Author Archives: Samvidaananda Saraswati

Bliss Is Everywhere

By Swami Samvidaananda

I went to India and met other swamis — Australian swamis!  It felt like a sweet reunion with family members I’ve never met.  There was an ease, a ready friendliness, and an enjoyment of each other’s company.  We were all there for a retreat hosted by the Aussies at our lineage home of Ganeshpuri MH, India.  

The Aussies were sweet and welcoming in general, but underlying that was something more. The swamis’ deep practice and commitment to yoga really showed.  How? It was their bliss.  My experience with them is described in a yogic text:

Lokaananda.h samaadhi-sukham. — Shiva Sutras 1.18

This yogi experiences the sweet bliss of the Self in every location and situation, and shares it with others.
[rendered by Gurudevi Nirmalananda]

This yogi is a knower of the Self.  They know their Divinity. Such a yogi experiences the sweet bliss of the Self everywhere — in every location and every situation.  

There are other names for “a Knower of the Self”: Self-Realized, Enlightened, Illumined, God-intoxicated.  When you are Enlightened, you take your illumined Self-Knowing everywhere you go.  No place or circumstance can diminish your bliss, nor can it enhance it.

Meditation doesn’t make you more blissful.  Being out in the world doesn’t make you less so.  Your experience of the bliss of the Self is steady.  

And you share it with others.  God-intoxicated beings love to share! They don’t even need to try. They vibrate with bliss everywhere they are, whomever they are with, whatever they are doing.  They radiate bliss the way the sun radiates light and heat. 

The swamis I met in India have dedicated themselves to becoming a yogi like this.  Actually, they have dedicated themselves to a yogi who is already like this.  They are on the traditional Guru-disciple path. Just like me!  Their Guru, Swami Shankarananda (called Guruji), and my Guru, Swami Nirmalananda (called Gurudevi), are Self-Realized beings. More than that, they are both Shaktipat Gurus.  A Shaktipat Guru has the capacity to awaken you to the inner knowing of your Self, an initiation called Shaktipat.

Shaktipat Gurus are extremely rare. And I was in India with two of them. Actually, three.  No, four! Another Shaktipat Guru was there at his Ashram, just outside of town.  His name is Swami Nityananda (of Magod).  And Swami Brahmananda was there as well, another Shaktipat Guru. 

One afternoon, I had the unique and delightful opportunity to spend time with them as well as several other swamis. They had all lived at the Ashram in Ganeshpuri together many years ago, studying with their Guru, Swami Muktananda. You could call them Guru-brothers and Guru-sisters.

Avengers shawarma scene (1)

For me, being in the presence of these Great Beings was like being among superheroes.  My heroes.  But for them, it seemed more like the after-credits scene I loved from one of the Avengers movies.  All the superheroes had banded together and saved the world.  End of movie — roll the credits.  Then, there’s a brief scene of all of them together around a table in a tiny restaurant, eating in companionable silence.

What happens when Shaktipat Gurus get together? They chat.  They catch up.  They drink some chai. They enjoy each other’s company.  They are present, engaged and happy.  And then, they say goodbye, and go on to their next task, equally present, engaged and happy. They certainly appreciated the opportunity to spend some time with each other.  But they are Knowers of the Self: Lokaananda.h samaadhi-sukham.  And so their bliss was not increased by being together, nor was it diminished when they said goodbye.

This constancy and steadiness doesn’t mean that an Enlightened being’s life is boring, every day the same. It’s not that they’re “beyond it,” meaning they don’t care.  The opposite is true.  Enlightened beings are some of the most active, engaged, loving, generous, caring people you’ll meet.  This is their state, and it can be yours.

I don’t mean you have to become a Shaktipat Guru.  Nor do you have to become a swami, wear orange or move to an Ashram.  I mean you can live your life, do what you do, with the people you love, and you can be more YOU.  

You can be you at your best all the time: happy, content, loving, generous.  You can be your glorious Divine Self in every location and every situation.

How? First, get Shaktipat. This sacred and ancient initiation jumpstarts your knowing of your Self like nothing else can.  Then, you have your part to do: meditate.  Svaroopa® Vidya meditation gives you the experiential knowing of your Divinity.  

Meditation by meditation, your inner realization that you are the Self deepens and develops.  Until one day, you’ll never not know that you are the Self.  And you will recognize that everyone and everything is another form of the same Self.  Everything is Divine, and YOU are that Divinity.  

Then you will be the yogi who experiences the sweet bliss of the Self in every location and situation, and shares it with others. This is your future, if you want it to be.

  1. Avengers shawarma scene – https://ew.com/article/2012/11/29/avengers-shawarma-scene/

The Moon in a Bucket 

By Swami Samvidaananda

Your own Self is the One Divine Reality, the source and substance of everything that exists. 

When you know your own Self, you feel blissful, whole, and complete. But you probably don’t experience the bliss of your Self as often as you would like to. My Guru, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, explains how you can:

Your own Self is always there, always right here, inside. All you have to do is look deeper. The mantra gives you this ability.

With Svaroopa® Vidya meditation, you repeat mantra, and it takes you deeper.  It takes you beyond your mind, to the glorious depths of your Self.   Beyond your mind? 

I didn’t understand how this was possible when I first began to meditate.  I’d had tantalizing experiences of my Self, from the start.  They were blissful glimpses. But it didn’t make sense to me that I was going beyond my mind.  After all, your mind is how you know and understand things, both in the world, and in your own body, mind and heart. And you use your mind to repeat the mantra in meditation. 

This is all true. Your mind is important. It is valuable.  But it is puny compared to your own Self.  Your Self is so much greater than your mind, that your mind can’t hold the whole of your Self.  A classic example is a bucket of water under a full moon.  

Imagine a clear night sky. The moon is big and full, a luminous ball glowing in the dark.  You fill a bucket with water and set it on the ground outside. When you peek in the bucket, you’ll see the reflection of the moon. The whole circle of the moon is glowing on the surface of the water.  

But is the bucket holding the whole moon? Could you take your bucket full of moon, spirit it away, and the moon will be gone from the sky?  No, the bucket is too small to hold the whole moon. It can only reflect it.  

Your mind is like the bucket of water.  It can only reflect your Self. The reflection is valid and real, but it’s not the whole.  The whole of your Self is much more. 

You are not just someone with a bucket full of moon. You are the bucket, the ground beneath you, and the moon and sky above you.  You are the whole of the earth. You are the whole of the universe, while being you. You are the One Reality that created this whole universe, is being this universe, and is beyond this universe. That is your Self.  

Because you are the Self, you have the capacity to know you are the Self. That knowing is deeper than your mind.  But you need help to get to that knowing because it has been hidden from you.  That’s why you don’t experience the bliss of your Self all the time.  It’s a cosmic set-up.  

So you need help from someone who knows.  Someone who can point the way.  Someone who has the key to unlock your deeper knowing. Someone like Gurudevi.  She is a yoga master, in a lineage of yoga masters called Gurus. She has dedicated her life to your upliftment.  

You can trust her when she says, “Your own Self is always there, always right here, inside. All you have to do is look deeper.” Except, you don’t have to trust her. That’s because she gives you what you need so you can know for yourself, as she explains, “The mantra gives you this ability.” 

The mantra is the key that unlocks your not-knowing.  She gives it freely to everyone who asks for it.  It is the mantra of Gurudevi’s lineage.  The Gurus have enlivened the mantra with the energy of revelation.

This is the cosmic power that reveals your Self to you.  Repeating this enlivened mantra propels you beyond your mind. You dive into the depths and infinite expansiveness of your Self.  

In the beginning, I didn’t understand how this could be true.  But now I know that it is. You can know, too. You are already whole.  More than whole, you are holy. Here, now.  

And you find your wholeness, you find your holiness, by meditating with the lineage mantra.  If you want the mantra, ask Gurudevi. She will give it to you.

More Than a Glorious Glimpse

By Swami Samvidaananda

As a teenager in the Eighties, I loved when Prince sang, “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate this thing called life.”  At least, that’s what I thought he sang.  The lyrics are actually “to get through this thing called life.”  I’ve had it wrong all this time!  

I think I misheard the lyrics because I actually celebrate this thing called life. Sure, at times I’ve felt like life was something to get through.  There’s been pain and the uncertainty of hard times.  But alongside that, I’ve had glimpses of the sacredness of life.  Moments of perceiving how being a human being is a precious opportunity.  And then I met my Guru.  She confirmed the reality of those glorious glimpses.  She teaches that life is Divine:

What seems to be only a mundane world is Divinely designed to engage you fully.  Each and every person, critter and object is made of the One Divine Energy, shakti, coalescing into a separate and fascinating form.  When you step into the marvel, the awe and majesty of this amazing creation, you live in the bliss of Consciousness

– Gurudevi Nirmalananda, “Being a Yogi in the World

The world is made of Divinity.  Well before modern day physics, yogis knew that everything is made of energy. Named shakti, this energy is not an inert, lifeless substance.  Shakti willingly, knowingly, blissfully chooses to be the dance of Existence.  More than merely conscious, she is Consciousness, concentrating into everything.  Every thing on this planet, every thing in the universe, every thing that exists.  Including you.  

You might think, “Well, okay, everything is made of Consciousness.  But not me.”  What are you made of, Swiss cheese?  Oh, Swiss cheese is made of Consciousness, too.  If everything that exists is made of the same substance, then that has to include you.  Your body is made of consciousness-concentrate.  Every cell is distilled Divinity. 

It’s like what Salinger’s short story character Teddy McArdle says:

I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all.  It was on a Sunday, I remember.  My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God.  I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.

— J.D. Salinger, “Teddy,” Nine Stories, 1953

Do you know what he means?  As a human being, you have the unique capacity to know that everything is God, like Teddy did when he was six.  You’re not just a part of God, like you, Teddy, his sister and the milk are pieces of a God-puzzle.  All the pieces together make up the whole.  

It’s more like you are a drop of water When you drop into the ocean, kerplunk!  You merge with it.  Then, which part is the ocean and which part is the drop?  You’re the whole ocean.  Your Self = God = Consciousness = the One Divine Reality.  That is who you are.

So, how come you don’t know that’s who you are?  You do know, sometimes.  You get glimpses, like I did.  But it’s not enough.  You want more. To know your Divinity all the time, your capacity has to be activated. 

Gurudevi can do that for you with an initiation called Shaktipat. She is a Shaktipat Master, empowered and authorized by her lineage.  She doesn’t just tell you that you are Divine; she gives you the experience.  And she teaches you to meditate, so you can do your part. 

Every time you meditate with the lineage mantra, you immerse your mind in your Self.  Your mind needs the help, because it is used to focusing on the mundane instead of the Divine.  And it convinces you that you are small, separate, unworthy and unlovable.  

But when you meditate, you drench your mind in your Divinity.  Over time, your mind becomes less capable of blocking your bliss.  So you know the marvel, awe and majesty of this thing we call life.  We each have our role.  And we each are the whole — the whole of Divinity.  Outside and inside, there’s only One.  You find the One inside when you meditate.  Gurudevi will show you how.

Inner Joy

By Swami Samvidaananda

Seeing purple crocus blossoms lifting their heads from the winter soil makes me joyful. I delight in each sign of spring. You have your favorite things that trigger joy. Perhaps you like to sit with a hot cup of tea, or snuggle with a pet. Maybe you enjoy taking a walk in the woods, or a stroll along an ocean shore. How wonderful that you have things that trigger happiness and joy for you.

Baba Muktananda, my Guru’s Guru, says you must have joy: 

What is necessary is inner joy. When all the senses become quiet and you experience bliss, that is the attainment. —Swami Muktananda, Meditate, page 37

Who wouldn’t agree that joy is necessary? Without joy, life is dry. It feels empty and meaningless. 

Unfortunately, there are two problems with your favorite method. One, the joy is not long lasting. You feel it while you’re sipping the tea, or taking the walk. But it inevitably fades. Then you have to reach for something again. 

Two, it’s unreliable. Sometimes you’re distracted while drinking the tea. The cup is empty before you even noticed you were drinking it. Or the pet you want to snuggle with is not interested. They scratch you as they scrabble out of your arms! Maybe it’s cold and wet outside, and you don’t feel like going out. Then, no joy for you. You’re back to feeling empty.

The good news is the joy doesn’t come from the tea or your beloved pet or nature. No joy-rays are radiating from them to steep you in joy, the way sunrays warm your skin. The joy arises from inside you. That’s why Baba calls it inner joy. 

There’s another reason he calls it inner joy. The joy and bliss that arise are not experiences that you merely have in life. They are an expression of your nature. 

peopledevelopmentmagazine.com

When you’re happy, when you’re joyful, when you’re loving and shining with light, you feel your best. You feel like you. That’s because in those moments you are being You. You’re being what yoga calls your Self, which is Consciousness-Itself.

Consciousness is the divine substance of everything that exists. Everything is made of Consciousness, like everything is made of energy. A classic yogic example is a gold bracelet, gold earrings, and a gold necklace. They all have different shapes and forms, and they are all made of gold. 

A tree, a person, a planet, a universe, a multi-verse — it’s all the One Divine Reality. Consciousness is joyfully, blissfully choosing to dance everything that exists into existence. YOU are Consciousness, joyfully, blissfully choosing to dance everything that exists into existence. 

The joy you experience in your day-to-day life is that Divine Joy, only on a smaller scale. And because you rely on things outside of yourself to trigger it, it’s intermittent and short-lived. However, you have the capacity to experience your Divine Joy to its fullest, most glorious extent. 

How? By turning your attention inside. That is what meditation is. Baba says, “When all the senses become quiet and you experience bliss, that is the attainment.” Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation does this for you. The attainment is experiencing your own Self.

Once you know your own Self, you can still enjoy your tea. You can love your pet, and revel in nature. But you won’t do those things from an inner emptiness, looking to feel full. Instead, you’ll bring your joy with you into everything you do. And you’ll recognize every being and every thing as another expression of that same joy. 

The most powerful and effective way to meditate is with a meditation master. My Guru, Swami Nirmalananda, meditated with her Guru, Baba Muktananda. And you can meditate with her. Swami Nirmalananda’s practices, her presence and her teachings give you your Self. Are you interested?

I Wanted to Know

By Swami Samvidaananda

The birth of Jesus is celebrated today.  It’s a holy day that honors a great being.  Merry Christmas!

I grew up in an Italian Catholic family.  I adored the baby Jesus nestled in the little wooden manger under our brightly lit Christmas tree.  I was taught that Jesus was both human and divine, and I believed it.  But I didn’t understand how it could be true.  I wanted to know. 

And then I found yoga.  Yoga opened up my ability to experience Divinity ― my own and the Divinity of everything that exists.  Yoga says you can experience your Divinity.  This is because there is One Divine Reality, and that Reality is your own Self:

Caitanyam-aatman — Shiva Sutras 1.1

Consciousness-Itself is your own Self.

(Translated by Swami Nirmalananda)

Consciousness is the source and substance of everything that exists.  The physicists and yogis agree that everything is made of energy.  The yogis go a step further.  They explain that everything is made of conscious energy: Divine, Sublime and Self-knowing.  More than conscious, it is Consciousness-Itself.

The sun, the moon, the stars, your houseplants and your pets are all made of cosmic Consciousness.  They are all inherently Divine.  And so are you.  Cosmic Consciousness is your own Self.  Except, you don’t know your Divinity, not enough of the time.  Instead, you experience yourself as limited.  You feel small, separate, and painfully alone. But you have the capacity to experience your Self.  This is yoga’s purpose: to reveal your Divinity to you.  

How does yoga do that?  Well, not with yoga poses, as beneficial as they are.  Yoga says, spend time with a living yoga Master, a Siddha.  That’s what I do.  I meditate with Gurudevi Nirmalananda Saraswati.  She knows her own Divinity.  She sees everything that exists as that same radiant Divinity, all the time.  In this tradition, she is described as Self-Realized.

Other traditions have their own names for those who live in a pure, steady, spiritual state.  In the West, Christianity recognizes great beings as saints and mystics.  The meditative traditions of the East — in India, Burma and Thailand ― call them enlightened, illumined, God-intoxicated. 

What happens when you spend time with such a being?  Their ecstatic, God-saturated state is catching.  They love to share!  They don’t even need to try.  They radiate Divinity.  They are like a tuning fork, emitting a pure tone of bliss.  When you’re with them, you begin to vibrate with bliss too.  

That’s because their bliss is your bliss.  Their Divinity is your Divinity.  There’s only One Divine Reality, and it is your own Self.  There’s only one difference between a Self-Realized being and you.  They know they are the Self and you don’t.  Not yet.  But you can. 

With a Siddha like Gurudevi, it’s not like going to a concert.  There, you catch a blissful high, then go home and lose it.  The yoga masters in her lineage give you more than a temporary experience of your Self.  They are empowered to give Shaktipat, the mystical initiation that awakens you to your Inherent Divinity.  

She received this initiation from her beloved Guru, Baba Muktananda.  And he received this initiation from his Guru.  And his Guru had a Guru, who had a Guru, who had a Guru, in a lineage of Shaktipat Gurus that stretches through time.  

When you receive this inner awakening, your Divinity is revealed to you.  You know your Self in a way that you will not lose.  Oh, you may get distracted and forget for a while, then remember again.  But you can’t ever not-know your Divinity the way you did before, unto lifetimes.  Meditation will clear your mind, body and heart from the inner distractions that get in your way.  So one day, you will be Self-Realized.  You will know your own Divinity.  And you will see everything that exists as that same radiant Divinity, all the time.

I wanted to know how it’s possible to be both human and divine.  Now I know.  Because when I meditate with Gurudevi, she gives me my Self.  I experience my Divinity reliably, unfailingly, gloriously.  And I am still human.  Do you want to experience your Self?  Then meditate with Gurudevi Nirmalananda.  She will be delighted to teach you how.

You Are Your Own Guru

By Swami Samvidaananda 

“You are your own Guru,” wrote a renowned Guru, Swami Muktananda.  As a brand-new yogi, I didn’t know what a Guru was.  Let alone that I was supposed to be my own Guru.  That’s how I took this teaching when I first heard it.   

Fellow yogis seemed to confirm my understanding.  At classes and conferences, I met wonderful, independent, confident yogis.  They had focus, dedication and a daily home practice.  They were doing it for themselves.  I admired them.  I wanted to dedicate myself to yoga, too.   

So I found a teacher, one that I admired and respected.  And she taught me that “guru” is Sanskrit for teacher.  A Guru with a big “G” is a spiritual teacher.  A guru with a small “g” is any kind of teacher.   

How many gurus have you had in your life?  So many.  Your first guru is your mother or whoever raised you.  They taught you to eat, to walk, talk, play peek-a-boo and blow out birthday candles.  You had gurus who taught you to read and write, to play soccer or trombone.  

My dad learned how to be an electrician from his dad.  So my grandpa was my dad’s electrician guru.  Anything you’ve learned to do, a guru has shown you how — even if you go to YouTube or you read a blog or a book.  These are all created by people who are sharing what they know, so you can know.

The yoga teacher I found all those years ago is a Guru.  Her name is Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati.  She has dedicated her life to sharing with you what she knows: the mystical truth of your spiritual essence.  She teaches that there is One Divine Reality that is the source and substance of all that exists.  That One is called your Self.  

Gurudevi not only teaches you about your Self; she awakens you to the knowing of your Self.  And then you foster and further your own knowing every time you meditate.  That’s why this meditation is called Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation.  Vidya means experiential knowing, and svaroopa means your own Divine Self.  

Awakened to your hidden Divinity, you see the glorious Divinity of everyone and everything that exists.  This is a Divine world created of Divinity, expressing Divinity, rejoicing in Divinity.  That Divinity is you.  You are Divine.  You always have been.  You just didn’t know it, at least not all the time.  

When your Guru reveals it to you, then you know.  And then, you know that  “you are your own Guru.”  Because you are the One, and She is the One. There’s only One. 

Yoga is not DIY.  You do not have to figure it out on your own.  You need one who knows, one who can give that knowing to you.  Swami Nirmalananda will tell you she only has something to give because she got it from her Guru, Swami Muktananda.  And he would credit everything he had to give to his Guru, Bhagavan Nityananda. 

And he had a Guru, who had a Guru, in a lineage of Gurus that stretches through time.  Do you want a Guru?  Swami Nirmalananda will be yours, if you want her to be.  You’re the one who decides.