Author Archives: Swami Satrupananda Saraswati

A Full-Hearted Life

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By Swami Satrupananda

You want to live your life with an open heart. You want everything you do to warm your heart. 

You want your heart to overflow and to share that with others. This can be your physical and emotional heart, but it is only truly satisfying if it is the heart of your being. 

When you show up full-hearted, it is about putting your whole self into it. Your body, mind, heart and more all show up — open and ready to give. This is how you want to live. Then even washing the dishes is fulfilling. It’s not about the task. It’s not even about your heart. It’s about your wholeness. 

While you want to live from your wholeness, it can be challenging. You might have been hurt in the past, so you protect your heart. Your body might have aches and pains, so you’ve numbed out parts of your body. And there may be some dark corners of your mind where your scariest thoughts lurk. To protect yourself, you don’t go there. While you are protecting yourself from these pains, the result is that you don’t have your wholeness. 

Yoga reverses this process. The yoga poses and breathing practices open up your body and breath, making you more embodied. You breathe deeper, have less pain and have a more capable body. Meditation and chanting open up your mind and heart. You have clarity, decisiveness and the ability to follow through with your decisions. 

As your heart opens up, you are able to feel more love and to love more. And there are more dimensions of your wholeness that yoga opens up for you. One of yoga’s maps lists 36 dimensions of your own being.

The purpose of the yoga practices is for you to rediscover your multi-dimensionality and the wholeness of who you truly are. Then you can bring your wholeness into every moment of your life. To get to yoga’s promise, simply do the practices that are recommended. It’s like anything in life — you follow the instructions to get the promised outcome. 

Patanjali, a yogic sage, gives us guidance on our yoga practice:

Sa tu deergha-kaala nairantarya-satkaaraasevito drdha-bhoomih

Practice becomes firmly established by being continued for a long time without interruption and with devotion.

– Yoga Sutras 1.13

Like everything in life, you work at something for a long time and without interruption to make progress. The same is true and necessary when you are opening up to your inner wholeness. You do practices every day. Every day you re-open again what has closed down as well as open up new dimensionality. 

Bit by bit, you open up more and more of who you truly are. The incremental changes delightfully creep up on you. Then something happens in your life, and you realize that you have changed. There is more of you here now.

Pain is a great motivator to do the yoga practices. It is painful to be closed down to the multi-dimensionality of your inner wholeness. This includes physical pain as well as mental and emotional pain. Pain can motivate you to begin your yoga practices. And pain can motivate you to continue your yoga practices for a long time and without interruption. 

And Patanjali tells us that devotion is also needed. You need to put your heart into your practice. This comes naturally as you love the practices, or love how you feel after doing the practices. But it is also about actively putting your heart into your practices. Then your yoga practices take on a new vibrancy as you put your heart into them. 

I loved how the practices made me feel from the very beginning. This, along with pain, was a great motivator to consistently attend weekly yoga classes. Over time, this grew into a home practice and then a consistent daily home practice. 

And, now, I do the practices because I love them. I also love how they make me feel. And I do the practices because of my devotion to those who shared them with me.

My Guru, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, shares the teachings and practices with me. As a Shaktipat Guru, she fuels the practices with Grace, the power that reveals to you your inner wholeness. I do the practices out of devotion to Gurudevi, to the Grace. I feel there is no better expression for my gratitude and love than doing the practices.

So, do the yoga practices because you love to do them or because you love how they make you feel. The more yoga practices you do, the more you know and you be your wholeness. Then you bring the whole of you into your life. This includes your heart and so much more. 

Then you have not merely a full-hearted life but, more importantly, the wholeness of your being. You have a “full-You” life. What a glorious way to live!

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From “Not Enough” to Abundance

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By Swami Satrupananda

“I want this.  I need that.  I don’t want this.  I don’t want that.”  

Want, want, want.  Need, need, need.  Your mind churns over your desires.  Again and again, it reviews what or where or how you are lacking. It’s exhausting both mentally and physically.  And worst of all, you too often live your life based on an assumption of “not enough.”

What if you lived your life based on the assumption of enough or — better yet —abundance? The reality is that you are likely amongst the more fortunate in this world.  You have Internet, you are literate and you have your basic needs met.  This gives you the opportunity to focus on your spirituality.  What if you saw the abundance in your life and wanted what you have? 

There are many well-known gratitude practices to cultivate a different mindset.  You can have a gratitude journal or jar.  Our Ashram Staff meetings end with a gratitude moment.  Each person shares what they are grateful for.  These psychological practices can be powerful for changing your mind’s perspective.  

Yet yoga approaches it differently.  While psychology changes the content of your mind, yoga targets the source of the problem. Yoga looks at why your mind is thinking those thoughts.  You want things because you feel incomplete, empty, not enough and/or alone.  Yoga cures this feeling.  

How?  By revealing to you the fullness and completeness of who you truly are.  When you feel like you are lacking something, you are not experiencing your true Essence.  When you are being your true Essence, you know and experience that you are full and complete. 

Yoga practices are designed to reveal to you the fullness that you are.  Over time, the yogic process that you go through fills you up from the inside.  You know this from your yoga practices already.  You do poses or breathing practices and then feel calmer, more satisfied and at ease. 

This is because you are experiencing your fullness on the inside.  You learn to live in that fullness all the time.  Then you see this same Essence being everyone and everything around you.  Living in the fullness of your Essence, you don’t need anything on the outside.  You don’t want or need anything to make you feel full.

D.r.s.tha-anu”sravaka-vishaya-vit.r.s.nasya vashiikaara-sa.mj~nyaa vairaagyam

— Yoga Sutras 1.15

Your mind becomes free from all desires, for externals and for things promised in the scriptures, giving a state of complete freedom and ease.

When you don’t want things, you gain great freedom.  Your mind no longer churns over your desires.  This frees up a tremendous amount of mental energy.  With your thoughts changed, your words and actions also change.  Instead of being a slave to your desires, you are free.

This freedom also includes the freedom to give more, love more and do more.  With actions, thoughts and words motivated by getting something, you are limited by what you can do.  You are limited by your focus on what you can get.  When you are full, you are looking at what to give.  Your capacity grows.  You have great freedom.  It’s the best way to live.

My favorite way to experience the truth of these teachings is by repeating mantra.  So many times, I’ve turned to mantra when I have been caught up in my desires.  I repeat mantra. Sometimes, it’s for just a few minutes. Sometimes it takes longer.  And, without fail, the mantra fills me up from the inside.  The mantra reveals my Self to me.  

The fullness of my Self leaves no room for desire.  Then the same external circumstances look completely different to me. Being full on the inside, my heart overflows.  I am looking at what I can give.  I care and I want to help. When you fill up from the inside, then you love more as well as care more.  You are fully and effectively engaged in the world.  

In the sutra above, the Sanskrit word vairaagyam is often translated as non-attachment or dispassion. This can lead to a misconception that you must distance yourself from the world.  But it’s the opposite really.  Filled up with knowing your own Self, you are freed from neediness and desires.  An abundance of love and caring fills you.  You stay engaged in the world so you can give from this abundance.

More About Mantra

Divine Seeing the Divine

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By Swami Satrupananda

I delight in stopping at our local gas station and convenience store.  While the location is convenient, it’s the people that make the difference.  One of the cashiers recognizes me.  She calls me “Dear.”  We chit-chat and exchange smiles.  Simple, yet caring and meaningful. 

In contrast, I tried to have a conversation with ChatGPT, the newest artificial intelligence (AI) buzz. “Dear ChatGPT, how are you today?” I asked.

It replied, “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal feelings or emotions…”  There was no eye contact.  No smiles. No connection.  I went on to ask ChatGPT a variety of questions and got lots of interesting facts.  It is impressive technology.  But it does not compare to my exchange with the cashier. 

Human relationships are important.  “Namaste,” a customary greeting in India, illuminates the significance of human relationships: 

I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.

I honor the place in you in which is love, truth, light and peace.

When you are in that place in you & I am in that place in me, we are one.

(attributed to Ram Dass)

When you truly greet someone, you see and honor the One Divine Reality that is being them.  It is the same Divine Reality that is being you and everyone.  The One Divine Reality is also the source of the whole universe.  Love, truth, light and peace arise from this One Divine Reality.  When you truly greet someone, it is the Divine Reality seeing and honoring the same Divine Reality in the other. 

The One Divine Reality has become everyone and everything.  You can see and honor the One Divine Reality in all its manifestations.  As I write this blog, the Ashram cat jumps onto my lap asking for food and cuddles.  While I see her as the one Divine Reality being a cat, she sees me as a source of food and pets.  It’s a delightful exchange, but it’s not as meaningful as with humans.  That’s because we humans have the capacity to know our own Divine Reality.  Therefore, when humans see each other, there is a capacity and depth of seeing that is deeper.  So human relationships are important to being human.

While relationships are important, they are also challenging.  When your dear ones are at their best, their one Divine Reality shines through their eyes, words and deeds.  They are so loveable.  But your dear ones aren’t always at their best.  When they are having a bad day, the One Divine Reality isn’t shining through as much.  Instead of being bathed in the rays of Divine Reality pouring through them, they are like a dark stormy cloud casting shadows.  You respond to their clouds and even forget your own light.  Then the two of you are lost in the shadows.  Relationships can be difficult.

Spiritual seekers have taken different approaches in dealing with the trickiness of human relationships.  A popular approach is to avoid human relationships.  Throughout time and across cultures, people have left relationships to live in solitude in the name of their spiritual search.  Saint Benedictine left Rome because he was disturbed by the immorality of the people.  He lived as a hermit in a cave for three years.  Similarly, India has a strong tradition of yogis living in the caves of the Himalayas. These yogis left relationships behind to avoid their distraction and impact.

In contrast, other spiritual traditions make relationships the keystone.  Some orders of nuns marry Jesus as part of their vows.  Bhakti yogis in India focus their practice on their love for God, typically Krishna as an incarnation of God.  Seekers on these paths pour their human capacity for relationship towards God.  God purifies and expands this human capacity.

Kashmir Shaivism is founded on a living human relationship.  It is centered on the Guru-Disciple relationship.  The Guru is one who abides in their own Divine Reality and has the duty to uplift others.  They don’t have any clouds casting shadows on their Divine Reality.  Instead, they shine brightly all the time.  When a Guru greets you, they only see your Divine Reality.  This is the blessing of the Guru-Disciple relationship.

One of the rituals that focuses on this divine sighting is called darshan.  The disciple comes up to the Guru, typically bows, and then has a moment with the Guru.  I have done this ritual with my Guru, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, hundreds of times.  

Recently, I had the opportunity for darshan after a deep meditation.  I felt grounded and expanded in my Divine Reality.  When I bowed and came up, Gurudevi was looking at me.  I could tell that she was seeing something more in me than I was experiencing.  She sees my Divinity even when I can’t.  Yet by seeing her seeing me, I knew there was more to me. And it felt magnetic.  Based in her Divine Reality, Gurudevi was drawing out the same One Divine Reality in me. 

Kashmir Shaivism also emphasizes that you are in a relationship with a living Guru.  You can have relationships with the past Gurus, similar to how the nuns marry Jesus and bhaktis devote their life to Krishna.  But the living Guru talks back.  The living Guru gives you practices.  The living Guru incorporates the reality of your physical form and senses.  The living Guru gives you a full bodied, multidimensional relationship.  In this way, all levels of your being may be purified by the light of the Divine Reality that shines from them.

The goal of the Guru relationship is for you to know your own Divine Reality.  The Guru sees the Divine Reality in you.  The Guru shines their Divine Reality fully to you.  You follow the Guru’s directions and practices to cooperate in the process.  Then you come to know your own Divine Reality all the time. Then you shine fully.  You then bring your Divine light into your relationships.  You don’t need your loved ones to shine to make them loveable.  Instead, you shine.  You see and honor the Divine Reality in them. 

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About Gurudevi

Your Divine Name

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By Swami Satrupananda

We teach this saying to our children to help them be resilient to hurtful words. 

Sticks and stones may break my bones
but words shall never hurt me.

The reality is that words hurt.  They don’t only hurt children, they hurt everyone.  Words are powerful.  Unfortunately, they are sometimes used to be hurtful. As children we are taught to say nice words to others.  

But what do you say to yourself?  Too few of the thoughts you think are positive, encouraging and uplifting.  Instead, you worry about the future, remember hurtful memories or complain about the present.  Perhaps you compare yourself to others or wish for things you don’t have.  Your mind harasses with you with all these thoughts. 

This was my main takeaway from my first meditation retreat.  I had graduated from the university.  I was taking a semester off before starting graduate school.  Travelling in Southeast Asia, I decided to take a 10-day meditation retreat.  I was in a peaceful, tropical monastery, being fed delicious vegetarian meals and receiving ancient teachings.  It seemed like it was great.  

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But during my meditations, I was in hell.  My mind harassed me relentlessly.  It reminded me of my most hurtful memories and biggest fears for the future.  While I was horrified by what my mind was doing, I was grateful to be aware of it. 

Even though your mind can harass you, your mind is not being bad.  It is doing exactly what it is designed to do.  Your mind is designed to distract you from the truth of your own existence.  Your existence is the One Divine Existence that has always existed and will always exist.  The One Divine Existence is the basis of existence for everyone and everything.  

In some way, you can give your mind a bit of credit.  It has the enormous job of blocking you from the Truth of your Existence.  You are Existence Itself.  How powerful is your mind and your thoughts that it can block you from Existence Itself?

Yet while your mind is doing a formidable job, you are not enjoying its harassment.  As a human being, you have the incredible ability to actively choose what you think.  You can even choose to know your own Self which is beyond your mind.  You can experience and live in the knowingness and beingness of your own Divine Existence.  Yoga is the methodology that gets you there.

To manage your harassing mind, yoga highly recommends mantra repetition: 

Mananaat traayate iti mantra.h

Mantra is that which protects and uplifts one who contemplates it.

Yes, you need protection from your mind.  Mantra is a Sanskrit phrase that names your own Divine Existence.  Repeating your Divine Name, again and again, will protect you from the thoughts you normally think.  It is a huge upgrade to what you normally repeat. 

From repeating your Divine Name, you get more than protection.  Researchers have shown that positive thinking can reduce your chance of a heart attack, lower your blood pressure and lengthen your life span.  Positive thinking also gives you more creativity, greater problem-solving skills and clearer thinking.  

Mantra repetition gives you all these benefits and more.  You are not merely thinking positively.  You are calling your own Divine Name.  What happens when you call someone’s name?  They respond.  When you repeat your own Divine Name, your own Divine Existence shows up. 

Sanskrit is a mystical language that specializes in names for your own Divine Existence.  There are millions of Sanskrit mantras that you can repeat.  The most powerful mantra is one from a Meditation Master who knows their own Divine Existence.  They repeated the mantra to come to know their own Divine Existence.  

When they share the mantra with you, they put their blessings into it.  This is called a chaitanya mantra, an enlivened mantra.  The mantra is enlivened with the Master’s own knowing of the One Divine Existence.  Swami Nirmalananda is such a Meditation Master. She gives you an enlivened mantra.

The mantra only protects and uplifts you if you repeat it.  So your job is to repeat mantra, all the time.  With our mantra, you use it for meditation and also throughout your day.  You can repeat the mantra when you get out of bed in the morning.  Repeat the mantra while you brush your teeth and bathe.  Repeat mantra while you eat and drink.  Repeat mantra while you drive.  Repeat mantra when chatting with your friend.  Repeat mantra while you work.

You have proven that you can think while doing all of these things.  Now your task is to repeat your own Divine Name, the mantra, instead.  While this is a simple task, it is not necessarily easy.  But it is worth the effort to remember to repeat your own Divine Name, the mantra the Guru gives you.  The mantra protects you and uplifts you to the knowing of your own Divine Existence.

Surrendering to Your Greatness

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By Swami Satrupananda

Do more.  Try harder.  I was given this advice as the key to success in life.  If you want to get a promotion at work, take on more responsibility.  If you want to improve your golf game, practice more.  If you are struggling with establishing a new lifestyle habit, try harder.  This is the notion that by doing more you’ll be more.  

However, yoga approaches it differently and says that surrender is essential.  

Surrender can be a scary word.  We associate surrender with waving the white flag, an admission of defeat.  Surrender can also be reluctantly accepting the current undesirable circumstances.  This is not what the yogis meant by surrender.  Throughout history, yogis have been people who were not satisfied with their personal status quo.  They wanted something different from life.  They applied themselves to a greater goal, even though it went against the cultural norms.  

So what is yogic surrender?

To understand yogic surrender, let’s compare the underlying principles between modern success and yogic attainment.  In the West, we are taught that by doing more you’ll be more.  

In contrast, yoga is based on the principle that you are already great, whole and complete.  You are not merely great, you are Greatness itself.  Any word you use to describe the whole of your being is limited. You are that Divine Essence which is beyond words.  The ancient yogis called it “That”.

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The problem is, your Greatness is hidden inside, just behind your mind.  Since you don’t know your own Greatness, you feel lost, small, unworthy and alone.  You look for a replacement.  You construct identities around the work you do, the relationships you are in and the places you live.  Your mind works hard at creating and maintaining these identities. 

This is where yogic surrender comes in.  You are already Greatness; you are That. To discover That, you surrender your constructed identities.  You give up the notion that you are merely what you do, who you know and where you live.  You embrace that you are That.  You see and be your own That-ness, and you see it in everyone and everything.  Baba Muktananda described it:

Surrender means to become one with That, to merge with That.

You let go of your idea of being small and step into your Greatness.  You surrender to your Greatness.  It’s a great promise but not necessarily easy.  Letting go of your constructed identities can be difficult.  They are so familiar.  And they are so painful.

A few years ago, I had a busy mind at the beginning of a meditation period.  My mind was comparing me to others, and I was ending up on the bottom.  I was feeling small.  My constructed identity of being someone valuable and worthy was being threatened.  My mind wanted to do more and try harder to patch up my shaky constructed identity.

But I couldn’t find a solution that made me feel like it would work.  I was scared.  If I gave up this constructed identity, who would I be?  I didn’t know.  Yet I did know the instructions that my Guru gave me for meditation.  I followed them and repeated mantra.  As I continued to repeat mantra, a shift happened inside.  I settled deeper into my That-ness.  Then I could see that I was holding onto the constructed identity.  The act of comparing myself was what was keeping me small.  So I surrendered the comparison.  I surrendered my smallness, and I got my Greatness.

We can learn about surrendering from a way to catch a monkey.  In India, they take a jar with a wide base and a narrow opening.  The opening would be just wide enough for monkey to slide its hand into the jar.  The jar was then tied with a rope to something solid.  A shiny coin or piece of food was placed in the jar.  A monkey would pass by the jar and become interested in the treat inside.  It slipped its hand into the jar and grabbed the lucky prize.  Now, however, the fist, grabbing the treat, was too big to go through the jar’s narrow opening.  The monkey was trapped.  The monkey had a simple way of getting free.  Just let go of the little treat.  

But the monkey holds on tight and starts screaming.  They gave up their freedom for a little treat.  

The same is true for us.  We are the ones holding onto our limited constructed identities.  And the price we pay is our freedom.  We give up our Greatness.

So how do you develop your ability to surrender? Swami Muktananda tells us:

Meditate more and surrender will come.

Swami Muktananda, From the Finite to the Infinite, page 322

Every time you meditate, you experience your own Greatness.  The more you experience and know your own Greatness, the easier it is to surrender to your Greatness.  Then you abide in your Greatness all the time.

So meditate more, not to be more, but to surrender to your Greatness.  It can be a tricky balance to play.  I recommend meeting and studying with one who has fully surrendered and lives from the knowing of their Greatness within.  They know the yogic path to surrender and want to share it with you.  Come meet Satguru Nirmalananda.  She will help you surrender to your Greatness.

Decisions Based on Bliss

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By Swami Satrupananda

Life is a series of choices.  Every decision you make determines your future trajectory in life.  When you are in a state of clarity, you calmly assess your current situation.  You consider your options.  Then you make a choice as you aim for a certain outcome.  Where are your choices taking you?  Do your decisions lead you towards an outcome you want?  

The effectiveness of your decision is based on:

  • Assessment — Your assessment of your current situation is accurate.
  • Options — You are considering all options.
  • Goal — You clearly understand your goal. 
  • Awareness — You are aware of your personal process, how you make decisions. 

When any one of these is compromised, your decisions may not be effective: 

Assessment — You might incorrectly assess your situation or only assess part of it.  For example, you are busy thinking of your response, so you mishear someone’s question.  Your answer is not effective.

Options — You might not be aware of all your options.  You restrict yourself to familiar patterns.  Perhaps you’ve been fortunate enough to have someone share a potentiality they see in you.  They help you discover that you can do and be more than you thought. 

Goal — You lose sight of your goal in your decision-making moment.  Or perhaps you do not have a goal or even have conflicting goals.  You want to lose weight and eat chocolate cake too. 

The most important factor is your awareness.  You first need to be aware that you are making a decision.  When you have arrived at your destination, do you remember if you stopped at the red light?  It’s too easy to have your life decisions be knee jerk reactions instead of conscious decisions. 

Psychologists have estimated that the average adult makes 35,000 decisions a day[1].  Approximately 227 of these decisions are about food[2].  Are you aware of all of these decisions?  Imagine making conscious decisions that would be aligning your actions, words and thoughts consciously towards your goals.  How would this change your life?

One decision-making psychologist recommended yoga to increase your awareness.  I was delighted!  Yes, yoga is all about awareness.  That’s why we start and end each yoga class with a guided awareness.  Practicing awareness is so important that it is done twice in every Svaroopa® yoga class.

Yet simply being aware of every decision is not enough.  That’s because your decisions might be based on an inaccurate assumption.  It’s human nature to operate on an assumption of lack.  You lack something, so you make a choice to fill the lack.  You assume that a decision will make you healthier, happier or somehow better.  

Yoga changes your assumption.  Instead of lacking anything, yoga says you are already full, whole and complete.  You are fullness itself, which yoga calls your Self.

How do you transition from an assumption of lack to an assumption of fullness?  Shaktipat.  Shaktipat is a sacred initiation given by a Satguru.  In the initiation, the Satguru reveals the fullness and wholeness that you are.  This revelation shatters the underlying assumption of lack.  

While you might not know your fullness all the time yet, after receiving Shaktipat, it is always available.  The fullness delightfully creeps into the nooks and crannies of your body, mind and heart.  The assumption of fullness takes over.

I had a tangible experience of this restructuring of assumptions.  In a meditation, I could feel the internal structures being rewired.  It was tangibly happening in my spine.  I could feel the energy connections, channels, supports and structures being moved and re-aligned.  

I knew that I had been changed on a deep level.  It’s like I had new equipment — my body, mind and heart were forever changed.  Even if I tried to do my familiar limiting patterns, my internal system wouldn’t take it.  I was being rewired to know my own svaroopa — the bliss of my own Beingness.

This restructuring takes some time.  You must participate in the process.  You choose to follow the practices given by the Satguru so that you can support your own restructuring.  And the goal is clearly described in the yogic texts for you.  Once you fully realize your fullness, your own Self, you live in bliss:

Lokaananda.h samaadhi-sukham.

This yogi experiences the sweet bliss of the Self in every location and situation, and shares it with others. — Shiva Sutras 1.18

This is a promise of your future.  You will experience the sweet bliss of your own Self all the time.  This bliss is not affected by location, not by the people nor the activities around you.  This is such a great promise.  It means you can achieve the highest in the midst of your life.  You can know the bliss of the Self right where you are.  It also promises that you will always be experiencing bliss.  Then your decisions run on the assumption of bliss:

  • Assessment — You see everyone and everything as your own blissful Self.  You can take in the whole situation.  You accurately assess the situation.
  • Options — You consider all options.  You see bliss in every outcome, so all options are up for consideration. 
  • Goal — You are experiencing the fullness and wholeness of your being.  You do not need anything.  Thus your goal is to share the bliss that fills you.  The bliss overflows and you share it with others.
  • Awareness — You are aware of the whole process.  You are awareness itself.

Now this is truly the way to live.  Give up your assumption of lack.  Instead, upgrade your assumption to bliss.  Get Shaktipat and do the practices they teach you.  Luckily, I happen to know one — Satguru Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati.  Come study with her and live a life fueled by bliss.

More About Bliss

[1] How Many Decisions Do We Make Each Day? | Psychology Today

[2] We Make Lots Of Choices Every Day, But Exactly How Many? | PBS North Carolina (pbsnc.org)