Author Archives: Swami Prajnananda Sarasawti

Start with Your Toes

By Swami Prajñananda 

My birthday is this week.  A day to celebrate life.  I’ve been contemplating this, starting with my body.  It has changed quite a bit since I was born.  It has grown as I have grown.  It has learned as I have learned.  

My body has served me very well, but I haven’t always served it well.  Yet I need my body to live my life.  My quality of life is directly affected by the care I give it.  Just like a car, the better you care for it, the longer it will last and the better condition it will be in. 

I have to admit, pre-yoga I was not very good at caring for my body.  I pushed it to the max and beyond, many times.  Even after finding yoga, I’ve been known to do this. Yet Svaroopa® yoga and meditation excel at self-care. 

It starts with getting you in your body.  For most of us, we live our life in our mind, which is always on the go.  It can take you to the moon and back in a second.  It can mire you in your most terrible memories and send you chasing after possible future scenarios.  Every thought creates a castle in the sky, dragging you away from the present moment. 

This is why every Svaroopa® yoga class begins with a Guided Awareness.  You start with your toes, all ten toes…all at the same time.  You get present in your own body from toe to top.  This is so important, for your body needs your presence to be a living body. 

Next you do Ujjayi Pranayama, the breathing practice that re-enlivens you.  It pumps your prana, your vital life force.  It’s very much like taking your car to the gas station.  Without fuel, your car won’t go far.  It is the same with your body.  It needs to be fueled up with prana to work at full capacity. 

After Shavasana and Ujjayi, you do some yoga poses which release your muscular tensions. Your aches and pains melt away, and you move more easily and fluidly.  Your body is transformed.  This makes a difference in your day-to-day life.  Yet the truest purpose is to make you fit to explore the deeper dimensions of your being.

There is a big misconception about spirituality, that you must transcend your body.  It is actually quite the opposite.  For it is in your own body that you have the ability to explore your own greatness.  Gurudevi says it this way in her new book, Yoga: Embodied Spirituality

You must dive into your own body, your own mind, your own being and discover who you are
and what you are made of.  Yours is such a precious body.  What an extraordinary place, a
physical location, to enter into and to explore.  What a great gift the body is!

Truely, your body is a great gift.  You were born with a body and mind to explore the outer world as well as the inner world.  We have gotten very good at focusing externally.  Now it is time to use your body and mind differently, to explore inside. 

Your body is a pathway inward. For when you are present in your body, you are in the here and now.  In this place, in this space, in your own skin.  When you look inward, deeper than your mind, you discover that you are Presence-Itself.  Presence is not so limited to your idea of outside and inside.  For Presence is all-expansive, all-encompassing, Existence-Itself. Yet when you are finding your own Presence, you don’t start with the macro.  You start with the micro.  

While a birthday is a day that we label as special, really every day is a celebration of you.  You were born into a body for the precious opportunity to discover who you truly are.  It is with your own body that you can do these spiritual practices.  It is with your body that you can explore the inner dimensions of your own being.  There is so much to discover inside.  If you’re not sure where to begin, start with your toes! 

What Is Night for an Owl

By Swami Prajñananda

Life is so precious.  I think we often forget that our years are numbered.  If you were to leave tomorrow, would you be satisfied with your life?  

I often wondered this, especially before yoga.  That made me do more.  Get a degree.  Get a new job.  Travel here.  Go there.  My purpose of life always seemed a little bit beyond my grasp.  I would wonder, “What is life all about?”  Is it about sleeping, eating, working, unwinding and doing it all again?  This felt to me like sleepwalking through life. 

There once was a crow king and an owl king.  They both lived in their respective parts of the forest with their family and friends.  One day the two kings met up.  The crow king had been pondering a question for some time.  He asked the owl king, “Why do you work at night?”  The owl, surprised, responded, “Oh brother, it is not I that works at night, it is you that works at night!”  

The crow was taken aback.  “This owl clearly is deluded,” he thought.  He shared this sentiment with the owl which sparked a long and heated debate.  The debate went on all through the day and into the night.  As the sky grew darker and darker, the owl pointed up and said “Ah, crow, now it is day!”  The crow exclaimed, “What are you talking about — look how dark it is, clearly it is night!”  Now they really started to fight.

A swan came by, in the midst of their arguing, and said, “Stop your fighting.  You are both right. What is day for a crow is night for an owl.  And what is day for an owl is night for a crow.” 

This story has a mystical meaning.  Most people live like the owl, caught up in the world and unaware of the deeper dimensions of their own being.  This lack of awareness is like night to a Self-Realized Being.  Such a one lives in the light of their own Divine Essence.  Yet the light they live in is so bright, it blinds one who does not know. 

Spiritual practice is all about turning your night into day.  It is about turning your not knowing into knowing.  This is explained in Katha Upanishad 1.3.14: 

Arise, awake!

Approach the great beings and understand the Truth.

The path is like the sharp edge of a razor,

Difficult to tread and difficult to cross.

(Translation by Swami Nirmalananda)

This sutra calls you to action: “Arise, awake!”  What are you doing with your life? Sure, you can get a BA, an MA, a Ph.D.  You can get your dream job, your dream house, your dream family.  

Yet, what do you have if you do not know who you are?  Yoga says your ultimate purpose is to know your own Divine Essence.  Your Essence is the substratum of this entire universe, while at the same time completely and individually you.  There is more to you than you think.  Arise!  Wake up to who you truly are. 

How do you do this?  “Approach the great beings and understand the Truth.”  You go to one who knows. Just like anything else in your life, you need a teacher.  In yoga, the one that guides your way on the path is called the Guru.  A qualified Guru is one who lives in the knowing and being of their own Divine Essence AND can show you the way.  

This is very important because the spiritual path is as sharp as a razor’s edge.  It is difficult to tread and hard to cross.  The spiritual path is as treacherous as climbing the steepest mountain on the narrowest trail.  Without a guide, you are vulnerable to slipping, falling, getting lost and ultimately not arriving at your destination. 

This is why the Guru is so important.  The Guru saves you from the traps along the path.  They even save you from the traps you lay down for yourself.  Plus, a Shaktipat Guru, like Gurudevi Nirmalananda, can do even more.  In addition to guiding you, she puts rocket fuel in your tank.  You are sped through the process at lightspeed!  

You have the unique opportunity to be Self-Realized in this lifetime.  Yet, how far will you go?  The answer is up to you.  While the Guru shows you the way and fuels your progress, you must take the steps yourself.  So what will it be?  Are you ready to wake up?

GPS:  God Positioning System

By Swami Prajñananda

I wished I could stop time.  In the dark of the night, I used to wake up terrified, remembering that one day I would die.  I was only a child, but my looming death weighed heavily on me.  I wished for time to stop, but I could feel it still ticking steadily onward.  During the day, it was easy to forget about death.  But, in those quiet moments in the dark, I couldn’t push the thoughts away.

Part of the reason it was so scary was that I wasn’t experiencing God.  I had some basic training in religion growing up, but I wasn’t actually having the experience.  So, death felt like the end — absolute oblivion.  

This nihilistic belief system continued for me until I met Gurudevi Nirmalananda.  Being in her presence and receiving her teachings, I experienced that there is more to me than I thought.  Sitting for meditation and turning inward, I would feel a sense of eternity.  This eternality would fill me from the inside.  Meditation after meditation gave me this inner fullness without start or end.  

Each day, I would look forward to my daily meditation.  I was finding that “something” that I had been missing and looking for, for so long.  My usual inner feeling of emptiness was replaced by expansive fullness.  Over time, I realized the eternality I was finding inside was in fact God.  God is eternal, Existence-Itself.  God has no beginning or end.  God is all-pervasive.  This means God is being this entire world, including me.  

I hadn’t been successful at reaching for God on the outside. However, thanks to Gurudevi, I was having major success at finding God on the inside.  Gurudevi explains this more:

For a yogi, reaching to God is an inward reach, turning your attention, turning your mind and heart to the sacred space inside, finding the Divine dimension that is yoga’s focus and yoga’s specialty.

Gurudevi Nirmalananda, “You’re in the Holidays,” December 4, 2022

Yes! Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation excels at this.  While I am sharing my personal experience with you, it is not a rare or unique experience in this tradition.  When you meditate with Gurudevi, you will discover the same, even in your first meditation.  This is because everyone has the same sacred space inside.  It is God’s space.  It is your space.  You simply need someone to guide you there.  

Gurudevi is a Meditation Master who serves as your spiritual GPS.  Your usual worldly GPS rivets your attention outside of yourself.  Focused on your relationships and what you see and do, you lose track of your own Divine Essence.  When you replace your worldly GPS with a spiritual one, your attention is directed inside.  I call it a God Positioning System, for it places you right where God is.  Right here.  Right now.  Right inside. 

How? Through meditation. 

Gurudevi’s own depth, coming from the lineage of Masters who precede her, gives you an inner boost.  In meditation, you are glided inward, past the pitfalls and snags of your mind.  You are guided all the way to the deepest dimension of your being.  You experience God inside.  When you open your eyes, you can see God outside too.  And at the same time, you are the one being both.  Inside and outside, all at the same time.  To discover this for yourself, meditate with a Master.