Finding yourself is a matter of finding your “capital-S Self,” your Divine Essence. For that, you need to know two things: where and how to look. These three taglines point you in the right direction. Let them inspire you to find your Self, in a simple and easy way that opens up profound levels of inner experience. We can teach you how to bring the teachings of the ancients into your modern lifestyle.
Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation: Feeling Lost? Find Your Self in Svaroopa
Discover your innermost essence. Outer answers are never completely fulfilling. Only when you have experienced your own Self do you really know who you are. Called svaroopa in the yogic texts, this is the foundation of your own beingness. We will teach you how to meditate on your own Self.
Deep and profound meditation, opened up through a simple and easy process, this is our specialty. You experience the difference in your first meditation. It works because we use the same methodology as the tantric sages of our tradition. Meditation doesn’t have to be complicated.
Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation: Ancient Wisdom for our Modern Times
In the midst of the ever-changing world, your essence remains the same. Follow the breadcrumb trail laid out by the tantric sages. These ancient teachings guide you inside to your own inherent Divinity while explaining the process and goal. Discover who you are at the deepest level within through meditation on your own Self.
As a Board member, I support GeoCenters, help plan and support Local Mandali activities and support both in-person and Zoomed Mandali Travel programs. Other sevites work with me in these amazing sevas. I feel we are the extended hands of Gurudevi and the other swamis. We reach out to our larger community.
We are also the hands and arms of Svaroopa®yoga teachers reaching to the Ashram. The reciprocal flow of shakti is palpable. I have the good fortune to see the dedicated service that Gurudevi, the Swamis and the Ashram staff and sevites provide. In turn I see the dedicated service each Svaroopa®yoga teacher provides. Each serves their students, community and the Ashram, powerfully modeling disciples’ grace in response to Guru’s Grace.
As the pandemic took hold, it seemed as if “What the world needs now is more yoga!” Our Ashram answered the call. The Ashram website has always provided extensive free teachings. But last year, Gurudevi added twice daily mantra repetition in the free Japa Club. Our social media presence expanded, with more content for new yogis on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. This outreach is a greater presence in the world, which also supports the promotion of Svaroopa®yoga in your community. Our five swamis also offer free Zoom programs for local teachers to host for their community.
This has been a year of challenges. But your yoga and your Ashram have supported you through them. I can see clearly how this has supported me in these challenging times. What I can do to make a difference is to support the yoga organization that supports me. I have offered dakshina (financial gifts) to the Ashram over the past years. I increased these gifts this past year. I ask you to do the same. Now is the time to gift the organization that gives so much to each of us and the world. The Ashram is a nonprofit organization. As such it cannot expand and grow without consistent financial support.
You play an important role. Yoga opens a two-way door, the light shining in and the light emanating out. You allow access inward, to the deeper dimensions of your being. You allow access outward, shining the light of Consciousness out into the world.
One way I truly see this two-way door is in the Teaching Online Therapeutics (TOT). This online teacher training is revolutionary. Many teachers report wonderful personal benefits as well as healing benefits for their students. I had a significant physical challenge the end of 2020. Through the care of a Svaroopa® yoga teacher and her offering me TOT poses, I was well supported in healing. I gave and will continue to give extra financial support to the Ashram in her honor. It is a way to celebrate her as well as to give to the organization that gives so much.
Gurudevi says, “In supporting any organization and serving others, you put your body, mind and heart all to work at the same time. With these three capacities all focused in one direction, you can make a difference in the world. And uplift yourself at the same time.”
I ask you too to reflect upon the gifts flowing your way through the Ashram. Financially supporting the Ashram allows these gifts to continue flowing to you and the world. “What the world needs now is more yoga!”
Direct a gift to the Ashram through our website donation page:
You can donate on Facebook. You can call us at (610) 644-7555. Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank you.
Yoga has been a blessing in my life. I have been shifted by Gurudevi Nirmalananda and her Svaroopa ® yoga. The moment I met a Svaroopa yogi, I immediately shifted. Because I felt the Grace right away, I dove in. I didn’t know that it was Grace I was feeling. I just knew I was drawn to wanting more. And this yoga has delivered. It has given me immeasurable gifts.
Most amazing, these gifts are not just for me. They are for everyone. Svaroopa® yoga evokes your inner light. Then that light radiates out to the world. This is yoga’s promise. While all yoga is good yoga, there is something more to Svaroopa®yoga and meditation. It comes from a lineage of Meditation Masters, based in a Shaktipat tradition. They open you to yoga’s promise of enlightenment in this lifetime.
Please join me in donating to Svaroopa ® Vidya Ashram’s spring fundraiser to radiate this gift out to the world. What a way to send blessings to the world that has endured so much difficulty for more than a year!
Let me tell you about how Svaroopa ® yoga blessings inspired me to give back financially. I don’t even like exercise, yet I wanted to sign up for a yoga class right away. Let’s do some yoga. Sign me up now — and so it began.
I started with the private Embodyment ® Yoga Therapy sessions. Then life happened, and I needed Vichara (guided self-inquiry) sessions. They helped me navigate through rocky times. I knew I was getting something great. I wanted even more. How could I learn more about this wonderful practice? I was guided to Gurudevi’s book Yoga: Inside & Outside. I have never looked back. I am changed in ways I wouldn’t have believed were possible.
Besides my personal experience, I see this yoga’s effects on my family. One niece started Svaroopa® yoga classes while the other is delving into the meditation. They have seen results right away, just as I did. Friends have joined our Japa Club and settled into Consciousness within. They have purchased Gurudevi’s CDs including Meditation: Deep & Easy and her Experience Shavasana& Ujjayi Pranayama recording. These meditative tools have shifted these young women profoundly to divine inner experience. So they shine with the light of God. And they radiate that light into the world.
I see the effects of the Svaroopa® practices in a multitude of ways. The Ashram is using cutting edge technology to spread Gurudevi’s teachings and the Light of the Guru through the world. What a way to make the difference you’ve always wanted to see!
Our donations facilitate this revolution for good. To quote one of Gurudevi’s satsang discourses, “What the world needs now is yoga sweet yoga.” Do we ever! Our financial support makes this happen. Our donations shift the world to the light of God/Guru.
Direct a gift to the Ashram through our website donation page:
Or you can donate on Facebook. You can also call us at (610) 644-7555, or send us a check at 116 E. Lancaster Avenue, Downingtown, PA 19335.
If you want to give the world the gift of Divine Grace, donate to the Ashram. Light the world with Guru’s Grace. Donate today. Donate in gratitude. Donate in love. I’ll go first. Please join me.
Lucky for me, I’m a Svaroopa® yogi. Even more, I’ve had the great good fortune of residing at the Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram since July 2019. During the pandemic, I’ve been living in a most blessed place. I say this not because I’ve been safe from contagion, though I have. I say this because I’ve witnessed the Ashram’s yogic miracles.
Within 10 days of 2020 pandemic lockdown, the Ashram was offering yoga online. Swami Nirmalananda, whom we call Gurudevi, was Zooming the blessings of yoga and meditation into homes worldwide. I have seen how tirelessly Gurudevi and our five other swamis serve the world. And I’ve been privy to the blessings received by community members and other seekers globally. As another Svaroopa® yogi put it, “The Ashram and Gurudevi are important to people in this yoga community. And she is important to people who haven’t yet met her.”
Please join me in donating as generously as possible to this spiritual organization. I am contributing financially to this not-for-profit organization to support its worldwide work. During an unprecedented catastrophe, the Ashram has given its all, 24/7 for more than 365 days.
boiserivertimeyoga.com
Practicing since 2005, I’ve experienced the Grace flowing through Svaroopa® yoga. Sciatica and digestive issues have healed. Gurudevi’s teachings have evoked spiritual illumination from layers of shadow where I long lived. In gratitude for this transformation, I’ve been a longtime donor. This year, however, I am donating in gratitude for how Gurudevi’s Grace-full teachings have benefitted the world.
You can be sure that every bit of your financial gift will go to supporting the Ashram’s work. It’s been essential over the past year. As we move into another “new normal,” the Ashram’s work continues to be crucial.
Participants in the free online Japa Club have reported that repeating mantra with Gurudevi has been a lifeline. Amidst isolation, dramatic uncertainty, and fear of death worldwide, Japa Club members opened to divine peace and calm, inside. Moreover, Gurudevi leads participants in offering blessings to everyone in the world affected by the pandemic.
Plus, Gurudevi created the online Meditation Club, online yoga classes, Zoomed healing sessions, meditation and chanting retreats, a philosophy discussion group, her Sunday Satsang subscription program, and training for teachers in how to Zoom their own classes.
Yogis far and wide have benefitted profoundly from these offerings :
“I live alone and far from any other Svaroopa® yoga teachers, classes or communities. Once the magnitude of this pandemic became apparent, I realized that I really needed to “up my game” in terms of my own practices — more asana, more meditation, more japa. The Meditation Club is helping me “up my game.” Grace flows even stronger whenever we meditate together, even over the phone. At the end of the meditation, we repeat mantra together, offering the benefits of mantra to all those who have been affected by this pandemic. For me, that offering is going to the whole world.” — Caroline K.
“What Gurudevi has done in this pandemic to create online ways to deliver her Grace-full teachings has been a lifesaver.” — Barbara A.
“With my legs re-aligned in my hip sockets, I feel supported and upright, whether sitting or standing. It’s a feeling of being grounded and expanded at the same time.” — Leonora T.
“My left leg [seriously weakened by abdominal surgery] now functions normally.” — Marianne S.
Reading these expressions of gratitude, please reflect on how the Ashram has supported you. Giving back in gratitude for what you receive is the ancient yoga practice of dakshina. There are three ways you can direct your financial gift:
You can donate on our website or on Facebook. You can call us at (610) 644-7555. Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank You!
The whole story of enlightenment is told in these three short phrases, taglines for Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation. This is how meditation works in our tradition: deep and easy meditation from the beginning, which leads to bliss arising within. Then you learn how to live in the bliss, which gives you the inner freedom that is enlightenment itself.
Meditation: Deep & Easy CD by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation: Getting Beyond Your Busy Mind
Learn how to use your mind to get beyond your mind. Easily experience the deeper dimension of your own existence through this approach to meditation. Harness the power of your mind to help you with the inner discovery of your own Self. This inner experience transforms your mind.
Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation: Bliss Blossoms Within
Experience the bliss of your own being arising from its inner source. This meditative system, which makes bliss easily accessible. How does it work? You’re doing the same thing that the yogic sages did, steering your mind toward Consciousness. Thus you discover that you are bliss-incarnate.
To become free from your worries, regrets and reactions, meditate. To become free to laugh, to create and to share, meditate. This approach to meditation takes you beyond your limitations and gives you your deeper essnece, called your own Self. You can tell the difference the very first time.
These easy vegetarian nachos are an Ashram favorite.
They’re crispy, cheesy, nutritious, delicious and fun!
Servings: 8–10
Protein: 20–22 grams per serving
Servings: 8–10
Protein: 20–22 grams per serving
6 Tastes
Sweet: tortilla chips, cheese, avocado, zucchini
Salty: tortilla chips, cheese, salsa
Sour: sour cream, salsa
Astringent: tortilla chips, refried beans, cheese
Pungent: salsa, jalapeños
Bitter: lettuce, cilantro
Ingredients:
1 family size bag yellow corn tortilla chips
1 can vegetarian refried beans
1 jar salsa (of your choice)
1 16-oz bag shredded Mexican cheese (we use a mix of cheddar, jack and asadero)
4-oz shredded cheddar cheese (~1 cup)
Optional Toppings
shredded iceberg lettuce
diced avocado
sour cream
pickled jalapeños
chopped cilantro
more salsa
Instructions
Preheat broiler to 550 degrees Fahrenheit.
Spread tortilla chips on a large baking sheet lined with foil or a Silpat baking mat. Keep them in a single layer, though they may overlap.
Place level tablespoons of vegetarian refried beans, about 4 inches apart, on top of the tortilla chips. You won’t use the whole can of refried beans. Warm the remainder in a small pot to serve as a side.
Add a teaspoon of salsa next to each spoonful of refried beans.
Sprinkle the Mexican cheese in a thick layer over the chips.
Sprinkle the Cheddar cheese evenly over the Mexican cheese.
Broil until cheese is melted, bubbling, and browning. The corners of the chips along the edge of the pan will be dark brown but not burnt. It’s best to stay there while they’re broiling. Don’t walk away!
Serve with your choice of toppings. We also serve steamed zucchini and the rest of the refried beans on the side.
By Nancy Wittenberg Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain
Last March, I decided to sit down and do a mantra meditation. I’d been away from it for several years, during which I was doing an active, verbally guided meditation. I sat down, closed my eyes, and began repeating the mantra I received from Gurudevi. In that moment, I knew I had returned home. It was amazing how incredibly peaceful I felt. I immediately realized that mantra meditation served me much better than what I’d been doing. I began to feel more grounded and centered in the Self.
Then my many vichara sessions inspired me to return to asana practice. I needed to address my osteoporosis. With my body healing, a daily meditation practice was the next step. Joining the Meditation Club has helped me delve deep, keeping me on track every day. This combination of Ashram practices is powerful. It has triggered my interest in the Year-Long Programme.
Everything has happened gradually, one practice leading to another. After I signed up for Gurudevi’s Year-Long Programme, I began attending her Swami Sundays. I also started to listen to Gurudevi’s free discourses any time of day, especially when out for a walk. Everything she says resonates deeply inside. I get wonderful moments of inner recognition, which is so incredibly blissful. The depth of these teachings has been helpful in getting me back to Svaroopa® yoga.
This past year, I took a Shaktipat Retreat, the New Year’s Retreat and, most recently, the Yogify Your Life course. During it, I’ve learned to get to bed at the same time every night. A regular bedtime has helped me to get up earlier. Then I can get several practices in during the early hours of the day. This consistency continues to give me a better understanding of my capital-S Self.
I notice that how I am in relationships is shifting. I have a greater awareness of how I’m interacting with people. I am in a more peaceful and centered state. I am trying to see everyone as Shiva. I can witness my mind, especially when it goes into a judging and comparing mode. Instead of getting caught up in thoughts, I try to bring myself back to mantra. I come back home to my Self.
Overall, I have a greater awareness of so many things in my life. My progress through the poses is changing how I stand. Now I can bring my head in line with my spine. I am no longer in the future. Rather, I am in my own Presence. When I am in the “doing” mode during activities, I now can choose my state. The openings I’ve gotten from vichara sessions and mantra repetition have been incredibly powerful. These practices are deeply infused with Guru’s Grace. They continually open me up to my inner Self. I am so grateful.
You know the feeling so well — it’s not time yet. I felt that way near the end of my senior year in high school, nearly done and yet going to school every morning. And that ninth month of pregnancy lasts much more than four weeks, right?
Here we are again. They tell us that the COVID-19 vaccines will be available for everyone in the USA within 5 weeks. It might take a little longer to get them all distributed, but life is certainly going to change soon. When? We don’t know. How? We don’t know. What do you want it to be? You probably don’t know that either.
Ideally, your yoga taught you how to be good at “I don’t know.” You’ve experienced it when doing a yoga class or set of poses. You simply don’t know how your body is going to be until you get into the flow of it. Ditto for meditation. When you sit, you don’t know what’s going to happen inside. All you know is that, by the end, you’ll be better. Guaranteed. What an amazing guarantee this is!
I’m treasuring these last few weeks of cocooning. It’s a precious time with dear ones. For me, I’ve been cocooned with five more swamis. It’s been an amazing way to deepen their process, especially in the first year since they took sannyasa initiation. We just have a few days more. It’s so sweet.
I can feel the undercurrents, subtle stirrings that will blossom forth with the spring. Our first crocus popped out today. More are on the way. Similarly, our first group of yogis came in for a retreat last week. Masked and distanced, we had an incredible time — deep and profound, fun and bliss-filled. Another group comes in a couple of weeks. Yep, the momentum is starting to build.
But it’s not time yet. It’s close, so close… but not today. Maybe not tomorrow or the next day. So what do you do? Live in the present. The future will come whether you want it to or not. Be here now.
Since the pandemic is happening to everyone, you really can’t whine effectively though you might want to. Still, your mind may have come up with this familiar question, “Why?” It’s really a complaint, but still a question worth asking.
The short answer is that it’s karma. It’s the easy answer as well, since everything that happens to you is karma. Technically it’s all karmic repercussions, called “karmaphal,” meaning the fruits of your karma. What you put out comes back, simple and straightforward. Technically, when you put it out, it’s called “karma,” a Sanskrit that means action.
Whatever you do brings results. Everyone appreciates this when they work hard at something and achieve their goal. It’s the law of karma that makes this possible.
You also create karma when you’re feeling cranky or being selfish. You put out negativity and you get an equal dose of it back. When you hurt someone, even if you think hurtful thoughts, you’re planting the seeds of your own pain in the future. Those seeds are stored in your spine, which is why Svaroopa® yoga poses are all about decompressing your spine. It helps you clear your karma.
With the pandemic, we’re talking about world karma. Obviously, it’s time for the world to slow down, even to burrow in and reevaluate priorities. At this point, if everything could go back to normal sometime, would you go back to doing what you were doing before? At the pace you were doing it? Or has the pandemic changed you?
That’s why I continue to say, “Do more yoga.” A freeform translation of Patanjali’s sutra 1.22, this reminder will help you burrow inward, exploring deeper into your own Divine Essence. It’s not about hiding from the world, but about discovering who you really are. The purpose of yoga is to make you more authentic and real, whether you’re staying at home or are out in the world. Could this be the whole point of the pandemic?
By Lisha Reynolds, interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney
Gurudevi’s compassion radiates out to everyone. And I feel individually blessed by her. I’m lucky. I’m more than lucky. I’m fueled and uplifted by Guru’s Grace. Where do you start when talking about Gurudevi’s qualities? There is so much.
Gurudevi is adept at taking a sutra and distilling it so you know what it’s saying to you, personally. She uses examples that are clear and concrete. It’s powerful for me to read what she has written. Her clarity takes me to my Self every single time. My mind might be distracted, but on the other track I hear her speak. Or I read the teachings and they get in there. Of course, sometimes I need to hear or read it three times (or more). But that’s not because she hasn’t made it clear. It is crystal clear. It just takes a while to get through the internal density. Her clarity makes it easier for me to be clearer in my own thoughts.
Gurudevi knows what it’s like to be dense and to have the suffering we have. She knows what it’s like to have the wandering and the longing. She writes each discourse so that you know that she knows what it’s like to not be Self-Realized. She has experienced what it’s like on the dense side of things.
Her teachings are direct and clear, reaching me on a deep level. But there is always that thread of compassion underlying the exquisite clarity. When someone is direct but lacking in compassion, it feels like you’re being told what to do, that you’re being ordered or dictated to. They don’t care if you take their advice or not. Gurudevi cares whether I know my Self. And she is here to help me — and each of us — on that journey. Merriam-Webster defines compassion as “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Gurudevi’s sole mission is for me — and for each of us —to know the Self! That is true compassion. It’s genuine. It’s there every single time. Whenever or wherever it is, it’s the same experience.
SVA Blog 