Category Archives: Courses

Downingtown Yoga & Meditation Center – Upcoming FREE Events & More

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downingtownSaturday Nov 23, Free Newcomer Classes
Choose to come at 1:30 or 3:30 pm (or you can even take both classes)

Enjoy a free class while you help us train our new teachers!  They’ve been studying for over a year and are now teaching under the supervision of one of our grads – come and let them show you their stuff.  Come and let them show you how easy it is to change your body, calm your mind and open your heart.  Click here to reserve or call us at  610.644.7555.

Sunday November 24, Swami Sunday (FREE)

Join us for our last meditation program in 2013, led by Swami Nirmalananda just before she leaves for her annual India retreat.  A morning full of chanting, chai, great conversation and profound teachings – culminating in a sweet and deep meditation.

8:30-10:00 am – “Srii Guru Gita
10:30 am – 12:15 pm — Satsang with Swami Nirmalananda

Private Yoga Therapy

A great way to fit your yoga into a busy holiday schedule, pick your time and reap the benefits of many yoga classes in just one hour.  Devaraja, Kanchan and Sarvataa will work with you to make immediate changes in the way you feel, as well as to give you easy things you can do at home for yourself.

Holiday Special
$55.00 per session through December 12 2013

Jan 24-26, Shaktipat Retreat with Swami Nirmalananda

“An experience of my Self at a depth I didn’t even know was possible. I feel truly blessed to have had that time with Swamiji and my fellow yogis.” – Theresa Reynolds

Receive the initiation that Swami Nirmalananda is known for:  the awakening of your own potential to know your own Divinity.  A Kundalini master, Swamiji has been empowered to give you this boost into cosmic consciousness, a tangible experience of the Reality Within.  Let her open you up to you.

Changes in YTT/ATT Courses – by Swami Nirmalananda

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Two days after Teacher Training programs were consolidated under the Ashram, our first program began — Foundations Review, leading to YTT Level 1.  I knew the “Sakti[1] shift would affect the students, so I had to set up a system that would make it seamless.  It’s like the astronauts blasting off from Earth; how do you subject them to all those G-forces and still make it easy?  That’s what Grace does: makes the hard easy.  That’s my job description.

The challenge was that I couldn’t add more teachings nor remove any poses, not if I wanted them to get the comprehensive education that a Svaroopa® yoga teacher needs.  What could I do?  I wove japa into their day in two short segments, one before lunch and one before dinner.  Five minutes of out-loud mantra repetition together, honoring your own Divine Self by repeating the mantra…  It’s been amazing!

I also added a daily candle ceremony (arati). At the course opening, we honor the Divine Light within each student as well as in the Masters of our lineage.  One of the Teacher Trainers performs this traditional ceremony during the course opening mantras.  It only takes about 90 seconds but it transforms the room and everyone in it.

We also open with an arati every morning, with the YTT students getting the chance to sign up and learn how to do this.

Reports on How the Changes Are Working

Mandy Dixon

Mandy Down’s hands in Anjali Mudra

Teacher Trainer Vidyadevi Stillman says, “I have noticed that the practice of japa before meals helps the students in a number of ways. If stuff comes up in the classroom or in their lives (hearing from family and friends from home), they handle it with more ease and Grace. They are experiencing more equanimity — mentally, emotionally, and physically. There is a new level of support for the internal process they go through, the inner clearing of the stuff that gets in their way.  They are more inwardly settled. It’s truly amazing to see them completing their japa before their meal, and sitting with hands together in Anjali Mudra. They keep their hands much longer at their hearts and sit longer in their own Self all day!”

“The japa pulls them away from whatever they are caught up in as we approach their meal breaks,” describes Teacher Trainer Karobi Sachs. “They are caught up in their bodies or minds — engaging with a new, challenging pose, worrying ‘Can I do this?’ Japa pulls them back to the Self so easily, so quickly!

“After the Newcomers Class, our group went out to eat at a local restaurant and one person asked, ‘Shall we do Japa before the meal?’ It was clear that these practices are beneficial and meaningful to them! It’s nice for us Teacher Trainers to do japa before lunch and dinner, too, to also settle into ourSelves.

“In the mornings, the arati to our Guru photos and murtis brings a cohesiveness to our day’s practices in a new way. I’ve heard students say that their meditations are much deeper, and they are getting so much out of the chanting and meditation.

Many have told me, ‘I’m really enjoying the meditation; it’s really working for me.’ In the most recent training, they saw Nirmalananda on the first day, instead of closer to the middle of training as in the past. I could see that her presence shifted them/settled them deeply from the start.”

Prakash (DavId) Falbaum took the recent YTT Level 2, and he recalls, “As I drove into the Exton parking lot, it literally felt like driving up to the Ashram. I could feel that same flow of Grace, now at Exton. I began my week with Vidyadevi’s “Deeper, Deeper” Half-Day Workshop. Through my 10 days of training that followed, the biggest thing I noticed personally was a change in how I handled my resistance. When I hit resistance, I didn’t care; every time I hit my resistance, I expected to get upset, but I didn’t. I was able to deal with it and stay internal. I feel that has a lot to with the flow of Grace.

“For example, after working on Navasana most of one morning, I couldn’t just muscle through it. I finally had to use my abs, and I needed extra props. Normally I resist extra props, which I had to accept from Vidyadevi. In the past I would have gotten angry at myself. But this Level 2 had an atmosphere that was so very light. I just accepted where I was, and moved through the process. Also, I found that four hours of sleep per night was enough, and didn’t get tired.

“It was wonderful to see Swamiji three times instead of twice as in Level 1. With the MYF-SVA Consolidation she has the freedom to visit and offer teachings in programs more easily. I can see they will just get better when they become residential.”

This Stuff Works – in a Wonderful New Way

With the “bookends” of japa and arati happening morning, noon and night, no one ever gets far away from their own Self.  The bootcamp approach to Teacher Training, so well known in every Western style of yoga, has been softened.  It’s a warm-hearted approach, a deep-hearted approach, a tail-lengthening and core opening way of learning core opening.  The interweaving and consistency, outside and inside, is a true joy to behold — tangible in the eyes and the breath of the teachers-in-training.  They’re a whole new breed.

[1]   Pronounced shak-ti; this is the Sanskrit transliteration form I’ve been using for the last three years as it is computer friendly and easy on the eyes.  Read more about the Velthius transliteration here.

If I Could Live Next Door – by Swami Nirmalananda

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swami

I often think how wonderful it would be if I could live next door to you.  There’d be an ease to the day’s activities, with a neighborly support and maybe a bit more.  We’d wave from our driveways or from our kitchen windows. You might share a cup of tea with me on some mornings; we might talk of consciousness into the night periodically.  I created the Year-Long Programmes to make up for the distance between your home and mine.

In the busy-ness of life, I know you cannot easily add a “course” to your week, so I tried to avoid the college course model.  Instead of creating deadlines or exams, I’ve built a program that reaches into your home and into your life, to make your yoga real — to make your Self tangible.

Recently a yogini told me, “I want to study with you more.”  She didn’t want to move in to the Ashram and she was very clear that she didn’t want to take any immersion courses.  So I explained about the Year-Long Programme now getting underway, but her eyes glazed over.  You know that glaze if you’ve spent any time around teenagers; it is a turned off, tuned out, “I’m not getting what I want” look.  Except that what she wants is found in that course!  So I thought I could at least tell you about my design for these programs — why I created this format for you.

Every Guru has a special group meeting, for those who have been studying the longest.  It’s usually a weekly meeting, in person, often in the Guru’s office or bedroom, to discuss subtle points or even current news.  To find the yoga in the yoga.  To find the yoga in life.  It’s a rare and precious opportunity to participate in such groups!

Because I have been serving a widespread community for more than 20 years, I wanted to create the same intimacy, but use technology to dissolve the miles between us.  I also wanted to throw the entry doors wide open, so people could pick their participation level depending on their time and finances.  My plan was to get the Grace in and under your skin, and the teachings so interwoven in your life that you begin to breathe yoga.  For that, frequency is the key!

I knew that weekly might be too much for your schedule, so I opted for 10-day gaps (mostly).  Every 10 days, you get a new communiqué.  First comes an article, usually 5-8 pages of teachings with stories and graphics.  In about ten days, you get an audio recording; it’s like you’re sitting in the room when I’m giving a lecture, except you can press rewind when you want to, and you can listen to it multiple times.  Ten days later we have a group discussion in a conference phone call (not recorded).  Here I ask you questions, so you will describe your experiences and your understandings; I can meet you there and give you a boost to the next level.

It all comes together in the Weekend Workshop near the end of the course.  After studying for months and having such meaningful conversations with your yoga-buddies and me, we gather together for a weekend immersion in the theme.  For me, it’s like starting the program on Day 8 of a 10-day retreat!  Everyone is already so deep:  so deep within their own vastness, and already so deeply bonded with each other at such a profound level.

The retreat is followed by one more article, audio and phone call, smoothing your reentry into a world that you see with new eyes.  The last phone call is so heartwarming, reflecting on all that has been accomplished as well as reveling in the new level you’ve reached — which is the beginning for your next step.

The multiple enrollment levels serve as planned; they give you the ability to choose what works for you.  Perhaps you want only the articles (Option 1).  Or you can add the audios to the articles; this is Option 2.  With the phone calls, you are in Option 3, in the every-ten-day flow with articles, audios and phone calls.  The full enrollment is Option 4 – the whole of it!

I bring this up because, in a few days, you lose Options 3 & 4. I Am Shiva has recently begun, with the first article and first audio already published.  You can still enroll for the whole course, any time before the first phone call, which is Wednesday November 13.  If you miss that date, you may only enroll in Options 1 or 2.  And you’re welcome there, if that level serves you best.

So I’m inviting you to move in next door…  Join me in the “I Am Shiva” course.  Now is the time!