Tag Archives: support

Let Us All Blossom Forth Together by Prakash (David) Falbaum

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Prakash (David) Falbaum

Prakash (David) Falbaum

Two and a half years ago a seed was planted within me during my first Svaroopa® yoga class. At the time, little did I know what that would mean.  But now I know the seed was the beginning of the explicit knowledge that I am Divinity itself.

I was 49 years old at the time and was as far from any type of spirituality as I believe a human being can get. I considered myself an agnostic at best and spent most if not all my time building walls to keep myself safe from what I thought was a world out to hurt me at every turn.

Fortunately, I was in back pain as well, and to help with that I found a Svaroopa® yoga class near where I live in the Twin Cities. At first, I concentrated on asana, and my tailbone began to open. As fear started falling away I picked up japa and meditation.  With physical opening I had so many changes so quickly that I emailed Swamiji. She answered my email!  Again, I was shocked. I was a new student, yet the Master Teacher and Spiritual Leader of our organization took the time to help me out.  This response was not what I had been exposed to with the religious practices I’d grown up with.

Then came a calling from within me, and I began to offer seva and donations. I initially wanted to give back to Swami and the organization that was giving me so much, but the more I give, whether it’s a financial donation or my time offering seva, the more I get. These practices have allowed me to become more seated within my Self, as I become aware of the more subtle levels of Divinity within myself.

I started my yoga practices as a fearful introverted person, and now I have blossomed forth into a loving, giving, gracious person. Swamiji and the lineage have provided the seed and practices to make the seed grow. All the practices from asana to meditation, to seva, being in the presence of Swamiji and the highest teaching nurture the seed, establishing me in my own svaroopa, more and more of the time.

Thus, as I have given more of myself and increased my monthly donations, I have continued to Blossom Forth. The more I give, the more I blossom and know my Divinity more and more of the time.  I now serve on the Ashram Board and am continually amazed at how the Ashram exists as a living, breathing form of consciousness enlivened by Swami Nirmalananda.

Thanks to the generosity of so many other sevites and to the generosity of monthly donors and annual donors, the Ashram serves our wide community of yogis on our chosen paths under the umbrella of the Svaroopa® sciences. I know that for me to Blossom Forth into the ever-deeper knowing of my Self, it has been essential that the Ashram has been nourished by Swami Nirmalananda’s dedication into stunningly beautiful bloom. Under her unwavering stewardship Svaroopa® yoga teacher training has flourished into a new era for those of us whose path it is to bring the magic of our asana practices into the world. Supporting her work in this transformation via our Consolidation have been talented Trainers, staff and sevites. And now we have a consolidated organization, a brand new website providing easy access to essential information about the various Svaroopa® paths to the knowing of ourselves as Self. And the Ashram is poised for even greater expansion to serve those of us who already benefit from Swamiji’s teachings as well as seekers who are on the brink of finding the Svaroopa® sciences.

Please join me in giving financially to support the current and future work of Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram, for the experiential knowing of your own Self. Give through monthly donations or your annual donation — or both.  Let your own sense of gratitude for what you have already received blossom forth into ongoing financial support, so that each and all of us can continue to blossom forth and fresh seeds can be planted in new places.

Blossoming Forth by Amala Cattafi Heinlein

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amala-photo“Growth is expansive, yet also expensive,” commented Swami Nirmalananda, which resonated deeply with me. Most people think about expense in terms of money, an immediate hot button that lands us in a place of fear and anxiety. Yet, in that place, how perfect it is to consider Blossoming Forth at the same time! Expensive, yet expansive.

I want to share some thoughts with you from the Board perspective and also from a personal perspective. I hope you find it resonates with you.

As Board Chair I have been focused on everything needed to make our new building, Lokananda, a reality: the property search, the contract negotiations, the financing, the inspections, the zoning, and host of details needed before settlement. Thankfully, I had a lot of help. I am also grateful that the whole Board could see that this acquisition is the next step in the blossoming forth for our community.

We are currently working with the architect and contractor on turning the first floor into a bright and airy space for Downingtown Yoga, with space for both meditation classes as and asana classes, and eventually space for more Ashram residents and guests. Lokananda will be your space, your community center, and it will soon vibrate with all the love and Shakti that flows so easily from Swamiji’s presence and teachings. Our expansion is all for you!

This seva project was so amazing because I felt all of you so deeply throughout the process, even though it was also one of the most difficult things I have ever experienced. For me personally, it brought up fear and anxiety — to get everything right. The fear came in overpowering waves that attached to me like leeches with each small task that had to be completed. It would subside for a moment upon completion, but return with a vengeance at the next task. I knew that this mental and emotional pain was a massive karma burn. Expansion is expensive!

I know you all experience moments (or longer periods) of fear, anxiety, despair, anger, stress, even while you also know you are expanding toward the knowing of the Self. It can feel like being stuck in the mud; it’s so hard to see through. Yet every plant that blossoms forth must first rise through the mud. It doesn’t stop. It knows the sun is just a few more inches. This beautiful path has taught me, not only how to keep going, but that the mud is also Shiva.

Please sit for a moment and reflect on what the Ashram means to you, and what we bring to you. Then, please, open your heart, peel off the leeches of fear and anxiety that may attach to you when you hear the word “donate.” Then let your gratitude and generosity flow.

Click here to support the Ashram and support your practice.

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo namah

Receiving & Giving Support by Peter Gallagher

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Peter Gallagher

Peter Gallagher

I am often distracted by the contradictions that I experience in being me, a unique form of contracted consciousness. Thankfully, I first found a Svaroopa® yoga teacher and then Swamiji. Physical pain got me in the door. At first the relief that I felt from the beginning encouraged me to continue classes. It was, however, the mental and emotional release and personal spiritual reawakening that kept me coming back for more.

Just as I need the support of Swami and the Ashram in order to blossom into my Divinity, the Ashram needs our support to blossom into its future. Just like you and me, the Ashram is a form of Consciousness, a form that supports our discovery that we are a form of Consciousness. Consider how the Ashram has supported your inner expansion. Could you be who you now are without the enlivened and embodied teachings you have received through Swami Nirmalananda and the teachers she has trained?

Through the efforts of our teachers, staff and sevites and the generosity of our donors, we have truly blossomed as an organization, quickly moving through the Master Yoga Reawakening into the Consolidation of Master Yoga and the Ashram. We are now entering a new phase of expansion into the world. This growth brings new challenges and opportunities, and to be successful the process requires your participation. Your donations and seva are needed by the Ashram as it comes into full bloom, fulfilling its work in the world.

I personally experience the gifts of the Svaroopa® Sciences; they just keep on giving me more and more. Because of the gratitude that I have for Swamiji, the teachings and the Svaroopa® yoga teachers I have studied with, I serve on the Ashram Board of Directors. My gifts to the Ashram are my skills, my time and my donations. I give them to assist Swamiji and the Ashram in their purpose, which is to assist you in realizing your Self. In return for what I give, unlooked-for, I live more in my Self in the world.

Both Swamiji and the Ashram are dedicated to serving us. We need to provide the financial support to allow their work to blossom forth, both in us and into the world beyond. Please support this blossoming forth with your generosity. Consider a one-time gift or a monthly donation to fully nurture this new blossoming.

With love,
Peter

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.

This Stuff Works by Matrika (Marlene) Gast

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Marlene Gast

Marlene Gast

Every Sunday when I was very small, I got to sit on my grandfather’s lap while he told me how things work. He described how paper is made from trees ground into wood pulp, how cheese is produced from fermented milk, and how aspirin is made from a substance found in willows. When I got a little older, I received talks on Morse code, soldering and the internal combustion engine. In my twenties when I studied poetry, I learned from my teachers how poetic language works to create a unique world of its own, conveying a particular experience, emotion, vision that tells us so much about our own existence.

At the same time I discovered yoga— a great escape from the rigors of academia. I heard from some of my teachers that yoga could take you to God.  They didn’t say how exactly, and at the time I wasn’t interested in that anyway.  At first I just wanted peace and quiet, but then somehow “deeper” experiences began to happen. When I finally happened upon Svaroopa® yoga, I had become curious about these experiences. What were they? How did they “work”?

In 2005 when I took Foundations with Swamiji (then Rama), I was grateful to receive actual explanations of the workings of Consciousness, reaching right into our human bodies. Swamiji has said that her teachings explain the experiences that we’re having and prepare us for experiencing “more.” Over time it has become clear that Svaroopa® yoga, as it opens us to Consciousness, does so much more than merely working on body, breath, and mind. It invokes and opens up experience of Divine Self, beyond body and mind. Then we see the imperishable radiance of the Divine in everyone and everything.

Through Swamiji’s teachings, at last, I can see more and more how the world works, how life works, how my life has been shaped and what that means.  I see how Divinity is the heart of all we know, all we don’t know yet, and all that is even beyond knowing. For me, that solves a lot of issues.

This is the gift from Swamiji that prompts me to donate to Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram. Of course I am grateful as well for unsurpassed yoga teacher training that has prepared me to do work that I love and for healing that I’ve received in body and mind. But it’s the gift of knowing Self — of seeing how it ALL works — that I cannot do without.

What do you value most? During our Yoga in the World campaign, please join me in giving and express your own gratitude for whatever you have received from Svaroopa® yoga and meditation and the teachings of Swami Nirmalananda.

Click here  to support your Ashram and support your community.

Keeping Svaroopa Yoga and Meditation in the World by Prakash (David) Falbaum, SVA Technology Team Leader

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Prakash (David) Falbaum

Even though the Western world loves yoga and meditation, the yogic lifestyle is not a mainstream lifestyle. As a yogi, most nights I get to bed by 10:30 pm, and every morning I wake up well before dawn to get in my daily practice — including asana, Ujjayi Pranayama, and meditation — before I start work at 6:30 am. Ujjayi and asana keep me moving through the day energetically and pain free, while meditation, japa, and the support I get from Swami Nirmalananda and the Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram keep me in a state of bliss and immersed in my Self.

This yogic way of living was not always the case for me either. I spent much of my 22-year career as a research scientist in pain, tired, maybe hung over, gobbling pain pills, and at odds with many of the people I worked with. Meetings were always a contentious affair with arguments erupting. As a result, we could never agree to move projects forward.

Slowly and surely my attitude about work has changed, and I owe it all to the practices I have learned as part of the Svaroopa® yoga family. As I become more and more immersed into my Self, I have noticed that meetings are calmer, decisions are being made easier, and work is becoming a more pleasant place to go. My co-workers still think that I’m a bit crazy to get up at 3:30 am for yoga and spend much of my vacation time and money for training. However, they notice enough change in my state and energy level that they want me to teach a class at lunchtime, and they are asking questions about meditation and Ujjayi.

yoga-in-world-logoIn my own life and work I receive way more than I could ever give back. So I offer seva, devotion, and dakshina (donations) to Swamiji and the Ashram. Our donations are a big part of the finances that sustain the Ashram and enable Swamiji tocontinue to bring the Svaroopa® Sciences teachings to us. I hope you will join me in donating during our Yoga in the World campaign. Your contribution, in any amount, goes toward keeping the Ashram financially strong and the teachings, which we all cherish, supporting us now and in the future. Even more, your donations ensure that the Svaroopa® Sciences continue to reach ever more deeply into the world.

Click here to support your Ashram and support your practice.

Bringing Your Best into the World by Saguna (Kelly) Goss

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Saguna Goss

Saguna Goss

My yoga path started with one class each week. After seven years of weekly classes, I had an “a-ha” moment and exclaimed with great excitement and amazement at my discovery, “There is something more to yoga than these poses!”  Now, after diving into the many offerings available for studying Svaroopa® yoga, I can’t help laughing when I share that story.  It seems so obvious. And while I laugh, I am also so amazed. What kept me coming back for seven years taking yoga classes if I thought it was simply rolling around on yoga blankets every week for an hour and a half?

I kept coming back because, even though I wasn’t aware of it, the yoga was changing who I was. Today I keep coming back because I know it is changing me.  The yoga is opening up who I truly am so that I can bring the best of myself into the world and, more importantly, bring my Self into the world.

Over the years there are so many stories of life-marker-poses, where I find myself in a familiar situation but having a completely different reaction: being friendlier to strangers, a nicer driver, less reactive to button-pushing-situations, making better food choices and so much more!  Yoga has changed me so much that it is hard to even remember what it used to be like before yoga. It’s hard to comprehend the amount of change.  And I know there is still so much more to come.

Yoga is changing me and therefore changing the world around me. I am so grateful!  This is why I offer dakshina — financial support for the organization that supports me, for my Teacher and the transformative Teachings that she brings us.  Svaroopa® Vidya Ashram exists solely for our transformation, and we must support the organization so it can support us.  Please join me in making a financial offering so that we can bring more yoga into the world, more yoga that changes me, changes you — and everyone we know and meet, whether they realize it or not!

Click here to support your Ashram and your practice.

The Mystical Teachings Have Changed the Way I Live by Rudrani (Rosemary) Nogue

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Rudrani (Rosemary) Nogue

Rudrani (Rosemary) Nogue

A yoga student gave me a greeting card a few years back. It said, “The way you live your life has changed how I live my life.” The way Swamiji gives so generously of the mystical teachings, which she learned at the feet of her Guru Muktananda, has changed how I live my life. And, the way I live my life keeps evolving, the more yoga practices I do and the more I avail myself of Swamiji’s Grace. I couldn’t go back to how I used to be even if I wanted to — which I don’t.

The more I dive into practices and programs, the more I get bite-sized pieces of understanding that guide or push me along to my inner Self. These include practicing and teaching asana and leading group meditations, my own meditation and japa, chanting the Guru Gita and listening to Swamiji’s talks online, the year long course “Guru & Self,” offering seva and taking more training (I recently retook Meditation Teacher Training). Everything I do is designed by Swami Nirmalananda who, along with my own efforts, is birthing me into who I really am.

Back in 1999, when I started training with Swamiji (then Rama), I came to learn yoga poses to teach. But this path I have been given is so much more than what I originally came for, more than I even knew was possible. I have been given mystical teachings that, for centuries, were secret teachings. Having Swamiji as my Guru has put me in the flow of this living lineage, through which the teachings have been passed from teacher to disciple for thousands of years. Swamiji has been charged with bringing the yogic mystical teachings into the world. Mystical teachings are not mainstream; they are not popular and they are not for everybody. But they are for me, and my guess is that they are for you, because you are reading this.

How do I live my life now? I am more ME. I am more present, more aware, more at ease, more kind and more clear. I am more able to be aware when I am not Self and I know how to get back. I am more willing to risk. Recently, after Swamiji’s Shaktipat weekend that I hosted in Calgary, I had my first clear experience of speaking up louder when I was inner connected and teaching a yoga class. Clearly, more of my Self had been uncovered through the mystical mystery of our Shaktipat weekend. This allowed me to be Self-connected and speak out at the same time. It was time to speak up and be heard, and something had been cleared that allowed me to do that.

So now it is time for me to use my stronger and clearer voice to ask you to donate during our April Fundraiser, “Yoga in the World,” to support the continuing flow of the mystical yogic teachings into the world. Please join me and my husband with your donation to support the rare gift of a living, accessible Guru who imparts mystical teachings in an understandable way.  Because this path isn’t mainstream, we depend on donations for one third of the income needed to run SVA. From your deep gratitude and your deeper Self, please make an offering so the Ashram can flourish and continue to offer the secrets of yoga to you and to our community. Click here and make as meaningful a contribution as you are able, to support the generous way that Swamiji imparts the mystical teachings to us.