By Mati Sandy Gilbert

Rehoboth Beach Yoga hosted Swami Nirmalananda for a free satsang.  Imagine how special that was for us! Approximately 50 people attended — some yogis, some not — all listening with rapt attention.  Everyone seemed to understand her theme: “How much is enough?” I have always marveled at how her words touch each and every one, no matter what is going on in their lives.

During my closing remarks, I asked “How Much is Enough?”  Everyone tittered — even Swamiji.  I don’t know if anyone heard my next comment: “There is never enough Swami.” Even once we are truly, fully living in our own Divinity and being able to sustain it, we still need Swami.

My personal high was when Swami presented me with a beautiful crystal from her own puja.  I remember reveling in her praise.  Afterwards, others told me I beamed.  How could I not?

While others were leaving after the satsang, I went up to Swami to express my personal thanks for her accepting our invitation and for her words of wisdom.  She graciously acknowledged my words.  But then she asked me, “Are you still doing the poses I suggested for you to do?” I am not sure what I answered, but she knew.  I wasn’t.  Gently, she reminded me.  I was in awe.  How could she remember what she told me many years ago? Needless to say, I have been doing those specific poses every day since.  Hopefully, I know enough now to continue doing them.  “How much is enough?” Each of us should keep that phrase in mind all through our lives.

Each of us experienced Swami Nirmalananda profoundly.  Deb Norton emailed me, “The discourse renewed my awareness of ‘What is measure?’ in my day-to-day existence.  Also, Swamiji’s talk led me to appreciate the importance of regular yoga/meditation practice and its positive, cumulative effects on my beingness.  In that regard, I strengthened my Yoga Score[1] by going to class today (1.5 hrs).”

Ishvari (Terry) Gardner agrees that Swami Nirmalananda’s visit was a great experience for all.  She recalls, “I couldn’t help watching the attendees’ rapt attention to Swami’s discourse.  She deftly wove the question of ‘How much is enough’ through life itself as well as elements of yoga.  She encouraged us to become aware of our own Yoga Score and how it can affect our life.  Following her discourse, we all chanted the mantra of our lineage: ‘Om Namah Shivaya.’ Then we settled into a very still, silent, deep meditation.  Afterwards, there was a lighthearted joy in the room as individuals went up to kneel at her feet and share a few private words with her.  Each received prasad, an orange cord bracelet, tied on by other yogis.  The group chatted together about their experience.  I believe everyone left a little — or a lot — changed.  I am certain that all were inspired to ‘do more yoga.’ I am profoundly grateful to have Swamiji inspire all of us in so many, many ways.”

[1] Swami Nirmalananda explained how to calculate your Yoga Score in her discourse.  Click here to hear the recording.

By Matrika Gast

In thinking about a Svaroopa^® retreat or professional training , do you ask yourself, “What’s in it for me?” The well-known acronym is WIIFM. Marketing professionals look for the WIIFMs that attract in potential customers, before ever talking to them.

When I first took Svaroopa^® yoga classes, easy access to my own Self was on my WIIFM list, but I didn’t know it. A stack of other WIIFMs, like relief of low back pain and a more balanced life, obscured my awareness of my deep yearning. I yearned for my own essential Divinity.

While one set of WIIFMs got me to Svaroopa^® yoga, in the process I discovered that deeper motivation to know my Divinity experientially. The paradox is that both WIIFM goals have been fulfilled again and again. And even more keeps coming. An endless stream of Grace reveals the Divine woven into all things.

Through Svaroopa^® yoga and meditation, the MORE fills us to overflowing. Likely you will find, as I have, that MORE turns out to be different than what you thought you wanted.  Better than anything you have imagined! It’s almost as though your DNA begins to shift toward compassion, generosity and benevolence full time.

Love for yourself begins to arise from within your Self. From that place, an immensity of love for everyone and everything flows forth. The paradox is, asking “What’s in it for me?” regarding our Svaroopa^® Sciences leads ultimately to gifts of love and service for your family, your community and the whole world.

By Yogeshwari Fountain

While standing at the sink doing the morning dishes recently, I felt just the slightest lift of my left heel.  Normally I’d read that as a cue to relax my tailbone, pull in my abs and get back into my body.  However, having just read “Being a Role Model,” Swamiji’s and Vidyadevi’s Contemplation article, I had a different awareness.  “Ground your Shakti,” I murmured to myself, feeling a surge of joy and fullness arise from within.

In that moment, I knew it wasn’t just me at the sink, doing, but Consciousness Itself, being me, while doing the dishes.  Simply by feeling my feet again, I experienced my fully embodied spirituality: present in my own Presence once again.  I think this is what Swamiji means by “yoga is about getting beyond theory.”

In “Being a Role Model,” she points out the “Truth” that I am “perfect and divine,” always, no matter how I feel, or what my mind says, no exceptions.  To live this, I need all the practices of Svaroopa^® yoga to keep re-aligning myself to the Self intentionally.  But to know I AM Living Truth itself is an inner shift that develops over time.  While I have blissful experiences of it, clearly I am not established there.  But the Guru is, and because of this, she is the ultimate role model, manifesting the revelatory power of Grace.

All my life I emulated others, looking for mentors and role models to show me how to achieve worldly success, as limited as that was.  But when I met Swamiji, I knew I was in the presence of “Living Truth,” and the road ahead was going to take a sharp turn inward.

The glory of this tantric path is that you must then turn outward, and shine your light back into the world.  While Swamiji continues to model this for all of us, she exhorts every Svaroopi to do the same for others.  I’m often asked, “How many hours of yoga do you do each day?” If only they really knew! Still, being a role model is humbling, as I’ve never felt “better than” anyone.  I’m simply grateful to be on this path of discipleship.  I trust that if I cooperate with the process, and watch my motives for any given action, I will become progressively more uplifted.  I will understand what I am truly becoming, not in a worldly sense, but as embodied Consciousness, Living Truth.

by Amala (Lynn) Cattafi, SVA Board President

Thanks to our community of loving yogis, we have met and exceeded our $150,000 goal for our Bliss Place Capital Campaign.  Your generous donations and pledges now total $180,300.00, making it possible for us to complete making Lokananda a true Bliss Place for you.  It is also enabling us to re-reroof our historic building before winter, something we really needed to do.

Your gifts are another way you show your commitment to Svaroopa^® yoga and to your kula (yoga-family).  Our generous yogis ARE each 1 in 100!

The depth of teachings Swamiji provides attracts yogis who yearn for the greatest that yoga offers; you belong to this exclusive segment of the Western yoga world.  This Maha Yoga is the highest yoga, which opens you on every level.  Too often, the most difficult level to navigate is about finances and money.  Over 100 yogis have done deep work here, not only to support their kula but also to support their own yoga growth, as well as the Master Teacher who serves you.

We conducted our Capital Campaign in three segments: last fall, last spring and over the last six weeks.  In each, we reached out to you through letters, blogs, email publications and telephone calls by Board members and Svaroopi sevites.  As we have more community members than callers, our phone campaign went on for a while, and we found that more and more of you were WAITING for a call, excited about the prospect of contributing.

Personally, I reached several yogis who said, “I was waiting for you to call.  Yes, I am ready to donate… how can I help?” Their response touched me so deeply! Even those who did not receive a call simply hopped on the website and donated, or called us to have a staff member assist with their donation.  Amazing generosity, love, and support!  I love you all so dearly, my heart is bursting and I am tearing up as I write this.

I also offer kudos to our sevites and Board members who gave of their time and effort.  It’s a big deal to get over your own resistance to asking for financial support.  I saw such growth in the ability of our callers to meet this challenge.  They cheerfully placed calls and reveled in the opportunity to talk with you about what really matters to you in your yoga experience.

We all found that talking yoga with members of our kula is in itself a great gift.  Often we aren’t able to have the same type of discussions with anyone else in our lives.  Thank you to the yogis who responded so enthusiastically and generously.  This connection shone forth as reciprocal adaptation at its most splendid!

On behalf of Swamiji and your Board of Directors, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU.  I am grateful to be sharing this miraculous journey with all of you, my dear family.

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h

by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Ten years ago, I moved to Pennsylvania.  San Diego seems like yesterday, in fact I was there recently.  They invited me to come and offer free satsangs, to again share these incredible teachings with them, these powerful practices, this deep inner experience.  It was such a treasure, to be invited to take yogis that I’ve known for decades, as well as many newcomers, to another and deeper level.  This deeper experience is what the Ashram is all about.

A little over seven years ago, I became a swami, a yoga monk, a renunciant.  I traveled for the next year, fulfilling promises I’d made before I renounced promises.

What do you do when there is nothing you seek any more?  I went in order to serve the yogis who wanted to see me, wanted to see the change that such a ceremony could create – even to see if they still wanted any of what I had gotten.  Do you want consciousness?  Do you want to know your own Self?  How could you not?!

Today is the 7^th birthday of Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram.  I had the great privilege of founding an Ashram!  Wow!  An organization dedicated to God.  It’s like a church in some ways, yet different.

The difference is that the Ashram is dedicated to you finding and experiencing the Reality that God is being you.  You look inside.  That’s what I’m here for – it’s what I’ve always done, it’s what I’ve always wanted to do, to help you find you.  This is yoga.  This is Svaroopa^® yoga.  The poses are incidental.

The Sanskrit word “Guru” is spelled, “Gee, you are you.”  As a theory, it’s incredibly inspiring, yet yoga is more than theory.  Yoga is embodied experience.  Everything the Ashram does is so you have the experience of being the embodied Divinity that you are.

Becoming a swami gave me the freedom to focus on my primary interest – the deeper practices of yoga, the teachings and meditative practices.  Plus, I had spent almost 25 years developing a community of accomplished yogis who were ready for that deepening.  Plus, I was authorized to give Shaktipat, to serve others as my Baba had served me and so many.

I’m delighted to be here, to be serving you through the structure of an Ashram, an organization dedicated to your upliftment.  I hope you can open your heart and your mind, not to me, but to your own Self.  For that’s what Svaroopa^® yoga has always been about.  That’s what I’ve always been about.  That’s what yoga has always been about.

I know that one who knows the Self makes it easier for others to know.  I discovered that when I met Baba.  He not only explained the emptiness I felt inside – he filled it.  But he didn’t fill it with him — he filled it with me.  What a difference!  He could do that because he was established in the Self within himself.  I found that, when I was with him, I got it.  It was tangible.  It was easy.  Plus, he explained it all.

I bring this from him to you, if you allow me to do so.  If you accept the gift, from one who has given her life to the knowing and being – from one who wants you to have what I have found.  I hope to infect you with the same gift he gave me, that you catch the germs of enlightenment, and that you nurse your Divine illness until you totally succumb.

Yoga doesn’t merely offer you vibrant health.  Vitality.  Youth.  Optimism.  Happiness.  Clarity. Creativity.  An increased capacity to love – and the ability to feel the love that others have for you.  Yoga offers you you.

Happy 7^th Birthday Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram!  And thank you to everyone who makes it possible for the Ashram to exist and to serve so many.  Your support makes me able to serve my Baba.  Thank you.

OM svaroopa svasvabhavah namo namah

By Karuna Beaver, SVA Board Member

We’re in the home stretch of our capital campaign to fund our spiritual home, Lokananda. A year ago, the SVA Board of Directors set out to raise $150,000 to pay for the much-needed renovation of our old Grand Dame in Downingtown PA. We came out of the gate quickly, raising more than $65,000. At the first turn, last February, we raised another $35,000 and were two-thirds of the way. This August, we embarked on the final leg of this race. Now we’re dashing along the racecourse between the last turn and the winning post — the home stretch.

It’s the tremendous dedication of you, our donors, that has sped us within sight of our goal. Thank you to each and every one of you. No matter the size of your donation, you made Lokananda happen. You ensured that we hit our stride and readied Lokananda for housing programs and participants beginning October 2015. Your generosity has enabled us to continue to make needed improvements. This means that while you are in residence, whether for a professional training or a retreat, you are at home. Your home.

Still, there’s a bit more distance to go. If you’ve been pondering what you can do, now is the time to jump into the race! Your donation is designated for the new roof and other pre-winter needs.  You can help put that roof over your fellow yogis’ heads!

We are all together in the home stretch to securing our spiritual home’s future. The Grace that flows from Lokananda is guaranteed. Every time you visit, you come away more deeply rooted in the practices that set you free from your limitations. Every step you take towards ensuring Lokananda’s future, including the yogic practice of dakshina — financial support for the teachings — brings you closer to knowing your own inherent essence.

If you are still on the sidelines as our Bliss Place Capital Campaign draws to an end, please leap into the home stretch today. It will be great to cross that finish line all together. Know that any donation you make is really an investment in your relationship to Self, your own Divine Essence. Click here to donate. Or give us a call: 610.644.7555, weekdays from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm (Eastern Time).

By Bindu (Maureen) Shortt, Svaroopa® yoga teacher, Nutritional & Ayurvedic Consultant

Instead of four seasons in the year, Ayurveda identifies only three.  Spring runs March through June, when planting happens.  Summer runs July through October, when harvesting happens.  Winter runs November through February when the fields are dormant.  Depending on geographies and climate, the timeframes of these three seasons vary, in different regions across India, the birthplace of Ayurveda, as they do in different regions of the USA.

Each of these three seasons has different energies, corresponding with the doshas.  Ayurveda sees spring as kapha, summer as pitta, and winter as vata.  Each of these energies is high during its associated month, both outside in nature and inside us human beings.  That means we tend to over-accumulate the energies of the season as it builds into its second half.

Right now, September through October, we are in the second half of the summer pitta season.  You may be noticing the over-accumulation of pitta, a fire-and-water energy, in your own body and mind.  You may have skin conditions or seasonal allergies.  Your appetite may be uncontrolled, or you may be having some loose bowels.  Other symptoms include your joints bothering you as well as getting some heartburn.

Even finding yourself feeling easily frustrated or angered, or critical of yourself or others could be excess pitta.  Perhaps you are experiencing pitta perfectionism or a bit of obsessive-compulsiveness.  You may have a very sharp tongue, wondering where it came from.  Maybe you even resent this blog trying to label you!

Any of this can be happening whether you have a pitta constitution or not.  Be easy with yourself and recognize that it is a predictable excess of seasonal energies.  How to deal with that excess? In Ayurveda we seek to pacify the excess by using the opposite.  With pitta being hot and moist, we look to cool and dry out these conditions.  Again, you do it both outside and inside.

Dietary adjustment means eating more of the cooling foods and less of the heating.  So eat less of the sour (pickles), salty (chips) and spicy (salsa) foods.  Four foods that help lower pitta the most are: cucumbers, watermelon, apples and pomegranates.  They have the three pitta balancing tastes of sweet, bitter, and astringent.

In life, stay cool, both physically and emotionally.  Walking in the moonlight, especially by water, is wonderful to cool excess pitta.  Use sweet scents like rose and sandalwood.  Listen to sweet music, especially chants.  Wear cool colors, stay in the shade and rest more.  Only watch sweet TV — no murders or mayhem.  Practice surrender, letting go of the pitta need for control.

Here is a lovely cucumber raita recipe.  It goes well with most entrees and settles excess pitta over the next six weeks or so:

1. Remove the seeds from 1 cucumber.
2. Peel it and use a grater to slice long strips.
3. Add those long strips to 2 cups of plain yogurt.
4. Add 1 teaspoon crushed black mustard seed.  You can use a mortar and pestle to crush it.
5. Add 2 teaspoons ground cumin.
6. Stir together and add salt to taste.

By Saguna Goss, SVA Board Member

The Olympics. What a wonderful celebration of human ambition and discipline. It’s really a lot like yoga… at least that is my experience. Olympians and yogis are both filled with a deep yearning; they just yearn for different things.

As a teenager I aspired to be an Olympic champion. I played competitively on a curling team and was an athlete in the Canadian Olympic Development Association. What I remember most from those days was my yearning. I dreamed, fantasized and visualized all aspects of being an Olympian. I had notes, pictures and other reminders all over my room about my Olympic goals. I attended talks and workshops from past Olympians to learn from them and to add fuel to my yearning. And I closely monitored and studied the current Olympian champions in curling.

Not much has changed now, except I yearn for my own Self instead of an Olympic medal. I repeat mantra instead of visualizing my sport. I fill my house with yoga books, Guru pictures and murtis (statues). I attend as many yoga classes, retreats or phone calls as possible. And I spend as much time as possible with someone who has realized her own Self — Swami Nirmalananda.

Discipline is another commonality between Olympians and yogis. A quick search online suggests that Olympic athletes train at least six days a week with full-day schedules. In the Svaroopa^® Sciences, the daily discipline is emphasized in all aspects from the beginning. In a beginner’s yoga class, the first theme you learn is Daily Practice so that you can practice the poses at home. After the first class in a Learn to Meditate series, your homework is to setup a daily meditation practice. The discipline of a daily practice is key for you to reach your goal, whatever it may be.

At the Rio Olympics, 11,303 athletes competed, but only 974 medals were awarded. For every Olympic athlete who represented his or her country, there were many more who were competing for that spot. For every athlete at the Olympic Trials, there were even more athletes that did not make it. The Olympian Champions are the 1 in 100 in 100 in 100…

And yet, again, the same is true in yoga. There will be the 1 in 100 who experiences the yearning of the Self, 1 in 100 who acts on the yearning, 1 in 100 who has the discipline and 1 in 100 who Realizes their own Self.

As a teenager, I was part of the Canadian Olympic Development Association. It was a place for promising Olympic hopefuls to come together to develop their skill, improve their discipline and fuel their yearning. Lokananda is our Self-Realization Development Center. It is a place for us to come together to develop our awareness of our own Self, improve our discipline for a daily practice and fuel our yearning for Self-Realization.

Please join me in contributing to the final stage of our Capital Campaign to complete the needed renovations for our Self-Realization Development Center, our Bliss Place, Lokananda. Click here to donate.

By Matrika Gast, SVA Board Member

Dakshina is heartwarming. When you give financially to the Source of our teachings, you are practicing dakshina. This ancient yogic practice arises from your heartfelt gratitude. And the practice opens your heart and illuminates your life even more.

Though a “child of the Sixties,” I didn’t get it when the Beatles went to India  as well as so many others who were were seeking a guru. Yet I did yearn for the “More.” I had an intuition of the “numinous” within daily reality. I think I picked up the term from Philosophy 101 in college. Wikipedia says numinous “describes the power or presence or realisation of a divinity.” Decades of continued yearning, and my floundering to satisfy it, resulted in my finally stumbling into a Svaroopa® yoga class.

The Svaroopa® Sciences began to expand me into Self immediately. This I know now in looking back, although at the time I didn’t identify feeling fluffy, light, centered, peaceful, energized and uplifted (all at the same time) with “numinous.” Yet it anchored me into Svaroopa® yoga and, eventually, Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation. Expansion and upliftment emerged organically from these practices. Little by little, I found Self within. That sense of the numinous was within me! Truly, what a revelation!! That’s what Swami Nirmalananda, originator of our Svaroopa® Sciences does — she dispenses Grace to reveal that which has always existed. It’s just been hidden within.

I love the practice of dakshina, because it warms my heart with a tangible relationship to the Source of our powerful Svaroopa® practices. One generous donor said, “I give what I am able to give.” Each of us is unique, with unique personal financial circumstances. I described this yogi as a “generous donor,” not based on the amount given. It’s based on the willingness to know what you have received from the Source and to allow your natural gratitude to warm your heart, melt any resistance to giving back and open your wallet accordingly.

From the generosity of your warm heart, your financial support stokes the fire and warms the heart of our whole community. Your financial support ensures the strength and reliability of Lokananda, a foundational element of our Ashram infrastructure! This makes our spiritual home a robust reality.

Examples of your loving generosity are plentiful. Here are a few reports offered by our sevite fundraisers:

“Earlier today, I sent a personal reminder email to three yogis, along with a little story of my recent stay at Lokananda.  I mentioned that if they hadn’t yet had a chance to stay there, I hoped they would have that opportunity very soon… I just heard back from one of them that she really appreciated the story about my recent stay at Lokananda and that she was glad for the links to make a donation.”

“Three yogis gave donations to the Capital Campaign: one single donation of $500; one doubling her monthly donation ongoing; and one increasing her monthly donation ongoing. Woohoo!”

“Skyping with a dedicated, longtime Svaroopi overseas, I expressed my gratitude for all that she has done to plant and nurture the Svaroopa® yoga seed in her home country. One of her students just flew to the US to take Foundations at Kripalu, and has already enrolled in Radical Anatomy for October. She understood that I had also called to ask for a donation, and explained that funds were tight due to family needs. I replied that even a $1 increase in her monthly donation would be much appreciated. Her response was to add $5 to her monthly Bliss Place contribution.”

“When I emailed a Svaroopi on my list about arranging for a call, he immediately sent this reply: ‘Would love to talk, either of those times will work, although I must say I already went in on line and added a $42 per month to my existing monthly contributions.’ So I did call him, just to say thank you.”

“A Svaroopi who had taken a YTT course at Lokananda last spring said she had asked Swamiji how to be of service. Swamiji exclaimed, “Raise money!” So this Svaroopi is planning to raise money for Lokananda at a satsang and weekend immersion that will be led by one of our Weekend Workshop leaders. The idea is, if you have great meal in a restaurant, you not only pay for it but you also leave a generous tip for the server. In this case, participants are invited to give a gratuity for the Source of their great satsang and immersion experience.”

The Lokananda Capital Campaign is truly in its homestretch, closing the distance to the finish line. If you have not yet contributed, please look into your heart. Notice your gratitude for the teachings. Let it propel you into the practice of dakshina, giving back to the Source. Truly, any amount makes a difference. You’ll notice the difference inside yourself, moving you ever closer into the Bliss of Self. That is worth every penny — and more.

By Shuchi Cilley

It seems like such an indulgence to give yourself a five-day retreat at Lokananda. But it’s not. In fact, I found it to be a vital part of the care and feeding of my Self. Ah, but it’s not my big-S Self that needs it; it’s my small-s self. And while my mind whined a bit about all the logistics, finances and the time away, the deeper part of me was relentlessly pushing to make sure it happened. Not only that it happened, but that I add on an extra night at the beginning, the Tuesday evening DYMC satsang, and a Half-Day Workshop before the program started.

So right from the beginning there it was: Bhairava at work. Arising within you, Bhairava is the force that propels you, compels you, impels you forward beyond your own understanding to the knowing of your own Self. Bhairava shatters your limitations and sets you free. As Swamiji says, “Go ahead, try to deny it. It will move you anyway.”

So I went with great joy. And, of course, at the feet of the Guru I experienced what I longed for, and more. A recent daily E-Quote advised, “You need a system, a system that works, a spiritual system that has already produced mystics and saints and continues to do so.” At the retreat, our Svaroopa^® Sciences system was on full display in its scintillating wholeness — so many facets sparkling with, and in, the light of Consciousness — such abundance:

• blissful asana
• chanting and deep meditation in the presence of the Guru
• japa
• seva
• arati ceremonies
• darshan
• sparkling discourses

How do I describe the experience of Swamiji demonstrating and teaching us the simultaneous vibrations in OM or immersing us in the poetry of Lalleshwari? Add in vichara, repeatedly illuminating for me the dark spots of my mind.  And enclose it all within the Shakti of Lokananda. There’s more — add in the company of so many deep Svaroopis, new friends and old, flying in from across the continent. I savored the bedtime discussions with my dear roommates, the food served us at Lokananda and our Ashram lunch with Swamiji. Time and space had no meaning; past, present, and future all together, right now, right here.

Sometimes it’s not ‘til you open your eyes that you know what your meditation has given you. And sometimes it’s not ‘til you get home that you know what a program has given you. In teaching our asana classes, Rukmini beautifully layered in my transformative experience, giving rise to all I have described here. At home again, I found the deep benefits of that experience: the fatigue behind my eyelids — gone; a few less tight spots in my mind; an open heart full of gratitude; and so many other transformations from physically being at the feet of my Guru.

In telling you, I’ve only touched the surface and it’s all still present — and more — when I try to describe it for you now. It was the full experience of the Bliss of Consciousness — playing the edge of individuality and the infinity of Consciousness through the Grace of the Guru — Guru’s Grace showered without restraint. How could I be so lucky?!