By Gayatri Hess
Though I have been good at hide and seek throughout my years, the Svaroopa® Sciences found me anyway. I am humbled and blessed by this Grace. The experiences of this path, leading to knowing and experiencing your own Self, have fulfilled lifetimes of my yearning. Kashmiri Shaivism, Shaktipat and Swamiji have answered so much of the deep yearning I have had, and continue to have, for God.
I saw more fully the blessing of being on this path when I took 2016’s Year Long Programme, One in All. I received articles to read and contemplate every few weeks. Swamiji’s recorded discourses further deepened my understanding. Regular phone conferences let us share our powerful experiences and deepening insights in answer to questions posed by Swamiji. The process took me ever deeper into Self, with transformation inside and outside.
Then the November weekend retreat baked me. Wow! I really mean baked. The glorious baker, of course, was Swami Nirmalananda, she who has traversed the terrain of this process and is fully established in her own Divinity. I deepened into Self, more clearly seeing Self in myself and Self in All.
This process unfolded through Swamiji’s skillful teaching and her Grace. She masterfully deepened our understanding by using comparison, but not in the typical Western way, comparing to indicate “better than” or separateness. Swamiji reviewed the perspectives of different traditions: Kashmiri Shaivism, Vedanta, Mindfulness and others. She also compared spiritual and religious practices. One may ask, “Why is this important?” In her first article, Swamiji answered, “The differences mean you need to choose your path carefully, because it determines where you will end up.”
Through this process, I developed a greater understanding of Kashmiri Shaivism and my reasons for choosing this path. It supported my certainty of Universal Truth. The saying, “When the student is ready, the teacher will appear,” was brought to life. As the year progressed, I developed an even more steadfast certainty, devotion, and commitment to the practices of this great tradition. I have a newfound relationship with this path and with my Guru. Grace flows through my experience: the one Self being me, being you, being all.
Besides a greater understanding of my chosen path, I gained an expanded understanding of other meditative systems and practices, including what they offer and the grace flowing through them. The programme led me to see the commonalities of these systems even through their differences. It deepened my reverence for each path. How amazing the universality of Truth! There is a path for all minds and individual uniqueness, so “choose your path carefully” and stick to it!
At our three-day retreat, we practiced the core practices, including asana, chanting and meditation, over and over again, all in the presence of the Guru. Need I say more? The experience was profound, transformative, pure, tiring, joyful, painful, expansive, ecstatic…so inclusive …and in community. Shakti and Grace continue to fill me each day since my return home. They power me through my daily practice and yogic life.
In our first article Swamiji wrote, “My heart calls out with the same yearning on your behalf, adding my yearning with yours, so that you can come to know your own Self.” As I write this for my Svaroopa® community, my heart calls out to each of you to experience the deepening that comes through a Year-Long Programme and retreat. My hope is that you will give your Self the gift of a Year-Long Programme and retreat with Swamiji.
I am humbled to have the opportunity to study under such a profound teacher as Swami Nirmalananda, one who demonstrates living based in Self, up close and personal, and who gives opportunities to experience Self over and over again. Through this program, I also experienced the profound depth and Grace of a Shaktipat tradition. I bow in ecstatic reverence and gratitude for the depth of this practice and the One who brings me this realization… to Swamiji, again and again I bow.
OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h

New Year’s Eve is a night of lights, music, connecting with other people and ushering out the old. It’s supposed to presage your resolutions for the new year as well. Our Ashram resident event includes all of the above, both the night before and the morning of the new year.
Baba always said that what you do on the morning of the new year sets the tone for the whole year. Thus, we are beginning with an abhishek, the formal ritual bath of our Nityananda murti.
By Bindu (Maureen) Shortt
To balance a season’s qualities, it is important that your daily routine includes their opposites. Thus, you incorporate warming, heavy and moisturizing qualities into your daily lifestyle (dinacharya). Let your food choices gravitate toward soups, stews, cooked veggies and fruits, hot cereals and teas. Avoid salads, raw foods, ice cream and cold drinks. Nuts and seeds, with their warming oils, are good winter foods. They provide the extra protein that our metabolism needs to keep us warm. Cook with warming spices. Cinnamon, cloves, ginger and black pepper combine effectively for winter foods and beverages. Think chai (India-spice tea).
Boil 2 cups of water with a few whole peppercorns, slices of fresh ginger, cardamom seeds, cloves, and a cinnamon stick for 10 minutes.
Yogeshwari Fountain
When you are not feeling the sacred in your everyday, you’ve lost the Self. You feel “empty, needy and incomplete.” Then, when the holiday hoopla kicks in, you’re more easily seduced by the excesses and false promises of the season. But yoga gives you independent bliss — an ever-arising fountain of joy that overflows into your life and into every relationship. Now you can give from a place of fullness, needing nothing in return. Such is the freedom of the Self! In this way, you could see celebrations as a Marker Pose, to see how far you’re coming along in your inner and outer journey.
Where can you go that God is not? Without the Guru lighting my inner lamp with her Cosmic Light, I would still be stumbling around in the shadows of my small “s” self. I’d still be looking for others to fill me up. But Swamiji has given me my Self, revealing a rich dimensionality to whatever I am experiencing. The carol “Silent Night” describes this inner state perfectly: “All is calm, all is bright.” Being attuned to my innermost essence, while being open to everything around me, makes every moment, in every day, a holy day.
By Amala Cattafi, SVA Board President
Here in the closing days of 2016, I want to thank you all from the bottom of my heart for your participation in the Ashram. Together we create the sacred space of the Ashram, not created from grief or pain but arising from the clarity, love and grace of the Guru, made available to all who seek to know their own Self. I wish you all a new year filled with that higher perspective that allows you to see all that is sacred in your life and being.
By Gayatri Hess, SVA Board Member
That led me to Swamiji, Svaroopa® yoga, our Ashram and, most recently, becoming a Board member. What Grace fuels my journey! How blessed and honored I am to be part of this kula, this sacred community. What fertile ground Swamiji has created for each of us. It gives us so many opportunities to deepen into Self. How blessed I am to have found my Guru in this lifetime. To come back in human life is sacred, and to be willing to “lean into the longing” and find my Guru is such a gift.
Swamiji’s birthday was celebrated far and wide by Svaroopis. In Downingtown at Lokananda, local Svaroopis enjoyed dinner and homemade carrot cake followed by an evening Satsang. Devapriyaa (Denise) Hills shared, “To celebrate I did Arati, chanted with Baba, Meditated and lit some candles on cake. What a blessing that Swamiji was born to be a Guru in my lifetime.”
Swamiji said, “It’s my birthday present to the community.”
By Kristine Freeman, SVA Board Member
At Lokananda I am steeped in bliss as well as Swami Nirmalananda’s teachings. This experience increases my capacity to find the sacred within myself even when I am in everyday spaces and places. On my daily walk in the woods, I turn my phone off and no longer listen to music or use a step counter. Having eliminated these distractions, I see the Divine and sacredness all around — and as my own Self within. With my attention turned inward, the sights and sounds of the outer world register in me differently. I can hear and see sacredness in birds, a deer, the river and trees. I experience the joy in them. That’s a direct result of having been at Lokananda. The lasting power of true pilgrimage is to imprint Divine Consciousness on your mind.
The awareness itself is priceless. It shows me the value of regular practice of yoga asana, meditation, seva, and dakshina — “giving back.” They all support me in an ongoing, transformative process. They outfit me for the daily journey wherever it takes me. Inside, the yearning to know my Self pulls me ever deeper within even as I move forward. I am grateful that Swami Nirmalananda makes the sacred teachings so available at Lokananda, in satsangs there and in local communities, and via her free audio recordings of discourses and contemplations.
By Karuna Beaver, SVA Board Member
You might decide to keep doing what you’re doing or you might heed a call to Do More Yoga. The practice of dakshina, supporting the Source of these profound teachings, is priceless. If you have been one of our Ashram donors, you already know the inner freedom that arises from dakshina. It has a way of dissolving lingering fears. I am grateful to all of you who have decided to give back to Source or are considering it now.
By Vibhuti King
As they turned to walk away, the head swami called out loudly: “SWAMIS COME BACK, COME BACK, SWAMIS! THE WORLD NEEDS YOU!”
She did not have to come back. But she did, and we are privileged to be a part of supporting our kula, our yoga family. We are privileged to support all that she has provided and will continue to provide. Let’s give so that others can receive as well.