Category Archives: Svaroopa Yoga

Getting My Feet Back

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By Pat (Sumati) Morrison

Interviewed by Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

Years ago, I was diagnosed with Idiopathic Peripheral Neuropathy. My feet and lower legs had a diminished sense of feeling that slowly progressed. It was uncomfortable and distracting. 

While I have been practicing Svaroopa® yoga since 1997, my focus was on the breathing practice and Svaroopa® yoga poses. This keeps my mind peaceful and decompresses my spine. In my 80’s, I am able to function with a higher level of energy. l am so grateful for all these practices. 

Yet I got so much more when I took a retreat a few months ago.  I returned home with a new pose sequence. About six weeks into my new home practice, I noticed a marked change in my condition. The retreat poses certainly opened my spine a lot.  My tailbone and sacrum muscles began releasing like never before. 

I had also received a Guided Awareness practice that made a huge difference. It was through the Guided Awareness that my neuropathy really decreased. As my awareness expanded, the more my spine decompressed. 

As my peripheral nerves came back to life, I could gradually feel more. My previously thick toes felt distinct from each other. It was a miraculous return to more normal feeling in my feet and lower legs. A complete and very welcome surprise! Yes, this stuff really does work.

The yoga miracle is ongoing, for some numbness began to return to my toes. Thus, I knew it was time for some Embodyment® sessions with my local Svaroopa® yoga therapist. A private online class with Swami Shrutananda helped me tweak my home practice and get on track again.

Svaroopa® yoga gives me the tools to take action when needed. And meditation keeps my mind steady. This yoga gives me profound insights. And I am delightfully embracing this healing in my body. My body is releasing long held tensions.  I am healing on multiple levels.

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Yoga Nidra — Yogic Sleep

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

You lie on your back in yoga’s relaxation pose, Shavasana. Or you may prefer to lean back in a recliner.  

You drift into a quasi-meditative state without going all the way to sleep — this is yogic sleep, yoga nidra.

It is a state of deep rest but without the heaviness of sleep. In a short time, you arise refreshed, perhaps even more so than after a full night of sleep. Three hours of yoga nidra can substitute for a full night of sleep. I have taken advantage of this on many overnight flights. It is a lifesaver when my day’s activities overflow into late night hours, especially since I don’t want to give up my early morning yoga practices.

As a yoga teacher, I learned how to lead yoga nidra as part of a yoga class. We called it a “Guided Relaxation” even though it’s not really about relaxing. It is an awareness practice, where you extend your awareness into the inner spaces of your body and being. Thus I changed the name of it to “Guided Awareness,” which we still include in every Svaroopa®yoga class.  Twice.  At the beginning and at the end.  This is how important it is.

Its roots lie deep in the yogic tradition, with references in several ancient Sanskrit texts. Yoga nidra was brought to the West by students of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh. In recent years, it has been used as a healing therapy for veterans and others with PTSD.

Most people are simply looking for an easy way to meditate. The value of following a Guided Awareness for yoga nidra is that it reins in your mind, bringing it back to where you are physically located. As you become more present in your body, you are becoming more present. It is your presence that matters.

We include yoga nidra in Ashram programs in several ways:

  • Svaroopa® yoga classes — every class begins and ends with yoga nidra. Online and On-Site classes are available around the world. Click for our Global Class Calendar.
  • Guided Meditation Series — this online series uses yoga nidra as a stepping stone to seated meditation, which offers you deeper and more powerful experiences. Find the next class series on our Programs Calendar.
  • Audio Recording — I have recorded the classic Guided Awareness for you on my album, “Experience Shavasana.” It can help you get to sleep, recover from stress or anxiety, or prepare for a deeper meditation.

Yoga nidra can be a little tricky. As you begin to settle more deeply within, you may want to roll over into your favorite sleeping position. Or your head may lean over toward one side. These are ways of going unconscious, into a sweet deep sleep, but not yogic sleep.

Yoga nidra is a light meditative state, yet not sleep but not wakefulness. Your mind is restful but not unconscious. Someone is still home inside.  Who is that someone? That is you. This is the whole point, that you find the deeper dimensionality within. This is what yoga is all about.

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Busy Meditations

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While you may wish for bliss in every meditation, it’s actually the busy meditations that are moving you toward enlightenment faster.  Just like a car speeding along the highway passes more scenery, when you’re really zipping along…   

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “Growing into Self“

Watch Full Discourse Here

What Is Enlightenment?

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Sometimes you can tell what’s going on inside a person by the way they look. Their silly grin or their wrinkled brow tells you what they are thinking and feeling.

Yet someone can be smiling while thinking negative or harmful thoughts. In poker and in politics, the pathway to success is to hide your true feelings. This can sometimes be true in close relationships as well.

Can you look at someone and see that they are enlightened? This is important because you want to study with the best. They can help you make rapid progress toward your own enlightenment. What is enlightenment like, both inside and outside? Fortunately, Arjuna asked this question for us:

Arjuna uvacha, sthita-prajnasya ka bhasha samadhi-sthasya keshava

sthita-dhih kim prabhasheta kim asita vrajeta kim. — Bhagavadgita 2.54

Arjuna asked, “What is the inner experience of an enlightened being? In worldly activities, how do they talk? How do they sit? How do they walk?”

The next eighteen verses are Krishna’s answer. He describes the process of becoming enlightened as well as how the enlightened being lives.

By divine Grace, all his sorrows are destroyed. With a peaceful mind, he abides in a Divine state of inner steadiness. — Bhagavadgita 2.65

Your understanding of this description begins from your own experiences of a peaceful mind. But what is “a Divine state?” These experiences are pivot points in your life.

I remember being a teenager at summer camp in the mountains. I often sat in a sacred grove that had a view of the valley. It was reserved as a silent lookout point. In the beginning, the view transported me. I felt like I could almost fly across the vast terrain. I felt free.

My experience changed as I returned again, sometimes multiple times daily. It became an inner vastness that was much greater than the view. At the same time, I felt…

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Deepen Your Meditation

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By Amanda (Purna) Schmidt

Are you interested deepening your meditation? Support your practice with this rudraksha head garland.

Wear it on your head to enhance your meditation. Designed by Gurudevi, it was handcrafted in Ganeshpuri. The garland features stones in the colors of the chakras. Made with delicate silver wire, a silver OM adornment completes the garland.

This beautiful and unique tool will both uplift and ground you simultaneously. Deepen your meditation experience with ease.

I have consistently been using my head mala for several months. It is resonant with meditative energy and helps me to settle in even more easily. I can feel Gurudevi’s blessing every time I wear this rudraksha head garland. — Karen S.

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The Bliss of Consciousness

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You have a right to bliss.  The bliss of Consciousness, for it is what you are made of.  If you aren’t experiencing the bliss of Consciousness, you don’t know who you really are.  Fortunately, on this path, the bliss comes early.  But it’s not unconscious bliss… 

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda  

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “The Bliss Comes Early“

Watch Full Discourse Here

Enlivened by Grace

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You know, the teachings are not enough. They must be enlivened by Grace.  You can read the teachings. We read them in translation from the ancient texts, and you can read them for decades and never have a real experience.  You certainly will get understandings, aha moments, intellectual breakthroughs, but without any real depth.  The experience of your own Self is a feeling, not a thought.  It is a deep quality of beingness, not a….

—  Gurudevi Nirmalananda

From Gurudevi’s full discourse “The Root of Meditation“

Watch Full Discourse Here

Yoga Is a Spiritual Path

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

The ancient tradition of yoga includes yoga poses (asana), breathing methods (pranayama) and energy seals (mudra). It also offers guidelines for daily living (yamas and niyamas) and focusing practices (dharana). 

You can progress to mastery of the energies of your senses (pratyahara), meditation (dhyana), absorption into your own inner ecstasy (samadhi), and even beyond that to enlightenment. All of these practices include a range from the very easy to the more subtle and profound.

One of the simplest and most effective things yoga teaches is to learn how to sigh. Right after a thorough, heart-felt sigh, there is an incredible feeling of stillness. This stillness transcends the world of space and time. It gives you an immediate taste of your own inner potential. Yoga is the science of maximizing that potential.

Yoga also offers study of the ancient texts that describe the nature of your own Being. It includes the science of sound, the inspiration we get from enlightened Masters of all traditions, and the opening of your heart to the divine presence that is always both within and outside.

In Svaroopa® Yoga, we work with the body for your specific purpose of having this inner experience. Everything we do, from the easiest to the most challenging, is for the higher purpose that is yoga itself. Yoga philosophy is embedded in everything we teach.

Excerpt from Yoga in Every Moment, pages 209‒210

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Miracle Cure for the Common Cold

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By Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, Yogaratna

When I took Teacher Training Level 1, I learned that Ujjayi Pranayama powerfully boosts the immune system.  

Yet I was incredulous when this was my actual experience.  It’s categorically stated that there is no cure for the common cold.  It lasts for 7 to 10 days.  And yet my two “common cold” yoga miracles each healed this minor illness within hours.

As a Certified Embodyment® Yoga Therapist, I’d signed up for a three-day “tune-up” program.   I arrived with nonstop sneezing, a scratchy throat and watering eyes.  Fortunately, the morning and afternoon of our first day were devoted to a thorough, experiential review of Ujjayi Pranayama.  

By early evening, my symptoms were much less insistent.  Chanting OM Namah Shivaaya opened our evening session, which concluded with Embodyment® exchanges with one another.  The next morning I awoke with a clear head, my throat felt normal and the sneezes were gone.  

More recently, I was again “coming down with a cold” while scheduled to attend an evening Ashram satsang.  I felt lousy but wanted to keep my commitment.  Our chant was the ecstatic “Hare Krishna, Hare Rama.”  Within an hour, all cold symptoms, including fever, were gone.  

Yoga miracles are abundant in our Svaroopa® community.  Teacher-Trainer Swami Shrutananda says she “works in a miracle factory.”  Perhaps you’ve read about these many miracles in our Ashram blogs.  

All Svaroopa® yoga practices are “spine-centric,” uprooting disorders by melting deep tensions in the spine.  These amazing therapies can ease symptoms, speed healing, and reverse even serious illnesses and diagnoses. In “Yoga for Every Body,” August 2014, Gurudevi explains,

When you work with your body as it really is, especially targeting your spine, deep tensions melt and your vertebrae decompress, so blood, oxygen and your body’s own healing energy (prana) bring new life into areas that need it. 

My healings of “bad colds” — minor illnesses to be sure — still shine in my memory.  From them I experientially learned the power of prana. Now I sense Divine Consciousness arising from within.  I know it as the ultimate source of all healing.

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