By Swami Shrutananda 

People ask me, “What are you up to?”  I say, “Nothing”.  Every day is the same.  I have become boring!  This monotony is not just due to the pandemic.  I blame Swami Nirmalananda (Gurudevi), our Master Teacher, for my boredom and for me being boring.

For us Ashram residents, she has created a repetitive daily practice.  We start a chant at 5:15 am six days a week and meditate every day at 6:30 am.  We have breakfast with the same people, and then do seva (selfless service).  We have lunch with the same people, and then do more seva.  In the evening, we gather for a reading, chant, and meditation.  Every single day is the same — day in and day out. 

My mind has had nowhere to go except inward.  When I was first beginning to look inward, I bumped into what my mind found important and interesting — but was not.  I found my mind repeating things relentlessly.  Rather than bringing up the best stuff in my life, it presented the worst.  My mind was planning and worrying how to get everything done in a short amount of time.  It kept me thinking about what I want, what I don’t want, and unpleasant experiences and conversations.  Worse, it constantly asked about who’s to blame?

When you do enough yoga, whatever that is for you, the mind begins to quiet down.  It’s more peaceful.  Then comes the boredom.  When this happened for me, I looked inside, and nothing was happening.  Nothing.  The entertaining mental and emotional rollercoaster ride had slowed to a crawl.  When I looked outside, what most people like to do and talk about no longer entertained me.  This being in the in-between is painful.  I am not who I used to be, but not yet who I will be — abiding in my own Divine Essence. 

It’s heartening to know that this boredom is a stage along the way to the knowing of your own Divine Essence — your Self.  It is a stage of enlightenment.  What a relief to know this is temporary.  Gurudevi described this stage in one of the lessons in her 2018 Year-Long Programme: “Enlightenment in the Midst of Life”:

The 10th century Kashmiri sage, Abhinavagupta, writes:

nija-“si.sya-vibodhaaya prabuddha-smaranaaya ca

maya-abhinavaguptena “sramo’ya.m kriyate manaak.

For enlightening my own disciples, and for reminding the already enlightened ones (of their own enlightenment), I, Abhinavagupta, am making some effort (in writing this commentary). (1)

This means there are stages of enlightenment.  It also means that, when you’re enlightened, you need help understanding your state.(2)

I have had the privilege of living and studying with Gurudevi for almost 30 years.  I watched as she deepened and became fully enlightened.  Now I watch as she continues to expand into that state of Self Knowingness.  I see that it just keeps getting better and better.  She lives in the steady, continuing, expansive, blissful inner state.  I see it fill her heart, her mind and her life.

Gurudevi knows the stages along the way because she has been through them.  Therefore, she can guide you.  She can help you to understand your state and get beyond where you are stuck.  

Patanjali says there are seven stages of enlightenment: 

Tasya saptadhaa praanta-bhuumi.h praj~nyaa.— Yoga Sutras 2.27

The highest stage of enlightenment unfolds by seven stages.(3)

He is not saying that you go through seven stages on the way to enlightenment.  These are stages your mind goes through once you attain enlightenment.  Boredom is on the list.  Like a tour guide, Patanjali shows you the scenery along the way as you go upriver to the source.  His system gives you arduous practices to work on your mind, specifically to free you from your mind.  

Gurudevi’s teachings are based in a different yogic system, Kashmiri Shaivism.  Through Shaktipat, she takes you more quickly and easily inward to the knowing of your own Self.  You glide on the river of Grace to the source of your own Beingness.  Grace makes all this happen, the revelation of your own Self to you.

Shaktipat is the turning point, creating an inner opening that overwhelms your mind.  That inner opening stays open forever after.  But most people don’t get instantly enlightened.  Why not?  Oh, your mind!  Instead of looking through the opening deeper inside, most people continue to look outward.  Then their mind must go through the processes Patanjali describes. 

If you want to avoid that laborious process, keep looking through the opening inward.  How do you do that?  More mantra.  Repeating mantra is what Gurudevi did.  If you do what Gurudevi did, you will get what she got.  You will become fully enlightened.  Do more mantra.

(1) Jaidev Singh, A Trident of Wisdom (Albany, New York, State University of New York 1989), page 5

(2) Saraswati, Swami Nirmalananda, Enlightenment in the Midst of Life: Stepping Into Life (Downingtown PA,  Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram 2018), page 5

(3) Rendered by Swami Nirmalananda

You are pure, whole, complete, divine.  You always have been.  You already are.  

When I first heard this teaching, I was delighted, amazed and … dubious.  It rang a bell somewhere deep inside.  But that contrasted with much of the time when I felt alone, empty and incomplete.  So I wondered how the teaching could be true?  But, inside I knew it was true.  Better, I know that you can know, too.

An ancient yogic text gives the promise of your Divinity:

Chaitanyam-aatmaa — Shiva Sutras 1.1

Your own Self is Consciousness-Itself [1]

This is chapter one, verse one: the first and highest teaching.  Your own Self is Consciousness.  Consciousness is the One Ever-Existent Reality, the Divine Source and substance of everything that exists.  It is who you are.  You are the One, Divine Reality, who is embodied as you.  When you know your inherent Divinity, you know that everything and everyone else is that same Divinity.   

You get glimmers of your inner light when you do what gives you joy.  You are radiant when you’re in love.  You glow when you give with generosity.  Others see it, but more importantly, you feel it.  It’s the light of your Divinity.

You get glimpses of another’s Divinity when you look in a baby’s eyes or the eyes of a beloved.  Perhaps you seek out glorious sunsets, majestic mountain vistas or walks in the quiet cathedral of a forest.  The glory and majesty of nature reveals its Divinity, and triggers within you an experience of the Divine.  It all happens inside.

But you don’t know your own Divinity enough of the time.  The sun is gone.  Sometimes weather doesn’t allow for climbing mountains.  The quiet of the forest is ruined by someone on their cell phone.  You have joy but you also have sorrow.  Sometimes you feel whole but sometimes you feel incomplete.  Most of the time, probably, you feel incomplete.  

So is there a way to know your Divinity all the time?  Yes.  

You can always know that your own Self is Consciousness-Itself.  It doesn’t come from learning the sutras, though the sutras do tell you how to attain that knowing.  There are those beings who know their Divinity all the time. They live their Divinity all the time.  And they have the ability to awaken that knowing in you.  That awakening is called Shaktipat, so they are called Shaktipat Gurus. 

My spiritual teacher is such a Guru.  Her name is Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati.  When she gave me Shaktipat, my world changed.  It was like I had been living in a dark room with blackout curtains, but I didn’t know there were blackout curtains over the windows.  I simply thought it was nighttime all the time.  Shaktipat opened the curtains to show me daylight. 

Once you know, you can’t not know.  I can pull the curtains over the window again, but I know the sun is shining outside.  So if I make my world dark again, it’s my choice.  Sometimes I make that choice again, from habit or old persistent patterns.  But more often, I make the choices that support the light.  Mainly, I meditate.  It’s called Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation.  And every time I do it, the light shines brighter because I’m blocking it less.  I can’t even close those curtains anymore the way I used to be able to. 

Here’s where the metaphor breaks down.  Because you find the light inside.  It’s the light of your inherent Divinity, of your own Self.  You are pure, whole, complete, divine.  You always have been.  You already are.  I don’t doubt this anymore.  Though I don’t know it all the time yet, I know that one day I will.  And you can too.  If you want her to, Gurudevi will give you the awakening called Shaktipat.  Then the curtains will open, and the light of your Divinity will be revealed.  Do you want to know?

---

^[1] Rendered by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

A new year, a new virus variant, a new opportunity to choose what direction you are going.  Life is full of promise as well as challenges.  Can you move into it with intelligence, applying needed caution, yet with enthusiasm?  Enthusiasm comes from the Greek, en-theos, meaning “filled with God.”  Once you find the Divine dimension within yourself, everything you do is inspired and inspirational.

It is my enthusiasm that keeps me teaching in these challenging times.  For me, it is a sacred offering to all who want more out of life.  Intelligence is how my mind uses the light of Consciousness so I can help you see inward.  And caution demands I wear a mask when teaching in-person.  I’ve gotten so used to it that I often forget to remove it.  

Intelligence, caution and enthusiasm — weave them together in the brand-new year that is laying at your feet.  Step onto the path and head in the direction you want to go.  I say, “Head for the light!”  You will find the brightest light shining from its inner source, your own Self.

Yoga specializes in giving you access to the Divine dimension of your own being.  You taste it in doing Svaroopa^®yoga poses.  The physical benefits they provide are tangible, though superficial.  The deeper effects are found in the inner stillness and peace the poses give you.  Direct access is found by turning to explore inward.  Dive deep by using my Baba’s sophisticated meditative methodology.

When you live from the inner depths, you soar into the skies like a bird surfing the air currents that carry you higher and higher.  Shining with light, you are also lightweight.  Yoga gives you an abiding tranquility and profound inner clarity.  They make you able to fly high with an unerring sense of direction, even piercing through the clouds in your mind.  You know what to do and where to go because the answers arise from within.

How do you access this inner stream of clarity?  You have to look for it.  Look into where it comes from.  All your answers lie within.  Your mind is the microscope by which you see into the secret inner realms.  Like a microscope lens, it must be clean and clear to see what’s in there.  You simply have to quiet your mind in order to see clearly.

The sage Patanjali defines yoga as the quieting of your mind.  You don’t wait for your mind to calm down; you intervene.  Use yoga’s tricks to steer your mind in the direction you want it to go, into peace and clarity.  Head for the light within.  The best trick of all?  Mantra, of course. 

Based in Self, your own inner resources are more powerful than a nuclear generating plant.  They empower you to choose what to do with this coming year.  It glistens ahead of you, a golden opportunity.  A luminous moment that you can stretch into infinity.  I would love to show you how.