You can connect with Gurudevi as your teacher every day! Join her for your morning meditation every day at 6:30 am EST. When you meditate with a Master, your meditation is fueled by the blessing of their knowing.
Gurudevi begins with a short reading from her Guru, followed by a short chant, invoking blessings on your meditation. Next you sit in the holy silence, transmitted from the Ashram, for the rest of the hour, a sweet and Grace-filled experience.
Meditating with others makes it much easier, especially when they are experienced meditators. Meditation Club is available on Zoom by monthly subscription.
When Gurudevi established the Meditation Club, I decided to go all in. I am always amazed how quickly the hour goes. Yet when I come out of meditation, I feel a peace and calm. — Bob N.
Questions? Zoom into our next FREE Q&A for answers. Discover if Meditation Club is what you’re looking for and find out how to get started.
Meet your mind where it’s at. Having a crazy-busy mind is normal these days, unfortunately. You aspire to a better state, a deeper inner center, a quality of being that fills your life with light. Mantra meditation lassoes your mind and brings it back home, to your core essence, called “your own Self.”
You need the right mantra, of course. And you need to get it from someone who knows it fully, inside and out. An authorized teacher within an authentic tradition can open the inner doorway for you in amazing ways. That’s what happened for me, an inner awakening that transformed my life from the inside-out.
I got the mantra from a local meditation teacher. She had been authorized by her teacher in India. It gave me deep meditation immediately.
It was only later that I understood the greatness of the gift I had been given – the enlivened mantra, full of blessings and grace.
It infused me with a sense of wholeness and purpose that I had never known before. And all I had to do was meditate daily, which renewed and deepened it.
Now, almost 50 years later, I offer the same to those who aspire higher. In free online programs as well as course and retreats, you can get this mantra and instruction in how to use it. Let those who have done their spiritual work give you a head start on yours!
Life got smaller during the pandemic, starting out with months of lock-down. It’s starting to edge back out again, but everyone has a different agenda and a different pace. Yoga and meditation will help, Our 2023 Calendar is based on a theme:
Arising
Healing leads to wholeness, empowering choices and deep-hearted living.
As you move into the world again, you have the chance to choose your trajectory in a whole new way. I want to empower you to live your life in the ways that are most fulfilling to you. Our retreats and trainings are designed to give you wholeness, choicefulness and deep-hearted living.
The first step is to arise, as the yogic texts exhort, “Arise! Awake! Oh my Dear One, you have been sleepwalking too long.” It’s time to come alive again! It’s time to share your light. Choose who you want to be and what you want to give to the world.
For 2023, our asana programs are focused on therapeutics. It’s about healing as a pathway to wholeness. Svaroopa® yoga has always excelled at therapeutics, which are especially needed now. Healing Retreats are available both online as well as in-person. And 2023 Teacher Trainings expand teachers’ therapeutic skills, both for private sessions as well as for teaching groups.
My twice weekly satsangs continue, featuring sutra discourses and group meditation. In addition, I will work closely with a dedicated study group who do five weekend retreats with me in the year. Three Shaktipat Retreats are scheduled, beginning with the 2022-23 New Year’s event.
In this important time of transition, you are invited to join me for our Free Japa Club. Twice daily, zoom in for five minutes of group mantra repetition, plus an additional minute for giving blessings to the world. E-Quotes continue with daily emails and lots of other Freebies including 1-minute videos and sound bites. Arise! Awake! Choose what you want to do and make it happen!
You were trained by masters. Your family and schoolteachers were masters of “busy mind.” They did their best to cultivate your mastery. Yogic training gives you “quiet mind,” a sweet inner stillness, spaciousness and peace. It deepens into bliss.
This process involves both training and conditioning. Training is when you study the theory and begin to apply it. A baseball pitcher gets coaching on his throw or a golfer on his swing. Their His coaches take videos and measure the speed of his ball. Then they show him how he’s losing power with some little thing, like the placement of his foot. He tries it out. The coaches help him fine-tune his new plan.
Now the conditioning begins. He practices. He throws the ball, then he throws it again. Hundreds or thousands of pitches later, he’s ready to bring it to the game, with the crowds roaring and his teammates watching his feet placement. He has to forget it all, even the theory and plan, so he can simply do it. He gets in the groove and throws the ball.
You need both training and conditioning. Theory alone is not enough; you need to practice. This means that you quiet your mind. But quiet mind doesn’t last very long in the beginning. Your mind gets busy again, so you have to quiet it again. And again… Repetition is the key.
Yoga excels at quieting your mind. All yogic practices are about quieting your mind, including the poses. With athletic and aerobic yoga styles, quiet mind is often attained through exhaustion. You’re too fatigued to think, which is mildly blissful. Similarly, most meditation systems work this way. You sit through the internal storms, waiting for them to pass so you get a moment of inner stillness. Then you do it again.
Svaroopa® Yoga is different. It works energetically. Your spine is the central conduit of energy in your body, so our poses decompress it, opening up new levels of energy inside. In Svaroopa® Vidya meditation, you pour your mental energy toward infinite Consciousness. These energetic interventions work more powerfully than…
One of my greatest memories is standing in the boat at the base of Niagara Falls. I was wonderfully overwhelmed by its power and beauty, along with its incredible roar. Yet it felt very familiar to me. It felt just like when I was living with my Guru in his Ashram.
The power and beauty of what he made available to us every day was mind-blowing, yet in a most propitious way. My mind and body were reformatted in that flow of energy emanating from him, for he was a powerhouse of Divine Grace. He gave the whole place an incredible vibe.
I opened Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram to offer you the same. You can melt into that flow or tap into it from a distance. It’s available. That’s the point. An Ashram exists to serve those who want to be served. It’s like how I plug my mobile phone in at the charging station every day — the Ashram is a place where you can plug in. And you can plug in from home.
My Teachings Article and podcasts have been online freebies for over ten years. We began teaching in conference calls around 20 years ago. Plus the pandemic thrust us into offering many more and different types of online programs. I love being able to bring the teachings and practices right to your door.
But there’s something about being together in person. You probably know this from your own family gatherings in recent months. I see it happening when we chant together online. Everyone is actually chanting alone, singing along with a sound stream coming out of a device with a tiny picture of the other singers. It’s just not the same. It’s like looking at a photo of Niagara Falls. Amazing, but not overwhelming.
I want to overwhelm you with the power and beauty of your own Divinity. I delight in propelling you past your resistances. But I can do more for you when you come in. You can’t mute me when we’re together in the same room. You can tune me out, but I notice the glazed look in your eyes and do something to bring you back. Plus there’s an energy field here. We’ve created it, with hundreds of yogis doing practices here for more than a decade. It’s quite a vibe. It helps me help you. Come on in and marinate in it. It’s why I created an Ashram — for you.
One of the first words you spoke was “no.” You probably used it more often than your other first words, “Mama” and “Dada.” That’s why this growth phase is called “The Terrible Twos.” You became able to resist as well as able to express what you wanted. Unfortunately, you’ve continued to say “no” ever since. What if you said “yes” more often?
My earliest teacher in this was my first dog. When our front door was open and someone was coming down the sidewalk, my dog would run out as fast as her short little legs could go. She was not barking. She ran up to the passers-by, threw herself down on the ground and showed her belly, all four paws up in the air. 100% of the walkers stopped, said, “Ahhh,” then rubbed her belly. Watching her made me reconsider how I’d been approaching life. The protective mode I’d perfected had me saying no to life far too often.
Yoga agrees that you need to recalibrate. All the yogic methodologies work on dissolving your resistances, melting your negativities and freeing you from your fears. Then you are able to experience inner peace and a sense of balance that supports you.
Yet this is merely the launching pad. Beyond peace and balance, yoga promises more. Once you get past the ways you negate yourself, you discover there is more inside than you ever imagined. Exploring that expansive inner reality is yoga’s specialty…
I always loved the children’s song, written by Harry Dixon Loes in the early 1900s:
This little light of mine
I’m going to let it shine…
I wanted to shine! Somehow I felt that I had an inner light that could shine. I didn’t know how to access it but I wanted it. My Guru opened up my access to the inner light that was already there. That light shines from deep inside.
Your mind blocks your own inner light in the same way you can use your thumb to block the sun. The human mind excels at negating things, thus the sages described how to negate the negation. My own name does this, with Nirmala meaning “not limited.” The 9th century sage Shankaracharya wrote a poem describing your own essence. He meticulously negates your limitations…
Join Gurudevi Nirmalananda for her FREE Wednesday evening chant and meditation program. With live music and printed words, you easily join everyone else in traditional yoga chanting.
After the chant, you’ll find meditating with a Master takes you deep effortlessly. It’s the best way to explore the inner dimensions of your own being. Whether you’re a newcomer or an experienced meditator, Gurudevi makes it easy as well as profound!
Gurudevi’s Wednesday satsangs are inspiring. My meditations are always deepened by her talk and her long chant. — Debbie M.
Online, this program is part of your Yoga Wednesday (bookends or full day). Or simply join us in-person in Downingtown PA.
Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna
Hearing Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s teachings on Swami Sundays is like getting a booster shot of the Self. Recently, Gurudevi said she’d received Shaktipat from her Baba over 200 times. And if he were still in his body, she’d still be getting Shaktipat from him. Hearing this filled me with an ongoing inspiration. If Gurudevi would still get Shaktipat, why wouldn’t I?
It had been a year since my last Shaktipat Retreat in 2021. My sadhana (personal practice) was neither moving forward nor moving me deeper within. Yet I knew Shaktipat could get me through whatever was keeping me blocked. Also, I felt a strong need to be in Gurudevi’s presence. So I signed up right away for the On-Site program last May.
Being surrounded by many deep yogis and swamis was so supportive. After I received Shaktipat, the swamis’ talks helped me understand the experiences I was having. For instance, in meditation, my thoughts can feel heavy. They are just words. But when I attach a story to them, they get me in the mud! But they are just words.
I also have a new appreciation for how Kundalini (meditative energy) works on my emotions. While in meditation, if an emotion comes up, I can sit with it and feel it. It has a purpose: Kundalini is burning through it. Since Shaktipat, I don’t have to pursue my emotions or thoughts in meditation. They no longer draw me out. Now experiencing them can draw me in deeper.
Swami Nirmalananda giving Shaktipat
Receiving Shaktipat has had a profound effect on my everyday life. I used to think enlightenment happened with a “boom” all at once! Now I see it is a process. I’m becoming more aware of a gradually deepening inner knowing. Gurudevi explains:
After Shaktipat, even when your mind returns to its familiar pattern, the deeper knowing is awakened and is always there.
Recently, I attended a street fair with my family. For some reason, I was getting more and more frustrated, annoyed and judgmental. I sat down on the curb and acknowledged my feelings. I began repeating mantra to myself. I could see what was happening as separate from my usual kneejerk reactions. I was able to stop my small-s self emotions. They couldn’t pull me where I didn’t want to go. Mantra shifted my state immediately. When I’m in capital-S Self, I can soften. I notice my relationships softening as well.
At the end of my Shaktipat Retreat, our assignment was to increase our meditation time. This felt challenging, as asana is always easier for me. Yet I am gradually working up to an hour. Now I really like meditation. I look forward to it every day. But it is my journaling that has changed the most. After meditation, Gurudevi always says, “Now is a good time to journal.” I used to stare at the blank page not knowing what to say after meditations. Now, the words just flow out of me! As Gurudevi promises, and through her Grace, I am still experiencing profound changes. They are ongoing, getting deeper and deeper, and better and better!
When you learn to teach others, you learn more deeply. Why does this happen? It’s because you care about helping other people, so you put more of yourself into your learning. When you put more of yourself in, you get more out of what you do. It’s true of everything in life and it works the same way in yoga. But what you get from yoga is more of your Self. By giving, you receive.
In Yoga Teacher Training (YTT), we make sure you know how to handle different kinds of bodies as well as different kinds of minds. When you put your new tools to work, and you really see how yoga works, you become ever more inspired. You truly can make a change in peoples’ lives.
I love watching new teachers transform. After your very first training, you begin teaching right away. Of course, when you do something a few times, you get better at it. The real surprise comes when you realize your own students are inspiring you.
They sleep better. They stand taller, walk stronger and breathe more deeply. They are less fazed by life’s surprises and more able to find answers that work. I remember the first time a student said to me, “My back doesn’t hurt anymore. I can pick up my grandchildren again.” She was delighted! So was I!
I decided to focus on teaching teachers over 30 years ago. I could see that the world needed more of what yoga offers even back then. It’s true now, too. I’ve trained over 3,000 teachers, from the beginning to advanced levels. When they share what they know, we are working together to transform and uplift the world.
Do you want to become a yoga teacher? Now is the time…
Bring a daily Ashram practice to your home with the Honored Guru Gita CD. Daily chanting of this essential text steeps you in Grace. Gurudevi’s guidance makes this practice accessible and joyful. The melody helps you find the rhythm of your breath and the Sanskrit words.
Free verse-by-verse pronunciation lessons are available online. In addition, all copies of the CD ordered in July come with a BONUS. You will receive a handout of the text, which includes Gurudevi’s English translation. You will be chanting the entire text in no time! Bring Honored Guru Gita into your home practice, and let Grace carry you deeper. Price: $19.95
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