Short info-bits, that’s all you have time for these days. We are shortening and simplifying our emails to give you more, but taking less of your time. Along with a pretty new look, the plan is to give you a moment of upliftment every day.
Videos are coming — beginning soon. Your email will include a 60-90 second video weekly or more often. It gives you a bite-size piece to chew on or just to make you grin. It will be something from Gurudevi or our other blog authors.
Good news: no more long emails. However we know that yogis’ stories are so heart-warming and inspiring that we don’t want to lose them. So you’ll get a paragraph or two (another 60 second option) along with a link to the blog.
Our publications have been stellar for years, supported by an extensive team of sevites as well as several full-time staff members. Our readership is well served and seems to know it, as our “open rates” for our emails are consistently high. SVA was used as the example to learn from at a weekend seminar several years ago, to which we had sent several staff members.
The communications world has changed a lot, fueled by your changing activities and interests during the pandemic. Now that you can get out, you have many things competing for your attention. In addition, video is more important, plus it has become easy to imbed video and audio clips in emails. We’re going to do it!
We hope you will enjoy having Gurudevi inspire you daily, or you can simply choose weekly or monthly frequency here. Maybe you can just wait a few days and see what’s coming your way…
My introduction to the practices of Gurudevi’s Svaroopa® yoga and meditation was gradual. I first experienced classes and private yoga therapy at Downingtown Yoga (DYMC). Then my teacher nudged me to take Meditation 101.
My next step was attending Gurudevi’s Swami Sunday satsangs. Like a baby, I was being spoon fed. Eventually, I heard about the extraordinary gift that Gurudevi can bestow: Shaktipat.
I learned about Shaktipat right before the 2020 pandemic shutdown. I wanted my first Shaktipat to be in person, so I had to wait until fall 2021. I was so happy to be at Lokananda with all the shakti of a group of experienced yogis. They all had received Shaktipat from Gurudevi multiple times. In the meditation hall, I was the lone newcomer, awash in their energy!
When Gurudevi laid her hand on my head, I felt pulled from my tailbone up through my neck toward her hand. During the retreat, several meditations followed. The first was full of a trillion white lights. One was a full-on light show. Since then, when I attend Gurudevi’s Wednesday evening or Swami Sunday satsangs, I still have extraordinarily deep meditations. Every time I meditate now, I feel full and bright afterward.
Swami Nirmalananda giving Shaktipat
At the beginning of 2022, I noticed how profoundly life has changed for me. I feel at ease with everyone around me. I no longer have a sense of anyone getting under my skin. I respect their differences and love them even more. This state has led me to never being disappointed with anything. I am at ease and peace with all my surroundings. At ease and peace with everyone, I feel wonderful. I find that loving yourself makes the love that you have so much easier to give.
Receiving Shaktipat from Gurudevi has led to this transformation. I also know that participating in her 2021 Year-Long Programme (YLP) prepared me for being open to Shaktipat. In a YLP video, she gave us the practice of repeating “I exist.” Not only did I say these simple words; I would go to bed thinking about them. This practice, and Gurudevi’s other YLP practices, touched me deeply. It was as though I’d been in a closet and had chucked out useless stuff. Then I emerged as my Self.
Last fall, I treated myself to a cross-country road trip. I visited National Parks: Badlands, Glacier, Yellowstone. I was on my own, tapping into me. I have learned and can feel this profound inner depth from Gurudevi’s words. She puts words to what I am feeling. Wherever I am, I am home because my own Self is home.
By Bob (Ravi) Penneys, interviewed by Lori (Priya) Kenney
I have been a spiritual wanderer and seeker for over 55 years. Fortunately, I have had many satsangs, conferences and teachers on some of the highest paths. Some teachers were disciples of Baba Muktananda, whom I saw back in 1980.
Almost 40 years later, my path led me to Svaroopa® Yoga, whose home base in Downingtown is just 17 pretty miles from my home. When I first met and heard Gurudevi, it was strikingly clear that she was the irrefutable Truth. And, against all odds, so was I! I was filled with gratitude.
My intellectual family background has helped me prize thought and language above all. The fallible body’s purpose was presented as housing the brain and mind, just as a car carries the driver. I had grown up to fear rather than trust my mortal body. Gurudevi taught me, to my consternation, that the body is really the ticket.
blissfullyoga.com
Last spring, I started doing more and more japa (mantra repetition). My hands began to waver and get hot. I got super enthused about finally becoming a more real yogi. I consulted with Gurudevi, who gave me an ambitious program. I started off strong, then waxed and waned with my practices. She reiterates to me that liberation isn’t going to happen just because she gives me Shaktipat. I gotta do my part of the work. Gurudevi also prescribed Embodyment® Yoga Therapy sessions, which I’ve been having weekly with Swami Satrupananda. What a treat. The process and rewards are so sweet.
All this is changing me. I’ve had 70-plus years of bumping around, entertaining a lifetime of negativity and unhappiness. That all was hidden, underlying a life of love, fun, adventure, travel and wit. My trust in others was tentative, and I had precious little for myself.
Now, I’ve learned to notice, acknowledge and accept gracefully my habitual negative thoughts and feelings. As my observing part grows, my reactive part diminishes in power. I get to see myself, everyone and everything in the world very differently. Even the hardest people and situations in the world are actually One with me. I can change my apprehension to compassion, forgiveness and love.
I go to every Sunday and Wednesday satsang that I can. I cheerfully drive down a lovely creek-side country road, sit in front of Gurudevi and share Truth.
Truly? Yes, the CDC has cleared our area, along with 98% of the USA, based on current transmission and hospitalization rates. See their online report for Chester County, PA. We are in a low risk area. Their only recommendations are:
Wear a mask based on your personal preference, informed by your personal level of risk.
If you decide wear a mask when at the Ashram or Downingtown Yoga & Meditation Center, we will support you in your decision.
We’ve all been waiting for this, so long in coming. Yet, now that it is upon us, it feels a little strange. That simply means you’ve gotten used to distancing and hiding.
United Press International upi.com
Gurudevi says,
“I hope you get over it soon! A yogi adapts to change like a bird riding the wind — quickly, easily and gracefully.”
The reality is that we don’t know how long this will last. Predictions change weekly, meaning that nobody knows what’s going to happen. But that has always been a fact of life, change is the constant. We’ve been through many changes in various waves of this pandemic, including being locked down for months, then living under stringent restrictions for a long time. All this was to preserve our health as well as our health care system, overwhelmed by the number of serious cases.
With the improvements in medical response to this virus, along with the high vaccination rate in the USA and the viral mutations, the hospitalization rate has dropped. It’s such a significant change that the CDC changed how they measure the risk. In a low risk area like ours, only 1 in 10,000 people has been diagnosed recently, which is 0.01% of the population.
Regardless of where you landed personally on the vaccine question, it’s no longer a factor. In low risk areas like ours, you are welcome to participate in indoor group activities with others, including yoga and meditation. Come on in!
We do continue to follow CDC recommendations and ask for your open-hearted cooperation:
If you have been exposed, quarantine for 5-20 days and get tested.
If you develop symptoms, isolate immediately and get tested.
Indoors, maintain improved ventilation (which our HEPA-quality air filtration provides).
Have testing readily available (which our COVID-partner Urgent Care provides).
We hope you’re ready to come to our On-Site programs, while you still have a wealth of online programs and freebies to enjoy.
I have never been disappointed by an Ashram training. I am always amazed how much every training exceeds my expectations. But of all the many Svaroopa® trainings I have taken, none compares to the Meditation Teacher Training (MTT). It transformed my practice, my life, my teaching and even my students.
After MTT, my own meditation and yoga practice grew by leaps and bounds. I had already known the importance of meditation. But I was not drawn to sitting for any extended time. I could sit to watch sports or a movie for hours, but not to meditate. That was too much for my mercurial mind.
Taking “Meditation Made Easy” helped. But I still usually sat only for 10 or 20 minutes at most, and not every day. When the first MTT was offered, I considered it but then balked. I regretted that. Fellow teachers who took MTT raved about the training. So I vowed to take the next offering. Pre-pandemic, I didn’t have to wait long.
MTT was profound and enlightening for me. I learned about the philosophical and mystical basis of Svaroopa® yoga and meditation. I gained a greater understanding of why meditation is so important. Learning how to work with my mind, I could get beyond it and to dive deeper inward. Instead of fighting with my mind, I made it an ally. I could then settle more easily into a deeper meditative state. Now I meditate every morning for a full hour, sometimes longer.
The training also taught me how to work with my students’ minds: how to motivate them, how to help them overcome their own difficulties and obstacles, and how to help them develop a steady, rewarding practice.
During the MTT, I enjoyed the daily meditation immersions led by Gurudevi. I especially appreciated Gurudevi’s in-depth discourses on the teachings. These deep meditation immersions and discourses helped me both as a practitioner and a teacher of meditation.
MTT was challenging as well as rewarding. For homework each evening, we wrote a discourse. Basically, we were doing work that would have to be done after completing MTT, as our talks get incorporated in the meditation class we later teach. The next morning, we divided into small groups. We presented our discourses to our group and received valuable feedback. The writing helped me gain more clarity about teaching meditation. The feedback helped me become a better and more confident communicator.
Given meditation is the ultimate practice, so teaching meditation has become for me the ultimate profession. My students have benefited immensely. My teaching comes from a deeper place now – from my Self. The Grace pours in, from Guru, and pours out, to my students.
MTT is offered less frequently nowadays. So don’t balk at this next one as I once did! Jump right in. You will be grateful – as I always will be.
I teach therapeutics because so many people need healing, perhaps even you. I teach teachers how to offer therapeutics because together we can heal more people than I could alone. I also benefit from practicing these techniques myself, which are both simple and amazing.
In a sense, all yoga is therapeutic, meaning it heals what ails you. It’s obvious that body and mind need help, certainly for anyone with a few decades on their odometer. You can pump iron, even move your body through extreme sports and extreme life experiences, but it is going to hurt at some point along the way. Now what do you do?
Pain killers don’t kill the pain. They numb your ability to feel it. That means you have the pain but now you’re numb. You’re numbed out, not only physically, but you also cannot feel joy or love. Worse, you haven’t identified the cause of your pain, which means it will get worse. Yoga says you must find and treat the cause of the pain, which is a multi-dimensional process.
This is consistent with the “bio-psycho-social” approach formally adopted by the World Health Organization in 2002. In addition to your biology, psychology and social health, yoga adds another dimension: your spirituality. Pain specialists have proven that those with deep spiritual or religious perspectives actually experience less pain. The sage Patanjali explained this several thousand years ago:
Pain is caused by your sense of self depending on things outside of you.
You know this from your own experience, perhaps, of a pet’s death. Your loss affects your quality of life and even your sleep and digestion. The difficulties cease when you get a new pet, or when you move on from your thoughts about your old pet. Bigger losses can trigger anxiety and depression, leading to a diminished immune response as well as other physical problems. Now the dominoes begin to fall.
Yoga intervenes at the point of the teetering domino. In a therapeutics class or private session, we meet you where you are at, focusing on reducing your pain or stress. Svaroopa® Yoga works! Your immediate improvement makes it look like we’re relieving your symptoms, but we are always targeting the cause.
When you are healing from an injury, illness or life event, we’re still focused on your deeper healing, for there are always multiple dimensions at play. The techniques we use activate your own healing power, which works on you from the inside out.
Our ways of working with your breath and body, more importantly, open up profound spiritual dimensions within you. These experiences are life-affirming as well as life-changing, which is yoga’s true purpose — that you shine the light of your own essence into the world more fully.
I love to teach therapeutics. While you get healing, you are simultaneously deepened into your own Self. It’s an outside-in and an inside-out process, both at the same time. Our therapeutics programs in 2022 include:
Bliss is not the goal. Consciousness is. This can be confusing because most seekers are looking for bliss. But Consciousness is what matters. Still, bliss is incredibly important. Why? The need for bliss is built into you.
Your body is hard-wired for bliss; it’s called your parasympathetic nervous system. Your body has bliss software; it’s called your endocrine system. Your mind and heart run on bliss. Without bliss, your heart dries up and your mind leapfrogs from anxiety to anxiety. It is not a pretty picture.
When you get even a drop of bliss, you spontaneously exhale with a sweet sigh, “Aaahh.” All your biological systems stand down from red alert and you become human again. Being human means you have the capacity to shine God’s light and love into the world. You have this capacity because the source is within, what yoga calls “your own Self.”
The bad news is that, without bliss, people decide that life is not worth living. The good news is that bliss is easily attained. Though lasting bliss takes preparation and practice, instant bliss is instant. That’s why my generation, coming of age in the 1960s, was focused on sex, drugs and rock and roll. Now, I can see that we settled for too little.
Bliss can be a continuing inner experience. It should be! That’s yoga in a nutshell. Yet bliss is not the goal. Consciousness is. But what is Consciousness? For that matter, what is bliss?
Consciousness is your knowing that you know. You don’t merely know things. A dog or cat knows things, but you know that you know. This is called Consciousness, technically the “self-reflective power” that humans have, unique amongst all other creatures. You are able to see that you see. You even think that you think. There are multiple dimensions within you, awaiting your exploration. The deeper you go, the more blissful it becomes.
This brings us back to bliss. What is bliss? Bliss is the sensation you experience when you rub up against God. In yoga, you find God within. So bliss is the sensation you experience when your personhood is being filled by God’s light and love from the inside-out.
People usually associate bliss with half-lit rooms and half-conscious states. Most of the world accepts being drunk, drugged or half-asleep as a substitute for God. For a yogi, it’s not enough. Unconscious bliss is unconscious. Personally, I always wanted more. I want you to want more.
I first took Svaroopa® yoga classes in 2000 — the same year I was invited to lead a workshop in China. I traveled to Tianjin, a northern industrial port. To face December subzero temperatures, I brought my long underwear and a big down parka. I also brought a small Sony tape recorder. I wanted to be able to listen to Gurudevi’s 1992 Shavasana audiotape, Relaxing: Cultivating Awareness. (I still listen to this tape today!)
The participants were scientists who advised national family planning policy. In our workshop, they were practicing leading teams and influencing stakeholders. I gave content and instructions through a translator. After the teams engaged in practice and held discussions, their responses were translated back to me. We engaged in these dialogues for many days. During each short break between sessions, I returned to my small hotel room. Exhausted and cold, I’d lie on my narrow bed. There I listened to Gurudevi’s voice on the tape as she led me into Shavasana.
Shavasana
After twenty minutes, Shavasana would restore my energy. I was then able to bring this energy back to the participants. They deeply appreciated the thinking that emerged from their work. I was invited to return to be their ongoing consultant. I was honored, but unable to commit to regular travel to China.
Returning to Boston, I continued to take weekly Svaroopa® classes. In 2007 I was privileged to attend Gurudevi’s Business of Yogacourse. It — and the business emerging from it — helped me establish my leadership development business.
Shortly afterwards, I was badly injured in a small plane crash. I broke fourteen bones and suffered three brain hemorrhages. I looked for every available modality that could heal me — from orthopedic surgery to energy work. My yoga teacher, Deborah Shapiro, kindly provided yoga therapy at my home. Svaroopa® yoga was key to my recovery.
During this time, I also worked with Gurudevi in phone courses. To accelerate my healing she encouraged me to start a daily Ujjayi practice. By 2008, I had recovered from my injuries and returned to in-person yoga classes. I also attended workshops with Gurudevi whenever she was in the New England area. I still saw myself as a weekly yoga student.
Fast forward to 2020, when my husband and I moved to Southwest Florida. There were no Svaroopa® yoga teachers within a hundred miles. Fortunately, I learned that I could take an online class at Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram. I began online yoga and meditation classes with Swami Prajñananda.
In January 2021, I underwent a complicated abdominal surgery. While recovering, I wrote a detailed letter to Gurudevi to let her know what was happening to me. She asked Brahmacharini Yogyananda to support me in restoring a daily Ujjayi practice. I was also supported in online yoga therapy with Swami Prajñananda. For the first time, I began my own daily yoga practice. In the spring, I was finally strong enough to participate again in a regular yoga class.
For many years, I had been contented with taking weekly Svaroopa® yoga classes. But my 2021 experiences have shown me that Svaroopa® yoga provides so much more. It is a reliable portal to deeper spiritual experiences. To learn more about yogic philosophy, I took Gurudevi’s Year-Long Programme (YLP). She took us through a deep inquiry about Being, Light and Bliss.
Gurudevi’s straightforward words conveyed a spiritual reality that I could hear and touch. She spoke to each student with great care and attention. At the same time, she was not hesitant in delivering challenging messages from an ancient body of wisdom.
During my YLP study, Gurudevi told me to read Baba Muktananda’s book, Play of Consciousness. Now I read from this spiritual autobiography daily. Like Gurudevi, Baba is eloquent in describing what it’s like to see God from within — as your own Self.
In November 2021, I decided to receive Shaktipat from Gurudevi. This was a big decision for me, but I felt ready to make it. After I received Shaktipat, my meditations immediately got deeper. Now in meditation I actually experience God within me. I am also beginning to understand the importance of being in the Guru’s presence. I appreciate her teachings in the weekly online Swami Sunday. They help me stay in touch with who I really am.
Looking back, I am so grateful to Gurudevi for “being” with me in China twenty-one years ago. Shavasana breaks led by her filled me with Grace. She supported me to support scientists who were advising a country of a billion people. I now see that those scientists and I were all interacting from Self.
I am grateful for Gurudevi’s contributions to my health, as well as to my endeavors to make my contribution in this world. But the key thing I am grateful for is her resolute commitment to sharing our lineage based in Kashmir Shaivism. Her commitment brings me access to Grace in my life on all levels. For this I do not have sufficient words of gratitude.
I told my husband I was going to God. He asked me if I was planning on dying. I said, ”No, through the Guru’s Grace I can go to Him while I am still living!”
I always leave Swami Sunday wearing “Satsang Armor”: transformed, protected and blessed. This armor is described in a book I purchased from the Ashram shop: the Devi Mahatmyam: Glory of the Divine Mother.(1) This ancient text tells a dramatic tale of the Divine Mother battling asuras (demons). I knew I could interpret this text as an allegory. But I was surprised by how it reverberated on more subtle levels.
Like a flashlight, it showed me where to turn my attention to see the Guru-Disciple relationship in action. I discovered what was there all along but had escaped my notice. It first happened when I read about the eighty-six goddesses who armor and protect the disciple:
Aindri may protect me on the east and fire-god in the southeast. Varahi may protect me on the south, the Goddess holding sword may protect me on the southwest; Varuni (the power of god Varuna) may save me on the west and the Goddess seated on the lion may protect the northwest. Kauberi may safeguard on the north and the Goddess with the pike in hand on the northeast. — Devi Kavacham 19–20
Goddess Aindri – facebook.com
The chant describes the armor as taking the form of many Goddesses. However, the many are also the One, embodied in the Guru. Gurudevi is a manifestation of the Divine Mother, and satsang is the transmission of Her Grace. After satsang, I am armored on all sides, encased in divine protection. On my drive home, I may encounter bad weather, inconsiderate drivers and closed roads. But nothing penetrates the armor of my serenity.
Swami Sunday also armors me for the week ahead. Paradoxically the armor is a divine disarmoring. Gurudevi’s chant, discourse and meditation have disarmed my “self” of its ego-driven behaviors. The peacock feathers she waves at darshan knight me with the armor of my own Self. From within, this armor protects me from the enemies who would steal my equanimity. As the week progresses, my armor weakens. I use the practices to slow its deterioration. But only satsang with Gurudevi can restore its full strength and luster.
My Satsang Armor shields me in all directions on the outside and transforms me inside. The mystical process penetrates the many layers of my being. The Devi Mahatmyam describes this as the Goddesses “protecting” and “safe-guarding” every part of the devotee:
Dyotini (that force which illumines and uplifts) may protect the tip of my head while Uma may manage the upper head. Maladhari may safe-guard the forehead and Yashavini may protect the brows, Citranetra both eyes; Yamaghanta both sides and the three-eyed Candika protects between the eyebrows. — Devi Kavacham 23–24
The protection of the Goddesses is the protection of Gurudevi. Part of that protection is the disciple’s transformation. Dyotini doesn’t just protect the head from impact: she illumes and uplifts. Similarly, the Guru’s protection extends outside and inside, also illumining and uplifting. It can be invoked through a photograph on the puja, through meditation or prayer, or thinking of the Guru, a Divine Being. Doing so transforms my state. This is one of the extraordinary “quick fixes” described by Gurudevi in her 2019 Teachings series. Giving my troubles to God, Guru and Self is also powerfully transformative. The Guru instructs us in these practices to propel our inner transformation.
The short-term results of attending Satsang or wearing Satsang Armor are prosperity, health and well-being. The long-term results are described this way:
At his [the devotee’s] demise, he will attain the highest state permanently by the grace of the supreme Goddess… Then the person goes to the Sivaloka. He is not born again. He will acquire the supreme place and will rejoice with Lord Shiva. — Devi Kavacham 60–61
Satsang armor is potent. It fights against bad karma and marches toward infinity. Attend Swami Sunday. Get armored!
(1) All references and quotations taken from Svami Jagadisvarananda (tr.). Devi Mahatmyam, (Mylapore Chennai-4, Sri Ramakrishna Math Publishers, 2001)
As my Svaroopa® Yoga and Meditation practices deepened, I felt pulled toward Meditation Teacher Training (MTT). MTT expanded and honed my communication skills. I learned how to speak the ancient language of Consciousness. As an unrivaled master-of-communication, Gurudevi showed me how to put these profound and ancient teachings into my own words. I was also surprised to find that my ability to communicate in all areas of my life improved as well.
Of all the life-changing courses offered by Gurudevi, this one has the greatest effect! In addition thoroughly training us to teach Intro to Meditation, she injected her rocket fuel to propel us past our minds and deeply into Self. — Ruth B.
MTT prepares you to teach meditation to a wide audience. I feel well prepared to do so. — Margie W.
Each day in the course, Gurudevi gave a beautiful, in-depth discourse on the sutras. Each evening, we had a writing assignment to prepare a short talk on one of the sutras. We each pushed through our inner obstacles to complete our talks. The next day we presented our words to our small group.
The process was loving and supportive. The coaching we gave and received helped the teachings to land inside each of us. The camaraderie with my fellow MTT students was amazing. Through my certification as a Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation Teacher, Gurudevi authorized me as a modern-day representative of this ancient tradition.
Click here for information on our next Meditation Teacher Training.
SVA Blog 