Category Archives: Svaroopa Yoga

Teacher Training: A Turning Point by Matrika (Marlene) Gast

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Marlene Gast

Marlene Gast

I took Foundations in 2005 and I’ve been teaching as a fully certified Svaroopa® yoga teacher since 2009. Deciding to go on from Foundations to Level 1 was the best life choice that I’ve ever made.

It took me awhile to make that decision. After Foundations I had changed so much in body and mind that I didn’t feel the need for more. As a yoga teacher in another style, I already had several classes of devoted students, and I’d learned enough in Foundation to turn them on to Svaroopa® yoga. I loved the experience of finding bliss through opening my spine, and the new pose sequences were delighting my existing students.

But then I began to sense there was “more.” It was an inkling, a hunch. And Level 1 was scheduled for summer. So why not let it be my summer vacation? Of course, signing up for Level 1 meant also enrolling for Level 2. That would be another big step. Would I need to go that far? I looked over the program description, which talked about backbends, abdominals and standing poses. These poses piqued my curiosity. What would it be like to experience that next level the Svaroopa® yoga way? How would that affect the teaching that I so loved to do?

Led forward by mere hints of something more, I found myself in Level 1 in August 2007. I began in earnest the remarkable and fully absorbing journey of finding and expanding my core physically, mentally, spiritually. My misaligned sacroiliac joint, which had previously put me belly down on the floor in pain, began to heal when Vidyadevi gave me a Sacrum Press in Half Frog. Poses, poses, poses — learning so more about primary spinal openers, both technically and physically in my own body was a huge part of my experience daily. Morning chant and meditation transported me to previously unknown depths within, and the Teacher Trainers’ anatomy and philosophy talks opened my eyes to the true wonders and possibilities of life as a human being on Earth.

Truly, if I had the time to write about the new experiences in mind, body and heart that unfolded within me each day, I could easily fill a book. Upon returning home from Level 1, I gave the Cure-All Knee Press adjustment that I’d learned to family members. They melted. Some had been skeptical about my being away for more than a week and about the cost. But what I heard after that Cure-All Knee Press was “worth every penny” and “when will you be going to Level 2?” Level 1 turned out to be a most important turning point for me, for my family AND for my yoga students, who have clearly received benefit upon benefit over the past seven years.

If you are a Foundations Grad, June 2014 is your time for a major turning point in your life. Step firmly onto the path of this yoga that you already love! Embrace this opportunity of a lifetime. Click here to enroll today.

U-Turns by Maitreyi (Margie) Wilsman

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Early in my yoga career with Swamiji, I learned that life tells us to look outward, while yoga tells us to look inward.   At first it was the inner experience of a quiet mind, and the many gifts of final Shavasana—the MORE.  Later it became the experience of my tailbone wiggling and sacrum rocking.

Now years later, the looking has shifted to me experiencing my Self as Consciousness on the inside—another major and deeper U-Turn, one that my mind has trouble handling with ease.  Mysteries are difficult for my mind.  Meditation and the movement of Kundalini provide breakthrough experiences of timelessness, spacelessness, the unending flow of Grace and love from Swamiji that makes my heart expand and expand—all experiences beyond the limits of my mind.

Now there is the opportunity to celebrate the ancient tradition that provides the guidelines for how to do these deeper U-Turns.  In the ancient words of Sages and the current words of our modern Sage, Swamiji, I will offer the celebration of Shivaratri.  While each day I bow to my Shivalingam and Nandi that sit on my puja, on the Night of Shivaratri I will do puja to my Shivalingam for three hours, celebrating the mystery of Shiva.  Each day I wear the garland of my rudraksha beads, but on the night of Shivaratri I will wear the three strips of white on my forehead and quietly celebrate the mystery of Shiva—the formless who has taken form in everything that exists, in all my students and clients, in my yoga buddies, in my yoga teachers, in me, in all that exists and beyond, as Swamiji reminds us.  Thank you, Swamiji, for teaching us how to do puja and how to celebrate Shivaratri as well as guiding us through our successive and deeper U-Turns.

Be Aware by Karuna (Carolyn) Beaver

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Think about your shoulders, perhaps think about where they are in relationship to your torso or your arms …try to relax your shoulders, soften into them…now become aware of your shoulders. What do you notice?

I did this simple practice, based on Swami Nirmalananda’s January contemplation article, “Relaxation and More,” with meditators in my weekly Satsang. They were amazed at the differences between thinking, relaxing and being aware. One person said that when he became aware of his shoulders he became aware of an expanded sense not only of his shoulders, but of his whole body. He was present in his body in a wholly different way.

As Swamiji says in the article, our Guided Awareness is not a body inventory or analysis. It’s not a thought practice, or even a relaxation practice. It is a consciousness-practice, a training in consciousness, a training in pure awareness.

That is the Svaroopa® difference: whether it’s poses or breathing or chanting or meditation, it’s a consciousness practice, a training in consciousness. Whether you are a teacher or student, Svaroopa® Yoga and Meditation draws you inward, enabling you to experience your body and mind in a wholly different way —an embodied way. If you’re a teacher, the courses you’ve taken prepare you to work with other’s bodies and minds, while you gain a deep experiential knowledge of your own. If you’re a student, you receive the benefits of your teacher’s training as you deepen your personal practice.

The Svaroopa® Sciences underscore yoga’s promise, that as your body becomes still and at ease, as your mind begins to quiet, as you become more aware, there is, as Swamiji’s article points out, “a tangible opening to something more, something greater, something more core to your being, something more essential – an opening to the something that is called your Essence. It’s called svaroopa, your own Self.”

While I receive so much from teaching both poses and meditation, and from my continuing teacher education, I continually crave that “something more, something greater.” I know I need to immerse myself on a more personal level more often! So this year I have planned for both professional training and immersion courses. My students will benefit from what I’ll learn in the teacher training course. I will blossom into my own Essence with the immersion course, and of course, my students will benefit from this as well! It adds more expense to the budget, but as the classic cosmetic company tagline says, do it “because you’re worth it.” I’d change that tagline to capitalize You — the larger sense of your own Self is worth every penny!

Whether you are a teacher or student, consider the investment you will make in your Self this year. As Swamiji says, “consider how you will cultivate a new way of living with your mind and living in your body as well as sharing the light of your own divinity with those you care about the most.”

There are Shaktipat retreats and week-long Yoga and Meditation retreats on the 2014 Calendar, as well as phone courses and related retreats. Help yourself to a larger serving of Grace this year, because You’re worth it!