By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

We begin another new year, a wonderful thing, something I have done over 70 times before.  Yet this year is going to be different than any I’ve stepped into previously, because I’m no longer the only one wearing orange at Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram.  I am now one of six swamis, yoga monks who have dedicated their lives to Grace, the revelation of the Self Within.  They’ve said that there’s nothing more important to them than knowing their svaroopa, their True Essence as Consciousness-Itself.  Wow! 

Last month I had the great honor of presiding over the two days of ceremonies that initiated their spiritual journey in earnest.  The traditional fire ceremony was followed by a secret pre-sunrise ceremony featuring both fire and water.  They emerged like newborns, with glowing eyes, round bald heads and a whole new sense of freedom.  The aging process has been turned on its head; they’re newly born into their ancient and authentic essence.  That’s the point, yoga says.  The goal is freedom.  Sannyas is an amazing ritual, better than a “Get Out of Jail Free” card.

Their new Sanskrit names are merely “handles,” a way for us to be in relationship with them, even to sort them out and begin to understand them.  Yet each one of them is more than what can be named, the whole of Consciousness in a power-packed capsule of radiant human being.  As they and I were getting used to their new names, the old one would slip out.  It made us laugh because the old name simply didn’t apply any more, like when “Junior” becomes a grandpa.  Thus, the protocol became:  when you use the old name, laugh. 

What will having six swamis mean for the Ashram community?  I have no clue!  And I delight in the day-to-day discovery that lies in store for all of us, not just them.  I do know that, when you apply yourself to something with such focus and commitment, nothing can hold you back.  This is true for you as it is for them, but they are working with the power of an ancient initiation that makes everything they do more empowered.  I see that in our day-to-day conversations, even simple things containing a profound truth that they can now see. 

They’re going to share that with all of us.  We’re planning ways for them to reach out and touch every one of you — all you Svaroopis and seekers of enlightenment through Grace.  While I will help them chart their course, each one is like a comet in the sky, and she is able to fly wherever she chooses to go.  I plan to applaud.

Our first few steps have begun:

• Mandali Travels programs that have been planned with one swami are going to get two.  We’re sending them out so they can reach more of you, spreading the Grace abundantly, like a child spreads jam on toast.
• YogaMysticism.Today will be publishing a new swami blog each week in addition to our Traditional Tales series.  They will be sharing their mystical insights with you and with the world.
• Our evening satsangs for Ashram residents now feature a different swami each night, sharing a teaching or practice that is meaningful to her.
• And I continue to teach and guide them along with our other residents, a process that carries us all deeper as we continue to follow this pathway where it is proven to go — into the bliss of Consciousness within.  The difference for our new swamis is that the light shining on their pathway now comes from within, a tangible and delicious difference.

Meanwhile, our immersions and trainings continue, now led by swamis who have even more to offer than they ever had before.  I lived nearby when Walt Disney opened Disneyland.  For the best rides, you needed an E-ticket, but sometimes you only had A’s, B’s or C’s.   Now every ticket you use on a ride run by a swami gives you an E-ticket experience!  Buckle your seat belt.  We’re going to have a good time.

By Carolyn Karuna Beaver

When I feel my way into Svaroopa® yoga’s teaching, I can sense that it is true that I am Shiva.  I feel expansive and grounded at the same time.  I can sense beyond the boundaries of my body and my mind to know the One Divine Reality being all – being me, being you, being everyone and everything, seen and unseen.

And then I forget who I really am.  Over and over again, I get distracted.  I get caught up in the mundane aspects of life.  I get focused on what I do or who I am in relationship with.  I’m busy thinking and feeling.  These are all valid parts of who I am.  But they don’t often lead me to see myself as Divine.  It’s a painful and separate place to be.

This is why I’m loving Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda’s final “quick fix” of the year.  Her December Teachings Article, It’s All Divine, gives the most powerful of the practices thus far: “See it All as Shiva.”

I tend not to see the mundane — “my” mundane — as Divine.  Divine, my mind tells me, is Godlike, celestial.  Even using a less lofty definition, Divine is lovely, blissful and pleasing.  My mundane life often does not feel like any of this. But then I go back to Swamiji’s quick fix — to see it all as Shiva.  Even the mundane stuff, even the tough stuff, even the messy stuff.  It’s all Shiva.  What helps me see this is starting with me.

This month’s quick fix reminds me of Rene Descartes’ axiom “I think, therefore I am.”  Yoga’s axiom is more like “I am, therefore I AM.”  Shiva is existence Itself.  Because I exist, I am existence itself.  Because I exist, I am Shiva.  I don’t have to “do” anything.  I just am.  Everything I think and say and do is Shiva.  Everything I see is Shiva because I am Shiva.

It’s all in the way I look at things.  Swami puts it this way, “The One Divine Reality is never absent. It’s only your perception that changes.”  All I have to do is shift my perception.  I’ve been putting this into practice by giving myself a gentle “knock upside my head.‘  In a recent conversation with my daughter, I found myself getting frustrated.  She was stuck in a viewpoint that I felt was getting us nowhere.  Then it hit me — literally hit me.  I am Shiva.  It was like an ice cube melting in the warmth of the sun.  My mind melted into peace in the middle of strife.  I knew I was Divine and mundane — aha and duh — at the same time!  All I had to do was shift my perception of who I was in that moment, and it all changed.  I allowed my daughter her viewpoint.  I realized I didn’t have to change a thing.  It could just “be” — as I could just “be.” For me, this takes the sting and judgment out of the mundane.  It reminds me that I don’t have to put things in two camps: Divine/mundane, pleasant/unpleasant, right/wrong.  It all just IS.  It’s all Shiva, all the time.  I am Shiva, all the time, whether I’m sitting in meditation or arguing with my daughter.  As Swamiji writes, “You are Shiva, so wherever you go, Shiva is there because you are there.”  And when I recognize my Shivaness, I recognize it in everyone and everything else too. This is pretty radical Self-acceptance.  And that is Divine!

by Rama (Ruth) Brooke

As I stepped onto the train to Downingtown, I sensed the power of my upcoming Yoga Healing Retreat.  I felt myself turning inward.  I felt a sweet surrender.  I would be placing myself in the care of Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram’s highly skilled healing therapists and spiritual master, Sadguru Nirmalananda Saraswati.  Already, I was aware of the Grace that would carry me through various railroad delays and mechanical problems.  Grace, I knew, would transport me through the retreat and back home again.

Hours later, I arrived at the Ashram’s Lokananda retreat center.  I was greeted warmly and shown to my room in the simple, yet fully outfitted student accommodations.  All six of us retreatants were quite comfortable in our assigned dorm rooms.  The walls of Lokananda shimmer with sacred images of Gurus and Gods.  Having decorated this place of bliss with light, Swamiji has hung an abundance of mirrors. They reflect natural light and remind us of our own divine light.  Having been here many times before, I flowed easily into the welcoming Ashram lifestyle and schedule.  This unburdened me, freeing me from neediness.

When I enrolled in the Yoga Healing Retreat, I had no particular health issue in mind.  I was a bit weary after a long and busy family-filled summer.  I yearned to replenish, diving inward in a way I could not do at home.  It was the “retreat” aspect that attracted me.  I had heard solid recommendations from other yogis attending the same program in prior months.  This was an opportunity for a pilgrimage to the Ashram.  I looked forward to it as a spa for the psyche.

I did have some issues to “vichara.”  Vichara is a guided self-inquiry that unravels mental tensions and heals the mind and heart.  I found those daily private sessions immensely valuable.  The vichara therapist’s questions helped “clear the smoke screen.”  Her questions elicited responses from me that opened me to my own knowing.  I could see my thought processes and mental patterns from a different viewpoint.  I came away with a new level of awareness and insight.  Afterwards, I knew I wanted to dig deeper still, and continue this therapy in phone sessions from home.

Although it was not my main motivation to attend, I got plenty of physical healing.  In addition to morning vichara sessions and yoga classes, each of us had private afternoon yoga therapy sessions.  The highly trained yoga therapists had no trouble finding the tight spots in my body.  They applied skilled techniques to release these areas in a way I could never do on my own.  The release was so pronounced, I thought I might experience some significant relapse.  During the final days, however, our private sessions consisted of learning a customized home practice.  The poses, alignments and propping were tailored for my body’s healing process.  The practice has enabled me to easily maintain and continue the openings at home.

The yoga classes, yogic philosophy discourses, chants and meditation were equally as supportive as the private sessions.  The yoga class format was a little different from the standard.  They were slightly shorter with the same or similar pose sequences each day.  This served well to relax and open mind and body after the intensity of the vichara.  It also provided a sweet warmup in preparation for yoga therapy later in the afternoon.

After lunch we had time to digest while listening to a discourse on the healing process.  Yoga’s perspective, as informed by the ancient sages and yogic texts, is enlightening.  We learned about the yogic healing paradigm, which is explained in Swamiji’s 2017 March teachings article: Healing Is a Multidimensional Process.  Although I had heard some of the teachings before, I gained new clarity on the many subtleties involved.  The Svaroopa^® Sciences are all incorporated in the Ashram’s Yoga Healing Retreat programs.  They touch each level of our multidimensional being effectively and with precision and compassion.

Chant and meditation bookended each day.  We began at 6:30 am with Sri Guru Gita.  The 50 plus minutes of Sanskrit vibrated through my body, lifting the curtains of sleep and shrama (worldly heaviness).  It’s easy to slip into meditation afterwards.  Timelessly, the sweet sound of the meditation bowl brought us lightly and fully back into the physical realm.  Journaling “memorialized” our experience.

The healing retreat schedule provides ample downtime: time to rest, chat with a yoga buddy, stroll Downingtown center or peruse Ashram Shop items.  Yet it also provides the intensity of an immersion program.  While the schedule feels spacious and spa-like, much more is going on beneath the surface.  The immersion allows for cumulative openings of mind, body and whole being. 

Even now, weeks later, the healing transformation continues. I have been able to sustain my personal yoga practices more easily.  My meditations are deeper, and I experience less shrama.  I feel the inward turning, sweet surrender of placing myself at my Guru’s feet, and allowing Grace to carry me through my life.

By Leslie (Bhakta) Johnson, interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney

“Teaching is how I pass on the gift that I was given, experiencing and being present in the Self,” says Bhakta.  “I’ve had many opportunities to take trainings with our Svaroopa^® Yoga Teacher Trainers.  I have trained with Swami Nirmalananda for many years.  Being with those great teachers has had an effect on me.  Having had my own deep experiences, I bring that depth of experience and presence to my teaching.”

Besides regular classes in her Minneapolis studio, Bhakta travels to Downingtown PA and elsewhere to teach.  She serves as a Teacher Trainer for Foundations as well as Embodyment^® Yoga Therapy and other courses.  Bhakta brings to her students the richness of nearly 18 years of Svaroopa^® Yoga teaching experience.

“The way we teach asana in Svaroopa^® Yoga is uniquely profound.  Students learn to feel their body in a whole new way.  This enables them to track inward on a more subtle level.  They become aware of life in a different way, including life’s subtleties.

“My main purpose is to support students in deepening their awareness and deepening into themselves.  As an asana teacher, I focus on the body to help students look inward.  Doing Svaroopa^® Yoga gives them this gift.  They learn to be present in that depth.  When I asked a new student how he found my class, he said, ‘I googled tantra.  Your website came up, so I decided to try a class.’  He has already attended a satsang and had a private session.  Svaroopa^® Yoga is the yoga that enriches all your experience.

“I see my students deepening into themselves.  They gain an understanding of the difference between the mind and who they are beyond their mind.  After class, I ask students how they are hearing the contemplation I read.  I ask what it means to them.  Even students who are new to Svaroopa^® Yoga come to know the difference between what their mind is doing and who they are — the Self.

“Over time, I hear from my students is that they are less stressed.  When they are stressed, they recognize that they’re over-reacting.  Students become more aware of how they’re reacting, what they are reacting to and why.  Having gained this understanding, they begin to move through life with less reaction.  Often, they recognize what to do to return to a state of clarity and peace.

“It’s a gift to fully know the significance of the body.  Before Svaroopa^® Yoga, I only knew the significance of my body when it was in pain.  That gave me a particular kind of relationship with my body.  When you practice Svaroopa^® Yoga, old patterns start to unravel.  Your relationship with your body changes.  “You learn to use your body for more than just carting you around.  You learn to use your body for its highest purpose.  You discover there is so much more to you and your body.  I help students to cultivate their own experience of svaroopa, the bliss of beingness.  Within your body, you can experience all the levels of Consciousness.  Ultimately, by going into the body, you get beyond the body.  One of my favorite quotations from Swamiji is, ‘By delving into and through your own body, you can come to know your own True Self.’”

By Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Day 2 in Ganeshpuri:  we spent hours and hours, delicious and timeless hours, in a Vedic fire ceremony.  This yaj~na honored the cosmic energy that sustains, nurtures and protects the universe, Narayana and Lakshmi.  We invoked their blessings for all of us and for the whole world, as well as to get the new swamis ready for their big step.

Day 3 in Ganeshpuri:  we immersed ourselves in a second yaj~na, but shorter.  The morning ceremony was conducted by five yogis preparing to give themselves to the fire of Consciousness.  They spent the afternoon and evening in a vigil, with more flames, more mantras and lots of quiet time and personal practice.  As I joined them at different times in the day, we laughed a lot!  They were getting lighter and lighter as the day progressed, not only shining more brightly but also shedding the density of lifetimes.

Day 4 in Ganeshpuri:  After the fires, burning away their karmas and limitations, the new swamis were birthed in the waters of Ganeshpuri’s sacred hot springs.  Mantras, some of them whispered by the Guru under a shawl, and new names completed their ceremonies, freeing them in extraordinary, powerful and blissful ways.  It shines in their eyes as well as through their mind and heart.  The way they see, walk, think and speak is changed – yet they are the same.  Freedom is simply you becoming more you by shedding who and what you were not.

Their new names are:

Praj~naananda  (the yogi formerly known as Chiti)

Sahajananda (the yogi formerly known as Kusuma)

Samvidaananda (the yogi formerly known as Rukmini)

Satrupananda (the yogi formerly known as Sakalananda)

Shrutananda (the yogi formerly known as Vidyadevi)

More reports are coming soon!

By Carolyn (Karuna) Beaver, SVA Board Member

Black Friday and Cyber Monday are behind us — thank goodness.  Today, we turn our attention to more important things than the post-Thanksgiving shopping frenzy.  The United Nations Foundation has designated today, the Tuesday after Thanksgiving, as Giving Tuesday.  Tuesday December 3 is a day to use your resources for the benefit of others.

Around the globe, Giving Tuesday is a day dedicated to giving back.  On this day, you may receive other emails asking you to support charitable organizations.  Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram’s board of directors humbly asks the same.  We ask that you participate in this year’s Giving Tuesday movement by donating to the Ashram. 

By your gift, you are investing in the spreading of ancient yogic teachings.  Svaroopa® yoga and Svaroopa® Vidya meditation teachings are handed down from an unbroken lineage of meditation masters.  Spanning thousands of years, these teachings are as important today as they were millennia ago.  Our culture is in desperate need of them.

They help us live our yoga, drawing from the source of Beingness-Itself.  What the world needs now is more enlightened beings!  Our website is alive with the energy of Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda’s free teachings, both written and audio.  The teachings are there for all.  Swamiji travels around the country and around the globe, presenting free programs.  Your donation supports the infrastructure that makes the SVA mission possible.

Giving Tuesday might seem like just another social media trend.  Yet it makes a positive impact.  Once it was a long weekend of trying to snag the best deals, shopping nonstop or standing in line for doorbusters.  Now, it’s refreshing to have a day set aside for what truly matters this season: giving from a full and generous heart to make the world a better place.  A more yogic place.

Just for today, Facebook will match your donation. You can double your donation’s impact!  This starts with you.  And it starts with one small step.  Your donation of $5 or $15 or $50 will go a long way in spreading these important teachings across the globe.  Click here to donate on our Facebook page.  

Of course, you can also click here to donate on our webpage.  Or, call us at 610-644-7555.  And, click here for a little gift, expressing our heartfelt gratitude to you.

By Annie (Aanandi) Ross

As a child, I lay in my yard, gazing up between the branches of horse chestnut trees.  Watching the big blue sky, even through branches, I felt its vastness.  It felt like infinity.  I wondered, “Where does all this go?  What is all this vastness?”  Swami Nirmalananda’s November Teachings: The Inner Sky gives me answers.  She quotes the Vijñāna Bhairava and gives us the translation:

Remaining perfectly still, fix your gaze on the pure (cloudless) sky to experience your Shiva-nature.  — sutra 84

Then Swamiji explains this universal experience:

The sutra documents the experience that has enticed me since I was a child, saying it gives you a pure yogic state.  This is not just for yogis.  This happens for everyone. …the sky is a symbol of the infinity of Shiva, who is both the sky and beyond the sky.  When you let the sky fill your head, even being dissolved inside your head, you discover that the universe is bathed in Divine Light, including you.

Now it makes sense to me that the sky is a symbol of the infinity of Shiva.  Shiva is both the sky and beyond the sky. Shiva is me (and everything) at the same time.  I already sense and feel the inner vastness of my being.  Now I understand my experience of gazing at the big blue sky.  What a glorious quick fix!

She tells us that the contemplation described by the Vijñāna Bhairava is called a bhavana.  Bhava means feeling, and bhavana means feeling your way into it.  Swamiji describes that even when you start with a visual, it becomes a feeling.  The visual that has become a feeling touches your heart and spreads through your body.  I’ve had this experience when I observe rituals honoring the Divine.  Waving the arati candle flame to honor Nityananda, Muktananda or Swamiji, I realize the ritual’s sacredness.  I feel this ritual as a pivotal point, where finite and infinite meet.  Both are present and alive. 

I realize this is true in every moment, in every situation.  Yet with sacred objects visible, the feeling of the finite and infinite meeting is particularly auspicious and accessible.  I’m not focused on the individual objects or people involved.  Rather, I sense the honoring and the love being expressed and revealed.  Divine Light shines through to be known.

Another childhood memory arises.  Way up on a hill near my house was a very big rock.  It was shaped like a turtle with head, claws and tail.  Friends and I would carry buckets of water through tall grasses up to Turtle Rock.  Then we’d wash the rock with water.  I don’t know what prompted us to do so.

Engaging in this action gave me a deep sense of honoring the rock.  This bhav extended to the earth.  I felt and knew the Bliss of Beingness.  Now, the memory of this delight reminds me of abhishek: the ritual of bathing a Deity’s murti with water, milk and honey.  In doing so, I feel and know the tantric reality of Shiva and Shakti.  I revel in these moments where finite and infinite meet.  I have an experience of embodied Consciousness in the very midst of life.  It touches my heart and spreads through my body, revealing my Own Self to myself.

By Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, SVA Board Member

Mythological source of unending nourishment, a cornucopia spills forth plentiful fruits and vegetables.  It’s a popular harvest image for Thanksgiving, in October in Canada and upcoming in the US this week.  Gratitude is in the air!  What I’m most grateful for is the gift of Shaktipat from Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda.

Engaging in the practices of Svaroopa^® yoga and Svaroopa^® Vidya meditation, I’ve received Shaktipat informally as well as formally from Swamiji in multiple retreats.  I recognize, I had no inkling of what I was receiving at first.  Yet, gradually and inexorably, Shaktipat from Swamiji gave me tangible experiences of knowing my own Self.  It’s the gift that keeps giving, even before you know what it is.

It seems like a lifetime ago, a work colleague would talk about Self-Realization.  She’d studied Eastern Religions in college and was pondering the concept of the Self.  Even though I was a yoga student, I’d never heard of Self-Realization.  Another decade passed and I was still taking yoga classes.  One day, I was struggling into a picture-perfect twist.  My teacher came to assist me, saying, “Efforting like that won’t get you closer to God.”  “Huh? What does she mean?” I was mystified.

Only when I accidentally happened into a Svaroopa^® yoga class did I start to experience yoga’s true, divine purpose.  After two yogimmersions with Swami Nirmalananda (then Rama), I turned the corner.  I entered Svaroopa^® teacher training.  I began to experience the Light of God arising from within.  It felt wonderful and expansive and filled me with joy.

And it also illuminated non-joyous patterns of limitation.  Sticking with the practices of the Svaroopa^® Sciences began to burn away that stuff, layer by layer.  More and more, in ordinary life, I experience being in Self, the One Divine Reality.  I can feel it being me, being you, being all.  That is, of course, until my mind relapses into another layer of ineffective thought and reactivity.  Then I am so grateful for our practices: enlivened mantra, meditation, asana-dissolving spinal tension.  They reliably clear away the muck.  And Swamiji’s teachings make sense of the process, the path and its divine purpose.

I am eternally grateful.  In this season of gratitude and giving, I’m compelled to give back  to Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram.  The Ashram’s fall fundraiser theme is The Gift that Keeps Giving.  I want to pay this eternally-giving-gift forward. 

We are half-way through our fall campaign, and close to our half-way fundraising goal.  I hope you will join me in reaching our goal by making a donation to the organization that supports your spiritual growth.

And, if you donate on the Ashram Facebook page on Tuesday, Dec. 3, Facebook will even match your donation! It’s Giving Tuesday, an international day of giving.  You can also donate on the SVA webpage, or give us a call at 610-644-7555. Your donation supports the Ashram and the work of Swami Nirmalananda.  It helps ensure access to Shaktipat as a cornucopia of spiritual gifts for yourself and for others.  This year we are asking our community to share not only their financial resources, but their experience of Svaroopa® yoga and/or Svaroopa® Vidya meditation — and Shaktipat.  You can contribute to the conversation by emailing your Svaroopa story to info@svaroopayoga.org.  Or post it on the Ashram Facebook page or Swamiji’s Facebook page.

By Ellen (Lajja) Mitchell

I first received Shaktipat informally through the Grace of the lineage that flows through Svaroopa^® yoga teachers.  Two protruding disks in my lower back got me into Svaroopa^® yoga path.  I had gone to PT, yet my pain issues continued.  The doctor told me I was not a surgical candidate. So my choices were pain meds, yoga, and/or acupuncture.

I chose acupuncture.  But then I noticed a lunchtime yoga class was being offered at work two days a week.  I was hooked after that first Svaroopa^® yoga class.  I felt taller and more centered.  I now know that I was more embodied.  I tried to fit one class a week into my work schedule.  Sometimes I had to juggle priorities, as lunchtime is a popular time for meetings.  I did this until I was moved to another building in another town. 

Then I hurt my back again (picking up a crockpot).  So I looked up that Svaroopa^® yoga teacher.  Serendipitously, she was teaching classes in same town as my new workplace.  My life has not been the same since.

I continued weekly classes and then took a Svaroopa^® meditation course.  I started to meditate daily.  A few months before my first Shaktipat Retreat, my teacher met with those of us who were enrolled.  She invited us to talk about our experiences.  I had nothing to share.  However, as I listened to others, I started to have physical kriyas.  My upper body would rotate round and round.  If I stopped it, the moment I relaxed again, the movement would start up again.

This was the prelude to formally receiving Shaktipat in June 2012, the first time I met Swami Nirmalananda.  I remember standing in a room waiting for her to arrive.  My body was vibrating and warm.  I still have those feelings at times.  Now I know Kundalini was already working to burn up my karma and move me closer to Self-Realization.

Oh, how I have changed since 2012!  I have the same house, family and work.  Yet I move through my life differently.  I am more embodied.  I feel grounded.  I do not react to external situations the same way that I used to.  My thought patterns are different.  My mind is less busy.  My relationships have changed.  I am less judgmental and more accepting.  I realize I do not need to take on other people’s stuff.  I can accept feedback from others openly.  I am more comfortable in my own skin.

Having received Shaktipat from Swamiji, I have illuminating peeks into my own Self.  I have times when I see the world in technicolor and experience unconditional love for everything and everybody.  I can be content even when there is chaos around me.  Swamiji’s Year-Long Programme, website freebies, B&B weekends, satsangs and teachings have been transformative.  Through them, I have a toolbox of practices that make a difference in my life every day.  I can do them anywhere, with no need for props. 

I am grateful to Swamiji for her teachings and practices, including the great gift of Shaktipat!  I am grateful for Guru’s Grace that flows through her and our lineage to me.  Being given so much compels me to give back through seva (selfless service) and financial support to Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram.

Please join me in reflecting on your own experiences of Shaktipat, formal or informal.  What is your story of transformation?  Post your story on the Ashram Facebook page, or on Swamiji’s Facebook page.  Or send your story to story@svaroopayoga.org. And, while you’re at it, please join me in supporting SVA at this time of giving!  You can donate on the Ashram Facebook page or on the SVA webpage.  Or give us a call at 610-644-7555.

By TC (Tattvananda) Richards, SVA Board Member

Shaktipat, the Great Opener, was a surprise.  I knew it was big, yet I didn’t really know what I had received, and I didn’t know what to do with it. 

After doing Svaroopa® yoga for some years, I signed up for a Shaktipat Retreat with Swami Nirmalananda.  Excited to be going to an immersion program, I was one of the first to register.  The minute I wrote the check out, the change happened.  I couldn’t believe it.  An inner shift made me see things in my life more clearly.  In my interactions with friends and family, I began to be truer to myself.

Then, on my way to the Shaktipat, just like a light switch had been turned on, my state changed.  I was running behind and didn’t know where I was going.  (This was before cell phones and GPS.)  It was pouring rain with thunder and lightning.  Right in the middle of that… boom… Peace! It was so profound I couldn’t miss it.  I continued in this state even though I missed my exit.  Then I was lost.  None of it mattered.  My state wouldn’t make space for worry or frustration.  It was an event to remember, and the formal Shaktipat hadn’t even happened yet.

The Shaktipat Retreat weekend continued to deepen me inward.  At the close of the Retreat, I took expansive happiness with me.  At home, it was clear to my loved ones that I was shifted.  They commented on it.  They saw it in how I looked as well as in my actions.  I was different.  I have been to many more Shaktipat Retreats with Swamiji since.  Each Shaktipat deepens me more and makes me steadier.  Each one gives me easier access to my Self.

Since that first Shaktipat, I’ve never been the same.  Sure, I get frustrated sometimes.  Sure, I worry sometimes. Yet, no matter, I am never far away from that state.  It has continued to be accessible to me.  It is as close as remembering to access it.  Shaktipat, for sure, is the gift that keeps on giving.  

It passes through me to all others.  Everyone I’m with gets the shifted version of me.  I have a new awareness.  I am more spiritually grounded.  I make decisions from a different place.  I love more fully.  I live more fully.  I am more present to everyone and everything.  There have been many Shaktipat Retreats, and I know there will be many more.  Each one is a gift.  All shift me and keep me passing that gift forward.  I am eternally grateful.

And it all started with the check I wrote to Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram.  Isn’t that amazing?  That energy exchange started the whole process.  Receiving so much allows me to give back in so many ways.  Our Ashram Fall Fundraiser coincides with a season of giving thanks in many places worldwide.  At this time, I ask myself, “How does receiving Shaktipat spark my desire to give?”

She who embodies the Light of Consciousness — Sadguru Swami Nirmalananda — truly awakened the light within me.  I need her continued guidance for cooperating with the transformation ignited by Shaktipat.  Sparked awake and on fire, I experience expanding gratitude.  That moves me to give back to the source of the gift.  I’m also propelled to pass forward the Great Gift of Light that keeps on giving.  Donating to SVA supports the operations that make this Great Gift available to other seekers.

Whether you’ve received formal or informal Shaktipat, I hope it inspires you to give back to Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram.  Please consider what you have received from this practice and the many gifts you give because of it.  Choosing to donate to SVA gives back to the source of Shaktipat and passes it forward.  Your donation makes the circle complete. You can donate on the Ashram Facebook page or on the SVA webpage.  Or give us a call at 610-644-7555.