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…

You long to know your own Self as Consciousness, and to live in the bliss-filled beingness that is your Essence.  Yet, you already know at a deep inner level.  You already are free. You see, you won’t long for something unless…

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Bondage & Freedom“

Even if you lived free — no prison bars, no ankle bracelet, you can be imprisoned by your mind.  My Baba described it this way, “His own outlook is the thing that shrinks him day by day.  As he meditates on and ponders his own limitations, he becomes completely bound.” You do meditate on your limitations.  You obsess on…

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “The Bliss of Freedom“

Where are your complaints?  They’re in your mind, usually in the forefront of your mind.  Repeating over and over, your mind loops around on them. So you look in the space where your complaints usually are, right here, in the forefront of your mind…

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “What is Love“

Knowing about your own Self is not the same as experiencing your own Self.  I can talk about your Divine Essence all day, and you may love the theory.  But even a moment of experiential knowing stops you, settles you, fills you from the inside out. 

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Unlearning“

Your attachments define you.  They limit you. They take hold of you, defining who you are and what you can do. Thus, yoga’s goal is freedom.  Freedom from limitation.  Freedom from compulsion.  Freedom from being driven.  You gain yogic freedom by an internal redefinition of…

 —  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Clinging“

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

We love the moon’s silvery-white light, a cooling light. Its soft glow illumines the darkness, soothing and calming your mind.

Yet the moon is not the source of its light. It merely reflects the light of the sun.

Similarly, the light of Consciousness shines through your mind. The source is within, your own Divine Essence.

If your mind were clear and spacious, your mind’s light would be cool, soothing and comforting. This is why spending time with your Guru is so valuable — the Divine light shining through their mind cools, soothes and comforts you.

Lokanandah samadhi-sukham. — Shiva Sutras 1.16

Such a yogi experiences the bliss of Consciousness in every situation, and it is transmitted to those in contact with him.

The Guru’s influence is unerring. Like sitting under a shade tree, you cool down. As you cool down, you settle into yourself. By Grace, your settling inward goes deeper — into your own Self.

You blossom like night-blooming jasmine in moonlight. I use this metaphor because my Baba had a row of these shrubs in his India Ashram. I walked by them on my way to the hillside meditation hall every morning at 3 am. Their fragrance was intoxicating! Now I know that it was not only the shrubs that were blooming. It was me, too.

However, if your mind is full of limiting notions, Consciousness first has to burn them away. I know how it works because my Baba gave me this — the fire of yoga burning away everything that held me back. Shaktipat initiates this inner process which leads to moksha, liberation.

The process is called purification. You are burning away the inner impurities. It can get hot, especially if you try to keep yourself limited and small. The alternative is clinging to your feeling of being incomplete. You already know this is painful.

Your yogic future is described in the Shiva Sutras…

While the Guru is one who dispenses God’s Grace, don’t confuse the Guru with a particular personality or physical form. Yes, I loved spending time with my Guru.  I love his photos, to see these images of his physical form.  Yet, I know it’s the Divine Reality in him that made him lovable…

 —  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “You Need a Guru“