study English translations of the texts, plus I know a lot of the technical terminology. As a teacher, I am giving you a cultural translation. It is needed because many of the texts were written for monks living in a monastery. Yet most Westerners interweave these spiritual principles into their worldly lifestyle.

As a cultural translator, I show you how to apply those yogic principles in your busy life. I empower you to live a yogic lifestyle at home, a place you probably share with other people and where there is a lot going on.

Do the yogic principles still work, even in this new setting? Yes, definitely! The same teachings are applied, not only in a different language, but in our modern times and in a different cultural context. So, in that way, I serve as a translator.

Excerpt from Yoga: Embodied Spirituality, pages 25‒26

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

When you get lost in the world, you have not only lost your way, you have lost your own Self.

If you go for a hike and get lost in the woods, after a while you know you are lost. You try to retrace your steps or find a pathway out. But you never get so lost that you think you are a tree. You still know you are a person and that you have a home to return to.

Getting lost in worldly stuff is like thinking you are a tree. You don’t remember that you have a home, a place inside where you are already whole, full, complete and perfect. When you are lost, you think you are imperfect and that you MUST have a certain worldly thing or a certain person to fulfill you. 

Allow me to assure you that you are not a tree. You are not a worldly person. If you were, you wouldn’t be reading this. You want something more than what the world can provide. Bottom line, you are seeking your own Self. You must look inward.

When you look inward, the first thing you discover is your mind. It replays your worldly experiences and reactions. Now, instead of getting lost in the world, you can get lost in your mind. You think, “I am my mind!”  But the statement itself proves…