By Agnes (Aikya) Hetherington 

I decided to immerse myself in the free library of Gurudevi’s Satsang discourses.  An important family dharma (responsibility) had pulled me away from my yoga practices for some months.  Now it was time to dive back in. 

This practice became quite challenging.  The more I listened, the more my “stuff” got churned up.  The journal became an account of the struggle between my “self” and my “Self.”  My feeling of being in the middle of a tug of war increased.  The contest seemed to be Shiva/Guru/Self versus Family/Friends/Worldly Pursuits.  Listening to Gurudevi’s discourses, I was relieved to hear descriptions of her own periods of doubt while at Baba’s Ashram.  Even better was the revelation of how simply Baba resolved those doubts, again and again (May 31, 2020: Today Is the First Day of the Rest of Your Life). 

I began listening to Gurudevi’s discourses dating back to the beginning of pandemic lockdown.  It became natural to meditate and journal after each listening session.  Sometimes, I passed in and had to re-listen.  Other times, the message felt so personal I had to re-listen and take copious notes. 

Fortunately, as a sevite (Ashram volunteer) I am wonderfully supported by the Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram community.  Conversations with more experienced yogis brought me great comfort and insight.  I was reminded that the churning is Kundalini clearing old mind habits for me.  It’s not about leaving the world, but simply noticing who I “be” while in it.  Can I cultivate the ability to act in the world without being needy about outcomes?  The solution, of course, is to collaborate with Kundalini by “doing more yoga.”  I have doubled up on daily Ujjayi and added more online asana classes to my week. 

We are each on our individual journey towards Enlightenment.  Sometimes the road gets bumpier for a while.  At these times the Podbean platform with Gurudevi’s teachings is an invaluable source of wisdom.  The Podbean platform is a great resource for finding years’ worth of audio-recorded discourses.  They are listed by date, and have a brief written description of the subject matter.  In my journal, I noted the date of each.  Now I can re-listen to those that especially resonate with me.  Getting the Podbean app lets you follow the Podcast.  It’s great to be notified when a new discourse is posted. 

As Svaroopis we are blessed to have a living Master to follow.  She gives us the free gifts of her experience to guide the way. 

By Margie (Maitreyi) Wilsman

When Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s online Meditation Club launched in March 2020, I joined immediately.  More than two years later, I am still a dedicated member.  The benefits just keep coming from my early morning meditation with our beloved Shaktipat Guru. Our online Meditation Club meets every day of the week!  Gurudevi offers us a reading, we chant, and then she leads us into meditation.  An hour later she lovingly closes our Meditation Club session.

One of my Svaroopa^® yoga students jokingly asked, “Isn’t two years long enough?  Isn’t it time to return to previous enjoyments?”  “Yikes, just the opposite,” I wanted to shout!  Yet I replied calmly that my staying is due to the scientific learning principle that meditation teaches meditation.  I even repeated the principle:  Meditation teaches meditation.

This yoga student knows about my previous work at a university, training K-16 teachers of math.  Math is complex and multilayered.  So I could share that the principle holds when you are learning meditation.  You only get part way from book learning that is accompanied by short-term, occasional practice.  Even when you are someone for whom math comes easy, you never know how far you can go.  You don’t know how grand and glorious your attainments can be.  

You must continue with uninterrupted study, practice and devotion over a long time.  The same is true for learning to meditate.  You meditate consistently, devotedly and for years to learn to meditate.  Then you attain grand and glorious benefits that you could never have imagined.

My two years of daily early morning meditation with Gurudevi have shifted me 180 degrees inward.  More and more, I live life from the depths of who I am on the inside.  Now meditation is not just something I do when Zooming into Meditation Club.  Meditation is an inner state of beingness.  It oozes out, permeating my changed view of a good life.  

The changes embody the nature of my own Self, called Shiva.  Shiva is the cosmic reality of multidimensional universes.  Yet I still live in my same rural Wisconsin home.  I teach in the same yoga center where I’ve served the community since 2005.

After being closed for 22 months, I reopened recently.  During those 22 months, I shifted profoundly into experiencing my Divine Essence: Who I “Be” on the inside.  I am Shiva, the One Reality, the Cosmic Consciousness that existed before the world existed.  Timeless, infinite, formless, Shiva has taken form as me — and you and everyone else and everything.

Now, mystical experiences of my inner nature and realms don’t happen only during Meditation Club.  As I bump into conflicts, struggles and turmoil, I recognize them as normal and ever-existent.  I pause, shift and look for the Divine that is hidden beneath.  I realize that everything is yoga and provides a yoga lesson to me.  Then I can settle within, into the sacred silence of Who I “Be.”

Attaining meditation is my life goal.  Meditation is complex and multilayered.  You never know the glory and ecstasy of attaining meditation until you delve inside.  Then the layers blocking the way to Self-Realization unravel.  For this inner journey, Gurudevi provides support:  infinite Grace and Shakti-powered tools.  Meditation Club is one of those energy-charged tools I continue to use.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

That’s what you really want, a breakthrough: a shift in perception, an insight or realization that makes you “get it”.  Suddenly you’re free. Whatever was weighing you down simply has no power over you anymore.  And you can’t go back to the way you were either.  Once you know, you can’t not-know.

We love breakthroughs, even the images that evoke the feeling.  Seeing the sun shining through a hole in the clouds brings me to a halt every time.  I look around to see if other people are seeing it, too.  I love a photo of a bird flying into a vast blue sky or a high-jumper sailing over the bar.  As a kid in elementary school, I used to run and leap across the giant rain puddles on the playground.  It felt almost like I could fly.

It’s true, we want to fly, to shatter the shackles that keep us bound.  It’s the norm to live in your agendas, entangled in emotions and chasing wisps of thought.  But the desire for freedom is there, inside.  So many popular musicians sing, “I want to be free!”  Yes!  Freedom!  Yoga is all about freedom.

Many people begin yoga by seeking freedom from pain or stress.  Both dissolve in your first Svaroopa^® yoga class.  Then you want more:  freedom from the limiting patterns in your body-mind, along with the unleashing of your power to…

By Carolyn (Karuna) Beaver

Our spring fundraiser theme is “Namah.” It’s a beautiful Sanskrit word that means to honor or to bow to.  Give yourself the gift that keeps on giving by honoring the source of the teachings with a donation. 

It’s not the amount you give; it’s the act of giving itself that makes a difference. It makes a difference in you. When you contribute to the Ashram, you honor your own Self. You honor your own process of spiritual development. You honor the One Self, being all – being you, being me and beyond. How do I know this? It comes from my own experience. 

Every fall and spring, I set aside money so that I can donate in the Ashram’s twice yearly fundraisers.  It’s part of my spiritual commitment, not just to the Ashram, but to my Self.  It’s a reciprocal arrangement.  I give to the Ashram so that Gurudevi can continue to give to me and others through her deep yet accessible teachings.  When I donate to the Ashram, I feel the effects that Gurudevi describes:

Giving and sharing are a mark of personal, and yogic, growth. 

You grow by caring. You grow by contributing.

It’s not just about my devotion to Gurudevi and her teachings.  It’s about me. Gurudevi felt the same way about her teacher, Baba Muktananda. She said:

While I tried to make it all about him, the bottom line was that the difference in him made a difference in me.  When I was with Baba, I was better able to be me, deep inside to really be me. I could rest in my own Self.  That was the goal; he kept turning our attention inward.

This is my goal too — to keep turning my attention inward, to my own inner essence, my own Self.  In this spring’s fundraiser, I encourage you to let the deep well of your innermost essence bubble up.  Let its impact open you ever more deeply to the One that is being you and being all. 

Our donation categories this spring are all about namah, honoring.  You can honor your local teacher or your Ashram teacher. You can honor the Ashram, the organizational structure that supports the teachings. You can honor the efforts that make Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s teachings free and accessible on our website, social media and podcasts. 

With a donation, you take your yoga into the world, and into your own being.  And in return, please know the gratitude and devotion with which the Ashram honors You.

Donate on our website or 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.

By Robin (Nityaa) Blankenship

Ever since taking the Learn to Meditate series from my local teacher, I’ve meditated daily.  Because I wanted to deepen my experience and share meditation with others, I took Meditation Teacher Training (MTT).  It opened a path that has included challenges as well as bliss!

Gurudevi is a Master Meditation Teacher.  Her MTT is an incredibly thorough and detailed course.  After completing it and the at-home coaching program (DTS), I had all the tools to teach an amazing, thorough course on how to meditate.  

Every day in the training was a full day of discourses, discussion and meditation.  Gurudevi taught us students the elements that she uses in teaching meditation.  We learned how to write talks on Consciousness based on sutras as well as meditation instructions.  We learned to prepare our students to meditate and to close their meditation period.  Plus, we learned how to present the practical details of creating a daily meditation practice at home.  We even learned how to deal with questions that come up for students.

Even though MTT is wonderful, taking the course and preparing to teach was tapas, a yogic challenge, for me:

The extended meaning of tapas includes the inner fire that keeps you going in your own process, and specifically means the heat the comes from friction — the friction of your own limited sense of self rubbing against God.  Which of you will be burned away? 

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda, Tapas: The Hard Stuff 

Each night, we wrote a talk to give the next day to our study group.  After such full days, I found writing difficult at night.  The day’s immersion had opened me mentally and emotionally, bringing up my “stuff.”  My mind created much pain for me.  So I felt I was not ready to teach meditation and ended up taking the course again.  Smile — more tapas!

After my second MTT, I spent many hours preparing to teach my class.  I studied the MTT handouts and my class notes.  I fine-tuned my talks.  With so much preparation, teaching the course itself was the easy part.  Teaching went very smoothly; Grace flowed through.  Teaching meditation, I was a conduit of Grace.  I was supported by Gurudevi inside as well as outside by the training I had received. 

Students experienced deep meditations and expressed gratitude for the teachings.  They followed through with daily at-home meditation.  Two students even decided to meditate twice daily.

After the last class, when the students left, I felt totally full and complete.  An unmistakable bliss arose.  The tapas had burned something away.  The friction of my small-s self rubbing against God had burned away the stuff that was making me feeling small and separate from Self.  I experienced what Shri Guru Gita describes in Verse 64:

I am beyond the primeval, everlasting, self-luminous, taintless, pure, vast space, unmoving, blissful and imperishable.

— Rendered by Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

What a blessing to teach Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation.  It is so special to give the gift of the mantra and to bring meditation, the most important yogic practice, to more people.

By Lynn (Gurupremananda) Cattafi, SVA Board Member

Namah is a most beautiful Sanskrit word, which means “to honor, to bow, to worship.”  You can see namah at the root of “namaste,” which means “I honor the place in you, and in me, in which the entire universe dwells.”  Gurudevi Nirmalananda describes namah as she learned it from her Guru:

Baba constantly reminded us, “Honor your own Self; worship your own Self; bow to your own Self; God dwells within you as you.”  He kept turning us back toward the right direction, inward.

In so many ways, Gurudevi has taught me to honor and worship my own Self.  Yet there is one she didn’t have to teach me — to honor and support the source of the teachings.  My financial support of the Ashram enables Gurudevi and our amazing group of teaching swamis to support me in my quest inward to Self.  Please join me in this practice of dakshina.  Donate to our spring fundraiser.

Many times throughout every day I make the choice, Self or self.  When I choose Self, my inherent Divinity, I bow to all that I am.  I take my mind into my own Beingness instead of being pulled into mind-stuff and emotions.

Yoga’s ancient practices are designed to quiet your mind so that you can see all the way inward to your inherent Divinity.  The ancient teachings remind us that we find God — our Divine Essence, our Self — within.  Gurudevi and our swamis show us how to apply these ancient teachings in modern life.

Fueling your journey to Self-Realization, Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram brings you an abundance of programs infused with Gurudevi’s teachings.  Ashram programs include Gurudevi’s Shaktipat Retreats as well as yoga classes, yoga therapy, healing retreats and Teacher Training.  You can even receive free teachings through Freebies on the Ashram website.  These programs and teachings show you how to honor your Self.  

When you support the source of the teachings, the return on your investment is great.  Allow yourself to experience the gratitude and devotion with which the Ashram honors you!

Donate 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.

By Lissa (Yogyananda) Fountain, Yogaratna

We’ve got a new Podbean channel! You can now listen to audios of our Yoga Mysticism blog series “Traditional Tales.” Access them on our on our new Podbean channel, “Traditional Tales”.

These ancient tales are unfamiliar and different for me. I hear references to them and want to understand them better.  I’m excited to learn more details! – Andrea (Abhati) Wade. 

On Podbean, we already had two Ashram channels:  

• Audio Teachings —  for Gurudevi’s satsangs or audio versions of her Teachings Articles.
• Guru Gita Project — to hone your Sanskrit pronunciation skills

Now we have a third one:

• Traditional Tales — Nirooshitha Sethuram has been writing these stories for us for almost 5 years. Now she and a team of yogis are making them into podcasts.

Swami Samvidaananda explains,

Our original two Podbean channels deliver over 300 recorded treasures.  Our new Podbean channel presents the Traditional Tales in both Tamil and English.  Nirooshitha Sethuram has shared these stories with us in our YogaMysticism.Today blogsite, and has recorded them in her mother tongue.  Several sevites are working together to provide the audios in English. These stories speak to both the mythical and mystical.

We take in this information differently when we hear it.  These tales were traditionally handed down orally.  When you listen, they come to life in a whole new way.  They seep in.  They soak into where we are most thirsty and hungry.

Gurudevi has interwoven these stories into her talks for decades.  Yet before she finished, many of us would drop in to deep meditation!  Now you can listen, again and again, at your leisure.  Relax back and let this be a divine story time just for you.  Avail yourself of the timeless lessons that these ancient tales provide for today.  As you pay even closer attention, you may find your own story reflected as well.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

The movie script says that you walk into the room where the Guru is sitting. The Guru stops mid-sentence and looks directly at you and says, “I’ve been waiting for you.”  You sit at the master’s feet.  He leans over, whispers one word in your right ear and instantly you are absorbed deep within.  After a long time, you open your eyes.  The Guru is there, waiting and watching.  He sees your exalted state and nods.  You bow.

No, it didn’t happen that way for me either.  I didn’t know I was looking for a Guru.  Well, my heart knew but my mind didn’t have the word to conjure up, no way to name what I was looking for. I was in the bittersweet pain of the yearning, but I didn’t know what to call it (other than pain). 

In 1975 an image haunted me, coming up again and again from different sources.  I’d find it in a book, then someone would bring it to me.  It was a card from the Tarot deck – the Hermit.

The Hermit doesn’t hide from people… He beckons you to turn your view inward and allow yourself the time and space to think, feel, and meditate on what it is that you truly want in and from your life. By doing this you will be able to unlock your true desires and find complete happiness.  The Hermit looks to be standing on his own surrounded by nothing and holding only a lamp… His lantern is not to guide his own way, for he’s already where he wants to be. It is there to guide you to him or to his location.

The next year, I found Baba.  All by coincidence, of course.  It was later that I found out what coincidence really is — God being anonymous.  Yes, it was all Divine Intervention.  And I truly needed the help.

Once you meet the Guru, everything changes.  This is particularly true when you encounter a Shaktipat Guru, for the Shaktipat Guru’s job is to give you an inner opening to your own Self.  That experience changes you…

This is an excerpt from Gurudevi’s new Telecourse, debuting today — Enlightenment: Stages & Steps.

FREE Intro Video

Since I tend to tighten up when stressed, I have learned that remembering to breathe is important.  Now I am learning that remembering to honor is as important.  Supporting the Ashram with a monthly financial gift enables me to honor the gifts that I have received.  I also honor the giver of those gifts — Gurudevi Nirmalananda.  

Having the stability of monthly donations enables the Ashram to plan and to cover its continuing expenses.  My additional gift during this fundraiser is an investment in my own Self.  It’s an acknowledgment that the gift of the Self needs to be made available to others.

Our spring fundraising theme is Namah — to bow, to honor.  Namah is a beautiful Sanskrit word.  It is part of the Ashram’s mantra.  It is part of our tradition’s meditation mantra.  Namah means to honor, to bow to.  

Yoga says to honor the One that you are so that you become that One.  When you bow, you become one with that to which you are bowing.

Does that you mean that you become the other person?  No.  You are bowing to the One that is being the other person, while also being you.

I am grateful for all the ways that Gurudevi teaches for becoming present to Self.  I have found that simply bowing with my hands in anjali mudra (prayer position) quiets my mind.  This bowing steadies it, and allows me to rest in silence.  Mantra extends and deepens the peace that arises.  Supported from within, I return to my daily responsibilities refreshed.  Of course, my mind is such that I need to rinse and repeat frequently!

How do you honor your own Self?  Please join me in honoring your own Self by donating to the Ashram during our spring fundraiser. 

Your donation honors you and Gurudevi, the giver of the gift of your Self.  Direct your gift to:

• Honor your teacher

• Honor the Ashram

• Honor the free teachings

Donate on our website or 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.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

What is it about YOU that brings you to the doorstep of Self-Realization?  Here you are, knocking on the door, wanting in.  Something propels you forward, something powerful, maybe even uncomfortable sometimes, something undeniable, a question that must be answered or a quest that must be fulfilled.  Other people around you don’t seem to be moved by this unnameable force.  What is it? 

Yoga’s sages speak very highly of it, “mumuk.sutva” in Sanskrit – the longing for liberation, also described as the yearning for God.  In his text, Patanjali honors this yearning as the most important factor in the pace of your spiritual progress. 

Tiivra-sa.mvegaanaan aasanna.h. — Yoga Sutras 1.21

The inner depth is closest to those who desire it most strongly.

This yearning makes you unable to bear the inner emptiness, yet paradoxically it is that which fills you up.  For myself, this yearning was the theme of their my since before I could explain it.  I remember feeling it from before the age of 5.  Yet I know that it’s been there longer, it’s been a theme for lifetimes.  You are here because you yearn to know, just like I did.

This yearning is a great blessing, one you have earned from doing deep spiritual practices in previous lifetimes.  You have meritorious spiritual karma.  Yet, even more than this, it is your life’s purpose to seek and to find.  This what makes you different, even when you don’t want to be.

This is the subject of my new Telecourse, Enlightenment:  Stages & Steps. Join me in this great inner exploration!