It is the inner fragmentation that is so painful. Yoga calls this “the human condition,” and promises wholeness instead. This is a profound state of deep peace, with inner dimensionality that extends to infinity. You get there by doing yogic practices to invoke your inherent wholeness of being. Like with anything you practice, you get good at it. Thus you’re able to live in an easy inner constancy. Yoga calls this “Self,” spelled with an upper-case “S.”
Fragmentation is also called “self,” but is spelled with a lower-case “s.” It’s like a crystal hanging in a window, which fragments a beam of sunlight into many dots of dancing light, each one analogous to a small-s self. Who you are as a daughter or son is different than who you are as a sibling or friend. You have many small-s selves, some based on your occupation and your avocations, with others based on your geography. Your many selves can make it hard for you to make choices or follow through on them. Worse, the arguments you have with yourself can be demoralizing.
Every small-s self requires effort to sustain it. If you are a skier, you have to buy and maintain equipment, plan winter trips and join ski groups. If you skip a couple of seasons, or even discover that yoga makes you feel better than skiing, there’s a point where you…
Along with our calendar year, our Ashram’s fall fundraiser is coming to an end. In the words of poet Maya Angelou, as long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good! It’s never too late to be lifted and carried by the Grace flowing through the Svaroopa® practices. Donating to the Ashram and being carried by the river of Grace are mutually inclusive activities.
You know how good it feels to do some good! You know how good it feels to be the recipient of some good! When your heart and your pocketbook open, it’s uplifting. And when you receive, it’s uplifting. In the moment that I donate to the Ashram’s fall and spring fundraisers something is set free within me. When I bask in the warmth of my Guru’s Grace, something is set free within me. What a win-win.
It’s not about how much you give or receive. It is the acts of giving and receiving themselves that put you in the river of Grace. Grace flows through the Svaroopa® practices and through their creator, Gurudevi Nirmalananda.
But Grace is even greater than the Guru. It’s everywhere, and it finds you when you need it. It’s Grace that has led you to the Svaroopa® practices. The Guru’s teachings are designed just for you. Take them to heart. Trust that Grace is available. Gurudevi says, “The Guru always gives the full flow of grace. The differences come from the capacity of the receiver.”
Guru’s Grace is like the sun. It never stops shining, even when you cannot see it. You can feel with warmth of Guru’s Grace at any time, you just have to be open to it. Free your heart and mind to donate today to support the gift that keeps on giving to you and to so many others.
Your financial contribution of any amount helps support the source of the teachings. When you support yoga and meditation teacher training, you keep the river flowing. When you support Gurudevi’s free teachings ― online and in person — you keep the river flowing. When you support the administrative and physical structure of the Ashram, you keep the river flowing.
As long as you’re breathing, it’s never too late to do some good. Please consider a year-end donation to your Ashram.
Donate today on our website. You can call us at (610) 644-7555. Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank You!
I’m not one who has flashy Shaktipat experiences. At the September Shaktipat Retreat, Swami Prajňananda explained the ways you might experience Kundalini. She talked about heat, colors and more. For me, in receiving Shaktipat, I feel steady, content, secure — right where I want to be. Gurudevi has said that even though Muktananda was very visual, she didn’t often experience colors. It’s reassuring.
I’ve done a lot of yoga and heard a lot of Gurudevi’s Swami Sunday talks. Shaktipat has been written about for thousands of years. I find a lot of comfort in all the preparation we go through before Shaktipat. Knowing other yogis have been through similar preparation is reassuring. We’re part of a long history and tradition. With the chanting, talks and all, I felt very well-prepared in my recent Shaktipat Retreat. I could lean into Shaktipat. I knew — I’m safe, whatever I’m experiencing. I’m in the presence of the Guru and the Guru she had.
At the end of the retreat’s second day, I returned to the dorm room I shared with some other women. We sat around and talked about Shaktipat. It was lovely to have people that I barely knew being so open about these unusual experiences. Who else can you talk to about Shaktipat? I felt very connected to them even though I had met some of them only 24 hours earlier. In our conversation, it was so easy to see the Self in all of them.
My Shaktipat experiences continue. Things are happening in unexpected ways. Svaroopa® yoga is all about the tailbone. The week I came back from Shaktipat, there was an undeniable sensation in the region of my tailbone. After returning home, I taught a couple asana classes. My students seemed to feel something too. A high percentage reached out afterwards and said how deep the class was. I had even made a joke before leaving for Shaktipat. I’d told them that since I wasn’t doing a training, I wouldn’t be bringing anything back for them. One longtime student said she felt she could really let go in class. Previously, she has had a hard time letting go. My only explanation is that it was the Shaktipat.
Guru’s Grace is unconditional and always available. I could never even imagine asking for as much as it gives me. But you do have to tune in to it. Different yoga practices work on your ability to dive inside and allow Grace in. As Gurudevi says, “The key is your receptivity.”
One of yoga’s most important practices is dakshina — selfless financial giving. Like devotion to Guru’s Grace, dakshina comes from a deeper place within. It’s a sweet surrender that flows from your heart. This gift keeps Gurudevi’s River of Grace flowing to you. You can help others be led to the river as well. Please join me in donating to our fundraiser, titled Guru’s Grace.
It’s not about how much you give. It is the act of giving itself that puts you in the River of Grace. A contribution of any amount helps support the source of the teachings. You support our yoga and meditation programs. Your donation also supports the administrative and physical structure of the Ashram. You keep the river flowing.
My practice of dakshina started with supporting Gurudevi’s free teachings. A few years into my Svaroopa® journey, I got married and started a family. As I had young children, I wasn’t able to leave them and attend teacher trainings or other programs. Instead, I discovered I could listen to Gurudevi’s discourses that were, and still are, available online. I would do my mothering and listen to the discourses. I could stay in the flow both by listening to the discourses and by financially supporting her teachings.
Guru’s Grace always supports and guides me. Often, when I’m looking for an answer to a problem or a question, the response arises from within. I can tell it’s not coming from my mind but rather from a deeper knowing. This often happens when my students ask me questions. Sometimes my reaction is a small-s thought: “I really don’t know the answer, I can’t help you here.” Then I settle; I become a riverbed that fills up with the flow of Guru’s Grace. In that moment of settling, the answer just pours into my awareness.
Such is the power of Guru’s Grace! It makes a difference in your life. Consider for yourself, how is it that you recognize when Grace is coming your way? And please join me in expressing gratitude for Guru’s Grace by donating to the Ashram.
Donate today on our website. You can call us at (610) 644-7555. Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown PA 19335. Thank You!
Perhaps you’ve already tried one or more approaches to meditation and are looking for other options.
I’m delighted to share my own practice with you, one I’ve been deepening into for almost 50 years.
As an authorized teacher within an ancient lineage, I’ve had the great fortune to teach thousands of people to meditate. I can help you.
Free Online Class
Check our calendar for our twice-monthly introductory meditation programs. Each one lasts 90 minutes, enough time for you to learn what to do, as well as to try it out in a group meditation. Then there’s a discussion that helps you understand your experience as well as troubleshoot any problems you’re having.
You may find one of our trained meditation teachers in your area – check our Teacher Directory. Their offerings may be Online or On-Site.
Free On-Site Meditations
I teach two free meditation programs weekly, Sunday mornings and Wednesday evenings. On-Site in Downingtown PA, these are free. Online has an enrollment fee, due to our costs in providing the online services.
Check our calendar for “Swami Sunday” and for “Yoga Wednesday”. If you can come to Downingtown, I get to meet you personally! I’d love that.
Take a Meditation Course
For a deeper meditation, the word is to meditate longer. “Longer” means that you meditate for a longer time period, like a full hour instead of only ten minutes. It also means that your ability improves with practice. Thus your meditation will be deeper after a year of consistent meditation and even deeper after ten years.
For quicker inner progress, take a meditation course, like you would if you were learning a musical instrument or how to skydive. We offer “Learn to Meditate” every month or two. In our Teacher Directory, you’ll find authorized teachers near you who teach the same course.
Breakthroughs & Profound Understandings
An Ashram specializes in the deeper teachings and practices, so you’ve got many more options.
We have five swamis offering sutra courses, yoga & meditation classes and more. Each program includes the ancient teachings, which create inner openings for your bliss-filled exploration.
The most powerful of these is my Shaktipat Retreat. Here, you receive the mystical initiation that awakens your meditative energy to arise within. Life is truly changed in that moment, with a whole new trajectory opened up to you. That’s what propelled me into the inner light. I love to share.
What Do You Want?
You have lots of choices! If you don’t know where to start, try a 1-minute video from a recent satsang on our YouTube channel or a recent podcast.
Or just call us at 610.806.2119 or email programs@svaroopayoga.org – we’ll be happy to talk with you about your next step.
One-liners, that’s what we need. Something we can grab in an eye-blink, a sound bite…
Meditation is for Self-discovery, revealing the deeper dimensions within.
It’s not just our modern times that demand clear and concise info. The ancient sages of India wrote sutras, short pithy sayings that were easy to remember. But they’re tricky! Easy to remember, but not easy to understand — they have layers to them.
Chaitanyam atma. – Shiva Sutras 1.1
Your own Self is Consciousness-Itself.
Uplifting, inspiring, encouraging, reassuring, all at the same time. And it goes way beyond what you understand in your first reading. I’ve been studying and contemplating this sutra for over 40 years and I am still learning from it. And it’s only two words long: Chaitanyam – Consciousness; Atma – Self.
Know your own Self, honor your own Self, meditate on your own Self.
This was my Guru’s sutra for our modern world, a teaching he shared hundreds of times when he taught in America through the 1970s and into the 1980s. As a hippie-turned-mom, I appreciated the focus on finding myself, this deeper dimension he called “own Self.” But what was it, really? He added a line:
God dwells within you as you.
I wanted God to dwell within me, so I was comforted by this teaching. But what did he mean by, “as me”? I didn’t understand. I wondered and pondered for decades.
All the while, my Baba was giving me the inner experience of my own Self being God’s own Self. But my puny little mind didn’t get it. So I say it this way,
There’s only one of us here. The One Divine Reality is being you, being me, and being all that is. Meditation is finding that One — inside.
I invite you to sign up for my daily E-Quotes. Free emails with inspiring quotes that help you get to know yourself in a whole new way.
I love that Thanksgiving begins our holiday season with a reminder to give thanks. Giving thanks shifts me inside. I experience a timeless gratitude that melts my heart. When I surrender into the moment, great gratitude bubbles up. I am most grateful for Gurudevi. She has given me my Self. How can I give thanks for this eternal gift?
One way I give thanks is through dakshina — yoga’s ancient practice of selfless financial giving. I am so grateful to give to our Ashram’s fall campaign in gratitude for Gurudevi. And I’m grateful for the organization through which her Grace-full teachings flow. Please join me during this Thanksgiving season in supporting her and the Ashram, who offer so much. This path offers fulfillment of life’s full potential, Self-Realization.
From my first Svaroopa® yoga class, I knew I received more than just a “yoga class.” Then in my first immersion, Kundalini rose quite boldly. I sensed a recognition the instant I laid eyes on Gurudevi. How could I not support one who instantly gave me so much? I began monthly donations. I continue monthly giving, increasing it over time. I also put aside money for the annual spring and fall fundraisers.
You may be like me, not really understanding the full gift of our Svaroopa® Sciences initially. No worries. Gurudevi never tires of serving, offering programs, guiding and sometimes blasting us through our blind spots. Gurudevi reveals an inspiring capacity for giving thanks and gratitude. She serves her Baba 100% every day. She knows the power of deeply offering. During Thanksgiving season, she gives us this opportunity too.
I never tire of giving her support. It is an honor to offer dakshina to one who gives so much. I also see it as a necessity. I want others to receive what she gives so freely to us. Our giving keeps these teachings accessible. It keeps the doors of the Ashram open to everyone. Every story of others’ upliftment makes me even more dedicated to dakshina and seva, selfless service.
I recently taught a meditation series. A few weeks later, I saw one of the attendees. She rushed up to me and pressed some money in my hand. She said, “This meditation and the mantra saved my life. Please take this gift for your teachings.” I thanked her and told her I would gladly send it to the Ashram. What she received opened her in such a way she could not resist giving back. That is the flow of Grace running through this lineage. Dakshina supports everything that Gurudevi does and offers.
So many of us have received the gift of Guru’s Grace — even if we’ve never met Gurudevi in person. The Grace of the Svaroopa® lineage flows through the teachings, and all the teachers whom Gurudevi has trained. It even flows online.
Gurudevi says, “My ability to serve is like a tributary of a great river. I am the riverbed. That flow of Grace comes from my Guru, and I am a wide-open channel for that flow.”
I am incredibly grateful for Shaktipat, the ultimate gift from my Guru, Swami Nirmalananda. I am equally grateful to her Guru, Swami Muktananda, and to his Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda as well as to all the great beings in this lineage. It has carried this great gift and these sacred teachings forward. Thus, over time, they have reached us. These Masters have dedicated their life to Self-Realization.
With gratitude, people acknowledge the goodness in their lives. It’s Grace that has led you to the Svaroopa®practices. The Guru’s teachings are designed just for you. Take them to heart. Express the gratitude in your heart. How has our River of Grace supported you? Join me in giving to allow many more to join us in the River of Grace. We have so many opportunities for reflection and gratitude on this day when Americans celebrate Thanksgiving. A wonderful day to offer your dakshina of gratitude to the Ashram!
Donate today on our website. You can call us at (610) 644-7555. Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank You!
For the Magic Four, you need only a few props and the NEW Magic Four handout! This is the original article, published in Yoga International, with color photos of Swami Nirmalananda demonstrating the poses!
The Magic Four is an accessible, effective set of yoga poses for everyone. Each pose is explained in detail to help you target deep spinal release. Along with written instructions, this handout provides background about how Svaroopa® yoga works and the outcomes of your practice.
You only need 20 minutes a day to feel the benefits. Ease through the Magic Four and discover your inherent bliss. Price: $7.55
I am not my mind. I am not my body. I get it. I really do. But wait! If I’m not my mind or my body — who’s this person in the mirror? With Grace, answers to such questions flow in, almost as soon as I ask. I hear Gurudevi’s voice: “This person is an expression of the Self, like a ripple of water. So what kind of expression is that going to be? You get to choose.”
I made a list. One of the first things I wrote was “generous.” I stopped. I actually am generous, I realized. Wow, I am generous! That is not something I could have said before coming to Svaroopa® yoga. What was mine, was mine. What was yours was mine too, if I could get it. Dakshina changed that for me — and so much more. This is why I invite you to join me in donating to the Ashram’s fall campaign. Financial support of the teachings is transformative.
When I first learned about dakshina, I had all sorts of resistance. I told myself I didn’t have it to give, which was true. I wasn’t exactly making ends meet at the time. Still, yoga had proven me wrong before, so I got creative. I started putting any change I found on the street on my puja. When the next campaign came around, I took that change and multiplied it by ten. Then I donated that amount, plus the found change, to Master Yoga. I think my first donation was $32.32. It was the bargain of a lifetime. What I gained in return was truly priceless. That small gesture opened a sluice of Guru’s Grace in me that has become a river. Not just any river — a Divine River — deep and wide. A River of Grace that flows through me from my Guru.
Guru’s Grace is ever flowing — ever https://svaroopa.org/donategenerous. I just need to be open to it. Giving what I can to the Ashram keeps me open in a very tangible way. I feel the Grace flowing, and I see the results in my life. I can now be generous in ways I didn’t even know possible before. Time, energy, space, attention, consideration, security — I seem to have an abundance of it all. It’s all so easy because it comes from Guru’s Grace. I just stay in the flow.
Donate today on our website. You can call us at (610) 644-7555. Or you can send your check to Svaroopa Vidya Ashram, 116 E. Lancaster Ave., Downingtown, PA 19335. Thank You!
You can connect with Gurudevi as your teacher every day! Join her for your morning meditation every day at 6:30 am EST. When you meditate with a Master, your meditation is fueled by the blessing of their knowing.
Gurudevi begins with a short reading from her Guru, followed by a short chant, invoking blessings on your meditation. Next you sit in the holy silence, transmitted from the Ashram, for the rest of the hour, a sweet and Grace-filled experience.
Meditating with others makes it much easier, especially when they are experienced meditators. Meditation Club is available on Zoom by monthly subscription.
When Gurudevi established the Meditation Club, I decided to go all in. I am always amazed how quickly the hour goes. Yet when I come out of meditation, I feel a peace and calm. — Bob N.
Questions? Zoom into our next FREE Q&A for answers. Discover if Meditation Club is what you’re looking for and find out how to get started.
SVA Blog 