Arise!

By Satguru Swami Nirmalananda 

Life got smaller during the pandemic, starting out with months of lock-down.  It’s starting to edge back out again, but everyone has a different agenda and a different pace.  Yoga and meditation will help,  Our 2023 Calendar is based on a theme:

Arising

Healing leads to wholeness, empowering choices and deep-hearted living.

As you move into the world again, you have the chance to choose your trajectory in a whole new way.  I want to empower you to live your life in the ways that are most fulfilling to you.  Our retreats and trainings are designed to give you wholeness, choicefulness and deep-hearted living.

The first step is to arise, as the yogic texts exhort, “Arise! Awake! Oh my Dear One, you have been sleepwalking too long.”  It’s time to come alive again!  It’s time to share your light.  Choose who you want to be and what you want to give to the world.  

For 2023, our asana programs are focused on therapeutics.  It’s about healing as a pathway to wholeness.  Svaroopa® yoga has always excelled at therapeutics, which are especially needed now.  Healing Retreats are available both online as well as in-person.  And 2023 Teacher Trainings expand teachers’ therapeutic skills, both for private sessions as well as for teaching groups.

My twice weekly satsangs continue, featuring sutra discourses and group meditation.  In addition, I will work closely with a dedicated study group who do five weekend retreats with me in the year.  Three Shaktipat Retreats are scheduled, beginning with the 2022-23 New Year’s event.

In this important time of transition, you are invited to join me for our Free Japa Club.  Twice daily, zoom in for five minutes of group mantra repetition, plus an additional minute for giving blessings to the world.  E-Quotes continue with daily emails and lots of other Freebies including 1-minute videos and sound bites.  Arise!  Awake!  Choose what you want to do and make it happen!

FREE Mystical, Magical & Meditation Mastery

Gurudevi is a meditation master, authorized within an ancient yogic lineage.  She specializes in making the mysteries understandable and accessible.  

Mystical and magical are not the same.  In her free program, you learn the difference between magic, mysticism and what meditative mastery really is.

After Gurudevi’s discourse and our meditation, thoughts and things suddenly fell into place.  She helped me to put puzzle pieces together into a beautiful picture. — Alina U.

From Longing to Attainment

By Amanda (Purna) Schmidt

Spiritual Hunger & Fulfillment, Gurudevi’s latest CD, illumines the yogic path through song, sharing her journey from longing to attainment.

Seven tracks guide us modern-day yogis through this age-old experience. The melodies echo themes of yearning, surrender and devotion that culminate in pure Grace.

Are you ready to explore your own inner greatness? These chants will open the door and draw you inside. Follow Gurudevi’s footsteps on the path, and discover your own Self. Price: $9.99

Buy Online: Spiritual Hunger & Fulfillment

CD Tracks:

  1. OM Svaroopa Svasvabhava
  2. Atma Shatakam – Shivo’ham Shivo’ham
  3. Atma Shatakam Translation
  4. Bhagavan Namah
  5. Guru Mantras
  6. Purno‘ham
  7. OM Namo Bhagavate

Consciousness Imprints

by Satguru Swami Nirmalananda

You were trained by masters.  Your family and schoolteachers were masters of “busy mind.” They did their best to cultivate your mastery.  Yogic training gives you “quiet mind,” a sweet inner stillness, spaciousness and peace.  It deepens into bliss.

This process involves both training and conditioning.  Training is when you study the theory and begin to apply it.  A baseball pitcher gets coaching on his throw or a golfer on his swing.  Their His coaches take videos and measure the speed of his ball.  Then they show him how he’s losing power with some little thing, like the placement of his foot.  He tries it out.  The coaches help him fine-tune his new plan.

Now the conditioning begins.  He practices.  He throws the ball, then he throws it again.  Hundreds or thousands of pitches later, he’s ready to bring it to the game, with the crowds roaring and his teammates watching his feet placement.  He has to forget it all, even the theory and plan, so he can simply do it.  He gets in the groove and throws the ball.

You need both training and conditioning.  Theory alone is not enough; you need to practice.  This means that you quiet your mind.  But quiet mind doesn’t last very long in the beginning.  Your mind gets busy again, so you have to quiet it again.  And again… Repetition is the key.

Yoga excels at quieting your mind.  All yogic practices are about quieting your mind, including the poses.  With athletic and aerobic yoga styles, quiet mind is often attained through exhaustion.  You’re too fatigued to think, which is mildly blissful.  Similarly, most meditation systems work this way.  You sit through the internal storms, waiting for them to pass so you get a moment of inner stillness.  Then you do it again.

Svaroopa® Yoga is different.  It works energetically.  Your spine is the central conduit of energy in your body, so our poses decompress it, opening up new levels of energy inside.  In Svaroopa® Vidya meditation, you pour your mental energy toward infinite Consciousness.  These energetic interventions work more powerfully than…

Shaktipat Is the Mystical Key

By Elena Perri

Interviewed by Margie (Maitreyi) Wilsman

After my first Shaktipat Retreat with Gurudevi, awareness openings followed, in my body, mind and being.  They continue to this day. 

Gurudevi awakened my Kundalini.  I experienced an upward flow of energy from the base of my spine through my body.  It rendered a joyful bliss I had never experienced before.  As we chanted the mantra, the bliss gradually expanded into a silky, warm sensation.  It moved into the base of my skull and filled my head.  It was what I can only call an ineffable experience.  I felt all-encompassing universal love envelope me.  It was a quiet knowing of being safely held.  It was as though the arms of the most loving, nurturing mother held me.  

Swami Nirmalananda giving Shaktipat

Returning home, I continued meditating.  I gradually shifted in unexpected ways.  After the Shaktipat, I found myself effortlessly disengaging from political and social dramas.  Similarly, the judgments I had always struggled to overcome transformed as well.  I spontaneously began to see people more compassionately rather than critically.  Rather than harsh judgments, I felt compassion for their state of being.  

Quietly, I acknowledged my own struggles with less than favorable behaviors.  I found it easier to forgive rather than to begrudge.  I think of these shifts as the Divine Grace that Shaktipat ushered into my awareness.  I am forever grateful and humbled. 

Spiritual evolution has always been the compass for my journey.  My life’s yearnings have been to achieve these transformations and to experience such Grace.  Getting over myself has taken a lot of time.  Finally, I can open my heart with humility.  I have found my way to Gurudevi’s vast offering of blessings and wisdom.

But the time it took and missteps along the way mean nothing to me now.  All that matters is the mystical and seismic transformation of my being through the awakening of Kundalini.  Kundalini fills my heart and thus fills my being.  Shaktipat is the mystical key that unlocked the gateway into the knowing of True Self. Thank you, Gurudevi.

If Not Now, When?

By Rosemary (Rudrani) Nogue, Yogaratna

Decades ago, my mind told me I wouldn’t be good enough to take Yoga Teacher Training.  The trainer looked me square in the eye and said, “If not now — when?”  The words had an effect.  I took that initial training in another style.  It was my steppingstone toward the fortunate discovery of Svaroopa® Yoga Teacher Training.  

After I became a Certified Svaroopa® Yoga Teacher, I realized I could serve students even more profoundly through Gurudevi’s Meditation Teacher Training (MTT).  I took MTT twice.  The first was the original survey syllabus course.  The training gave me the knowledge and experience to grow into a daily meditator and a meditation teacher.

The second, following Gurudevi’s sannyas initiation, was for certification as a Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation teacher.  I could have upgraded to it through a phone course plus an in-person program over a long weekend.  Yet I opted to take Gurudevi’s expanded 10-day MTT in-person course.  Why?  It was a huge opportunity to re-experience 10 days of being in the flow of Guru’s Grace.  I wanted to imbibe the teachings, practices and challenges again from the new place I was at. 

Both times, taking MTT was wonderfully overwhelming and hard.  I wasn’t a meditator for my first MTT.  Every day, we chanted and meditated, and Gurudevi taught new sutras related to meditation.  Then we were assigned daily homework to explain a sutra using our own words.

I often wrote talks late into the night.  I needed to sleep as well as to complete my talk.  This gave me an opportunity to learn to settle deeper within using mantra.  Then writing came more easily — and bed could follow.  I was in the flow of palpable Grace, although I didn’t know what to call it then. 

The next day, I would get clear, supportive feedback on my short talk.  I learned what I had done well and ways to improve.  This training gave me practice at putting words to “That” which is hard to express.

Both MTT courses gave me a three-class structure to build a “Learn to Meditate” course.  I could totally support my “soon to be” students with teachings and practicalities.  I was set up to give them everything they needed to become daily lifelong meditators.  I was prepared to teach them how to uncover their own Inherent Divinity.

In my second MTT, Gurudevi’s gift of the enlivened mantra gave me the understanding and experience of its power.  I was beautifully prepared to share the revelatory mantra of our lineage with students.

There is nothing I would rather teach than meditation.  What a privilege and honor to guide others to understand and experience the true goal and purpose of meditation.  There isn’t a greater life changing experience I could offer than teaching someone to meditate. 

Every time I teach my “Learn to Meditate” course, I am deepened.  How can I offer these profound teachings and not experience greater understanding, more Self-knowing and joy?  Grace supports me and my students.  I am more than grateful.

Don’t miss the upcoming MTT.  If not now — when?

Why a Meditation Club?

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

It was so easy for me to meditate when I lived with my Baba.  He led the meditations every day.  I didn’t want to miss it!  And my experience was so much deeper than when I was meditating on my own.

This is why I created the Meditation Club, to support your daily meditations.  The single most important yogic practice is meditation.  It’s so important that all the other practices exist specifically to improve your meditation.  

* The poses make you able to sit. 

* Breathing practices quiet your mind, as does chanting, which combines breathing with mantras.  

* Sutra study helps you understand your meditation experience, even to navigate effectively in the inner expanse.

I was so fortunate to have years of living and studying with my Guru.  The best was sitting in silence with him.  It opened up my inner access to dimensions I could never have imagined.

Daily meditation was one of the reasons I opened Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram.  I have been meditating with the Ashram residents daily for over ten years.  I began planning it as an online Meditation Club in 2019.   Zoom and the pandemic empowered me to create that access for you.

It’s delightful and amazing to see this Divine energy flowing through the internet – amazing and not surprising at all.  For it is the gift my Guru gave me that makes it all work, the gift of the ancient sages of India.  

The single most important thing I do every day is meditate with you.  Every day. 

Gurudevi’s Mid-Week Satsang

Come chant and meditate with Gurudevi Nirmalananda in her free Wednesday evening program, live in Downingtown.  To zoom in, enroll in our online Yoga Wednesday (Bookends or Full Day).

This satsang features a long chant and meditation, both led by Gurudevi.  Live music accompanies the chant in the traditional yoga style.  You’ll find it easy to follow the printed words and everyone else singing along.  After the chant, Gurudevi guides the meditation, making it easy for newcomers, while simultaneously making it deep and profound for everyone.

The chant and meditation during Gurudevi’s mid-week satsang is powerfully deep.  I settle in much more deeply than I can with chanting and meditating on my own.  I attend every week! – Lynn C.

Easily Do More Yoga 

Amanda (Purna) Schmidt 

Build your home practice of Svaroopa® yoga with Daily Practice pose cards.  They complement the Foundational Poses found in the Svaroopa® Yoga Basics set.  Learn how to establish a consistent home practice that suits your needs. 

Practice deeper variations of reliable spinal release poses, and get more comfortable with seated poses.  If you are interested in meditation, this new information helps you get started.  New and experienced yogis alike can benefit from these pose cards.  Revel in the results of daily practice! 

Pose Instruction Cards: Daily Practice

Dimensions: 8.5” x 5.5” 

Price: $11.95 

Free Binder: Cards come hole-punched to fit your matching binder (FREE with the purchase of the Svaroopa® Yoga Basics Pose Cards. 

Perception & Action

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

Yoga says we have ten senses, not merely the five about which I learned in 7th grade science class.  Your senses of sight, sound, smell, touch and taste are called the j~nanendriyas in Sanskrit.  They are modes of perception.  Your senses reach out to explore the world.  Your mind follows them and you try to construct a sense of self out there. Unfortunately, you have lost your core being, what yoga calls your capital-S Self.

You have five more ways of getting lost, all of them mesmerizing capacities.  These are the five modes of action, called karmendriyas:  locomotion, handling, speaking, sexuality and excretion.  They take up a tremendous amount of mind-space, especially if you’re having trouble in any of these areas in life.  

Yoga says that you are the perceiver, not what you perceive.  Whatever you are seeing or hearing, as well as what you are doing, you are the one who is experiencing it.  You are the experiencer, not the experience.  You are the doer, not the action or its results.  Know who you are, even while you are perceiving and acting, and you are…