By Mangala Allen

Thousands of years ago, yoga’s sages explained that energy became light. Light became matter. Everything is made of light.  Scientists now agree, calling it the Big Bang, but they’re still trying to figure it all out.  Yoga explains it fully:

“The Big Bang was not an explosion, with light expanding into a field of darkness. It was an implosion, with Shiva contracting within Shiva’s own being to contract light into matter and bring the universe into existence.”  — Swami Nirmalananda (Dark & Light, December 2010)

This means you are made of light. More than that, you are the source of the light that has become the universe.  It shines from within your being. So, let it shine!

While you are the light of Consciousness, Consciousness took on contraction to become you. A human life is a process of contraction until you decide to go the other way, embracing a process of expansion. Yoga begins the expansion by helping you become present in your own body.

Svaroopa^® yoga poses accomplish this by dissolving the unnecessary tensions in your body. When you release these physical tensions, your mind becomes calm. When your mind is calm, you experience who you are — beyond your mind. You know your Self as the light of Consciousness you are.

My teacher, Swami Nirmalananda, says, “You are that light, that presence, that beingness. You are that which the ancient yogis called That.”

While you are born into contraction, the ultimate purpose of human life is to turn that process around, so you can expand into your That-ness. Yoga specializes in inner expansion, the process by which your light shines from your innermost being, fills you from the inside and flows into your life. Yoga removes the blocks that prevent your light from pervading your body and shining into the world.  Yoga’s process reveals your Self, your inner source, to you.

Doing poses, reading books and watching videos are a way to put a toe in the water, testing out if you want this inner expansion. To go further, you need a guide, someone who has gone through the process and thus can direct you in the most efficient and effective way. You need a Guru, one who can take you from darkness (gu) to light (ru).

You are at your best when you are aglow with your inner light. You experience light, love and joy and share it with others. This is how you want to live in every moment of every day. When you have the experiential knowing of your That-ness, you recognize everyone is That as well. You see the light shinning in everyone and everything, already there.  You experience life and everyone in it in a whole new way.

A disciple once asked Swami Muktananda , “Who are you?”  Baba replied, “Certainly, I can say one thing: I am that which people call That.” (From the Finite to the Infinite)

This is not new. This teaching has been passed down through the ages; it is the essence of our yogic tradition. Generation by generation, teacher passed it to disciple, repeating the cycle since the beginning of time. My teacher is guiding me along the path to knowing I am That. In the beginning, I got glimpses. Now I am becoming more and more established in my own source, my Divine essence. I am the light that fills me and flows into the world.

Remember:  “You are that light that presence that beingness. You are that which the ancient yogis called That.”

Let It Shine, Let It Shine!

By Yogeshwari (Melissa) Fountain

You are a Divine incarnation with the capacity to access the infinite within you.  Yoga describes that the vastness of Consciousness chooses to manifest, through many levels of contraction, to become matter.  From the formless to the form, all is made of the One.  Everything is Consciousness!

“Yoga promises you that you will know yourself to the deepest and fullest extent, recognizing your own Divinity and seeing it in everyone and everything else.” — Swami Nirmalananda

The point of yoga’s practices is that you know and experience this within yourself.  This is easy when you are emerging from a deep meditation or at the end of a yoga class.  Your quiet mind makes you able to experience peace.  You’ve found an entry into the infinite within, which is called “svaroopa,” your own Divine Essence.

Yet most of the time, you’re not experiencing yourself as Divine.  While the infinite reality is concealed in every object, you can’t see the it because you’re trapped in your preferences.  If you like how something is going, it’s yoga; if not, it can’t possibly be yoga.  A yoga student returned home one day to see her kitchen flooded.  She stood there and made a decision: “I guess this is my yoga for the day”.  She rolled up her sleeves, opened her heart, got to work, and was in a state of bliss throughout the clean-up.

Not everything goes your way.  Not everyone one is interested in yoga or inner peace.  Swamiji says, “If you’re looking for the world and the people around you to show you their Divinity, you’re going to have a long wait.”  The only way you can find the Divinity that pervades all of existence is by looking inward.   You must find God in yourself first.

I learned a beautiful Sanskrit verse in yoga teacher training which begins with:

OM poornamadah pooornamidam…

OM. That is perfect. This is perfect.

“That” is your Divine Beingness, already perfect and full.  “This” is everyone and everything in this world, already perfect and full.  If you had told me B.Y. (before yoga) that “everything is perfect, the perfect becoming the perfect,” I’d have thought you were crazy.  For I was a master of the “yes…buts.”  A lifelong skeptic, I was trying to make the world fit into my expectations.  To me, “the perfect” meant perfectionism.  If I perfected the poses, if I was the perfect wife and mother, even the perfect yogi, then my life would fall into place.  These delusions captivated me for years!  When I chanted that mantra, it felt like a promise of things to come.  Deep inside, somehow I knew I was more than my mind was telling me.

In order to behold the perfect in everything, you must first find it within.  You’ve already proved to yourself that figuring things out doesn’t make you enlightened.  You cannot really enlighten yourself.  Only One who knows the Self can reveal your inherent Divinity to you.

Swami Nirmalananda describes it this way, “I was so fortunate to find such a One.  I didn’t know that I was looking for my Self.  I didn’t know that my mind was what was in the way.  My Guru showed me what I was looking for and how to get deeper in, past my mind.  I live in undying gratitude to Him, and delight in serving others who want the same.”

Even though this world is chaotic and unpredictable, it is the form of formless Consciousness.  Everything coming at you is another form of the Divine.  Everything!  Your mind doesn’t have to understand.  Why?  Because you are more than your mind.  How do you find your Self?

• Pause in the midst of your activities.  Take a breath.  Even sigh!
• Offer whatever you are doing to your own Divine Self, the One who is being you while being all.

In this way, you will begin to explore yoga’s promise: to know your Self to the deepest and fullest extent.

OM svaroopa svasvabhavah namo namah

By Mati (Sandra) Gilbert

Choices!  You make many choices each day, some easy and some hard.  When I was younger, I had to decide between change and security.  A single mom with an 8 year-old son, I had just purchased a home.  My job was very secure but I had advanced as far as I could.  Though I was good at it and it was easy for me, I was no longer satisfied with the status quo.  An opportunity came along.  There was a path for advancement but it did not offer any degree of security.  Was I willing to take a chance?  Decision time!

Family, job, projects, and other areas of your life bring you to the brink sometimes.  Life is not always easy.  If you continue to choose the easy path, looking for events and situations to flow easily, you are at the mercy of events and the people who cause them.  No matter how much effort you put into setting up your life perfectly, there will always be something beyond your control.  It often changes the outcome you had planned.  The only thing you have any control over is how you are during life’s challenges.  How are you?

“There are easy parts to life, but hard parts come along in spite of your efforts to avoid them.  Yoga says you must tackle the hard stuff, not merely handle the tough stuff when it comes up, but to look for the challenges and even create them for yourself.  This is called tapas.”                                                                                                                                 — Swami Nirmalananda

Tapas is doing the hard stuff even though it is hard.  Tapas is choosing to challenge yourself by doing hard stuff, precisely because it is hard.  When you get good at it, it is no longer hard for you, and it is no longer tapas.  Doing tapas means you get to choose the challenges you are going to work on, rather than having other thrust them on you.

Swamiji describes a 4-step process to help you make tough decisions.  The steps are

1. Take an intelligent look at yourself
2. Discern what would be the next step
3. Decide to do it
4. Then do it

While this process is straightforward, your choice should be based on what is best, not what you desire most.  This is a pure choice, without expecting a specific outcome.  In other words, you see what is needed and you just do it.

Tapas is very important.  When you decide to do the hard stuff without neediness or discontent, your body and your senses are purified and improved.  You gain a new understanding of your life and the world around you.  The benefits you get from doing tapas greatly exceeds the effort you expended.

Because of the teachings of my Guru, Swami Nirmalananda, and the Grace that flows through her, I am on the path to knowing my inner divinity — my Self.  Therefore, the hard stuff does not throw me like it used to.  Whether something is hard or easy is not the deciding factor in what I decide to do.  I can and must choose where to pour my energy.  Sometimes it is easy, flowing along almost effortlessly.  Sometimes it is hard, requiring work to accomplish the tiniest little bit of progress.

In yoga, the determining factor in what you are doing is not based on how easy or hard it is — it is based on who you are while you are doing it.  Through the practice of tapas, your own Self shines through your mind, your heart, your relationships, your work, and your life.  Your life will continue to have challenges.  However, it is much easier once you know your Self — your own inherent Divinity.