Author Archives: Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram

Yoga Therapy – Your Boost to Wholeness

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By Swami Satrupananda

You had help creating your aches and pains. People in your life have contributed to your stresses. Thus you need help reversing the process.

This is why you take a yoga class with a yoga teacher or you attend a meditation program with a meditation master. But if you want to accelerate your progress, work one-on-one with a yoga therapist.

A private yoga therapy session is all about you. The yoga therapist meets you where you are at – understanding your current needs and goals. Then the yoga practices are customized for you.

In this one-on-one setting, the yoga therapist can utilize yoga’s most powerful tools. You will feel the difference in your first session. As you continue with more sessions, dramatic changes are possible – more than you ever imagined.

This is possible because yoga’s therapeutic tools open you up to your inherent wholeness. Your health comes from your wholeness. This is even built into the word “health” as it comes from an Old English word “hale” which means “wholeness.”

Yes! The ancient yogic teachings agree. Your body, mind and emotions are all integrated and aligned with your wholeness and you feel great.

When you are fragmented, divided or scattered, you do not feel well. Your body, mind and emotions are taking you in different directions blocking your own inherent wholeness. Your body aches. Your bodily functions don’t work well. Your mind and emotions are at odds with each other creating internal turmoil.

The key to feeling better is to experience your wholeness again. This is the purpose of all of yoga’s practices. In a yoga therapy session, your therapist gives you the tools that reweave your inner fragmentation.

As you experience your wholeness, your body, mind and emotions are rejuvenated. As you continue to experience your wholeness again and again, you align to this wholeness. Then you live your whole life this way. Aches and pains fade away. Your breath, heart and other organs function better. And best of all, your mind and emotions are soothed and focused.

As the Beatles said, “with a little help from my friends.” Your healing is not a DIY project. Get a little help and a lot more with support and expertise from a yoga therapist. Your own yoga therapy sessions can be the boost you need to reclaim your wholeness.

Talk to a yoga therapist at 484.678.2078 to find out more.

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Teacher Directory

Go to One Who Knows

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By Sue (Shuchi) Cilley

I anchor my week in Swami Sunday.  I anchor my days in Meditation Club — every day of the week. 

It’s amazing how often Sunday comes around again.  Every Sunday, Gurudevi makes time in her schedule.  She invites me (and everyone else) to Lokananda for Satsang.  I come on Zoom.  Others, who live closer, come in person. 

I make it a priority in my week.  A monthly subscription makes it easy. Occasionally I can’t attend, but it’s rare. I care.

Baba says if you want enlightenment, go to one who’s got it.  I am so grateful to be able to spend this time with Gurudevi.  

What’s so great about Swami Sunday?  Technically it’s called Satsang. It’s an opportunity to experience Truth (sat), your own inherent Divinity, in the company of others (sangha). What’s a better use of time? 

Swami Sunday has a formal structure to it.  Using ancient practices invokes the inner arising of your own inherent Divinity.  It’s totally reliable.  So many practices.  We chant at several different times, we listen to stories and Gurudevi’s illumined teachings.  Can you keep your eyes open while she’s speaking?  

We use a candle flame ceremony to invoke the power of revelation. She gives meditation instructions; we repeat the lineage mantra and meditate.  She’s endlessly creative, always giving the gift of Self-Knowingness.  If you want to know, go to one who knows and can give it to you.

And now the Sunday subscription includes the Wednesday evening programs as well!  What a bonus that is!  

It’s a less formal evening, but no less powerful.  Each evening Gurudevi unpacks the nuances of the language from a multi-line quote from Baba’s writings.  Somehow each of them is magnifying the clarity of each other, invoking Grace.  She’s enlivening the teachings.  

Her words are profound and easy to understand.  I dive in deeper and deeper.  Then we do a longer chant and a longer meditation.  It couldn’t be any more perfect.  I am profoundly grateful for the opportunity to be there.  Her invitation is open to everyone. 

Now Wednesdays are becoming a commitment, too.  All my inner and outer obstacles to attending have melted away.  I’m more securely aligned with the Grace which flows into every aspect of my life.  

If you want to know, go to one who knows and can give it to you.  I want to know and I keep showing up, sitting at the feet of my Guru – via Zoom.  Jai Gurudevi!

Sundays & Wednesdays

Magical Tree Pose

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By Soraya (Sudevi) Pereira 

My all-time favorite pose is Vrkshasana (Tree Pose).  I love doing the pose as well as teaching it.  

I especially love practicing it outdoors beside a tree. In the midst of trees, I feel like one of them.  When the ground allows, I take my shoes off and feel the grounding effects of being barefoot on dirt or grass.

I feel deeply rooted as my straight leg leans into the ground. At the same time, I’m uplifted by the upward-moving energy (udana prana).  It starts to rise as I lift my arms towards the sky. Engaging my abs a bit releases my spine and lets the udana prana flow freely.  The balance between this downward rooting and the upward lift feels amazing!

With my bent knee wide and the straight leg and hip facing forward, I find a balance between right and left.  Finding balance, I feel at ease, clear-headed, invigorated, positive and in touch with my Self.

I feel the light of my own Self transmuting any mental or emotional contraction and negativity into openness, ease and deep understanding.  This is very much like the light of the sun allowing the tree to transmute carbon dioxide into life-giving oxygen.

Just like trees, Vrkshasana is pure magic!  But don’t take my word for it, try it yourself.

Yoga On-Site & Online

Chant, Meditate & Learn!

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Every week, you can attend two satsangs with Gurudevi Nirmalananda — in person or online!  Which works for you?

Sundays from 10:00 – 11:30 am (Eastern Time)

Wednesdays from 7:30 – 9:00 pm (Eastern Time)

When you meditate with a Master, you slip inward so easily. That’s what Gurudevi offers, along with the sutras and teachings from the ancient tradition. Join us for chanting, a discourse, meditation instruction and group meditation. 

It’s free if you can join us live in Downingtown PA.

If you cannot join us onsite, enroll in our online program. Our subscription service gives you a way to participate no matter where you’re located. You may enroll for a single satsang or for a series.

Upcoming Satsangs

I Caught the “Light Contagion”!

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By Barbara (Girijananda) Hess, SVA Board Member

Yes, the light of Consciousness is contagious. I caught this “light contagion” the first time I met Gurudevi. 

I did not fully understand it.  But when I received this gift, I wanted to give back. I became a monthly donor and began supporting the semiannual fundraisers. Join me in offering financial support. 

Supporting the teachings and the teachers who bring them to you is a sacred practice. It’s called dakshina — unconditional financial giving. This sacred way to share your own light uplifts you. There is nothing better to do than to dedicate your actions to your own upliftment.  And it helps Gurudevi reach more seekers in search of a Great One. 

What she offers is contagious. It’s an ever-expanding process. After meeting her, I was expanding and wanting more.  Along with practicing dakshina, I started traveling to take courses with her. The effort I was putting toward studying and learning with a Great One sped me along my spiritual deepening.

https://www.hawthorncenter.com/the-medicine-of-the-sun/

Gurudevi says, “Like if you sit in the sun, you get warm. If you sit with the Guru, you get lit up on the inside. Why? Because your nature is light. When you spend time with one who lives in the light full time, you start to perceive your own.”  When you come to Lokananda for trainings or retreats, you feel this most strongly.

Have you caught the “light contagion?”  You are a yogi drawn to the Svaroopa® Sciences which offer healing and transformation on many levels.  Arise! Awake! Learn!  And please participate in our fundraiser. You were born to share your transformation with the world, to let your inner bliss overflow into the world.

All that we do, we do for you. We appreciate your support more than you know.

Donate online or shoot us an email: donate@svaroopayoga.org.  Or send us a check: SVA, 116 E. Lancaster Ave, Downingtown PA 19335. Or give us a call and talk to a real person at 610.644.7555.

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Yoga Miracles Happen at Any Age

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By Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, Yogaratna

Adventurous and enthusiastic at 81 years of age, Bette sought Svaroopa® yoga therapy after ziplining and white water rafting in Costa Rica last winter.   Her neighbor — a Svaroopa®  yoga student — noticed Bette walking “strangely,” clearly in pain.  Her neighbor suggested yoga therapy. Bette replied with a resounding “yes.” 

After a series of 10 Overlap Healing Embodyment® sessions, Bette’s back pain was gone.  Her shoulder pain was gone too. But that can’t be attributed entirely to yoga therapy.  Midway through her Overlap Healing, her painful shoulder got an anesthetic injection from her physician.

Bette began yoga therapy with level 10 pain in her sacrum and 7 in her right shoulder. Her physician had diagnosed a fracture of the left side of her sacrum.  Years before, she’d had two surgeries to repair torn ligaments and tendons in the shoulder.  At age 9, she incurred a serious tailbone injury.

Per protocols for a high-risk client, I began her pain treatment by teaching her Ujjayi Pranayama.  She took to it immediately. Afterward, she felt “much more relaxed.” She was “only slightly aware of” the sacrum pain with which she’d arrived.  Her shoulder was also “feeling much better.”  During the six weeks of her Overlap Embodyment® sessions, Bette faithfully practiced daily Ujjayi breathing.

After four sessions in a row, she reported feeling “straighter without trying or straining, taller and just calmer up and down my back.”  Her pain steadily lessened through the six sessions at wider intervals.  In her final session, Bette arrived with no pain in her shoulder and just a level 1 in her sacrum.  At the end, she had zero pain and told me, “I don’t understand it.  It’s sort of mystical.  The pain is gone.”

I moved 2,000 miles away a few weeks later. So Bette has continued weekly sessions with another Embodyment® Therapist near her.  She wrote me a note saying that her “sacrum fracture has become less painful.” She feels that with continued daily Ujjayi breathing it “has a better chance to heal.”

Yes, Embodyment® plus Ujjayi opens us to the healing power of Consciousness.

Yoga Therapy
Teacher Directory

Mystical Yogic Breathing

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Get Gurudevi’s new audio, a full album of yogic breathing practices for you. Experience new dimensions in your yogic breathing practices under her guidance. 

Discover profound inner openings with her five tracks, including:

  • Introductory Mantras
  • Am I Breathing?
  • Easy Open Breathing
  • Ujjayi Pranayama
  • Finesse the Sound

Deep healing and mystical meditative experiences result when you do these amazing breathing practices.

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Healing Superhighway

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By Swami Satrupananda

Yoga cured my back pain. I want the same for you.

Whether it be back or neck pain, migraines or headaches, Svaroopa® yoga can help. Our slow-paced process also does wonders for allergies, digestive conditions and your immune system.

This healing methodology is powerful because it is multidimensional. Yoga works with your body, mind, heart and more. Not only do you get healing on all these levels, they also all contribute to your healing. This makes the changes deep and lasting.

Taking a weekly yoga class gives you so much. Two classes a week more than doubles your benefit. But if you want to be on the healing superhighway, get private yoga therapy sessions.

In a private session, your yoga therapist customizes the practices to your needs. You receive extra support and adjustments. And we can use yoga’s more powerful healing techniques in this setting. Your healing process is guaranteed.

Yoga can help you with your pain. Contact one of our yoga therapist to discuss your healing needs and to schedule your private sessions.

Contact info: info@downingtownyoga.org or call 484-678-2078

Travel Frames for Guru Photos

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By Amanda (Purna) Schmidt

New picture frames from Ganeshpuri are available!  This triple-photo frame holds 2×3-inch prints, perfect for small Guru photos. 

Gold lotus details adorn the frame’s back side.  Purchase it empty or with Guru photos included.  

Perfect for travel, it is also ideal to set up in your yoga space!  Bring the presence of the lineage Masters with you, anywhere.  

Feel the support of Divine Grace, no matter where you go.

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Arise! Awake! Learn!

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By Ellen (Lajja) Mitchell, President
SVA Board of Directors

Arise! Awake! Learn! is the theme for our spring fundraiser. The fundraiser runs April 25th to June 6th. Please join me in supporting SVA and Gurudevi Nirmalananda by donating. Give to the organization that gives back to you.

Our theme reminds me of my story and how I met Gurudevi. I had some protruding discs in my lower back. My doctor suggested yoga and/or acupuncture, so I decided to try both. The company I worked for offered a yoga class at lunch time. I heard that there were blankets used in the class, and it intrigued me.

I went to my first class. I felt taller and something else. I felt deeper inside like I had more space around me. I continued attending the class when I could. Gurudevi says, “With a regular process, your sense-of-self is found in a deeper inner dimension of reality and is less a function of the circumstances around you.” Yes, that is what I received in my very first class, a sourcing from my inner depths. A place I was not used to being. I feel this was my awakening.

I stopped going to classes when my job was transferred to another town. I tweaked my back. I Googled the teacher’s name and found out she also taught in the town I was transferred to! I started attending classes. Eventually, I signed up for a Shaktipat Retreat.

Joy and Peace https://www.pinterest.com/pin/3940718415775968/

Gurudevi says, “Peace and joy arise from within when your mind stops blocking them.” Yes, that was my experience of that Shaktipat. Such peace and joy. Joy and peace. I wanted more. Kundalini arose and gave me a peek into what could be.

The poses, teachings and meditation have given me more. This is why I continue to financially support Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram. I want Gurudevi to continue to bring these teachings into the world. To quote Gurudevi, “You already know that giving makes you happy. Create a happy life. Live with a generous spirit!” Please join me in giving to Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram.

Click on the button below to donate online through our website. Thank you.

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