By Karuna Beaver

My children grew up watching “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers” on PBS. For our local station’s annual fundraiser, the shows would take a break and cut to their phone bank volunteers taking calls. I remember calling in with my son, and watching as the hosts read our pledge in his name. He was so excited to be helping his favorite — beloved Cookie Monster.

During our spring fundraiser you will have an opportunity to support your favorite — Svaroopa^® yoga! We’ll be calling you, on either May 19 or 21. No, you won’t have your pledge read on TV. Instead our phone bank, Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram sevites, will share your Svaroopa^® yoga stories in an online chat room, which connects them while they reach out to you. Our fundraiser theme is “Support Equal Release,” and we know you have some astounding stories about the support your yogic practices provides and the release you’ve gotten. We all tell these stories informally, and now we will have a record of them.

These stories are important because they are your stories. Ultimately, this yogic organization is all about you. It’s about how your practice is changing your life. The purpose of Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram is to be in relationship with you, and to offer you the resources supporting your knowing of who you are at your source, at your core. The Ashram is about the relationships you have with your yoga buddies, your teachers and, if you so choose, your Guru. All are vital relationships.

But you might not have realized that these relationships, like all relationships, are reciprocal. As you more fully experience your own essence, you begin to understand the source of the support that opened the door, Grace. Then perhaps you are inwardly moved to offer your support through teaching, seva and financial support. You receive support. You give support. You are participating in a reciprocal relationship.

So on your call, please reciprocate with a story. We hope you will also donate to the organization that supports your practices and process. We wish our program fees covered all of our expenses, but the truth of the matter is that they don’t. Running a yoga school and Ashram is not a money-making business. It really isn’t a business at all — it’s a non-profit spiritual service organization. And like all non-profits, we rely on donors to keep our doors open.

The hosts of the PBS fundraisers told their audience that their support was critical in keeping their favorite shows on the air. Long ago, my son had a beginning understanding of the relationship he had with the source of his “visits” with Cookie Monster. He promised financial support to the TV station, and they in turn promised to keep bringing him good times with his TV friend.

Your support works in the same way. It is essential in keeping the teachings flowing to you, for your own benefit at the deepest levels. Whether it’s the practices you do, the stories you share or the financial support you offer, your Support Equals the Release of this important source of knowledge and experience. Support equals release. What a beautiful formula for a fulfilling life. What a wonderful way to discover your Self.

Click here to donate.

By Matrika Gast
SVA Board Member

When our Daily E-Quote arrived the other day, it felt like first aid for a bad morning:

When your mind starts up,
the real problem is that
you have lost your“capital-S Self.”
– Swamiji & Vidyadevi

Yet, unlike a Band-Aid, it got right to the root of the problem. I had lost my Self. All of Swamiji’s teachings help me remember how to experience Self within. Then I remember more than a decade of her teachings, in person at trainings and programs, in phone courses, in articles. All, however received, take me inside, past that vocal and limited mind, to the simple and infinite bliss of Divine Essence being me, being everyone and everything. Then my day improves, a lot.

When I am not in that place, it’s a different story. I used to think of liberation promised by yoga only as an abstract concept. But after years of Swamiji’s Grace-filled teachings, like gentle rain subtly eroding stone, I can see the bedrock that keeps me from living deeply from Self. Strata after strata of stony “neediness” and, yes, “greediness,” have been laid down by avidya, the root of “not knowing myself as Consciousness It-Self.” Ugh. All of a sudden it’s clear that, in certain situations, most unpleasant reactions of hurt and anger arise when I don’t get what I want. Oh, wow! So much for the illusion of equanimity. What a waste of energy, what an ineffective way to live.

Yet I know that eventually this bedrock will be dissolved by the flow of Grace from Swamiji’s presence and teachings pouring onto inward bedrock, opening me to Self. Molecule by molecule, Grace is washing away delusion. It’s not like neediness and greediness are gone; I can see them clearly. But, thankfully, I remember a classroom quote from years ago: “It is the awareness of how you are stuck that makes you recover.” Liberation is now a tangible destination, down this wonderful road.

I am so looking forward to being free. A host of SVA website Freebies support me on this path. Binge-listening to the audio recordings is a great evening and Saturday pleasure. I love to think of other members of our Svaroopa® Sciences community engaged in the same escape — inside — at the same time. These teachings, which Swami Nirmalananda gives us for free, are not actually free of cost to the Ashram. For us to continue to receive the support of our Grace-filled gifts from the Guru, we must give back with generous financial support. Free as they are — and freeing as they are — these freebies cost the Ashram money.

For example, think utilities. They keep offices at Lokananda cool enough for our staff in the summer and warm enough in the winter. They keep the accommodations for training and programs at Lokananda comfortable. Think electricity for the computer technology supporting our SVA website and for the delivery of Daily E-Quotes. And think about the salaries of stellar staff required for answering the telephone, responding to all the members of our virtual Ashram, and keeping the records of everyone straight. Think of the marketing that must be done to grow our community and keep it vibrant. (See our ad on page 91 of the June Yoga Journal.) All of this is the foundation for the Freebies available worldwide.

Swami recording her latest CD.

I like to think of the SVA Freebie fest of Swamiji’s teachings as a carefree, planet-wide party. Just as when you are invited to a joyous potluck, what can you bring? Just the thought of participating opens your heart, as you decide on a special dish to contribute. So let this invitation to our spring fundraising open you to blissful consideration of your contribution. Any financial gift, in any amount — one-time or monthly — is welcome with great gratitude.

Monthly donations are especially effective, because they help SVA budget and plan. For an increase in your monthly donation or a brand new monthly commitment, Swami Nirmalananda will send you her new chant recording. This thank you gift is truly one that keeps on giving, opening you to Self day after day.

To donate, click here. Or call 610.644.7555.

 By Kristine Freeman

“Yoga says you must give money in charity. Yoga is not alone in promoting this spiritual principle.  Every spiritual tradition and every religion says the same thing: give 10% of your income away.  This is not because those organizations rely on your support for their existence, though they do.  This is because giving to others is a human principle, not just a spiritual principle. Those who share their resources with others are happier people.  When you open your heart, you want to open your wallet. And it works the other way around, when you open your wallet you open your heart.”
Swami Nirmalananda, “The Yoga of Money,” March 2012

I had experienced this spiritual principle in the most unlikely place. Standing outside on a cold rainy day, filling my tank at our local gas station, I noticed the red neon sign: Powerball Jackpot, $361 Million. I thought about what I’d do if I won. I’d be able to pay off the mortgages on Lokananda and the Ashram. I’d be able to give Lokananda a new roof. I felt such joy as these thoughts arose.

Then my tank was full and the pump clicked off. I felt so happy that I went inside the convenience store and bought a ticket in gratitude for the joy I’d received. Later I realized I’d given my $3 to the wrong source. The source of my joy was not the Powerball sign but the Self. Thoughts of Lokananda and the Ashram connected me directly to the bliss of my own being. Those thoughts spontaneously arose because I’ve developed a regular practice of financially supporting SVA with monthly and annual donations. The support I receive from SVA opens my heart, which makes me want to open my wallet, which in turn opens my heart even more deeply. Such a bliss-full cycle!

In gratitude for this experience of Self, I’ll be increasing my monthly donation by $3.00 a month. Swami explained the critical importance of monthly donations in a previous Ashram E-Letter…

On the practical side, set monthly donations allow us to budget and plan. The individual spontaneous donations are beautiful, and I am so moved when someone is moved to donate, so I do not want to minimize that. But the monthly commitment is about regularity; it is about relationship and supporting your practice by supporting the organization that supports you. Its not about the dollar amount of the commitment. When you make a commitment, you will tend to avail yourself more frequently of the relationship and services available (such as going on the website, listening to the free satsangs, coming to visit, etc.). Because you have made a commitment, you will see a difference in your spiritual growth. I want to see that difference for you.

Plus I get Swamiji’s new recording of “OM namah shivaya” as a donor gift for increasing my monthly gift.  Giving and receiving!

This spring we ask for your ongoing support. Your monthly or one-time donation, in any amount, supports the organization that supports you. You choose your level of support, because it’s all about you. What support do you receive? What support will you return to the source?

How happy can you be?

Click here to donate.

By Amala Cattafi, SVA Board President

Support equals release – this is such a profound statement. This is the first thing I remember from the very first Svaroopa^® yoga class I ever attended. Consider for a moment, what does this mean to you personally?  Support equals release… It explains more than the physical, muscular definition. Something else opens up, a profound spiritual opening, yet it is facilitated with an extra blanket, block or strap. Still, it’s not about the blanket.

Where does this inner opening come from? Of course, from the practices you do – asana, chanting, meditation, seva, Ujjayi Pranayama – plus the props you use are a part of that.  But where did all those props and practices come from?  What makes them work?

Grace is what makes it work so deeply. This is the true “fire of yoga,” the power of consciousness burning away what no longer serves you, like anger, sadness, jealousy, pettiness, addictions, and more. You are on a journey to living in the full experience of your “capital-S Self.”  Once you acknowledge that the fire is supporting you, the path becomes so much easier!

The fire is Grace, already flowing from the Guru to you whether you understand it or not. This constant, loving support is the direct result of Swami Nirmalananda’s own deep study and practice. She is the originator of the Svaroopa^® Sciences, yet she attributes everything she has created to the generosity of her Guru, Swami Muktananda.  A Guru’s life story revolves around their sadhana, their spiritual journey. Just as Muktananda did before her, our Swami has invested her heart and intellect so you can do as little or as much as you want. You choose, for it is all about you. You also choose the level of support that you will return to the source.

There are many ways to reciprocate this support.  Right now I am asking you to focus on the financial support you can offer to your Ashram. Swami Nirmalananda has invested her body, heart, wallet and intellect in creating it to serve you. During the last 40 years she has given 32 years to teaching without pay. Does she have a nest egg? No. She is a swami, a renunciant. It’s not for everybody. When she hears us say we are so fortunate, she replies, “I am the most fortunate of all.” Yet to be able to serve you and the wider world, she and Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram depend on your generosity.

As Board President, I am focused on serving you and making sure that our services continue seamlessly. The needed financial support comes from yogis like you. Our spring fundraising campaign is targeting three needs:

• Swami Support: supporting Swami Nirmalananda and her work in the world.

• 21st Century Technology: our computer equipment, our website with more than 1000 pages of content, and essential administrative staff who support our technology footprint.

• Freebies:  along with in-person programs, your Ashram offers more online Freebies than any other ashram in America. You can go online and binge-listen to hours and hours of AMAZING free teachings. That gives you a new meaning to “sitting by the fire.”

Thank you for your ongoing support. Remember always, that even when you aren’t aware of it, the power of Grace through Swami Nirmalananda is supporting your yogic journey, from the inside out.

Click here to donate today.

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h

By Vicharinee Chafin

Gardeners know spring means you clean up from the winter and plant for coming months.   Except that Ashram garden clean-up and planting are a whole different experience, performed as seva on Sacred Soil.

Swamiji and her team created an experience for us, jam packed with the Grace and Love only a Guru can provide.  She plans each detail, down to the ingredients in an amazing scrambled tofu (recipe from Baba), leaving us “full-filled” with experiences of the Self.

Friday night began with a satsang in New Hope PA.  Returning to Downingtown, we headed for bed in Lokananda.  I was surprised to have a “yoga night,” as Swamiji calls it, with little sleep, lots of mantra and wonderful dreams.  I realized Lokananda is an arm of the Ashram, still connected to the body (Grace).  The same heart (our Guru) pumps its blood.  My thoughts that Lokanada would somehow be different melted away, a welcomed relief from that dualistic view.

After Saturday morning Guru Gita at the Ashram, breakfast was prepared for us by Swamiji herself.  It is so sweet to enjoy a meal with her, let alone have her cook for us.   How many meals have been prepared for me in the past?  How many do I really appreciate?  How many come with a side order of the Self?

We began our work, propelling us into muck and grit.  As we embarked, it was a balmy 50 degrees and raining.  So the resistance begins.  I was fooled into thinking my happiness lay in being comfortable and warm.  That expectation was leading to my unhappiness, as Swamiji taught us in satsang on the night before.  The rain created some mud — inside and outside.  But Ashram mud is unlike any other I have worked in.  This mud has always presented me with a fully blooming lotus.  Dhanajaya summed it up as “Mystical Mud.”

While we worked in the gardens, two sevites lovingly prepared fabulous meals.  We were so grateful for the wonderful food, as we had worked up appetites.  We ended the day with a group seva indoors, plus individual meetings with Swami, closing with arati and japa at Lokananda.

As we progressively settled into our-Selves, losing personal dysfunctions and expectations, we began to glow more.  Sunday brought our weekend to a close with chanting and meditation, ending with Swami Sunday discourse.

When I first arrive at the Ashram, it is apparent I am full of “shrama” (the fatigue of worldly life).   As the weekend and the seva progress, the onion layers peel away in the same way as in a teacher training or yoga immersion.   Each time I am changed and renovated, never to return to some of the mud I had grown accustomed to.  What a relief!

I am so grateful to Swami Nirmalanda for bringing us the teachings of her Guru, His guru and of all the ancient sages, making them modern and understandable.  Swamiji, thank you for the development of the Svaroopa Sciences and your unceasing efforts to have me know my Self.

Om svaroopa svasvabhava namo nama.h

by Marlene (Matrika) Gast

Yoga’s Spirituality is our teachings theme for 2016, as always, rooted in yoga’s ancient traditions and texts:

Yoga’s stated goal and purpose is to unveil your spiritual greatness to you.
— Swamiji & Rukmini

Our many practices, even the physical practices, are all spiritual practices from which you create your personal “sadhana,” your daily practice. For your sadhana, you choose the ones that open you inward to your own Divine Essence most reliably.  Your menu is extensive:

yoga poses (asana)
breath work (Ujjayi)
meditation
chanting
puja
dakshina
seva
vichara

While you may already be doing one or two of these, it’s time to explore others.  Expand your ability to can choose practices that most effectively nourish your relationship to your own inherent Divinity.

For designing, fine-tuning or re-establishing your own sadhana, see our latest Tadaa! e-zine. Let other yogis inspire you to go forward and go deeper. Finding bliss (a spiritual quality) in asana may be the core of your first sadhana. If asana is still your primary tool, what can you add to open even deeper within, so you are propelled toward Self-realization? In Tadaa! you will find a new and more potent way to uncover your spiritual greatness, the “More” within you.

It’s great if you are meditating!  But if your meditation is based on Swami’s pre-empowerment days (2005-2009), it’s time for an upgrade to a whole new level of empowered and empowering meditation.  Take a Shaktipat Retreat or expand your teaching skill in Reawakening Your Love of Meditation.  You will be steeped in Grace as you step into life and into your sadhana in a whole new way.

Ultimately, your daily practice — your sadhana — is all about unveiling your own Divinity to yourself. On this path you have an abundance of practices from which to select the most appropriate ones for you. The Svaroopa®‑ Sciences make it so easy.

By Kevin Maloney, SVA Business Manager

I spent two decades in corporate operations before joining the Ashram as Business Manager one year ago. As I contrast that experience with what I have witnessed since I came on board at SVA, some thoughts rise to the surface. Any organization needs to be responsible, meet its financial obligations, take care of the day-to-day requirements of operating in this day and age, set goals, and overcome obstacles. In many respects, the operations of this organization are no different from the operations of any corporate organization. Where the big contrast enters is in the areas of motivation and vision.

As for motivation, why do staff members come to work at SVA for less money than they could make somewhere else? Why do so many community members volunteer so much of their precious time and resources to help this organization operate? What is that motivation? Can you put a finger on it? Or is it a gentle, mysterious feeling deep inside that moves you and moves them?
As for vision, how can an organization use finances, not to generate more finances, but to further the vision of helping people experience Reality? How can we function efficiently and within the constraints of today’s world, and still carry the thread of our vision through everything we do?  How can we operate in a way that we can sustain the organization and yet also have just one goal of helping the people in our community deepen their experience of yoga, meditation, and the Divine?

As you ponder the questions about motivation, we here at SVA ponder the questions about acting out the vision. Thus, there is something happening here at SVA. This motivation and vision have yielded the practical results of a beautiful environment for programs and for deepening. We call it Lokananda. This Place of Bliss, which is what Lokananda means, is a physical building about 130 years old. It brings with it practical realities of renovation and maintenance in the tangible world. It brings the practical reality of finances, which means SVA still needs funding to complete what has been started (with stunning results to date!).

I am honored to give voice to our administrative team. They are truly dedicated to our vision and have that motivation I mention above. We are poised as an operation, and as a community, to flourish. We hope you join the effort to complete the Lokananda make-over and truly make her into our (your!) home for the long run. Join the 62 Svaroopis who have contributed so far.  Take this renewed opportunity to donate. We need your help.  Be generous.

Click here to donate or phone us at 610.644.7555.

“To have the immersion experience of doing regular practices and personal connection with Swamiji that helped keep me close to my SELF.”

“I thought it to be a very well planned immersion. I learned so very much and it made me so excited to continue my journey. I am very grateful for this experience.”

With your donations, we have been able to move our immersions into our new campus – Lokananda.  Whether your Yogimmersion is a weekend, a retreat or a professional training, you can look forward to thinking about nothing except what you are learning and the experience of your Self. You will experience Bliss multiplied exponentially.

The sacred space of Lokananda gives you easy access to your Self, so you can take your Self home with you. Please donate to our Capital Campaign so we can continue to grow our full immersion programs at Lokananda: Your Bliss Place. Every donation makes a difference. Click here to donate.