Author Archives: Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram

Tadasana

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By Nirooshita Sethuram, Yogaratna 

I was born into a Hindu family in Sri Lanka.  Standing is a most important posture for our family, especially for cultural and religious events.  Often, we stand barefoot on the floor or on a mat.  It depends on what is required and the ceremony that we are attending.  And we must stand for hours at times! 

So, naturally, I thought I was very comfortable standing anywhere at any place.  This was until I found Svaroopa® yoga and learned how to stand.  That’s when Tadasana became my favorite pose.  Tadasana taught me how to stand with ease settling into my own Self deeply while standing. 

Most of us tighten our spine when we stand.  How long can you stand without tightening your spine?  In Svaroopa® yoga, I found the answer to this question.  Yes, in Tadasana I accomplished standing without tightening my spine for however long is needed. 

Tadasana also helped me develop the correct standing posture to stand in my daily life.  I learned to improve the way I use my legs and feet.  I learned how to lean into my bones.  Learning how to lean weight into bone.  Now I stand using my bones.  This strengthens my legs, because as you lean weight into a bone, it gets thicker and stronger.  When you hold yourself up with muscles, especially spinal muscles, you are not leaning into your bones.   

Standing in Tadasana allows my weight to lean through my leg bones, into the bones of my feet, and through my feet into the floor.  This activates my arches. In this way, leaning into my bones not only preserves and increases their strength.  This also gives me a feeling of being grounded.  It makes me able to apply that to everything else I do. 

I’ve also learned to distribute my weight evenly on both of my feet.  This helps my balance (physical, mental and emotional) as well as stamina.  In this way, I’m able to take yoga into the midst of my life. 

Oh! I must also mention getting taller and lighter by standing in Tadasana. When I carefully align myself, I truly experience Tadasana as the “standing version” of Shavasana.  The name says it all: Tadasana = Tat + asana = Pose of “That” (the Supreme Reality).  Standing in Tadasana and settling with ease gives me the experience of the Self!  I stand in the deeper dimensions of my own Beingness, which is who I really am. 

As always, I grateful to my Guru, Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati.  We lovingly call her Gurudevi for giving us the practices and poses.  They reliably give us the experiences they describe.  How blessed am I to learn and experience these ancient methodologies by a modern living Guru such as Gurudevi Ji! 

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Golden Meditations

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By Fred Hess 

Interviewed by Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, Yogaratna 

Over New Year’s weekend at the Ashram, I immersed in my fifth Shaktipat Retreat with Gurudevi.  In the first session, Gurudevi gave Shaktipat by touch to us assembled in Lokananda.  She also gave Shaktipat by will to all attending online as well as in person.  From Gurudevi’s hands-on Shaktipat, I felt warmth in my low back.  I got even more in Gurudevi’s second session as she gave Shaktipat by will again.  I felt successive flows of warmth shooting up my spine. 

In my first Shaktipat Retreat, some years ago, I felt somewhat discombobulated afterward.  But with every Shaktipat Retreat since, my meditations have progressively deepened.  Back home now, I meditate in the morning with Gurudevi’s online Meditation Club.  Afterward, I am at ease with my thoughts.  My steady state endures throughout the day.  I meditate again later in the day as well.  And I have no concern about thoughts disturbing my inner focus. 

Each day, I go into meditation deeper and faster, sitting for the whole hour.  My meditations are golden and beautiful.  In morning Meditation Club, I surface only when Gurudevi sounds the gong to signal our closing.  My deep meditations support me in daily life.  I can do things in a spiritual way. 

Attending Shaktipat with my wife and our longtime friend, new to meditation, was a plus.  My friend works in a helping profession.  I’ve always recognized his spiritual capacity.  It was great to see him fulfilled, smiling and happy after our retreat.  Being with loved ones was beautiful! 

I am ready to keep going with this practice, and look forward to Gurudevi’s next Shaktipat Retreat.  I know that Gurudevi’s gift of Kundalini awakening will open us to inner greatness once again.  Speaking from my heart, I would like to see more of the world receive Gurudevi’s gift of Shaktipat.

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It Went Away Miraculously

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By TC (Tattvananda) Richards

Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

It says online, “You cannot get rid of plantar fasciitis without medical intervention.” For my work, I stand on my feet all day long. The pain in my heel got worse and worse. And everyone had advice: “Roll your foot on a ball” or ”you’ll need an injection.” Yet because of my Svaroopa® yoga practices, the pain went away miraculously ― amazingly, never to return.

When I mentioned my condition to one of the Ashram swamis, she recommended I try Embodyment® Yoga Therapy sessions or at least one hour a day of Ujjayi Pranayama. Because of my schedule, I chose to commit myself to my Ujjayi breathing practice. To stay conscious the whole hour, I set a timer for every 20 minutes. It worked! The pain started to lesson.

The real turnaround happened when I changed my daily yoga routine. I learned I had not been sequencing my spine effectively. Swamiji gave me a more therapeutic pose practice. This released my tailbone tensions and reached into all the tight spots I’d been missing.

I also gave myself more time in the poses. By slowing down, I felt my body relaxing. In the pauses between poses, I could perceive the inner shifts. To feel complete, I always included a beginning and closing Shavasana.

Now I get up in the morning with no pain. And I know I have to keep up with the practices. I think of it as cooperating with the flow of Grace!

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I Needed the Shavasana Course

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By Andrea (Arya) Perry

Interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney

When the Shavasana Course was offered last year, I knew I needed to take it.  My goal is to live in and from the state of Self all the time.  On an ongoing basis, I note how deeply I am seated in Self.  Yet I vacillate, moving up and down like waves.  Sometimes I’m deep and sometimes I’m barely touching the water.  I live in the future a lot and I’m constantly planning.  I try to figure out what I’m going to do and how to do it.  In Meditation Teacher Training I learned a key question: “Is your mind with your body?”

I needed body and breath practices to get my mind with my body.  Gurudevi confirmed this:  “…you use Anavopaya, starting with body and breath steadily weaving yourself back into a whole again.  That wholeness becomes a profound feeling of holiness, the sanctity of our own Self.” (Freedom – July 2022 Teachings Article)

She further confirmed my need for the Shavasana Course.  She wrote about how you get lost in your mind and senses, and that yoga says to stay in your body (Perception & Action – September 2022 Teachings Article).  I knew the Shavasana Course would help me settle into my body and my own Self. 

The Shavasana Course delivered just what I needed.  It had been a long time since I had been that deep from physical practices.  It got my mind back into my body and infinitely more.  We had six continuous days of two and a half hours, including various Shavasanas along with meditation.  The course embodied and enlivened me.  

It was the Amazing Grace of Kundalini that dissolved my tensions, created openings and enlivened my body.  I felt gratitude for Kundalini’s generous gifts.  I felt more open physically and multi-dimensionally.  I experienced the bliss of being, lying on my back.  I experienced deeply resting in Self.

I returned to my busy life and long list of to-do’s.  This message arose in my mind: “Be Shiva doing the doing!  Focus on your Shiva-ness instead of on the doing.  When grounded in your Shiva-ness, there is no need for constant, overwhelming mental activity.  Things needing to get done will get done with efficiency and ease.”

I feel blessed for the gift of so many practices and tools that help me toward my goal.  And I feel blessed that Gurudevi guides me. 

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Choosing Your State

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Whatever happens, you get to choose your response. You’ve got options. Let’s say you have a flat tire. You could be frustrated because it is happening when you’re busy. Or you could be relieved that it didn’t happen when you were driving at 70 miles per hour. Another option is that you feel virtuous, for you have a membership to an auto service that will make the whole process easy for you.

You might feel guilty because you knew there was a problem with that tire, but you didn’t take care of it. Maybe you are grateful to a friend or passing stranger who helps you with it. Or you use your intelligence to search for an online video that will help you with DIY.

You are even capable of having multiple reactions simultaneously. The feeling on which you choose to focus determines what happens next. If frustration makes you curse and kick the tire, you could end up with a broken toe along with a flat tire. If you focus on feeling relieved or grateful, then you feel blessed. You also become generous and helpful to others.

You’re not an automaton, running the same program over and over. When you face a familiar problem, you can respond differently because (hopefully) you learned something from it last time. If you’re a yogi, your response comes from a new level of compassion and clarity compared to last time, simply because you’ve opened up your inner reservoir more deeply.

Yogis learn from the inside as well as from the outside. On the outside, life gives you lessons. Are you getting them? If not, life will serve up the same menu as before, so you have another chance to get it. When you get it, you are changed. Learning from the outside changes you on the inside.

A yogi does it in a different order. A yogi gets it on the inside first. Then the same menu doesn’t need to be served up again. And even if it does, your inner transformation makes your outer response easy. Clarity and compassion support you, even if the answer you give is “No.”

This is tantra, the interweaving of the Divine into the mundane. Yoga makes you able to find the Divine within, your essence effulging forth like a blossoming flower. You bring it with you into everything outside of you, into the seemingly mundane world. Every other being and…

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GPS:  God Positioning System 

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By Swami Prajñananda

I wished I could stop time.  In the dark of the night, I used to wake up terrified, remembering that one day I would die.  I was only a child, but my looming death weighed heavily on me.  I wished for time to stop, but I could feel it still ticking steadily onward.  During the day, it was easy to forget about death.  But, in those quiet moments in the dark, I couldn’t push the thoughts away.

Part of the reason it was so scary was that I wasn’t experiencing God.  I had some basic training in religion growing up, but I wasn’t actually having the experience.  So, death felt like the end — absolute oblivion.  

This nihilistic belief system continued for me until I met Gurudevi Nirmalananda.  Being in her presence and receiving her teachings, I experienced that there is more to me than I thought.  Sitting for meditation and turning inward, I would feel a sense of eternity.  This eternality would fill me from the inside.  Meditation after meditation gave me this inner fullness without start or end.  

Each day, I would look forward to my daily meditation.  I was finding that “something” that I had been missing and looking for, for so long.  My usual inner feeling of emptiness was replaced by expansive fullness.  Over time, I realized the eternality I was finding inside was in fact God.  God is eternal, Existence-Itself.  God has no beginning or end.  God is all-pervasive.  This means God is being this entire world, including me.  

I hadn’t been successful at reaching for God on the outside. However, thanks to Gurudevi, I was having major success at finding God on the inside.  Gurudevi explains this more:

For a yogi, reaching to God is an inward reach, turning your attention, turning your mind and heart to the sacred space inside, finding the Divine dimension that is yoga’s focus and yoga’s specialty.

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda, “You’re in the Holidays,” December 4, 2022

Yes! Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation excels at this.  While I am sharing my personal experience with you, it is not a rare or unique experience in this tradition.  When you meditate with Gurudevi, you will discover the same, even in your first meditation.  This is because everyone has the same sacred space inside.  It is God’s space.  It is your space.  You simply need someone to guide you there.  

Gurudevi is a Meditation Master who serves as your spiritual GPS.  Your usual worldly GPS rivets your attention outside of yourself.  Focused on your relationships and what you see and do, you lose track of your own Divine Essence.  When you replace your worldly GPS with a spiritual one, your attention is directed inside.  I call it a God Positioning System, for it places you right where God is.  Right here.  Right now.  Right inside. 

How? Through meditation. 

Gurudevi’s own depth, coming from the lineage of Masters who precede her, gives you an inner boost.  In meditation, you are glided inward, past the pitfalls and snags of your mind.  You are guided all the way to the deepest dimension of your being.  You experience God inside.  When you open your eyes, you can see God outside too.  And at the same time, you are the one being both.  Inside and outside, all at the same time.  To discover this for yourself, meditate with a Master.

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Gurudevi Is Teaching at SYTAR

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On Saturday, June 15, Gurudevi is teaching a workshop Entitled “Ending Back Pain,”at the conference of the International Association of Yoga Therapists (IAYT). This is their annual event titled SYTAR — Symposium on Yoga Therapy and Research. 

Gurudevi’s experiential workshop demonstrates how Svaroopa® Yoga Therapy works, through spinal decompression.  She describes that she is “putting the pathway to healing in the hands of the one who needs it — the patient/client.”

Participants will experience Svaroopa® Yoga therapeutic tools for relieving back pain.  In supervised partner-pairs, they will also learn how to give a Svaroopa® Yoga therapeutic technique.  In addition, Gurudevi will addresses the multiple roots of back pain from a tantric perspective, as a model for how healing must address the person’s multiple dimensions, interweaving them into wholeness.  This is a tantric therapeutic paradigm.  The individual is restored to their essential wholeness, and empowered to navigate whatever arises in their life.

Workshop attendance is limited to 40.  Thus, Gurudevi’s workshop is not for those already trained as Svaroopa® yoga teachers.  However, attending the conference is highly recommended.  If you already teach Svaroopa® yoga and/or offer sessions, SYTAR will expand your perspective.  Through the other workshops and classes, you can explore the latest trends in yoga therapy.  Moreover, attending lets you know where you stand in the growing yoga therapist profession.  Gurudevi says, “The biggest boost is seeing how much you know.  You hear about the struggle of others figuring out how to do therapeutic yoga.”

The location is the Hyatt Reston in Virginia — convenient to Washington DC and Dulles International Airport.  Learn More.

Sukhasana: Settling into Stillness

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By Melissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

My favorite Svaroopa® Yoga pose is Sukhasana, the sweet and easy pose.  While sitting in this level and stable seat, I teach as well as meditate.  When I get propped just right, I experience both sublime comfort and inner stillness.  Inner stillness offers me everything I’ve ever longed for.  I become physically still, and my mind is quiet.  It’s guaranteed.  And then I experience Self: the still center of my own Beingness.

The more I practice Sukhasana, the more I learn about myself.  Its subtle refinements and power have been growing within me for 26 years.  It’s not always been easy.  In chasing down my Deceptive Flexibility, I’ve raised and lowered my blanket stack for my seat many times.  I’ve squirmed my way into what feels comfortable, finding comfort to be elusive. 

To meditate, I’ve even sometimes chosen to sit in a chair instead. But the effects are not the same.  Sukhasana grounds me inside.  I can attune myself to the inner energies that are balancing and flowing up my spine.  It’s reliable, blissful and always informative.

Sukhasana is ever new, never static.  I roll my knee blankets into just the right support my body needs, at that moment.  I alternate my front foot placement, so my muscular patterns stay more fluid.  With my knees’ condyle bones propped, I feel a direct line to my sitbones and into my tailbone.

These small adjustments bring profound results.  It’s like my brain is being rewired, my mind expanded.  The best part is, I feel supported by my spine’s verticality.  I can let go of my internal tensions.  Then like magic, my base is stable; I’m ready to settle into my own Self.  I have found my “Dream Sukhasana.”

Gurudevi’s Light 

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By Soraya (Sudevi) Pereira, Yogaratna 

Every time I participate in a Shaktipat Retreat, Gurudevi transforms my unknowingness into knowingness. I experience Gurudevi’s light shining into a different blind spot concerning my experience of my own Self.  

My September 2022 Shaktipat Retreat was no different. During our first meditation, I experienced lots of Kundalini movements, some familiar and some new. My left shoulder felt tight and painful. Those Kundalini movements seemed to focus on my neck and shoulder area. So I wondered whether they were really Kundalini movements. Or were they simply my own attempts to address my shoulder pain? 

After that meditation session, Swami Prajñananda delivered a talk comparing our spiritual journey to a road trip. She mentioned the benefit of road signs along the way. She said Kundalini movements are road signs, as they show us the right direction. She also said that the road signs are NOT the destination itself. She urged us to not “hug the road sign thinking you have arrived. Keep going.” 

Great talk, I thought, but didn’t feel a personal connection to it ― yet. 

In my next meditation, I rested in a deep, delicious quiet. My shoulder discomfort remained. Kundalini started to move me exactly as before. However, within me at that moment was only the awareness of the sacredness of each movement. All movement was Hers. I no longer nitpicked or judged Kundalini’s movements. I no longer hugged the road sign. I experienced how awareness, my own true Self, validates and affirms the worth and sacredness of everything. 

This experience is still with me. It has drawn me closer to the mantra, swadhyaya (study of the sacred texts) and meditation. 

My gratitude to Gurudevi for shining her revelatory light and to Swami Prajñananda for prompting my recognition!

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Two Yoga Miracles

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By Katharine Raczkowski

My yoga student Kris and I are both aircraft mechanics, building planes for an aerospace company.  I am also a Svaroopa® yoga teacher.

Spring 2020, I noticed Kris wasn’t breathing.  That is, he was hunched over his workbench, and his belly didn’t move. One day, I lightheartedly asked, “Are you breathing?  Do you have room for your lungs?”  Later he responded, “You asked me if I was breathing.  So I sort of wondered about that.”

Kris had noticed that when work required standing, I stood with my feet side by side and parallel.  When he asked me generally what I did, I asked, “Can I show you something?” I taught him Slow Motion Dive and Crook’t Leg in the Chair and later showed him Tadasana.  I was amazed at how quickly Kris’s spine elongated.  Right away, he had to adjust his car seat as well as rearview and side mirrors.

In September 2020, a fall down a flight of stairs seriously injured my hips.  I had to use two hiking sticks to walk.  Fortunately, my Embodyment® therapist is close to my work.  So I could conveniently have sessions before starting the second-shift.  When I would arrive for work, Kris noticed I was no longer using the hiking sticks nor limping.  “You don’t look at all like you’ve fallen!”  This was the big kick for Kris to schedule a class at his home for himself and his wife.  Plus, since Embodyment® healed my hips, I canceled the hip surgery my doctor had recommended.

Early 2021, Kris had another class.  He learned some Foundations poses and Ujjayi Pranayama to do at home.  In October 2021, I enrolled in Foundations Review, YTT 1 and Embodyment® training.  After that Ashram immersion, I returned home in a whole different place.  Kris scheduled a private class in December.

Now he is working through YTT 1 poses in his home practice.  Before Svaroopa® yoga, Kris couldn’t raise his shoulders much and one arm only 30 degrees.  He no longer protects that arm now, and his joints move together fluidly.  Last week he asked to review Seated Side Stretch.  He explained, “I just love the movement.  It feels great.  But there are a lot of steps.”

Early on, I measured his height at 5’8”; it’s now 6’1”.  His blood pressure came down 20 points in 6 months; medication is no longer needed.  He gave up snacks and went from 220 to 175 pounds.

In a session, he released traumatic memories.  His level of worry and “spinning” has decreased, a change evident to his wife and daughter.  He used to write about his spinning.  Now he’s writing a children’s book about dragons learning how to use their fire appropriately.  He is excited about moving forward and dropping his past.

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