Tag Archives: Donation

Continue to Blossom Forth by Rudrani (Rosemary) Nogue

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Rudrani (Rosemary) Nogue

Rudrani (Rosemary) Nogue

My inner blossoming began when I started on the Svaroopa® path in 1999. For a long time, I didn’t notice I was starting to blossom, as I had always been very fearful and “in my head.” But when I look back from how I am now to see how I was then, the difference is vivid.

My path has not always been smooth. Countless times I have bumped into my “small-s self.”  Yet even when flower buds open gradually and the change is too slow to detect, still they are blossoming forth. I was slow to know the inner blossoming that I yearned for was actually happening, and that it would continue to unfold.

Now I continue to do my part by being steady in my practices, including japa and meditation, serving on the Board and being open to Swamiji’s flow of Grace.  Another steady practice I started several years ago is donating to support the Ashram and my Guru, Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati. I knew instinctively that the right thing to do is to give financial support to that which has supported me and continues to blossom forth my inner Divinity.

The offerings of the Ashram through Swamiji are ultimately about you and for you.  The Ashram exists so you will blossom inward.  In this way you can experience your Divine Essence on the inside and then bring that awareness into your life. So many offerings come under the umbrella of the Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram. An amazing variety of Grace-filled paths support you blossoming into your Divine Essence. Everything Swamiji does (whether understood or not) is to support your inner blossoming.

Yet each of us must also do our part. We must participate on this path in whatever way works for us. For you it may be practicing the practices, reading SVA email communications, using our beautiful and efficient new website, or taking teacher training and yearlong courses, workshops and Shaktipat Retreats.  Hidden within, each bud has the potential to fully blossom. But without sunlight, water and fertilizer it will not be able to actually bloom. Your ongoing practices and participation, as well as being open to the flow of Grace, are the ingredients you need to blossom inward.

In order for Swamiji and the Ashram to continue to serve you in so many varied ways we need your financial support. In the end it is all for you.  The more you support the Ashram and Swamiji, the more they can continue to support you. It is an amazing circle of giving and receiving.  Neither can grow without the other. Give a plant water, light and fertilizer and it will blossom. We need your contribution so the Ashram can continue to blossom, in order to support you growing and blossoming. The great abundance of teachings and support offered through Swamiji and the Ashram is all there for you – use it, practice it, open to it, bask in it, bloom in it and support it.  Please join me in offering a financial gift so both the Ashram and you can continue “Blossoming Forth.”

Blossoming Forth by Swami Nirmalananda

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289A dynamic process is under way at the Ashram, with growth and changes in our staff as well as a new building for our local Downingtown programs. Many exciting developments make this blossoming forth tangible and obvious, a flowering that comes from the hard work of our teachers, staff and sevites and the generosity of our many donors.

The yogic process that happens to you on a personal level also occurs at the organizational level, for organizations are nothing but groups of people committed to a shared goal. This process is a reflection of the cosmic process, the blossoming forth of Consciousness-Itself. In honor of this, our year-end fundraising campaign is titled “Blossoming Forth,” described as “unmilana” in an important sutra from Kashmiri Shaivism.

Look at three ways that this blossoming forth is happening right now:

  • Cosmic Level: Consciousness is blossoming forth as this marvelous, multifaceted universe by contracting from pure expansive Beingness into individualized forms, including ants, trees, elephants, you and everything else that exists.
  • Personal Level: As a contracted form of consciousness, you yearn to know your own essence and seek a path of discovery. Svaroopa® yoga reveals your own Self through a profound process of blossoming inward.
  • Organizational Level: We are shifting gears, which is welcome news in a process that began with Master Yoga’s Reawakening (two years ago) and led to the Consolidation of Master Yoga and Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram last year. Now we are Blossoming Forth into the world!

We need your support at this dynamic time. Growth is expansive, but it is also expensive. We are adding staff members in order to expand our ability to be responsive to you. In the new year, you will find many new retreats and trainings, both for teachers as well as for yogis who want to deepen their yoga. We are expanding our local Downingtown facility and programming. We are expanding our Teacher Trainer faculty. Plus we have our new website, new taglines and my recent return to traveling and teaching. All this means we are reaching more people, people who want to know their own Self.

In this expansive time, our focus remains intensely personal. This is about you; this is about how you experience your own Self. As our organization blossoms into its own future, its purpose remains unchanged — to support your blossoming into your Divinity.

Support our expansion through your donation, especially important at the end of the year, both for your financial planning as well as the Ashram’s. So many of you helped us survive the recent challenges; now help us thrive! Donate now, in any amount, as a one-time donation or a monthly pledge that provides continuing support.

We are able to serve you because of your generosity. Please help us accomplish our purpose more fully, in this blossoming forth of the Ashram and the Svaroopa® sciences.

With love and blessings,

Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Click here to make a donation today.

Yoga In The World by Kristine Freeman, Secretary, SVA Board

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kristine

Kristine Freeman

There are days when I long to be one of those cave yogis. You know, the ancient ones, who stepped away from the world to intensely focus on their practices. And yet we’ve been told that even these cave yogis weren’t really on their own. They had a community supporting them.

The community who benefits from the teachings must support the teacher (and the organization) for both to continue and thrive. This is why I continue to support Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram with both time and money. As a yogi in the world, I value the yoga and meditation teachings that I have received. I am grateful for the experiences of my own Divine essence, experiences made possible by my choice to be in relationship with a Living Master, Swami Nirmalananda. The poses, the meditation, the phone courses and the Shaktipat retreats — each has helped me to access that sacred inner space. That “empty fullness”…inside and outside…all at the same time.

I’d like to be able to live from that space. Would you? We’re not going to get there alone. It’s going to take Grace, the Grace that is channeled through our Master Teacher and the organization she created to support us.

We need your support to continue to bring Svaroopa® yoga and meditation into the world. Please join me in making a contribution to our Yoga in the World campaign today.

With love and gratitude,

Kristine Freeman

Who Gives? Who Receives? by Kanchan Mohn

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Kanchan Mohn

Kanchan Mohn

As a member of the Svaroopa® community, as a practicing yogi, you are always connected to the Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram (SVA)…your ashram…the epicenter of the Svaroopa® community. And you are always held in a deep heartfelt embrace by your Master Teacher, our Beloved Guru, Swamiji, and her precious lineage.

You have all felt this embrace or you wouldn’t be reading this now. You repeatedly feel it in your body, in your mind, and, incredibly, you notice it weaving itself more and more into your daily life…both inside and out…the experience of your own Divine Essence (svaroopa), the experience of your Self, the gift of Grace.

What a gift our Guru gives to us by being so accessible, and by insisting that the teachings and the vehicles to Self are accessible at all times to the world.  SVA offers hundreds of free written and audio teachings via the website…your virtual Ashram.  SVA offers free phone courses, in-person satsangs, meditation programs, and yoga classes. Even the precious enlivened mantra is available for the asking.  And are you noticing that wherever you are in the world, your Self is available to you?

So how do we express our overwhelming gratitude for the gifts we have been given? How do we insure that our community, our organization and our Teacher continue to flourish and to serve Self? By giving back, of course.  And I ask you, by giving to Self, who receives?

For this reason, I support my Ashram, my Guru, and Self through service on the Ashram Board, through regular seva and donations, and through gratitude for the gift of Grace that I can never repay. I invite you to join me.  Support your community with whatever generous financial contribution fits your budget.  Relax into that profound embrace.

Om Namah Shivaaya!

Click here to support your Ashram and your practice today.

Resounding Support from Your Yogic Hearts! by Marlene Gast CSYT, MYF Board VP Communications, SVA Board Asana Committee

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Marlene Gast

Marlene Gast

Your yogic hearts have responded to our Thanksgiving fundraising!  We have received many messages of  gratitude for Svaroopa® yoga, accompanying gifts expressing the generosity of the season, as well as photos of your hands and hearts [click to see our slide show].

We are grateful to announce an increase in monthly donations as well as the generous, total dollar amount of $18,401.  Your gifts beautifully support us in the lean months of November/December, when we cannot run any programs, while helping us prepare for the new year: 2014, a pivotal year for us! A consolidated year!!

Clearly each donation received was a holiday gift wrapped in love for your Svaroopa® Sciences practices — and for all of our teachers.  We are blessed by wonderful teachers, beginning with Swami Nirmalananda and spreading out through our Teacher Trainers, through local Svaroopa® yoga teachers and Meditation Group Leaders worldwide. With every donation that you make, you support this whole, wondrous network. In turn, all of us support the expansion of Consciousness through the unswerving avenues of the ancient teachings.  This is cause for great jubilation and heartfelt congratulations!

Thus I write today with gratitude on behalf of the SVA Board and the MYF Board.  A great deal of the Board’s responsibility is fiduciary: A board of directors is responsible for ensuring the availability of adequate financial resources, an essential part of keeping any organization robust and vigorous.  We are grateful to you for helping us fulfill this responsibility.  Your donation and commitment support the organization, which supports Swami Nirmalananda along with our Teacher Trainers as well as administrative staff that bring the teachings into the world.

Yet the organization is simply a part of the whole.  You are the essential element that completes the whole. It is you, centered in your yogic heart; you are precious and indispensable. In the words of SVA Board President Amala Cattafi, you are more precious than gold, whether or not your personal circumstances allow for financial support of the organization.

The personal pronouns of English — you, I — divide us into individual units. “Us” is the closest pronoun to present us together as community — and “we”: We are yogic family.  You are — we are — wondrous, shining threads in the imperisable fabric of essential connection.  Our connection is the relationship in consciousness, the being of consciousness, but the being of consciousness-together while being consciousness individually.  We are individual persons, choosing to be in community, as yogis who can feel the presence of one another in the depths of Consciousness to which our practices open us.  Thank you.

2 Thank Yous: for Monthly Donors and from a Board Member

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Namaste Poster

NEW! Monthly Donor Gift – see info below…
Send us a photo of your hands for our online gallery (to jennifer@masteryoga.org), include your name and zip code.

by Peter Gallagher, Board Member

Thirteen years ago I went to a local massage therapist to relieve the tension and feeling of compression I had in my back. At the conclusion of the appointment, he told me that he was unable to tell the difference between muscle and bone in my body. He sent me to Tarlika Margery Anderson for a class in Svaroopa® Yoga.

After three classes I went to a weekend workshop given by Rama Berch. Rotated stomach pose required her personal touch to get the apparent 90 degree angle just right. The power of asana for me was the relief of my physical pain. The unexpected bonus was the relief of my mental and emotional pain.

Asana remains the steadiest, most reliable easiest practice for me. Yet something “more” continues to show up. I experience the Self in my family, work and casual relationships. I am more open, trusting and joyful.

It is natural for me to be thankful at this time of year. I was born on Thanksgiving. A few years ago I began making small, safe monthly donations to Master Yoga because I was thankful for what I had received. Sometime later, I thought I could be a little more thankful and I increased my monthly donation.

Peter

Peter in Anjali Mudra
Send us a photo of your hands for our online gallery (to jennifer@masteryoga.org), include your name and zip code.

Two years ago I was asked to do seva. I agreed and promptly put it off for a year. Last year I joined the Master Yoga Foundation Board because I was thankful for the gifts I had been given. This year’s increased monthly commitment of time and money has propelled me into fears. As promised the container has gotten larger. I can be present even during a storm. The unexpected benefit is a growing sense of community and gratitude.

I invite you to participate in your own experiment. Make a one-time or a monthly financial gift from the abundance of what you have received from your asana practice. Increase your current gift to sustain and grow this practice for others. Sit back and observe how your gift continues to give to you.

Click Here to Give a Gift From Your Heart!

Hands & Hearts – irresistible!

Your photos are irresistible!  The online slide show gets a little longer every day, but you lose track of time watching it, so it doesn’t matter.  Time doesn’t count if you’re not counting it.

Now we’re making it into a poster, to say thank you for your donation at this Thanksgiving time. New monthly donors will receive a free 16”x20” poster of many yogis’ hands in Anjali Mudra, with Swamiji’s hands in the center (at the “heart” of the poster).  If you are already a monthly donor, simply increase your monthly gift and you will receive this wonderful thank you – our “Namaste” poster.

Choose any category for your gift, dedicated to supporting meditation programs (SVA) or asana programs (MYF), our Ganeshpuri Music School or a general donation that empowers the Board to determine where your generosity will best serve.  Click here to make a donation – choose “monthly” instead of “one-time”, and set up the amount you desire by changing the “quantity.”

Swamiji

Swami Nirmalananda’s hands

Thank you for your heart-felt practice of yoga.  That’s what makes serving you such a pleasure for us!

OM svaroopa svasvabhava.h namo nama.h

What is a Yogic Heart? by Amala (Lynn) Cataffi, SVA Board President

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Amala

Amala in Anjali Mudra
Send us a photo of your hands in Anjali Mudra (prayer position). Please include your name and zip code. We’ll add your heart-full hands to our online gallery – click the picture above to see it as it grows!

For me, a yogic heart is an ongoing love affair with Grace. That flow of Grace is the essence of Svaroopa® yoga. I have chosen to partake of all of the limbs of yoga that the Svaroopa® sciences offer: asana, meditation, seva, and gladly, boldly, into the deepest teachings of all.  Whether you choose any or all of these limbs, the Grace is always showering you and aiding your personal process. My love affair is expressed outwardly through my giving (dakshina) and my giving back (seva).

During the last India trip this was so vivid for me. We had just finished the Maha Abishek at the Nityananda temple. This ancient ritual honors Nityananda as a form of the Divine – the formless in form. As a Board member, I helped perform the ceremony, but I had a strong sense that the experience was not about me.  It was not even for me, but was about giving and service.

When we left, we were given fruit and flowers that had been on the huge murti (enlivened statue) of Nityananda during the ceremony. There were 2 Indian women outside who had obviously not eaten well in some time, and I gave them the fruit, even though I secretly wanted it. Immediately, I was propelled into a state of peace and love that I had never before known or experienced. It was so overwhelmingly beautiful that I could almost not move or speak! I could have stood there in bliss all day!

Every time I donate money or time, I open myself further to that flow.  It does not always manifest in such a “POW!!” experience, but giving is something that opens you up like nothing else… Talk about core opening!

Come and share the experience of a deeper core opening than you have ever known. Give to support that which has given YOU so much to be thankful for!

In service and gratitude…Amala

Click Here to Give a Gift From Your Heart!