Author Archives: Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram

One of My All-Time Favorite Poses

By Soraya (Sudevi) Pereira, Yogaratna

One of my all-time favorite poses is Prasarita Padottanasana (SloMo in the chair) with the variation: Push-Pull. I practice it after doing Ujjayi Pranayama in Shavasana with Legs on Chair. 

Sitting on the chair, I move into Prasarita Padottanasana to prepare for the variation’s specialized angles.  I feel the heads of both my thigh bones settle deeper inside my hip sockets.  

This starts a lovely chain of events, with my sitbones poking back more.  My tailbone releases and lengthens.  I always get these delicious changes. 

I also feel a wonderful release in the front of my sacrum.  This area of my low back sometimes gets achy.  All this lower spinal release makes me bend forward more deeply.  I feel more grounded on the chair.  I settle more deeply into all of those pose benefits.

With the help of my teacher Swami Shrutananda, I have learned to finesse the leg actions.  This allows my lower back to completely relax.  The pose then blossoms fully, reaching into my whole spine.  My body releases tension and my mind becomes fully present.  I love how powerful and reliable this pose is!

Telecourse: Leaps & Bounds

Make giant leaps into Consciousness in Gurudevi’s new Telecourse.  She has created a sweet, yet powerful inner process that opens you to your Self.

With substantive articles and teaching videos, you take this multimedia course at your own pace.  Your password is current for three months after you enroll.  Take any of the three modules or all of them:

Module 1:  Growth Spurts — Leaping forward, bounding into Consciousness, making fast progress easily 

Module 2:  Living Spirituality — Riding on the shoulders of spiritual giants, how do you incorporate their great gifts into your everyday life?

Module 3:  Ordinary Monks & Mystics — Outgrowing your past & shaping your future. The loom of tantra: interweaving spirituality through life.

Bonus Video:  Resting on Your Laurels (free when you enroll in all 3 modules).

As always, Gurudevi brings it all alive with her personal sharings, making the process so understandable and accessible.  With the meaningful material in this deep course, you will experience a difference in your spiritual progress.

Intrigued?

The Amazing Gift of Shaktipat

By Alina (Avinashi) Uzhvieva

Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

Nothing compares to being in the same room with an Enlightened Being.  In Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s presence, a vibration starts in my whole body.  It’s more than mere emotions; it’s coming from a place deeper inside.  

Attending Shaktipat at Lokananda also means being surrounded by beautiful smiles and serene faces of fellow yogis.  There is no judgement, only love and care.  Everyone there shares the same path to liberation.  

Before I received my first Shaktipat initiation I had so many expectations.  I wanted to get it all!  Receiving Gurudevi’s Shaktipat by touch was intense.  I experienced my greed and expectations turning into tears, anger, guilt and fear.  They were being cleared out.  

Then I realized that all my previous yogic practices had prepared me for this moment.  Suddenly the anguish stopped.  I felt completely still.  It was deeply calming and absolutely ecstatic.  

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Having learned my lesson, I was able to release all thoughts and feelings in Gurudevi’s second Shaktipat (by will).  Everything dissolved as I melted into the process.  I felt I was one with every yogi in the room.  It was a sweet state of Beingness.

When I returned to everyday life, I knew I wanted to integrate my experiences. Gurudevi provided us with many practical tools to support ourselves after Shaktipat.  At first, I did experience relapse, wanting to be back at Lokananda.  Yet I realized integrating even 1% of my expanded state of Beingness would improve my whole life. 

Now I have more clarity about being a mother and wife.  I want to keep my body and mind healthy to support my family.  This realization helped establish my daily practice.  I do yoga and meditate every day now.  

Less reactive and more responsive, I feel better and see everything in my life in a different light. Remembering my Shaktipat experience, I can be with whatever is happening.  I’m grateful for Guru’s Grace and to know where I am headed!

Changing the World with Yoga

By Lynn (Gurupremananda) Cattafi

I recently completed a Teacher Training — Yoga Classroom Therapeutics 1 (YCT1).  I learned how to help students with their own healing.  I now can use more advanced propping and adjustments for many poses.  This helps me tailor the poses to really help people get the pain relief that Svaroopa® yoga provides.

I have experienced this in my own body. Even more amazing is what it’s doing for one of my students.  I am getting to see first-hand the profound improvements she is enjoying. 

Part of our YCT1 homework is to track a student with a diagnosed medical condition. Before each class they document their current pain level.  We use the traditional scale of 1–10, with 10 being equivalent to childbirth or a broken bone.  After class, they document their current pain level, which shows if they have any improvement. 

This student suffers from psoriatic arthritis.  It causes intense pain and sometimes immobility in her hands and her hips.  Before class recently, she reported her hands were at pain level 9 with her hips at level 6.  I led a 90-minute Svaroopa® yoga class.  During class, I included a couple of the therapeutic adjustments I knew would help her. 

At the end of class, she documented her results.  Her hands had gone from a 9 on the pain scale to a 1.  Her hips went from pain level 6 down to 3.  She was amazed!  So was I. 

Over the next few days, I followed up with her often.  I made sure she was continuing her yogic breathing practice as well as poses to keep her opening.  She was still feeling great. 

She knows it’s a process.  She recognizes that living without pain all the time will take consistent practice — but it’s worth it!  What a great blessing it is for me to have these tools to help people in pain.  Svaroopa® yoga teachers can change the world one ache and pain at a time.

Yoga Works on You in Spite of You

By Ellan (Shanti) Catacchio

Interviewed by Margie (Maitreyi) Wilsman

Gurudevi offered “Leaps & Bounds” as her 2019 Year-Long Programme (YLP).  I took it back then.  Now she is offering “Leaps & Bounds” as a Telecourse, with new teaching videos as well as substantive articles.

I looked through my 2019 YLP articles, and as I read, I kept saying yes and yes.  I saw how I experienced a powerful inner process.  What especially struck me is that I now hear so much of what Gurudevi says differently and deeper.

Looking through my 2019 meditation journal, I could not finish.  It was so intense.  I no longer feel that way now.  I am doing the things I said I should do in 2019.  Yet I am not frantic about it.  There is ease about my life that was not there in 2019.  

Yes, since 2019, I have had the huge growth spurt that Gurudevi describes in “Leaps & Bounds.”  I am doing it all with ease.  Not because I feel I should.  It is not a “should.”  It is just a natural thing to do.  I know that meditation is working.  It works, even when it is not what I want or expect it to be.  

With my calmer demeanor and approach, I may be plateauing.  In the 2019 YLP, Gurudevi described this plateau on the Self-Realization path.  I’m settling in, not backsliding nor relapsing.  Instead of coaching “just do it,” Gurudevi guides us into keeping meditating and a lot will fall into place.

Looking though her 2019 articles, I found many other gems of guidance. Don’t compare.  Just keep meditating. Yoga and Kundalini have my back, as does my Guru.  It all comes together.

Gurudevi’s new Telecourse videos will expand the power of her teachings.  We will be in her presence and see her, her facial expressions and surroundings.  Her teaching audios in the original “Leaps & Bounds” YLP were profound.  Now with her videos, the Leaps & Bounds teachings will have even more profound impact.

In taking the Telecourse, may you (like me) discover that yoga works on you in spite of you.

Giving and Receiving

By Ellen (Lajja) Mitchell, President

Svaroopa® Yoga Ashram Board

It’s hard to believe that our “Body, Mind, Heart and More” fundraiser is wrapping up.  From the bottom of my heart, I thank each and every donor for your support.  Your generosity touches my heart.  If you have not already given, there is still time.  

Your donations are the foundation that allows us to keep going.  Your donations build a stable platform for us to offer Freebies, programs, trainings and immersions.  Thus, our Ashram can offer the gems of Svaroopa® yoga: asana, Embodyment® yoga therapy, vichara, meditation, chanting and more.  I want to thank you for helping to support our Ashram in this way.  You help us to share the tools that you know work.

I find it easier to give than receive.  Even when I volunteer, I feel good and my heart is opened.  Then I find it easier to receive.  It’s a cycle of giving and receiving.  

This isn’t about how much you give.  It’s about the place inside from which you give.  We think of giving and receiving as two different things.  Or is it one?  Can you give without receiving?  

When you receive, you’re giving a gift to the one who is giving.  You’re allowing them to help.  So I don’t think giving and receiving are different.  They are intertwined.

When you do the Svaroopa® yoga practices, they uncover your indwelling light.  Then it shines through you.  You also allow the Ashram to serve you.  Your donation keeps the cycle of giving and receiving going.  By being in this community and by giving, you allow our Ashram to shine the Light of Consciousness in the world.

Donate today on our website.  You can call us at (610) 644-7555.  Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335.  Thank You!

Keep the Light Shining

By Carolyn (Karuna) Beaver, Yogaratna

Member, SVA Board of Directors

The Svaroopa® Sciences practices are like glittering gems.  On their own, they sparkle.  When you do more of them, YOU sparkle.  It’s because these gems are infused with the scintillating Grace of the Masters of our tradition.

Sparkling and shining with the Light of Consciousness, it’s easy to feel open-hearted and generous. Many of you have donated to our fundraiser, Body, Mind, Heart and More. And many of you have increased your monthly pledge.  And if you haven’t yet donated, there is still time!

We’re fortunate to have found a system of yoga and meditation that gives us so many doorways inside.  Our system of yoga and meditation is led by a living Meditation Master. She has the key to set us free . Ours is a mystical tradition. Gurudevi Nirmalananda unlocks access to your own Self.  Then she hands you the keys.  You can propel yourself all the way to enlightenment, if that is your goal.

Your goal could be continuing to feel better as well as to enjoy life more by taking yoga classes.  That’s terrific. Or you may want to shed the layers wrapping and warping your mind by using vichara (self-guided inquiry).  Awesome.  Maybe you want to delve deeper into your heart with chanting and meditation.  How wonderful.  All these radiant gems are there for you.

Still, there’s more.  These practices shine the light on all that you are.  Then Grace fuels your process and lifts you up, no matter what doorway you enter.  You shine brightly, like a diamond glittering in the sun.  You shine with the Light of Consciousness.

Keep the light shining for yourself and others with another one of yoga’s gems.  All your yoga practices open an inner flow that makes you want to share.  Dakshina, the yogic giving of financial resources, is an organic extension of this.  In our fundraiser, Body, Mind, Heart and More, contribute from all that you are.

When you give from the depths of your being, you feel generous, organically.  Open your body, mind, heart and more.  Give to the organization that gives you so much in return. Give to the organization that gives so much so freely to the world.

Donate today on our website.  You can call us at (610) 644-7555.  Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335.  Thank You!

Vows Info Call

What does it mean to take a vow?  And what about a yoga-vow — is there such a thing?  

Ask all your questions and find out more about our Vowed Order in this free online event.  This meeting is for serious seekers who have found the Svaroopa® teachings and practices to be meaningful.

We are a community of dedicated yogis.  Some of us live alone, others with their families and some in community in our Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram buildings.  We support each other in deep practices and study of the Kashmiri Shaivite teachings as taught by Satguru Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati (lovingly called Gurudevi).  

As initiates in this tradition, we have all received Maha Shaktipat Diksha from Gurudevi.  We work to support her and each other as we continue our own inner progress.

Do you you feel moved to give more of yourself as well as to discover more of your Self?  If you find the Svaroopa®Sciences to be supportive to you, please join our meeting.

A Life Filled with Precious Gems

By Lynn (Gurupremananda) Cattafi

Member, Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram Board of Directors

I choose a life filled with treasure.  Not treasures made of gold or silver, but of the most precious gems – Svaroopa®yoga gems.  

It is Gurudevi who lays before us this dazzling array of yoga practices and teachings.  So I support Gurudevi’s work in the world.  Please join me in offering your support during our Ashram’s current fundraiser: “Body, Mind, Heart and More.”

Our priceless Svaroopa® practices show us our inherent personal value plus how to make life meaningful.  The practices allow me to choose the treasures of an open heart and an open mind.  I choose the treasure of health and vitality.  

I choose a life of service to others and commitment to my own growth.  I choose to bask in the radiance of my own Self within.  All this is possible because of the precious gems of Svaroopa® yoga.  Miraculously, you can choose all of these amazing treasures, and more, and still live fully in the world.

My husband doesn’t really “do yoga.”  Yet he has chosen the gem of weekly Embodyment® sessions for the last 12 months.  He sees the benefit in his body.  And I see the shift in his state.  Just the other day, he experienced a sharp, unusual pain radiating through his torso.  When I came out of meditation, he calmly described, “I’m not saying it’s a heart attack, but…”  

Asked whether he wanted to go to the emergency room, he said yes.  We calmly got into the car and went.  My husband remained steady and calm throughout the check-in and tests.  They couldn’t find anything wrong, and sent us home after five hours.  Once home, we went on with our day.

I am showered with Svaroopa® yoga gems.  They light up my life with clarity, peace and joy. Please consider how Svaroopa® yoga gems have enriched your life.  Then I hope you will join me in donating to our Ashram in gratitude.

Donate today on our website.  You can call us at (610) 644-7555.  Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335.  Thank You!

Shaktipat Changes Me

By Belle (Bhavani) Mann

Interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney

About 20 years ago, I spontaneously received Shaktipat in an advanced yoga teacher training.  It was like lightning struck me.  

I was suddenly filled with intense love.  It wasn’t regular human love; it was Divine love.  It was the most unbelievable experience of my whole life.  When I got home and walked in the door, my husband said, “You’re different.”  I kept that state for a few months.

Yet I was able to understand this only years later, after Gurudevi started teaching about Shaktipat.  Now I take Gurudevi’s Shaktipat Retreats, where she gives this initiation intentionally, both online and in person.  I love that just being in her presence changes me.  

I love the teaching talks given by our swamis.  I learn so much from our group’s questions and Gurudevi’s answers during the On-Site Q & A.  I love chanting, especially with the group at in-person retreats.  At the in-person retreats, I also get a chance to hang out in the bhav and Grace of the Ashram.  I have personal contact with Svaroopa® yoga friends and enjoy meeting others.  I can talk and laugh with them all.  

My many Shaktipat Retreats, in person as well as online, have been powerful in different ways.  In my last one, I felt veils of resistance falling away.  I hadn’t realized I had been resistant to becoming enlightened.  Now I could make a stronger commitment.

After each Shaktipat Retreat I feel changed, even when it takes a couple of weeks to discover how.  After one, I felt much closer and loving toward Gurudevi.  Another time, my love of chanting increased.  I deeply feel these subtle internal shifts.  I am grateful for all the ways Shaktipat has changed me.  All are gifts of Gurudevi’s Grace and teachings!