Category Archives: Svaroopa Yoga

Sukhasana: A Sweet Pose for Body, Mind and More

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By Nirooshitha Sethuram, Yogaratna

The sweetness of sitting is found in Sukhasana, one of my favorite poses. The name says it all. Sukha in Sanskrit means happiness, pleasant, ease, joy or bliss.

Sukhasana gives me all these experiences, and more, especially when well aligned with an upright spine. Then I settle into myself.  I find the balance point in my torso and use the natural support of my spinal column. 

I also use props to make myself comfortable.  Rolled blankets under my knees keep my thighs level, front to back. When I am well aligned with props, my head stays where it belongs, and my sit bones are leveled.  Then this relaxing, gentle pose helps ease any low back and knee pain. 

My whole spine lengthens from my tailbone all the way into my ribcage and neck.  I feel my hips opening. This spinal release unravels tension in my knees and ankles as well.

Then I can sit in Sukhasana for a longer time.   I simply abide in my own Self, settling into stillness, outside and inside.  I often sit in Sukhasana when I am listening to my Guru’s discourses and other teachings. I meditate in Sukhasana all the time.  The simplicity of this pose makes it easy for me to teach, meditate and pray.

Most of all, this pose soothes and calms my mind and grounds me inside.  It provides the physical support that allows me to experience a sense of inner peace and calmness while remaining completely present.  It fills me fully and brings contentment.  

Sitting in Sukhasana invites my mind to come inside, sit and stay. It also gives me the pillar of support while practicing Ujjayi Pranayama. I can accustom myself to the inner energies that are balancing and flowing up my spine.  My mind is quieted and my awareness turns easily inward.

This is all possible by the blessings of our Guru, Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati, whom we lovingly call GurudeviJi. I am forever grateful to my Guru and the practices she has blessed us with, so gracefully. 

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Gurudevi’s New Year’s Retreat

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Give yourself a New Year’s gift — a fresh start ― online as well as on-site!  Gurudevi Nirmalananda explains,

I love the new year. It holds such promise, like the seed of that will grow, flower and fruit. It’s a time to celebrate life and the turning of a cycle. It’s time to plan how to make the most of the coming year. Let’s do it together!

This retreat includes yoga poses, chanting, meditation, teaching talks and more. Gurudevi leads you through deep inner experiences that transform your sense of self. Discover your eternal expansiveness. Be propelled into your highest potential for the year ahead and beyond.

I’m astonished at the impact of Gurudev’s 2023 New Year’s Retreat on my life. … Guru’s Grace propelled me into action.  My energy and zest for life returned. … It was the Grace flowing from Gurudevi during the New Year’s Retreat that made it possible. — Agnes H.

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Yogic Discipline

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

In yoga, discipline is not the same as “spare the rod and spoil the child” — punishment and enforcement.

Yogic discipline is the means by which you are uplifted and transformed. It is how you can get the highest and the best from your yoga practice.

Continued application of your own effort, on a regular basis, is what makes you successful at anything in your life: yoga, art, business, relationships, etc.

The best athletes and musicians must practice daily, yet they do not consider it an onerous duty. Top musicians love to do the scales! True discipline is doing regularly what makes you feel best. Regularity is the key, and it is what ultimately makes it easy. Consider who creates this regularity? Your job may require you to keep certain hours. This then determines when you eat, get up, go to bed, and have free time.

A newly self-employed or retired person often has difficulty organizing these things, because they are used to an externally imposed discipline. Yet, even enforced discipline can yield great benefits. A woman in her ‘60s told me she hated her mother for sending her to piano lessons and making her practice every day. Now the piano is one of the greatest joys in her life. In yoga class you experience…

Excerpt from Yoga in Every Moment, Gurudevi’s first book (page 4)

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2024 – Your Yoga Year

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Make your life spiritual, brimming with joy and peace. Such a life knows neither pain nor agitation.

I received this promise from my Guru and extend it on to you. Use my new book to help you live from the inner infinity of your own Divinity.

Each day offers you a modern-day sutra.  All are short quotes from my writings and discourses.

Living Mysticism 2024 Calendar Journal — it is small enough to fit in your purse, yet substantial enough to hold your whole year for you.

▼ As a calendar, these pages can help you organize your days.

▼ You can fill the pages with mantras or prayers, invoking Divine blessings with each one.

▼ Or use the daily sutra as a jumping off point, to contemplate the teaching more deeply.

▼ As a journal, you have space to write or draw about your meditations or your life – or both.

When you weave these teachings and practices through your life, your meaning and purpose are easily fulfilled. Your eyes shine with light and your heart overflows, giving you clarity, understanding and generosity. What a way to live! 

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Clarity & Strength for Healing

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By Amanda (Purna) Schmidt

Interviewed by Marlene (Matrikaa) Gast, Yogaratna

Last June, I moved from NC to PA, near the Ashram’s Downingtown Yoga & Meditation Center. I have easy access to Svaroopa® Yoga Therapy as well as a new Functional Medicine practitioner.

Fortunately, she ordered lab tests that clearly diagnosed conditions I’ve had for two years or more: long COVID-19, chronic inflammatory response syndrome and adrenal fatigue.

I’ve undertaken her prescribed lifestyle changes: regular meal times, a diet to support stable insulin levels and nutritional supplements. More tests may indicate additional treatment.

To complement the medical approach, I’m now on board with yoga therapy as well. Yoga sees a depleted prana (life force) as the source of fatigue and illness. Filling one’s reservoir of prana alleviates fatigue and promotes healing. So, three months ago, I began an Overlap Healing series of Embodyment® sessions at DYMC.

By employing a combination of additional Svaroopa® yoga tools, I’m noticing a gradual reduction in symptoms. I have more energy, a better outlook and greater mental resilience.

I do the home practices prescribed by my Svaroopa® Yoga Therapist: lots of Ujjayi and long rests in Shavasana. My total Ujjayi time is an hour daily. For Shavasana, I immerse myself in 30 minutes of Guided Awareness on Gurudevi’s “Experience Shavasana” CD. Then I soak in silent Shavasana for another 15 minutes.

With a replenished pranic reservoir, I feel stronger. My yoga therapist let me know a certain level of prana is needed for meditation. I’ve now built up enough for a daily half-hour meditation.

Some days the physical symptoms of my condition are still prominent. Yet my outlook is less fearful. On those days, I accept that my physical body is doing what it’s doing. But that doesn’t mean I won’t get through these times. I can manage symptoms more effectively. I am headed into healing.

My miracle is having found Svaroopa® yoga. These practices and therapies are propelling my healing journey forward.

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Trikonasana: A Pose Worth “Getting”

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By Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

My favorite go-to standing pose is Trikonasana, Triangle Pose. It brings the openings of a spinal sequence into a dynamic verticality. 

First, Tadasana, then into Trikonasana. Once “I’m in,” I feel steady, secure and joyful. While leaning my heels into the floor, I’m grounded and expansive at the same time. 

Trikonasana gives me stamina and inner strength. It’s a feeling that I can rise above it all, while fully participating in every moment. When I’m finished, my legs and hips swing in perfect coordination as I cruise along. 

I like that a triangle is the strongest engineering construction. In Trikonasana, I can feel my body counterbalancing its weight.  I sculpt a series of modest triangles through the space around me. My legs and arm provide a base of support. Then my bottom hip slides under my top hip.  Gurudevi says it takes a good 10 years to really get this pose. Well, I’m in my 27th Svaroopa® yoga year, so I’m going for it!

Sometimes, if I’m feeling tight, I’ll use a chair and block under my supporting arm. My spine gets even more of a lift this way: creating more space for my vertebrae. But the free standing Trikonasana I can do anytime, anywhere. I’ll do it in my kitchen for a cooking break. Or on the beach while gazing at the sky. Such freedom!

Once I’m balanced, I slowly turn my head to look at my hand. In that moment, the bliss of my own Beingness arises through my spine. My head and heart are connected. It feels like I’m flying, while being grounded and settled in my bones.  Trikonasana: a pose worth ”getting”!

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What a Difference!

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By Agnes (Aikyaa) Hetherington

I’m astonished at the impact of Gurudevi’s 2023 New Year’s Retreat on my life.  

I was almost too ill to participate. A severe coughing spasm with pneumonia had caused a hard fall onto my back. Extreme pain and difficulty breathing left me lying on the couch watching the retreat online. 

I felt more like an observer than a participant. Yet reading my journal notes, I clearly see the seeds of change were sown. 

The illness was no coincidence. In the “old year,” I had suddenly lost two very dear loved ones and faced other challenges. The future looked vague and blurry at best. I dreaded the thought of making a New Year’s resolution.

Spending those pivotal retreat days with Gurudevi ignited a profound inner shift. After the closing meditation on New Year’s Day, I wrote two words: “Resolution! Tapas!”  Tapas means doing the hard stuff.

I chose “Gumption” as my word ― a beacon of light ― for the year ahead.

While my illness dragged on, I sought help from wonderful Ashram programs. A six-class Therapeutic Yoga series eased the tightness and pain in my back. Then I took a series of ten Vichara sessions, which helped with my mind. 

As I journaled, I often reminded myself about Gumption, especially when feeling overwhelmed. Guru’s Grace propelled me into action.

Within a few months I was teaching Svaroopa® yoga again after a seven-year hiatus. I also increased my community seva, lovingly performing mundane tasks at our local Hospice. My energy and zest for life returned. 

I know I didn’t accomplish these changes by myself. It was the Grace flowing from Gurudevi during the New Year’s Retreat that made it possible. I am so grateful.

2024 New Year’s Retreat

The Yoga of Relationship

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

The intimate connection that you seek with another person is more than a meeting of minds and more than a meeting of bodies.

The point at which com­munication becomes communion is the experience of union. This is the goal of yoga, and the meaning of the Sanskrit word “yoga” itself — union. 

Once your innate yearning connects with your own inner source that fills it, you experi­ence this connection and communion with everyone. It is the natural outward expression of the inner experience. 

My own experience of relationships has been transformed by yoga. I have dif­ficulty naming it “love.” It is somehow both more and less than what I always thought love was. Whatever you want to call it, it is yoga. This is what makes our relationships work.

For me, it includes a deep respect for every person, along with a genuine interest and caring for how they think, how they feel, and for what is going on in their lives. 

Because of this, I never tire of talking with students about their lives, about their body, about their feelings, and especially about their experiences of yoga. I feel deeply honored by their sharing with me. I am grateful for this opportu­nity to share my understanding and my experience of yoga with you..

– excerpt from Yoga in Every Moment, page 2 

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Inner Strength & Clarity

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By Jules (Brahmani) Watson, Yogaratna

I am grateful for the flexibility that Svaroopa® yoga has given me! I can now sit comfortably without props in the classical Vajrasana (Lightning Bolt pose). This was not the case when I first started yoga.

I sit in Vajrasana to teach classes. Settling into my sit bones, I begin by leading students into Shavasana with the Guided Awareness. Then I guide them in Ujjayi Pranayama. During class I sometimes sit in this pose beside a student to assist them. I also sit in Vajrasana to give private yoga therapy sessions. With an upright spine, I feel balanced and present. 

When I want to sit longer in my own practice, I bring in blanket props. This takes the pressure off my ankles and allows the blood to flow freely to my feet. It also takes the pressure off my knees and supports my spine. Then I can stay sitting longer.

It’s delicious! My spine lengthens upward, my belly softens. I feel vibrational energy in my solar plexus, my breathing is easier, and I feel expansive. My spine softens even more, and my awareness turns inward easily. I am at peace.

I am held by my inner stambha (the arising column of spinal energy). And I slip into the bliss of the Self. After sitting in Vajrasana for this longer time, I feel balanced and composed with a new sense of inner strength and clarity.

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Embodied Spirituality

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By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

Tantra means loom, like a weaver’s loom that interweaves the warp and the woof threads.  It means that you find the infinite in this finite reality.  

You discover the Divine which is already present within the mundane.  The tantric sages say that the One Reality, which has always existed, decided to manifest the entire world and everyone in it. Everything is Shiva being the world as well as being beyond the world.  

The doorway into this tantric tradition is through initiation — Shaktipat.  It is a transmission of energy that awakens your own dormant energy, hidden within.  Your awakened energy then climbs your spine from the tip of your tailbone to the top of your head.  The purpose of all Svaroopa® practices is to awaken and support the blossoming of this spiritual energy in you.  

During meditation, signs of this inner awakening include little swaying movements, even small little jerks that deepen your meditation.  You may feel an inner heat climbing up your spine and spreading through your body.  You can be drawn into a deep and profound meditative state, so deep that it feels like sleep.  It is a deep meditative immersion into Consciousness.  

In your inner explorations, you may see lights, colors and visions, or you may hear divine inner sounds.  Or sudden and profound insights may be revealed.  These are all the results of Shaktipat — the inner awakening.  This is the beginning of embodied spirituality.  

Once you have received Shaktipat, the end goal is guaranteed — enlightenment in this lifetime.  I describe it like this: Once a baby is born, puberty is guaranteed.  Once you receive Shaktipat, realization is guaranteed.  

As cosmic energy moves through your spine, it vitalizes your body.  I can’t say revitalize because that would imply you were getting energy you’d previously had.  Rather, this is a vitality you never knew.  Your body undergoes energetic and cellular changes, profoundly beneficial.  

Yet the most important effect is that a profound inner state opens up for you.  Your new inner stability and depth provide additional physical benefits.  Your inner essence is expressed through your body and is experienced in your body, even while there is so much more.  

Svaroopa® yoga poses create and support this process.  Our sequencing always starts at the tip of your tailbone, followed by poses that mirror the inner opening of Shaktipat.  These practices support your inner upliftment, helping to dissolve blockages along the way.  Yet, as powerful, beautiful, wonderful and blissful as the poses are, they are only the starting point.  

Ultimately, the real work is accomplished in meditation. Meditation is where you let your Divine inner energy move through your spine.  This energy restructures your body and opens up your mind.  Your most powerful practices are mantra and meditation.  They will fulfill the promise of the sages, embodied spirituality: 

to know without thought

to BE without effort

to experience without fear or desire

to abide in the bliss of Consciousness

to live in the multidimensionality of your own being

to know your own Self as the Divine Incarnation that you already are.

-Excerpt, pages 22-24
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