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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 Anna Ranish
I’m starting to feel grateful that I live with chronic muscle pain.
Saying this has taken years. It’s not because I’m a masochist! I feel grateful because the pain has caused me to search really deep inside. Thus, I have done many practices that helped to transform me into a more compassionate person.
One of those practices is Supported Fish (Salambha Matsyasana). I have probably done it in yoga classes only twice. However, I often don’t learn things when I do them in class. I need a lot of repetition.
I got plenty of repetition when I went through excruciating back pain in 2023. Physical therapy couldn’t help me. That’s when I signed up for a long series of Overlap Healing yoga therapy. I had 35 sessions over 3 months.
My therapist had me do Supported Fish often during that time. I really came to love and enjoy the feeling of my body spread across two Svaroopa® blanket rolls.
I continued doing the pose at home daily. After a while, I felt a powerful shift in my heart. It felt as if someone reached in, took my old heart out and put a new one in. This was a much gentler and more compassionate heart!
I no longer do Supported Fish pose daily. However, I monitor myself to recognize when my heart is feeling a bit rough, not as compassionate as I would like. Then I self-prescribe myself for a week or more of Supported Fish poses. What bliss!
By Agnes (Aikya) Hetherington
I was startled when I made a discovery about Gurudevi’s teachings. At first, I thought she was telling us many different things.
Yet I have realized over time that she has one single message for us. This message is vaster than the ocean, even beyond the beyond. And she is completely dedicated to helping us hear her message and know its truth experientially.
For me, the focal point of this dedication is her Swami Sunday discourse. Joining together in community with other seekers is both joyful and vital.
The long chant at the beginning propels me into a more receptive state. It shifts me from outward-focused busyness to an interior gaze. The silent pause after the chanting allows me to notice the change.
Hearing a personal story from the emcee illuminates another seeker’s journey. Hearing about their breakthroughs, large or small, encourages me on my path.
Then comes the sense of anticipation as Gurudevi begins her discourse. Will it be fiery, gentle, serious, funny, or all of the above? Sometimes I get scolded for being half-hearted with my practices. Other times I feel bathed in glory as one of the few who have chosen this path.
I can never predict whether I will even hear Gurudevi’s discourse. I might be laser focused all the way through, drinking in every word. Or I might pass in after a few minutes and miss all of it. Sometimes her words bypass my ears and mind and go straight into my heart.
Meditation afterwards is equally unpredictable. If I pass in, Kundalini pushes me into a deep forward bend, trying to release my tailbone. Other times she sends random thoughts whirling through my mind.
This is not the kind of enlightenment breakthrough that I once imagined. Yet I continue showing up for Satsangs. Why? Because Gurudevi has taught me that it is the showing up consistently that gets you there.
By Swami Satrupananda
Svaroopa® yoga is like André the Giant — powerful and gentle, both at the same time. This is a rare combination.
I grew up watching “The Princess Bride.” Fezzik, played by André the Giant, was one of my favorite characters. Several times in the movie, he uses his strength combined with his tenderness to do what others cannot. He was so much stronger than everyone else, yet so gentle.
Svaroopa® yoga is also gentle. We meet your body and mind where they are. We provide support to allow the tensions to soften. The key is in the softening, not in straining or forcing. So gentleness is not only critical but also cultivated.
As you soften, the tensions in your body melt. Your aches and pains dissolve. Your digestion and immune systems improve. Your nervous system comes off red alert. Your mind expands. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of the benefits.
Svaroopa® yoga is so powerful because it comes from a lineage of gentle, powerful masters. They utilized these techniques to their fullest extent, ultimately knowing their own Self. Their blessings and guidance infuse all our practices.
To tap into the gentle power of Svaroopa® yoga, get a yoga therapy session. In this one-on-one session, your therapist uses the most powerful and the gentlest tools to give you the biggest changes. In just an hour, you’ll feel better. It is guaranteed from the gentle powerful masters. Schedule a session today with one of our Ashram swamis.
In this 90-minute FREE program, discover how easy it can be to meditate. The teacher has been meditating for over 50 years, and has taught thousands of people to meditate.
You get stress reduction, improved focus and clarity of mind from meditation starting with day 1. Yet the ultimate goal is the light of higher knowledge, the Knowingness and Bliss that provides the inner foundation for a whole new way to live.
In a single class you will learn the goal and purpose of meditation as well as the how-to basics. You can ask your questions and be ready to add meditation to your lifestyle.
By Margot (Manikya) Garritt
Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna
After years of reduced mobility and difficulty standing upright due to tension, I decided to amp up my Svaroopa® yoga practices.
For extra support, I added online classes to my home practice. Walking improved a little, yet nothing seemed to reach completely into the tension in my jammed right hip.
Then last year, my online classes began to include the new YogaBody poses. I became more grounded and present in my body. Clearly, I needed the support from these deeper YogaBody poses and the Ashram swamis as well as local teachers trained to offer the new poses.
I was well prepared for immersive YogaBody teacher training last spring. Being able to learn in person with other teachers and our Teacher Trainers made a difference. I got the precise alignments and encouragement I needed. Away from home responsibilities and settled into being a student, I had a genuine breakthrough.
My “aha” moment happened in Parshva Setu Asana (Angled Bridge Pose). Not your average bridge pose! It was a more challenging pose, but the changes were instant and obvious. Afterward, resting in Shavasana with my legs outstretched, the hip tensions were gone as my right leg extended long and soft into the floor.
The magic of this deeper pose had released some formerly ingrained pattern. As our training material explains, it allowed me to engage my “biggest and strongest muscles to move and release the tightest areas” in my body. Now, as I continue to practice this pose, I experience a new ease in standing and walking.
Corresponding emotional and mental patterns were unraveling as well. At home, family complications and old memories had been rising. Going back to the YogaBody poses and sitting with japa afterwards led to a huge shift inside. My breath opened up. I was able to let go. I have more clarity now and can move forward without hanging onto the past.
So much Grace flows through our lineage and these teachings. I feel so much gratitude for it all. These poses carried me through several travels since the training.
I feel empowered by the greater capacity for self-care that I have developed as a result. I look forward to continuing online classes in addition to the Ashram’s yoga therapy sessions.
The current discounts for online Ashram yoga therapy are also a great incentive for this radical self-care!
Traveling can cause my hip to tighten up again. Yet the YogaBody poses restore my yoga miracle. So I will continue online Ashram weekly classes with our swamis as well as online private yoga therapy.
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 TC (Tattvananda) Richards
After the opening chant, a Swami welcomes us in-person and online attendees.
Then she introduces Gurudevi and reads a quote from Baba Muktananda, Gurudevi’s Guru. As a satsang subscriber, I’m there online every week.
For her discourse, Gurudevi unpacks Baba’s quote, explaining its layers of meaning. She calls this riffing on Consciousness!
Gurudevi has an incredible ability to make these ancient teachings pertinent to modern life. Whatever she is saying always feels like she is giving a personal teaching for me. It’s always exactly what I need.
I know in reality she is speaking to the One Self in all. I am not alone in feeling these teachings are just for me.
I feel that I am sharing a private moment with Gurudevi as I’m listening to her profound teachings. I love her informality, which opens me into Self. So I receive her teachings deeply. I am shifted inward by the meaning of her teaching as well as her presence.
She has told us many times that when we are based in Self, Consciousness shines through our mind. We get to see this in her satsangs. The light of Consciousness clearly shines through her genius mind.
Her devotion to Baba Muktananda also flows through her teachings. Feeling this gives me an even stronger sense of connection with Gurudevi as my beloved Guru.
Wednesday satsang is complete with a long chant, a delicious teaching and deep meditation. This supports me through the hardest part of my work week — Thursday, Friday and Saturday.
Settled into my Self, I can do what needs to be done to serve clients effectively. My energy is not depleted. I can bring living yoga into my work.
By Swami Shrutananda
Have you lost some of your flexibility and strength, mental clarity, vitality and happiness? Most people lose more every year due to stress, illness, a chronic condition, an accident or simply getting older.
Yoga therapy sessions help you to regain it all, as a recent client describes:
After the 3rd session I began to feel a return of my self-confidence. I was getting my mojo back. As my body began to soften, I could feel the changes happening in my mind. I was feeling stronger and empowered both physically and mentally.
Each session includes therapeutic yoga poses. They are specifically tailored to begin the decompression of your spine at your tailbone. Your session continues the release up your spine through your sacrum, waist, ribcage and neck.
This release improves your whole body, from toes to head. You become more flexible and stronger at the same time.
Benefits go beyond physical. Your mind gets a rest from habitual worries, running memories of the past and planning for the future. Releasing tension along your spine quiets, soothes and settles your mind. After your session you have more clarity. You can focus and make effective decisions.
Your session frees up your own energy. The energy that was sustaining tightness — the muscular contractions — becomes available to you. Prana, your own life force, is amped up. You have more vitality and energy to accomplish what you want in the world.
With tensions released, there’s an upwelling of happiness from within. This happiness is independent of anything happening on the outside.
Joy, creativity and enthusiasm arise from deep within and overflow into your life. This upwelling is your own mystical power. You feel more like you.
Mojo is your personal power, confidence and enthusiasm — the spark that makes you more alive! Get your mojo back!
Therapeutic yoga sessions are available online and in person. Sign up today.
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
practice & grace: giving you your Self
revealing the mystery
