Brindi

As a Foundations Grad, I decided to go on to YTT Level 1 because I’ve become enamored of Svaroopa^® yoga. Through this yoga, I have found healing for physical concerns plus effortless freedom in emotional issues. So taking Foundations made sense, because I’m incapable of holding back from sharing things that I love. Teaching after Foundations was a rewarding beginning. The yoga works.

Yet I kept feeling that I needed more to offer my students, so desiring more Svaroopa^® yoga teacher training made perfect sense. That desire coincided with the profound feeling of wanting more of the More. Curiosity kept driving me to check the teaching schedules until one day something clicked inside me. I was committed to making the training happen. That step put me on an emotional and mental rollercoaster — registering, arranging my work and family life to leave, packing obsessively, booking flights, boarding the airport shuttle and finally walking into the Desmond conference center to check in. Suddenly, there was a switch to a kind of yoga-theme-park ride.

In YTT 1, the depth of asana training pulled, like gravity, at my mind and body. Philosophy and meditation moved me in what seemed to be several directions at once inside myself, pushing me to find a new equilibrium of being in Self. I think, as it was for Dr. Seuss’s Grinch, my heart grew three sizes one day. With internal healing, my Svaroopa® yoga experience continued as I sank into myself, progressing to a wider, fuller Me. Emotional freedoms blossomed, and I discovered they don’t have to grow out of old roots. Wisdom was shared freely.

Choosing to move further into the flow of Grace by stepping on the training path expanded Me more than I could have ever predicted. I know I have come away from this immersion training with the ability to teach more, along with a better understanding of how to press into my own practice effectively.

And, guess what? While still digesting and assimilating YTT 1, I am anticipating YTT 2 with excitement as well as trepidation. Gaining knowledge is amazing, but experiencing depths of Self is SO MUCH MORE!

Priya Kenney in India

India had a pull on me way before I ever went there. Once I went, the fascination just increased. India is so vibrant, with so much life pulsing everywhere and an intoxicating spirituality deeply integrated into the culture. I noticed something decidedly different in the eyes of her people that I don’t see in the eyes of Westerners. I didn’t know what it was, but I wanted to keep seeing it.

After two amazing trips there, a long period passed. I had a persistent longing to go back. It seemed crazy to say so, but I missed India with an ache. It felt like home to me in ways I couldn’t describe. This was all before discovering Svaroopa^® yoga. When I learned that Svaroopa^® yoga was deeply rooted in India, it came as no surprise.

Several years ago, I had a mysterious and debilitating illness. After doctoring with nearly every form of traditional and alternative health care, I consulted a Vedic astrologer. He confirmed that I was going through a very difficult passage and recommended that I donate a cow. Swamiji suggested instead that I ask Prasad, a priest at the Nityananda temple in Ganeshpuri, to do a fire ceremony on my behalf. It took several phone conversations over a period of weeks to make arrangements for what was recommended — a three-day fire ceremony to be held at a place called Fire Mountain Ashram. When the day arrived, I called Prasad at a pre-arranged time and listened to the chanting of the priests across the continents and oceans. It was electrifying. And I spoke to the man and woman that ran the Ashram and who were standing in for me and my husband during the ceremony. Little did I know then that I would be staying at Fire Mountain Ashram and enjoying meals with Jeanetta and Dahvee a few years later on the India 2013 trip. During the phone conversations with Prasad, he told me several times that I should come to Ganeshpuri. It felt like a personal invitation, and my longing to go increased in intensity.

When the India 2013 trip was announced, I knew that I had to go. There were layers of longing. It wasn’t only the persistent pull of India and that connection I established a few years earlier with Prasad. The real heart of it was the incredibly amazing opportunity to go with Swami Nirmalananda to the sacred place where she, her Guru and her Guru’s Guru lived, served and carried the lineage forward. There were all those stories Swamiji tells us about sitting with her Baba in his Ashram, serving him for years and hearing the teachings at his feet. On top of that, I had read Muktananda’s Play of Consciousness, and his many stories about Nityananda and Ganeshpuri and serving his Guru. To be able to go to those places with Swamiji, to chant the Guru Gita with her in Ganeshpuri and to sit at her feet and hear the teachings — it was indescribably compelling.

The trip exceeded all hopes and expectations. Of course there were things to sort out beforehand with my husband and two teenage boys, but I mostly remember the trip coming together with great ease. Though I was a lot stronger, one of my concerns was the long flight. The remedy was simple. I put every single one of Swamiji’s chanting CD’s on our iPad and listened to the Guru Gita and various chants the whole way over and back, sometimes falling asleep to a chant. Swamiji’s voice and the chanting was a river of Grace carrying me through.

Click here to register or learn more about India 2015: Ganeshpuri’s Grace.

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Jyoti with Swamiji

Soon after the announcement of “The Trip of a Lifetime to India” came out, I was visiting the Ashram and Swamiji asked me if I was going. I had felt a tug in my heart as soon as I knew about this holy pilgrimage. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to go?! But my mind came up with very “sound” reasons why I could not go — my work schedule, my family obligations, the difficulty of the long distance travel etc. etc.

Yet Swamiji had planted a seed when she asked me that question. Grace softened my mind to the infinite possibilities unfolding. Within a month, I was booking the trip, planning how to take three weeks off work, and going to India.

Indeed, it was a life-changing experience. India is the epitome of contradictions. The sights, the sounds, the smells, and the colors of India are imbued with the extremes and paradoxes of life itself: Tantra in action, with spirituality woven in the sounds of cell phones ringing, dogs barking, incense burning, children laughing, and bells ringing at Nityananda’s temple. Ganeshpuri — the home of the Svaroopa^® Yoga and Meditation lineage, Bhagavan Nityananda and Swami Muktananda — is the quintessential India.

I am so grateful to have gone on that trip to Ganeshpuri. The experience of a spiritual pilgrimage is more than any other voyage. It is not just sightseeing, although we visited many sights. It is not just spiritual practices, although we did lots of those. It is all that and so much more. Spending precious time with Swamiji, as she guided us through the spiritual practices, was a great gift. What could be more valuable than the time spent with the Guru, especially in a place where her Guru comes from?

Swamiji helped us integrate our experiences with daily Sri Guru Gita chants, satsangs, and asana classes, while we also attended Abhishek (ritual bathing ceremony) to Nityananda, Muktananda’s ashram and many little temples.

One morning after visiting the Nityananda temple, I entered a small Shiva temple right next to the central Nityananda temple. I walked down a few steps into a stone structure and felt the cool air emanating from the stones. A vortex of gravitational energy pulled me in; a whirl of energies began spiraling within me, Shiva performing a cosmic dance within the inner realms of my being, Infinity housed within this body, my body. How lucky and fortunate I was to be with Swamiji and other yogis on that day, to integrate this experience during a deep meditation.

On another day, we were blessed to have a Vedic fire ceremony. It felt as if I were immersed in another dimension, beyond this time and space. It was absolutely amazing!

Swamiji told us stories, led us through chants and meditations, shared meals with us, guided us with so much love and compassion.

Today, the internal shifts from that trip are continuing to resonate in me beyond the physical and tangible. The subtle, continuing effects of the trip can be best summarized with the following words:

Shiva’s cosmic dance
Manifesting within me
Every cell is alive
It is exhilarating and overwhelming
The mind blazing with light
Absorbed in the vast ocean of stillness
Merging into infinity
Or is it infinity opening in me?

The Guru opening doors
I float in the inner realms of my Being
Knowing what I have always known
Remembering, not forgetting
“You are Shiva, my child,
You are That”
Silence abounds within me
As I open my eyes in this realm

To register to to learn more about India 2015: Ganeshpuri’s Grace, click here.

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Who can know the greatness of a Great One?

Who can see the brilliance of the sun?

To try to see, to try to say, to try to think — it’s all beyond my poor mind.

Baba.  There is only Baba.

This world is a reflection of His splendor.

He shines through your eyes.

His heart beats in mine.

Every breath is Him, giving me life.

Every thought arises from His command.  Every action is a gift I lay at His feet.

Baba.  There is only Baba.

Where can I go to see Him again?

He departed from this world at the end of His body’s life.

Where can I go that He is not present?

He pervades this world fully.

Yet it is inside that He is most Real, for He is my own Self.

Baba.  There is only Baba.

Who can know the greatness of a Great One?

Who can see the brilliance of the sun?

To try to see, to try to say, to try to think — it’s all beyond my poor mind.

Baba.  There is only Baba.

I am always sitting at His feet.

The full moon in May – an auspicious beginning for the baby that grew to be Swami Muktananda.  We celebrated last night at Downingtown Yoga & Meditation Center, but the moon is still full tonight.  Take a look!  Maybe even whisper a thank you, from your lips to Baba’s ears.  I certainly live in a continuous thank you, for all He gave me and all that He has empowered me to give you.

Mangoes!  We served mangoes as prasad at the end of the program.  Baba gave me my first mango, so I always think of Him when I have mangoes; another reason to love them.  Baba did 9 years of meditation in a small hut in a mango grove, but it was during the time period that Nityananda had denied mangoes to Baba.

Nityananda didn’t actually command Baba to stop eating mangoes.  He merely served mangoes to everyone, skipping Baba, so Baba took that as a command.  Then, even though He lived in a mango grove, where ripe mangoes fell from the trees, filling the air with their scent, but He did not eat a single bite.  Only after Nityananda called Baba back to live in Ganeshpuri did Nityananda offer Baba a mango again.  After that, Baba ate mangoes and served them to us.

To follow the Guru’s command – Baba knew how to do this.  He looked for the ways in which Nityananda was guiding Him.  He remembered Nityananda’s every word, watched Nityananda’s eyes, considered everything Nityananda did and everything Baba got from Nityananda, contemplated the experiences that happened in Nityananda’s presence.  Baba is a great model for being a disciple, a model I’ve followed for almost 40 years.

I have followed the path that my Guru trod, which is a well-worn path known through the ages.  It takes love and courage, both of which my Baba gave me.  This path gives more than you can even imagine ever being possible.  The promise of yoga is true.  Baba’s life proved that.  Happy Birthday, Baba!

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h