By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Once you know your own Self, it is easy to see the Divinity shing in everyone and everything. Then you cannot label anyone as bad or wrong. Labels disintegrate in the light of Consciousness.

Yet you need not worry that the state of Self-Knowingness is a stage of drunken romanticism. While seeing the Divine in the mundane, you will have clarity about whether something is working well or not. It will be obvious whether someone is focused on their own selfish purposes or giving themselves a higher purpose. You will easily see if they are entrapped in their mind and memories, or if they are living in the reality of the here-and-now. And you will see if they are making mistakes — but it’s OK if they do. After all, how did you learn most of your lessons? You made a few mistakes along the way, too.

It’s easy to understand that, when you become enlightened, you will stop judging others. You will be more understanding. You’ll know when to help and when to back off. That means all you have to do is more yoga and you’ll eventually “get there.” But there is no “there” to get to. It’s all here, right here.

It isn’t enough to merely do yoga, because you need a massive shift in perspective, so that you see life itself as yoga. Relationships are yoga. Food is yoga. This is because yoga is fundamentally about the way you use your mind, which can be yogic or unyogic. It’s time to take yoga off your blankets and mats, to begin addressing your mind. If you cannot yet see God in everything, then at least see that the world is not black and white. It’s time to see the shades of grey. Get beyond the pairs of opposites.

This can be hard if you have always been an achiever. Those who get ahead by getting things right can get stuck in the opposites: “right vs wrong,” working hard to make sure they are always right. Those who have earned other people’s love and respect by always being good can get stuck in the opposites: “good vs bad,” making sure they are always the good one.

Those who learned to win the power struggles are stuck in “my way,” never discovering that others have amazingly good ideas too. Those who found that always being bad or wrong was the way to get their needs met can end up living in this trap for the rest of their life (or even many lifetimes).

Besides the ways you use the pairs of opposites to trap yourself, you also use them to evaluate other people. When you look at your neighbors, family members, or even the other yoga student on the floor next to you, your mind begins comparing. Your mind does this because of Maya, the cosmic power of delusion, making you see this divine world as merely mundane. Maya is the Sanskrit name for Consciousness, when manifesting as the multiplicity of forms and beings in this world. Maya does this by splitting the One into many, by creating the illusion of division and separation. Since your mind is a form of Consciousness, your mind is an agent of Maya. Without you having to do anything to get it going, your mind starts measuring, analyzing, comparing and judging on its own. Everyone’s mind does this.

Different people deal with the results of their analyses in different ways. In comparing yourself with your neighbor, your mind usually finds something wrong, either with them or with you. Whichever direction your mind goes, it puts someone on the bottom of the heap. Your mind usually says one person is worse than the other. This is because the mind’s job is to cut things into pieces — not to respect, uplift or value things. This is the nature of the mind and one of the reasons you must work on it.

Excerpt from A Yogic Lifestyle, pages 8‒10

By Rebecca (Jyoti) Yacobi

Interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney

Chanting is a powerful, effective way for me to prepare for meditation.  It draws me very deep, very quickly.  

And when I chant with Gurudevi, the sound reverberates progressively deeper and deeper.  Then, in meditation, what bliss!  My meditation is light-filled.  Like a magnet, it draws me even deeper.  Chanting and meditation with Gurudevi give me an experience of a spacious, expansive mind.  It almost feels like the space between my neurons is opened.

Gurudevi offered two Grace-infused Chanting and Meditation Retreats online in 2021.  I felt like a kid in a candy shop.  In April, the whole weekend was devoted to mantra.  I delved into the power of our mantra.  

Then she led us through the experience of chanting it.  Carried by the vibration of the sound, I tracked back deeper and deeper within. I had an embodied experience of what Gurudevi described — mantra is one with Self, with the Guru, with Shiva.

This April retreat was so blissful and transformative that I signed up for the next one. I wanted more.  It was dedicated to the warrior Goddess Durga, the Goddess who protects us. Chanting her name with Gurudevi was extraordinary.  It wasn’t just chanting a Great Being’s name.  I felt the amplification that comes from Grace flowing through her name. 

I just love chanting and meditation together.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

Your energy field extends beyond the edges of your body, often called “aura” by those who can see or feel it.  

This electromagnetic field is emitted by all living things.  It is called prana in Sanskrit.  Prana is the life force that makes your body be a living body instead of a corpse.  Corpses don’t have auras.

Thousands of years ago, yogis described the human aura as part of the cosmic process by which energy becomes matter.  The energy of Consciousness becomes your body and mind, for you to live in and work with.  Yet you are not your body, nor your mind.  You are the one who lives in them and uses them to have experiences and to express your light into the world.

The energy that materializes as your body is named your “subtle body” (sukshma-sharira).  This is where your chakras (energy centers) are found as well as your nadis (energy currents), all 720,000,000 of them.  In Chinese Medicine, nadis are called meridians.

A woman shared about going to an acupuncturist.  He advised that her meridians needed balancing.  They agreed on a plan for 12 weekly treatments. A few days later, she came to a meditation program with my Guru. She decided to stay on for the weekend Shaktipat Retreat.  Reluctantly leaving on Tuesday, she went for her acupuncture appointment. 

The acupuncturist checked her over and said, with a shocked tone, “What have you been doing?”  The woman asked why.  The acupuncturist said, “All your meridians are balanced.  I’ve never seen this happen!”  “Oh,” she said, “I got Shaktipat last weekend.”  The acupuncturist came to meet Baba.

How does Shaktipat do this?  It’s because the “shakti” of Shaktipat is the energy of Consciousness, which is the source of your prana.  Yes, it does mean that your energy field improves with Shaktipat.  It also improves with yoga poses, with breathing practices and with meditation.

In yoga’s poses and breathing practices, you are working with your body.  In meditation, you’re working with your mind. Yet there is more going on.  All the practices actually target your energies, your subtle body. This is a much more powerful level of your multidimensionality.  

As your pranic flows are optimized, physical health and vitality are merely the beginning.  Your mental-emotional energies are uplifted.  Best of all are the spiritual effects, as the subtle dimensions within are opened up for your exploration.  The goal is to…

By Joan Brager

I love the chant “Jaya Jaya Arati Nityananda,” track 7 on this CD. The first time I heard it at the Ashram, it sounded like a march for a noble cause.

I wanted to sing along. I found the refrain lively and simple enough for me to quickly catch on: “Jaya Jaya aaratee Nityananda.”

I knew we were singing about Nityananda. I had read and heard enough about him to know that he was a great spiritual being. I knew that “jaya jaya” meant “Hail hail.” But the sound of jaya jaya is better than that translation. You know you are heralding someone great when you sing it out.

So I boldly sang out the refrain.

I learned later, when I looked up the translation, that the refrain says ”Hail Hail, I offer lights to Nityananda.” That is a fitting tribute to someone who brought so much light to so many.

Hearing this chant in Gurudevi’s beautiful singing voice is a pleasure that I repeat often.