Monthly Archives: November 2024

A Radically Different Model

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By Swami Satrupananda

Back in the day, I used to go to the gym. On abs day I did a bunch of abs. On cardio day, I did lots of cardio. 

Our Svaroopa® Yoga classes are based on a radically different model.  For example, in a Neck and Shoulders themed class, we don’t do a bunch of neck and shoulder poses. Instead, the class focuses on releasing your deep spinal tensions, starting at your tailbone.  This is the model for every class, no matter the theme.  You do poses to open the central core of your body and everything else improves.

Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation also takes the same radically different approach. In meditation, you apply your mind to the mantra. At the end of your meditation, you are settled in your body, mind and heart. Most importantly, you are seated more in the truth of your own existence. You get to a steady settled state by activating your mind. 

The sages explain how it works this way:

Jatyantara parinamah prakrtyapurat. (1)

Transformation is caused by the filling in by their innate nature. 

— Yoga Sutras 4.2

The sage Patanjali is telling us that change comes from the inflow of your innate nature from its source. By opening your spine in Svaroopa® Yoga, your body realigns and its natural flow resumes. Your bones and muscles align to their intended positions. Your breath expands, your blood circulates and your lymphatic system flows. 

And there is more going on. Patanjali focuses on the source of your innate nature. You experience this at the end of your yoga class as well as your meditation program. Students report feeling relaxed, peaceful and calm. This comes from your own innate nature filling you up — filling your mind, heart and more.

Unfortunately, you have blockages that restrict the flow of your innate nature. Patanjali says that your work is to remove the blockages:

Nimittam aprayojakam prakrtinam varanabhedastu tatah ksetrikavat. (2)

Actions are not the direct causes of the transformation. They only act to break down the obstacles, just as a farmer removes a sluice gate to naturally allow the irrigation of his field.

—  Yoga Sutras 4.3

A farmer does not manually scoop up water and carry it to the field.  Even thousands of years ago in Patanjali’s time, they had irrigation systems. In rice fields, they border each rice paddy with mounds of dirt to keep the plants in water. 

To irrigate another field, the farmer simply removes a section of the mound to release the water into the adjacent field. The farmer himself is not watering the fields or making the plants grow. The farmer’s action is to remove the obstacles that allow the water to flow in and irrigate his field. 

In the same way, your actions are not the direct cause of your transformation.  Instead, your actions remove inner obstacles, to allow your innate nature to fill in and transform you.  In a Svaroopa® Yoga class, your actions are the poses. They release the spinal tensions that have been blocking the flow.  In meditation, we repeat mantra to get our mind out of the way to allow the filling in. Then you are changed. 

This is great news! You don’t have to create your own innate nature.  Instead, your actions are focused on removing the obstacles. In the farmer analogy, you work from the dry rice paddy meticulously chipping away at the dirt mound. I’ve always appreciated having clarity on what I need to do. Then I can roll up my sleeves and get it done.

In Patanjali’s yogic system, this work takes years of dedicated practice. Patanjali taught monks who had withdrawn to the forest to dedicate full-time efforts to their yoga practices. To even get to these teachings, these disciples had done the practices described in the previous three chapters of the Yoga Sutras. 

This includes cleaning up your act with the yamas and niyamas. Chapter 3 has a series of progressively subtle concentration practices, each one taking some time to master.  It’s a long and arduous process. To me, it feels like scooping out a hard-packed mound of dirt with a teaspoon.

Luckily, the Svaroopa® sciences do it differently. We add Grace. Grace is your innate nature reaching for you. It’s like the water in the adjacent field actively pushing through the dirt and splashing over the mound. When you invoke Grace, your innate nature doesn’t wait for the obstacles to be removed. Instead, it works actively from the inside out, removing your obstacles for you. 

Yet, with Grace, your actions are still needed. You continue to do your yoga practices, but now your practices have dual purposes. Your yoga practices remove the obstacles and call Grace to you. It’s like you are on one side of the dirt mound in the rice paddy scooping away dirt with your teaspoon. And Grace mirrors you on the other side with a backhoe. Your efforts are now even more powerful because they call Grace.

Transforming yourself and your life as well as getting Self-Realized are guaranteed. You have the Grace of your own innate nature multiplying your efforts.  It’s simply a matter of time.  And you control how long that will be by how much yoga you do. Do more yoga.

Yoga
Meditation

(1) jaatyantara pari.naama.h prak.rty aapuuraat

(2) nimitta.m aprayojaka.m prak.rtiinaa.m vara.nabhedas tu tata.h k.setrikavat

I Found My Way to a Shaktipat Guru

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Swami Samvidaananda

Miraculously, I have found my way to a Shaktipat Guru. My Guru is Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati. We call her Gurudevi.  And today I write in celebration of her birthday.

A Shaktipat Guru is extremely rare.  She is someone who can awaken you to your Self.  I love this quote from Gurudevi that describes such a being:

One who knows the Self can simply up-vibe you to the inner knowingness of your Self. This is the Grace of the Guru, a person who has done their work and devotes their life to serving others.

“Up-vibe you to the inner knowingness of your Self” is a definition of Shaktipat. It’s the most informal, groovy way of describing it. “Up-vibe” sounds so effortless. And from all appearances, it is.  Gurudevi says it’s the easiest thing she does.  She lifts you up to a higher vibration.  

It’s the vibration of your Self, your inherent Divinity.  Your Self is Consciousness-Itself, pure Beingness, blissfully being everything that exists. Guru’s Grace up-vibes you so that you know the inherent wholeness, fullness and bliss of your own being. 

The effortlessness of Gurudevi’s capacity to give you Shaktipat belies what it took her to attain her state. The Guru is “a person who has done their work.” Gurudevi has done her work. Once she found her Guru, Baba Muktananda, she tirelessly dedicated herself to her own upliftment.  She made the most of what he gave her. She says it was out of desperation.

While I can certainly relate, I’ve always seen her as a beacon of light. She has always been at the forefront.  She is always blazing ahead of me on the path, showing all of us what’s possible. 

She shared that after she received Shaktipat, she found a spot to meditate in a corner of her family room, behind a big arm chair. She meditated there for three hours every morning.  She plunged into samadhi, a deep meditative immersion.

At the end of the three hours, she would open her eyes to find her three children curled up with her, a little head on each knee, and one in her lap. It touches my heart whenever she shares this story.

A key part of the story is, she jumped in to meditating three hours a day.  Right off the bat!  She has done her work.

And, a Guru is a person who “devotes their life to serving others.” Gurudevi could have taken what her Baba gave her and poured it into her job and her family.  She would have had a beautiful life, a happy life. A life that’s full of Grace. 

But she didn’t stop there.  She devotes her life to giving to others what she had been given.  Long before she became a swami, she radiated Grace and could easily up-vibe you.  But she waited until she was authorized to give intentional Shaktipat.

This was out of respect for Baba, and in deference to the teachings, which say you must be authorized.  And because she is authorized, she carries the Grace from every Guru in this lineage of Shaktipat Gurus. That is what makes the Shaktipat initiation she gives so powerful for you.

It’s an inner empowerment, the power of Consciousness. Once you receive it, every time you meditate, you invoke this power to arise within you. Guru’s Grace reveals your Self to you more and more— until one day you will live in the knowingness of your Divinity.

And you will recognize that same Divinity in everyone and everything.  That’s what Baba gave to Gurudevi. And out of gratitude to Baba, and her endless, compassionate generosity, that’s what Gurudevi gives to you.

Gurudevi does not celebrate her birth. She celebrates the day she received Shaktipat from Baba Muktananda. It was the day he gave her own Self to her. In the same way, Baba always celebrated the day he received Shaktipat from his Guru, Bhagavan Nityananda.

But I celebrate Gurudevi’s birth, because she is a glorious gift to the world. Without her, I would not be on this path of deepening into the depths of my Divinity.  Because of her, you can receive the awakening to your Divinity.

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