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.

“I love Lokananda – so wonderful to be able to stay immersed in the shakti all the times.” 

“Its the most depthful and effective course offered -with so much time to really steeling the depth of my being while working on being able to talk about it and teach it. Also the support of being in the ashram at Lokananda was a big plus…it really works!”

“Housing was great! I’m so happy that Lokananda is available.”

Everywhere you look in the newly renovated Lokananda is a reminder of the Self. The pictures of Gods and Gurus, the mirrors reflecting the light and reflecting your own face – another Divine Being honored in this sacred space.

Swami Nirmalananda named our new home for one of the key sutras in Kashmiri Shaivism:

Lokaananda.h samaadhi sukham — “Siva Sutra 1.18

The bliss of Self-Knowingess is experienced in its fullness in every place and every time.

Please donate to the Capital Campaign so we can continue to offer full immersion programs at Lokananda: Your Bliss Place. Click here to donate.

It has been six months since your donations have aided us in moving our teacher training programs into our new Downingtown building, Lokananda. The students have been moving in and out in a graceful flow as we are back-to-back in our immersion programs.
With decorating complete, each room has taken on a personality and earning itself a name from Swami Nirmalananda.

Ground floor:
• Main Entry: Svagatam (pronounced SVĂĂ-gă-tăm, means welcome)
• Meditation classroom: Kailasa (pronounced KĂEE-lă-să, name of a sacred mountain in the Himalayas, the home of Shiva)
• Asana (yoga) classroom: Tapovan (pronounced tăp-O-văn, means the place of spiritual effort)
• Yoga therapy room: Rasayana Kutir (pronounced ră-SĂĂ-yă-nă ku-TĬR, means the place of healing)

2nd floor:
• Dining hall: Annapurna (ĂN-nă-PŬR-na, means abundance of food)
• Student lounge: Deviloka (DAY-vee-LO-kă, means the abode of the goddesses)
• Bedrooms — Varanasi (vă-ră-NĂĂ-see, the name of a sacred city in India)

3rd floor:
• Apartment 3E (closest to the parking lot) Bedrooms: Arunachala (ă-roon-ĂĂ-chă-lă, the name of a sacred mountain in India)
• Apartment 3W (nearest the intersection of 30 & 322) Bedrooms: Rishikesh (RĬ-shĭ-kesh, the name of a sacred city in India)

We need your continued support to our Capital Campaign for renovations for a new roof, new plumbing, blanket washing equipment, etc. Click here to donate and learn more about how your dedicated funds are helping build our Bliss Place.

“Décor is fabulous! All needed comforts are there. Love that there are blankets in every room.”

“Everywhere you look is a reminder of the Self.”