By Amala Cattafi, SVA Board President

I did not seek out the sacred practice of pilgrimage. It snuck up on me. In 2001, I took my first Svaroopa^® yoga class, at the suggestion of a friend who found it helpful for back pain. I never imagined that would be my first step on a sacred pilgrimage to discover my Self.

You may have had a similar experience. You simply took a Svaroopa^® asana class, you attended a satsang, you received an Embodyment^® session. Perhaps you simply met Swamiji for the first time, and something stirred. Then you were never the same! And so your powerful personal pilgrimage to your Self began.

I have been blessed to experience pilgrimage with so many of you on a very large as well as a very small scale. I have travelled to the home of our lineage in Ganeshpuri India, bathed my head with the sacred water of the Ganga during the Kumbha Mela, have been moved to tears by the evening arati ceremony in Varanasi, melted into the sacred mountains at Macchu Pichu, and have met and been blessed by many beings in all these great places.

And yet, I get the same experience every time I drive to Lokananda to be in Swamiji’s presence, to listen to one of her recorded satsangs, to do seva (even from home), and to give financial support to the Ashram. What a blessing it is that we can make sacred pilgrimage so easily!

As our American Thanksgiving approaches, I reflect on the pilgrims who traveled to a “new world” in search of religious freedom. They made the brave and difficult decision to leave their homes and search for a new way of life. You, too, are a pilgrim on a journey, but how beautiful that you can do so without leaving home.

Throughout time, yogis have made the brave and difficult decision to search for a new way of living in pursuit of moksha — liberation, spiritual freedom. This is what yoga promises, and provides. You know this because you feel it stirring every time you attend a Svaroopa^® asana class or satsang. You even feel it after talking about your yoga experiences with someone else in our Svaroopa^® community.

You, along with me and other Svaroopis, are on a pilgrimage to your Self. Through your Svaroopa^® Sciences practices, you are the sacred ground in which you find your Divine Self. May this pilgrimage open you to the practice of dakshina, financial support of the source of the teachings that guide you on your own sacred journey.

Our Capital Campaign has been successfully concluded, supporting our physical home, Lokananda.  Now we turn to our Fall Fundraiser, coinciding with Thanksgiving. It gives you an opportunity to take your yoga practice off your snuggly blankets and actively into the world.

I invite you to take a look at your current monthly contribution…perhaps it is time to increase it a bit? Or, if giving monthly is not something that you already do, please consider supporting your yoga and your Swami in this way.

Dedicated monthly giving benefits your Ashram greatly. Your Ashram has the comfort of relying on these monthly donations to meet the monthly costs of providing the services that support you on your pilgrimage. No matter the amount on your monthly donation, you make a sacred monthly pilgrimage into your own heart. As Baba Nityananda said, “The heart is the hub of all sacred places…go there and roam.”

Thank you for increasing or making a monthly gift.  If a single donation works better for you, we deeply appreciate your generosity in any amount.  Click here to arrange your donation online, or phone us at 610.644.7555.

Om Svaroopa Svasvabhava Namo Namah

By Vibhuti King

Seventy years ago on the auspicious day of 15 November, a great being was being born. Who knew then that she would follow her great love of God and find her Guru, Baba Muktananda? Yet she did, and under his love and guidance she became Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati, the great being she is today.

On her birthday, 15 November, we celebrate our relationship with our beloved Guruji. She is the Light that has lit our own inner Light. She is the Light that shows us the way. How blessed are we to know such a great being and revel in the day of her birth!  And what a celebration it is on the inside with the fruits so visible on the outside!

How does one celebrate such a day? Well, my idea is that baking our Guru’s favorite cake, carrot cake, is in order. Tirtha Richards will be making the cake, consciously, while repeating mantra. I am inviting yoga buddies, and we will all begin the celebration by chanting Swami Nirmalananda’s song, Sri Guru Gita. We will meditate. We will listen to one of her discourses on the Truth and take turns sharing what stands out for us in that talk.

To enhance our gathering, we will share stories of how we met Guruji. It is always so much fun to hear these stories! Then drinking chai and eating carrot cake— what delight! But before we dive in, we’ll pause just before taking that first sip and first bite, take a breath and breathe OM Namah Shivaaya into that sip or bite that has become ambrosia, the food of the Gods!

Already we are wishing, “Happiest of Birth Days to you, my beloved Guru. I am so blessed that you took birth this one last time.”

What are YOUR plans for this highly auspicious celebration? Please plan to share it with photos on our Ashram Facebook page. Send them together with the description of your celebration to Sandie@svaroopayoga.org.

By Lajja (Ellen) Mitchell

Strike that title! Instead, make it, “How Japa Continues to Change My Life!”

I am not sure when I started repeating mantra regularly. It might have been after my first meditation course in 2012.  I certainly focused more on it in during my trip to India in 2013.  My first Seva after returning was to be on a team for our community-wide Japathon, a phone event where we all repeated mantra aloud together.  In a multitude of ways, 2013 was the year of japa for Svaroopa^® yoga and for me. I read all the contemplation articles. Frequenting our svaroopa.org website, I listened to Freebie audio recordings on anything japa.  I bought my first mala. And every time I saw Swami that year, I heard her said, “Do more japa!”

I know from experience that japa helps to quiet my mind.  In addition, japa is the vehicle to help bring me into meditation; japa is portable and I can do it anywhere. I say japa when I am happy or sad, when I am in a state of fear or love, whether my life is up or down. Japa can level-set me and take me back to a more centered space. I also say japa right before bed. What better way to quiet the mind at the end of the day? Many times, I dedicate this practice to someone else that I know may need some prayers.

Recently, while waiting for a meeting to start, I started saying japa to fill the time. Japa took me to a deep, calming place. My mind was quiet. It was meditative. I almost forgot there was a meeting to be held.

I now think that I live more in the pause and less in the reaction. I firmly believe that, as one of my yoga practices, japa has helped me to get to this place within. So that is why I say, “My japa practice continues to change my life!”

By Matrika Gast

“The sole purpose of yoga is to reveal your Self within you,” Swami Nirmalananda reminds us. In her discourse “You Are Becoming Great” she describes the diverse yoga philosophies and practices of yoga as having one goal.  They take you to the knowing of your own Self, so you live from your own Self. They let you know when you’re not in your Self and how to return again and again.

It’s hard to see your progress week-to-week or month-to-month. Incremental change is hard to detect. But you can measure your growth by looking back a year or two. You will recognize so many positive changes. Perhaps you have a greater abundance of inner peace and outer harmony with your life situations as they are. If pain led you to begin Svaroopa^® yoga, perhaps your practices have dissolved it. Perhaps they have enabled you to know that, while you have a body and a mind, you are so much more than your body and your mind.

Intertwined emotional and physical pain got me into the Svaroopa^® Sciences. It’s taken me more than a decade of practice to see how ingrained patterns of thought and behavior created all that agonizing stuff.  I now see how the practices clear the way to me being in my own Self. Alas, it’s certainly not all of the time! But I’m in Self enough to know the distinct difference between living from Self and reacting from the delusions and habits of “little s-self.”

When I look back a decade, I see someone doing just enough asana practice to calm down and rest blissfully in Shavasana. That gave me enough inner expansion to plan how to get more from external situations; an essential strategy to fill my gaping well of neediness. Of course, any sense of inner abundance was short lived. I finally figured out that you can’t rely on situations and relationships to give you the More. That well of neediness can’t be filled from outside. For real change, it needs to be gone. Paradoxically, the inner arising of Self dissolves that well.

Right now I am delighted by looking through my window and seeing juncos nibble millet from a bird feeder. But I don’t count on the outside to give me a sense of well being. Letting the Svaroopa^® practices invade my life is creating real inner change. That inner expansion of Self gives rise to gratitude. It makes me want to celebrate progress in this miraculous process. A decade ago I could not have imagined this result.

Celebration and gratitude go hand in hand. From national harvest festivals and independence commemorations to family weddings, baptisms and birthday parties — we celebrate all with gratitude. Delicious food, the light of candles or fireworks, along with gift-giving thread through these events. And all are pervaded by a sense of the sacred.

But what to do when you want to celebrate and express gratitude for a subtle, personal milestone? Unlike public and family celebrations, there are no traditional observances. I am grateful for the practices, for the company of fellow Svaroopis on this path, for our stellar Ashram Teachers, sevites and staff — and for Swami Nirmalananda who brought it all into being. So it makes sense to celebrate and express gratitude in the context of this family, this kula.

As to delicious food, candle light and the presence of the Divine within, I look back one week ago, when Swami Nirmalananda came to Boise ID to offer the gift of Satsang. Forty Svaroopis in all stages of process attended. Without doubt, this was a celebration of the practices and progress of all of us. You could see everyone soaking in her words. Darshan was a completely new experience for most of our group. Yet they came forward with gentle smiles, bows and questions for Swamiji.

Afterward, a brand-new Svaroopa^® yoga student described her experience as “amazing.” She said she had felt a sense of communication with Swamiji that went beyond the words she was hearing. Asserting “She’s the ‘real deal,’” this new asana student signed up for our next Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation series.

For me, Swami Nirmalananda’s Satsang was the culmination of years of practice to date. For even in the first years of practice, when my progress was scant, my ultimate hope was to bring Swamiji to Boise and thus to spark transformation in many, many others.

As with other celebrations, gift-giving is surely appropriate. So I am planning my donation for our annual Thanksgiving fundraiser, starting soon.

By Swami Nirmalananda

Yoga’s goddesses are not just the beauties on magazine covers and in videos.  The Indian roots of yoga gift us with a mythic reality, incredibly rich and fulfilling, to explain everyday as well as extraordinary events.

Lakshmi and Saraswati are among the best-known Goddesses, each of whom is the Ultimate Reality in a feminine, creative, fertile, productive and powerful form.  Most Goddesses sit on lotuses, rooted in the mud of the earth yet blooming in pristine beauty.

Sunday October 30 is Diwali, Lakshmi’s annual festival.  As a harvest festival, it celebrates the bounty of Mother Earth (Bhudevi), as well as expresses gratitude.  Yet Diwali is not merely about material abundance, nor was Thanksgiving Day meant to be.  In 1789, President George Washington issued the first Thanksgiving Proclamation, establishing it as a day of “public thanksgiving and prayer” devoted to “the service of that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

Diwali is a public holiday in India, with celebrations featuring the fireworks of our Fourth of July, the feast of our Thanksgiving, the gift-giving of our Christmas & Hannukah, and the loud and boisterous parties of our New Year’s Eve.  Everyone gets new clothes and dresses in their finest, with family and public events filling the day, even spanning 2 or 5 days in some regions!

It’s a great celebration.  Yet it’s about the “beneficent Author of all…”  Its roots lie in ancient times, the honoring of life itself as well as the way nature’s bounty sustains us.  Lakshmi is the name given to this Divine Energy of beneficence, the generosity that supports and nourishes all, that which makes us thrive.  It seems unfamiliar to the Western mind because we don’t have a name for something that happens every day.

A seed sprouts, sends roots into the earth and reaches up for the light.  What makes it sprout?  What makes it grow, flower and fruit?

There is an energy, a power hidden within the seed, something that propels an inert little speck to blossom into a living plant — a plant that gives us the food that we harvest and eat.

This Divine energy produces more than enough seeds, not only to feed us, along with a myriad of insects and other creatures, but to provide for its future generations (and ours).  How many seeds does a pomegranate have?  How incredibly prolific!

The sages of India gave a name to this Divine Energy:  Lakshmi.  They honored all the different energies as Divine Energies, describing this world as a Divine Playground, and gave us mystical practices and teachings that promise us the same seeing.

Religion honors the Divine as though it is found outside of you, being in relationship with you, blessing or testing you.  Thus Lakshmi is found in Hinduism, honoring the Divine Nature of the food we eat and all the blessings we receive.  Yet yogis look deeper.  Yogis look for the Divine within.  Thus it is, on Diwali, that yogis look for that same beneficence within themselves, that same blossoming forth in a spirit of generosity, nurturance and blessings.

When you celebrate the bounty that will feed us through the winter, you naturally prepare a holiday feast and enjoy the company of your nearest and dearest.  You also shop the season’s sales, so you can grab more of the bounty for yourself and your loved ones.  This is how the celebration of bounty turns into institutionalized greed, not only at the dinner table but for weeks afterward, all the way to Christmas or through your whole life.

Yet when you celebrate the Divine source of that bounty, paying attention to something you usually take for granted, you stop to honor the sanctity of life and the holy gift of the Goddess.  Then you truly give thanks, not only to the sun and earth, but to the Divine source.  Opening your heart in gratitude is a Divine experience, hopefully one you can share with others who share your acknowledgement of that Divine presence in all.

As a yogi, you go a step further.  You look for the Divine source inside, not only to experience but to act on, just as Lakshmi does, by sharing your bounty with others.   Thus, for yogis, Diwali is a time for giving gifts, a time to support those they care about the most.  It’s not about receiving; it’s about being the ever-flowing font of blessings.  Diwali is a day to honor the Divine within you, as well as the Divine outside of you and all around.  It’s a time to thank Her for Her great blessings — on a day dedicated to Lakshmi. Diwali.

And you could even dress up as a Goddess for the day!  Not as a sex-goddess, not for the purpose of attracting attention, but as a scintillating form of Divinity.  It’s a day to honor the Divine blessings that give us life for yet another year, as well as to honor the Divinity in yourself, that is your Self.

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h

image credits (from top to bottom):

• Lakshmi:  www.ifairer.com
• Saraswati: http://www.rudraksha-ratna.com
• Seed Sprouting:  www.the-science-mom.com
• Lakshmi yaj~na (fire ceremony):  Ashram photo from Kerala event
• Dressing as Lakshmi:  www.qz.com
• Swami Nirmalananda’s hands: Ashram collection (on the cover of Namah CD)

by Matrika Gast

Since 1998, I have carefully considered “what’s in it for me” every time I’ve participated in a Svaroopa^® yoga class, teacher training course or retreat.  I’ve had plenty of expectations.  “Exceeded expectations” doesn’t really capture my experience either.  It’s that my mind didn’t have the capacity to envision what I was about to get.

My first Svaroopa^® yoga class was at a teachers’ conference focused on another yoga style.  I thought I was going to get a little time out, but I got noticeable release in my spine, for the first time ever.  A few years later, Swami Nirmalananda (then Rama) gave a Heart Opening weekend in the studio where I taught (a different style of yoga).  I enrolled in the workshop to “support” my colleague who was hosting Rama.  He needed no “support” as the studio filled with nearly 30 participants.  I was the only teacher in that group.

In Supported Fish, everyone was in bliss.  Except me.  My memory still presents me with the sensation of flames licking my sacrum and lumbar spine.  That was my first taste of awakened Kundalini, because a few months later my life started to change exponentially.  My granddaughter was born in Idaho and I soon found myself migrating to live there.  That move put me close to Swamiji’s 2004 Core Opening² (squared) week-long immersion in Montana.  I signed up, expecting to “find my center,” since my move had unraveled life as I had known it.

What I found in Core Opening² was not merely a sense of center, but the beginning of amazing expansion and transformation.  That week-long title’s resonance with E = mc² should have tipped me off that it was time to fasten my seat belt.  It has not been what I expected.  Instead what I have found is being supported by “that for which I have always yearned” — Self.  Wonderment after wonderment has unfolded at the speed of light.

I took Foundations about a year later, and then entered YTT. After full certification as a Certified Svaroopa^® Yoga Teacher, I took Meditation Teacher Training and then opened my own studio.  That granddaughter is now 16 AND she seems to actually like hanging out with me.  After a yoga class with me, her word for her Shavasana feeling was “contented.”

It’s such subtle, even seemingly insignificant events that blow my mind.  Flying home from our annual SVA Board retreat last August, I had a layover in Phoenix.  Waiting at the gate for my flight to Boise, I conversed with a woman flying on to Spokane WA.  I don’t remember how we started talking about yoga, but when she mentioned back pain, I told her about Svaroopa^® yoga and our “deceptively easy, amazingly powerful” poses for spinal release.  I also told her about Francie Light, CSYT, who teaches in Spokane.  I had no expectation that the woman would remember our conversation even five minutes later.  But today I received this email from Francie:

I wanted to tell you that a new student started yoga on Tuesday.  She met you in the Phoenix airport and said that there was just “something about her” that attracted her to you.  So you talked to her and she found me, and here she is taking Svaroopa^® yoga!

Small world, so amazingly miraculous and beautiful.

In the end, that is “what is in it for me,” witnessing the impossible-to-imagine miracles that unfold along this Grace-filled path.

By Mati Sandy Gilbert

Rehoboth Beach Yoga hosted Swami Nirmalananda for a free satsang.  Imagine how special that was for us! Approximately 50 people attended — some yogis, some not — all listening with rapt attention.  Everyone seemed to understand her theme: “How much is enough?” I have always marveled at how her words touch each and every one, no matter what is going on in their lives.

During my closing remarks, I asked “How Much is Enough?”  Everyone tittered — even Swamiji.  I don’t know if anyone heard my next comment: “There is never enough Swami.” Even once we are truly, fully living in our own Divinity and being able to sustain it, we still need Swami.

My personal high was when Swami presented me with a beautiful crystal from her own puja.  I remember reveling in her praise.  Afterwards, others told me I beamed.  How could I not?

While others were leaving after the satsang, I went up to Swami to express my personal thanks for her accepting our invitation and for her words of wisdom.  She graciously acknowledged my words.  But then she asked me, “Are you still doing the poses I suggested for you to do?” I am not sure what I answered, but she knew.  I wasn’t.  Gently, she reminded me.  I was in awe.  How could she remember what she told me many years ago? Needless to say, I have been doing those specific poses every day since.  Hopefully, I know enough now to continue doing them.  “How much is enough?” Each of us should keep that phrase in mind all through our lives.

Each of us experienced Swami Nirmalananda profoundly.  Deb Norton emailed me, “The discourse renewed my awareness of ‘What is measure?’ in my day-to-day existence.  Also, Swamiji’s talk led me to appreciate the importance of regular yoga/meditation practice and its positive, cumulative effects on my beingness.  In that regard, I strengthened my Yoga Score[1] by going to class today (1.5 hrs).”

Ishvari (Terry) Gardner agrees that Swami Nirmalananda’s visit was a great experience for all.  She recalls, “I couldn’t help watching the attendees’ rapt attention to Swami’s discourse.  She deftly wove the question of ‘How much is enough’ through life itself as well as elements of yoga.  She encouraged us to become aware of our own Yoga Score and how it can affect our life.  Following her discourse, we all chanted the mantra of our lineage: ‘Om Namah Shivaya.’ Then we settled into a very still, silent, deep meditation.  Afterwards, there was a lighthearted joy in the room as individuals went up to kneel at her feet and share a few private words with her.  Each received prasad, an orange cord bracelet, tied on by other yogis.  The group chatted together about their experience.  I believe everyone left a little — or a lot — changed.  I am certain that all were inspired to ‘do more yoga.’ I am profoundly grateful to have Swamiji inspire all of us in so many, many ways.”

[1] Swami Nirmalananda explained how to calculate your Yoga Score in her discourse.  Click here to hear the recording.

By Matrika Gast

In thinking about a Svaroopa^® retreat or professional training , do you ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?” The well-known acronym is WIIFM. Marketing professionals look for the WIIFMs that attract in potential customers, before ever talking to them.

When I first took Svaroopa^® yoga classes, easy access to my own Self was on my WIIFM list, but I didn’t know it. A stack of other WIIFMs, like relief of low back pain and a more balanced life, obscured my awareness of my deep yearning. I yearned for my own essential Divinity.

While one set of WIIFMs got me to Svaroopa^® yoga, in the process I discovered that deeper motivation to know my Divinity experientially. The paradox is that both WIIFM goals have been fulfilled again and again. And even more keeps coming. An endless stream of Grace reveals the Divine woven into all things.

Through Svaroopa^® yoga and meditation, the MORE fills us to overflowing. Likely you will find, as I have, that MORE turns out to be different than what you thought you wanted.  Better than anything you have imagined! It’s almost as though your DNA begins to shift toward compassion, generosity and benevolence full time.

Love for yourself begins to arise from within your Self. From that place, an immensity of love for everyone and everything flows forth. The paradox is, asking “What’s in it for me?” regarding our Svaroopa^® Sciences leads ultimately to gifts of love and service for your family, your community and the whole world.

By Yogeshwari Fountain

While standing at the sink doing the morning dishes recently, I felt just the slightest lift of my left heel.  Normally I’d read that as a cue to relax my tailbone, pull in my abs and get back into my body.  However, having just read “Being a Role Model,” Swamiji’s and Vidyadevi’s Contemplation article, I had a different awareness.  “Ground your Shakti,” I murmured to myself, feeling a surge of joy and fullness arise from within.

In that moment, I knew it wasn’t just me at the sink, doing, but Consciousness Itself, being me, while doing the dishes.  Simply by feeling my feet again, I experienced my fully embodied spirituality: present in my own Presence once again.  I think this is what Swamiji means by “yoga is about getting beyond theory.”

In “Being a Role Model,” she points out the “Truth” that I am “perfect and divine,” always, no matter how I feel, or what my mind says, no exceptions.  To live this, I need all the practices of Svaroopa^® yoga to keep re-aligning myself to the Self intentionally.  But to know I AM Living Truth itself is an inner shift that develops over time.  While I have blissful experiences of it, clearly I am not established there.  But the Guru is, and because of this, she is the ultimate role model, manifesting the revelatory power of Grace.

All my life I emulated others, looking for mentors and role models to show me how to achieve worldly success, as limited as that was.  But when I met Swamiji, I knew I was in the presence of “Living Truth,” and the road ahead was going to take a sharp turn inward.

The glory of this tantric path is that you must then turn outward, and shine your light back into the world.  While Swamiji continues to model this for all of us, she exhorts every Svaroopi to do the same for others.  I’m often asked, “How many hours of yoga do you do each day?” If only they really knew! Still, being a role model is humbling, as I’ve never felt “better than” anyone.  I’m simply grateful to be on this path of discipleship.  I trust that if I cooperate with the process, and watch my motives for any given action, I will become progressively more uplifted.  I will understand what I am truly becoming, not in a worldly sense, but as embodied Consciousness, Living Truth.

by Amala (Lynn) Cattafi, SVA Board President

Thanks to our community of loving yogis, we have met and exceeded our $150,000 goal for our Bliss Place Capital Campaign.  Your generous donations and pledges now total $180,300.00, making it possible for us to complete making Lokananda a true Bliss Place for you.  It is also enabling us to re-reroof our historic building before winter, something we really needed to do.

Your gifts are another way you show your commitment to Svaroopa^® yoga and to your kula (yoga-family).  Our generous yogis ARE each 1 in 100!

The depth of teachings Swamiji provides attracts yogis who yearn for the greatest that yoga offers; you belong to this exclusive segment of the Western yoga world.  This Maha Yoga is the highest yoga, which opens you on every level.  Too often, the most difficult level to navigate is about finances and money.  Over 100 yogis have done deep work here, not only to support their kula but also to support their own yoga growth, as well as the Master Teacher who serves you.

We conducted our Capital Campaign in three segments: last fall, last spring and over the last six weeks.  In each, we reached out to you through letters, blogs, email publications and telephone calls by Board members and Svaroopi sevites.  As we have more community members than callers, our phone campaign went on for a while, and we found that more and more of you were WAITING for a call, excited about the prospect of contributing.

Personally, I reached several yogis who said, “I was waiting for you to call.  Yes, I am ready to donate… how can I help?” Their response touched me so deeply! Even those who did not receive a call simply hopped on the website and donated, or called us to have a staff member assist with their donation.  Amazing generosity, love, and support!  I love you all so dearly, my heart is bursting and I am tearing up as I write this.

I also offer kudos to our sevites and Board members who gave of their time and effort.  It’s a big deal to get over your own resistance to asking for financial support.  I saw such growth in the ability of our callers to meet this challenge.  They cheerfully placed calls and reveled in the opportunity to talk with you about what really matters to you in your yoga experience.

We all found that talking yoga with members of our kula is in itself a great gift.  Often we aren’t able to have the same type of discussions with anyone else in our lives.  Thank you to the yogis who responded so enthusiastically and generously.  This connection shone forth as reciprocal adaptation at its most splendid!

On behalf of Swamiji and your Board of Directors, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.  I am grateful to be sharing this miraculous journey with all of you, my dear family.

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h