Author Archives: Swami Nirmalananda

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About Swami Nirmalananda

Swami Nirmalananda is a teacher of the highest integrity since 1976. In 2009 she was honored with initiation into the ancient order of Saraswati monks. Now wearing the traditional orange, she has openly dedicated her life to serving others. Usually called Gurudevi, she makes the highest teachings easily accessible, guiding seekers to the knowledge and experience of their own Divine Essence.

Beyond Right & Wrong

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Once you know your own Self, it is easy to see the Divinity shing in everyone and everything. Then you cannot label anyone as bad or wrong. Labels disintegrate in the light of Consciousness.

Yet you need not worry that the state of Self-Knowingness is a stage of drunken romanticism. While seeing the Divine in the mundane, you will have clarity about whether something is working well or not. It will be obvious whether someone is focused on their own selfish purposes or giving themselves a higher purpose. You will easily see if they are entrapped in their mind and memories, or if they are living in the reality of the here-and-now. And you will see if they are making mistakes — but it’s OK if they do. After all, how did you learn most of your lessons? You made a few mistakes along the way, too.

It’s easy to understand that, when you become enlightened, you will stop judging others. You will be more understanding. You’ll know when to help and when to back off. That means all you have to do is more yoga and you’ll eventually “get there.” But there is no “there” to get to. It’s all here, right here.

It isn’t enough to merely do yoga, because you need a massive shift in perspective, so that you see life itself as yoga. Relationships are yoga. Food is yoga. This is because yoga is fundamentally about the way you use your mind, which can be yogic or unyogic. It’s time to take yoga off your blankets and mats, to begin addressing your mind. If you cannot yet see God in everything, then at least see that the world is not black and white. It’s time to see the shades of grey. Get beyond the pairs of opposites.

This can be hard if you have always been an achiever. Those who get ahead by getting things right can get stuck in the opposites: “right vs wrong,” working hard to make sure they are always right. Those who have earned other people’s love and respect by always being good can get stuck in the opposites: “good vs bad,” making sure they are always the good one.

Those who learned to win the power struggles are stuck in “my way,” never discovering that others have amazingly good ideas too. Those who found that always being bad or wrong was the way to get their needs met can end up living in this trap for the rest of their life (or even many lifetimes).

Besides the ways you use the pairs of opposites to trap yourself, you also use them to evaluate other people. When you look at your neighbors, family members, or even the other yoga student on the floor next to you, your mind begins comparing. Your mind does this because of Maya, the cosmic power of delusion, making you see this divine world as merely mundane. Maya is the Sanskrit name for Consciousness, when manifesting as the multiplicity of forms and beings in this world. Maya does this by splitting the One into many, by creating the illusion of division and separation. Since your mind is a form of Consciousness, your mind is an agent of Maya. Without you having to do anything to get it going, your mind starts measuring, analyzing, comparing and judging on its own. Everyone’s mind does this.

Different people deal with the results of their analyses in different ways. In comparing yourself with your neighbor, your mind usually finds something wrong, either with them or with you. Whichever direction your mind goes, it puts someone on the bottom of the heap. Your mind usually says one person is worse than the other. This is because the mind’s job is to cut things into pieces — not to respect, uplift or value things. This is the nature of the mind and one of the reasons you must work on it.

Excerpt from A Yogic Lifestyle, pages 8‒10

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Aura

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

Your energy field extends beyond the edges of your body, often called “aura” by those who can see or feel it.  

This electromagnetic field is emitted by all living things.  It is called prana in Sanskrit.  Prana is the life force that makes your body be a living body instead of a corpse.  Corpses don’t have auras.

Thousands of years ago, yogis described the human aura as part of the cosmic process by which energy becomes matter.  The energy of Consciousness becomes your body and mind, for you to live in and work with.  Yet you are not your body, nor your mind.  You are the one who lives in them and uses them to have experiences and to express your light into the world.

The energy that materializes as your body is named your “subtle body” (sukshma-sharira).  This is where your chakras (energy centers) are found as well as your nadis (energy currents), all 720,000,000 of them.  In Chinese Medicine, nadis are called meridians.

A woman shared about going to an acupuncturist.  He advised that her meridians needed balancing.  They agreed on a plan for 12 weekly treatments. A few days later, she came to a meditation program with my Guru. She decided to stay on for the weekend Shaktipat Retreat.  Reluctantly leaving on Tuesday, she went for her acupuncture appointment. 

The acupuncturist checked her over and said, with a shocked tone, “What have you been doing?”  The woman asked why.  The acupuncturist said, “All your meridians are balanced.  I’ve never seen this happen!”  “Oh,” she said, “I got Shaktipat last weekend.”  The acupuncturist came to meet Baba.

How does Shaktipat do this?  It’s because the “shakti” of Shaktipat is the energy of Consciousness, which is the source of your prana.  Yes, it does mean that your energy field improves with Shaktipat.  It also improves with yoga poses, with breathing practices and with meditation.

In yoga’s poses and breathing practices, you are working with your body.  In meditation, you’re working with your mind. Yet there is more going on.  All the practices actually target your energies, your subtle body. This is a much more powerful level of your multidimensionality.  

As your pranic flows are optimized, physical health and vitality are merely the beginning.  Your mental-emotional energies are uplifted.  Best of all are the spiritual effects, as the subtle dimensions within are opened up for your exploration.  The goal is to…

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The Seeds of Your Future

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

January 1 of any year is no different than other day, except that we agree on a special name for it, “New Years Day.”

The universe did not begin 2000 years ago, so it is really not a “new” year nor a “new” millennium. 

Even the names we give to the days of the week have no real significance. However, more people die of heart attacks on Monday mornings between 3 and 7 am than any other day and time.

Doctors tell us that squirrels die of heart attacks too, but no more of them die on Monday mornings than on other days. That is because squirrels don’t have Mondays. We are affected because we layer meanings onto the names of the days and the activities related to them. They are very real for us — and can even be fatal! 

The New Year and New Millennium is created by the mind, but the mind is incredibly powerful! Your mind creates your reality. You perceive things around you, make decisions and then act upon them, which affects you and the world around you. This is the law of karma — what you do has an effect, what you say has an even stronger effect, and what you think has the strongest effect of all. So what do you think of the New Millennium? Is this all hype, or is it that once-in-a-lifetime opportunity? What you think determines what you will do with it. 

The Shiva Sutras describe the state of an enlightened being: iccha shaktir uma-kumari, — s/he lives in the fullness of knowing of every moment as a divine moment, blossoming with the newness of spring and saturated with the joy of a newborn baby. For such a master, every moment is a golden one. There is no need for an annual rite of new beginnings. But the rest of us need a jump-start. 

You are laying the seeds of your future in what you think and in what you decide to do. If you go to yoga classes, you’ll feel better and be healthier. But if you don’t do yoga, how will you feel in another two years? Your plan may be to let your body get better by itself, but has it so far? You may have already proved to yourself that your body needs some help.

Yoga offers more than physical benefits. It is not merely about how you feel. It is really about who you feel yourself to be. With regular yoga practice, your sense-of-self is found in a deeper inner dimension of reality and is less a function of the circumstances around you. In other words, you develop an inner locus of control — you are less a victim of circumstances. And you may even find some of that “inner bliss” that everyone is talking about! 

When you take yoga classes, you will also improve other people’s lives. One man came to his wife’s graduation from our Teacher Training program and announced that he’d recommended that everyone in his office do yoga. We asked, “Why? You’re not doing it yourself.”

He said, “Yes, but my life has improved so much since my wife began yoga, I figured it would get even better if everyone at work would do it.” This was a smart man. Now, he’s even smarter — he’s doing yoga himself! 

Your future arises from the present; what you are doing right now determines how you will feel later today, tomorrow and the rest of your life. The New Millennium is a golden opportunity — what are you doing with it?

— Excerpt from Yoga in Every Moment, pages 132 ‒ 133 

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Tantra Means Loom

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Embodied spirituality is built into all our Svaroopa® Sciences.  It’s there from the yoga poses, through your subtle internal processes and especially including your meditative practices.  Svaroopa® yoga is a modern-day expression of the very ancient tradition of tantra. 

Tantra means loom, like a weaver’s loom that interweaves the warp and the woof threads.  It means that you find the infinite in this finite reality.  You discover the Divine which is already present within the mundane.  The tantric sages say that the One Reality, which has always existed, decided to manifest the entire world and everyone in it.  Everything is Shiva being the world as well as being beyond the world. 

The doorway into this tantric tradition is through initiation — Shaktipat.  It is a transmission of energy that awakens your own dormant energy, hidden within.  Your awakened energy then climbs your spine from the tip of your tailbone to the top of your head.  The purpose of all Svaroopa® practices is to awaken and support the blossoming of this spiritual energy in you. 

During meditation, signs of this inner awakening include little swaying movements, even small little jerks that deepen your meditation.  You may feel an inner heat climbing up your spine and spreading through your body.  You can be drawn into a deep and profound meditative state, so deep that it feels like sleep.  It is a deep meditative immersion into Consciousness. 

In your inner explorations, you may see lights, colors and visions, or you may hear divine inner sounds.  Or sudden and profound insights may be revealed.  These are all the results of Shaktipat — the inner awakening.  This is the beginning of embodied spirituality. 

Once you have received Shaktipat, the end goal is guaranteed — enlightenment in this lifetime.  I describe it like this: Once a baby is born, puberty is guaranteed.  Once you receive Shaktipat, realization is guaranteed.  As cosmic energy moves through your spine, it vitalizes your body.  I can’t say revitalize because that would imply you were getting energy you’d previously had.  Rather, this is a vitality you never knew.  Your body undergoes energetic and cellular changes, profoundly beneficial. 

Yet the most important effect is that a profound inner state opens up for you.  Your new inner stability and depth provide additional physical benefits.  Your inner essence is expressed through your body and is experienced in your body, even while there is so much more. 

Svaroopa® yoga poses create and support this process.  Our sequencing always starts at the tip of your tailbone, followed by poses that mirror the inner opening of Shaktipat.  These practices support your inner upliftment, helping to dissolve blockages along the way.  Yet, as powerful, beautiful, wonderful and blissful as the poses are, they are only the starting point. 

Ultimately, the real work is accomplished in meditation.  Meditation is where you let your Divine inner energy move through your spine.  This energy restructures your body and opens up your mind.  Your most powerful practices are mantra and meditation.  They will fulfill the promise of the sages, embodied spirituality:

to know without thought

to BE without effort

to experience without fear or desire

to abide in the Bliss of Consciousness

to live in the multidimensionality of your

own being

to know your own Self as the Divine

Incarnation that you already are.

— Excerpt from Embodied Spirituality, pages 7‒10

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The Fire of Yoga

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

We all love the primal elements: earth, water, fire, air, and empty space.

Yoga names these mahabhutas as the building blocks of all that exists in this world. It is especially powerful where they meet — like the ocean washing against a sandy beach or crashing against the rocks.

Maybe for you it is sunrise or sunset over the sea; when there are a few wispy clouds, you can get all five elements at once:

The shoreline — earth

The ocean — water

The sun — fire

The clouds — air (when the air is holding water, you can see it, otherwise air is invisible)

The space between the clouds — empty space

So many beautiful photographs and paintings feature these primal elements, and they touch something deep inside you. Some of your favorite places probably have the combination of several mahabhutas, perhaps even your own garden.

Yoga explains that we love them because they are different expressions of the One, the primordial essence, which is the source of everything. You are made of this same substance, which is why you experience such a profound feeling in these environments. You enjoy a resonance or a recognition of the shared essence.

Since we are so often out of touch with our own essence, we need these external reminders. Many people even dream of retiring to the hinterlands and living in the midst of nature; they are seeking an environment that will give them constant peace and joy.

Recently I have realized that even before I loved the ocean, I loved fire. My first experience of making friends with fire was when I was about 12 years old. One by one, I lit all the matches in a book of matches and let each burn down to my fingertips. I was enchanted and have been ever since.

Ocean and fire are two very important images in yoga. Many texts speak eloquently of the ocean of consciousness, directing you to your own inner essence so you can discover the vastness and fullness that is even greater than the ocean. At my request, Master Yoga has featured photos of the ocean on our catalogue covers for several years. Of course, our locations on both the Atlantic and Pacific are no accident!

Our January 2006 catalogue has a roaring fire on the cover, to honor the fire of yoga. The power and beauty of fire is captivating. Fire is very important in many ways. The light and heat of the sun makes our planet hospitable to us. Civilization began when man tamed fire. Your own life depends on the cellular fire of digestion and metabolism. Most importantly, yoga specializes in the inner fire, which blazes forth in a radiant glow that transforms your experience of yourself, your life, and the world.

This transformation is needed because you live in amnesia, not knowing your true essence. You are Consciousness-Itself, an individualized form with a type of Divine Amnesia. This is both because you have forgotten your own Divine Nature, and also because the amnesia was placed in you as part of the Divine Play that brings this world into existence.

Your job is to recover from the amnesia and recognize your true being. Yoga is the amnesia-recovery system.

You already know that yoga helps you with your aches and pains, and can even cure many conditions that stymie medicine. I am delighted to hear of every “miracle cure” and receive several reports every week. This is the starting point for most yogis, the motivation to make some changes in your life.

Excerpt from Gurudevi’s book — “Yoga: Inside & Outside,” pages 145-146

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Embodied Consciousness

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Primordial Consciousness takes on a body – yours.

Primordial Consciousness takes on all bodies –even rocks, mountains, trees and rivers, and the many objects. Consciousness is being the whole universe and all it comprises – including you.

Why? Out of the bliss of pure Beingness, Consciousness is overflowing in exuberant creativity. Each thing that Consciousness becomes is a blossoming forth, with the whole contained in it.

The purpose of yoga is to empower your discovery that the whole of Consciousness is hidden within you. Thus you will live in the continuing knowing of Consciousness being you. Consciousness, which we call Shiva, is being your quirks and peculiarities as well as your talents, skills and loving heart.

From Shiva’s perspective, it’s like light shining through a crystal hanging in the window. The ray of light becomes many colored lights dancing around the room. Shiva is the one light. You are one of the different colored lights. You think you are merely small, a dot of light among many, with each being less than the whole. Yet, when you look into the dancing dot of light, you see that it is made of light. Fully, wholly and completely made of light…

But when you haven’t yet attained your own Beingness, it all looks starkly different. As an individual, a contracted form of Consciousness, you don’t experience the fullness of your inherent bliss and Divinity all the time, at least not yet. You don’t know you are made of light. Your dance includes sorrow as well as joy. Your internal GPS has lost…

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Self-Improvement

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

It’s predictable. You start doing yoga or meditating and pretty soon you’re eating healthier.

How does that come about? Your life is becoming “yogified.” I confess that I made up the word, specifically to describe the organic process of upliftment yoga provides.

This experience is the fulfillment of a promise made thousands of years ago, repeated through the ages by India’s ancient and modern sages.

In addition to physical improvements, your life begins to change. You are less anxious, so you deal with situations and people differently. You sleep better. Dare I accuse you of becoming more peaceful? Your relationships improve as a result; you even see those around you from a different perspective.

These results are predictable because you’re aligning yourself with Consciousness-Itself. The light of your inherent Divinity, svaroopa, is beginning to shine through. These organic lifestyle changes are the best part of yoga! They are your first steps toward enlightenment — you’re cleaning up your act.

It’s helpful to understand what’s happening to you. When you get the map of the inner terrain you are traversing, you can cooperate with the process and anticipate your next steps. The writings of the sages describe clearly how you…

— Excerpt from A Yogic Lifestyle, pages ix-xii

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Your State Affects Your Life

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Excerpt from Telecourse by Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Your mental and emotional state affects your relationships, your work and even your health.

Emotional pain and psychological needs can be what motivated you to start yoga, but everything changes when you discover what you really get — your capital-S Self.

The bliss of the Self is far greater than any blissful sensory experience. The depth at which you live, within yourself, is more meaningful than anything outside of you can provide. While the Svaroopa® practices improve your psychology, they’re not about psychology. They’re about enlightenment.

Yet, on the way to enlightenment, you become a better person, a happier person, more understanding, more generous, more genuinely present in everything you do. But if your goal is to be better, happier, understanding, etc., you’ll settle for too little. Wearing the clothes, wearing the jewelry and wearing the mask of spirituality just freezes you into another superficial sense of self

Yoga’s spirituality is for a purpose. Just like a car’s purpose is to provide you with reliable transportation, not to give you an identity. For example, I’m now driving my 6th Honda over the years, but I don’t have the identity of being a Honda owner.

The Guru keeps you on track, if you let yourself be seen. Many Svaroopis keep a careful distance from me, because they know that, if they come, I’ll see how they are and where they’re at. Of course! I care about you! If you’re stuck in your stuff, do I want to leave you there?

Excerpt from Leaps & Bounds, Module 2

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Yogic Discipline

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

In yoga, discipline is not the same as “spare the rod and spoil the child” — punishment and enforcement.

Yogic discipline is the means by which you are uplifted and transformed. It is how you can get the highest and the best from your yoga practice.

Continued application of your own effort, on a regular basis, is what makes you successful at anything in your life: yoga, art, business, relationships, etc.

The best athletes and musicians must practice daily, yet they do not consider it an onerous duty. Top musicians love to do the scales! True discipline is doing regularly what makes you feel best. Regularity is the key, and it is what ultimately makes it easy. Consider who creates this regularity? Your job may require you to keep certain hours. This then determines when you eat, get up, go to bed, and have free time.

A newly self-employed or retired person often has difficulty organizing these things, because they are used to an externally imposed discipline. Yet, even enforced discipline can yield great benefits. A woman in her ‘60s told me she hated her mother for sending her to piano lessons and making her practice every day. Now the piano is one of the greatest joys in her life. In yoga class you experience…

Excerpt from Yoga in Every Moment, Gurudevi’s first book (page 4)

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Sharing Your Happiness

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

The common denominator in most conversations is complaints.

But after a yoga or meditation session, you may find that you have fewer words. That is because, when you are in bliss, your mind is quiet. When you are in bliss, you no longer need outer things to make you happy.

Yogic bliss is reliable; happiness is not. Bliss is more fulfilling than happiness. It fills you from the inside. Since bliss arises from within, you can bring it with you everywhere you go. Yogic bliss is more portable than worldly happiness.

When you base yourself in the deeper dimensions of your own being, bliss is ever arising. Your neediness and fear disappear as though they never existed, like dark disappears when you light a candle flame. Now powered by Consciousness, you have lots to give.

I remember when I was needy. I couldn’t be generous because I always felt empty. Fear was what kept me moving. Whether money or relationships were motivating me, I worked hard at measuring up. Yet when things went well, my success didn’t ease my fear. It’s like I lived on red-alert. Until yoga, that is.

Yoga taught me how to relax. Yoga taught me how to breathe. Yoga taught me how to be present inside my own skin. It was my first step toward…

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