By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Breathing is a sacred act. Every inhalation is an infusion of Divine energy into your body-mind complex. Breathing is a sacred act.

We so easily see the sacredness of life in nature, in the ocean, lake, river, in the trees, wildflowers, critters. We are used to looking outward to find the sacred.

Yet the sacredness of life is most easily found within. A simple and accessible access point is your own breath. And the pause between your breaths. God is breathing you into being…

The impulse that starts each breath comes from your spine. Technically, it comes from your tailbone and travels, like a flash of lightning, up your spine to trigger your breath to move.

This energy of aliveness moves your breath, makes your heart beat, makes your eyes work, your ears work – it all comes from your spine. Called prana, it comes from Kundalini, the energy of Consciousness that arises within to awaken you to your own sacredness.

Breathing is a sacred act, a sacrament. It pervades your life, which is also sacred. But you are usually oblivious to this. You’re not paying attention to your breath, nor to any of the other sacred realities – inside and outside.

Worse, you compartmentalize everything into categories — not-sacred and sacred. So singing “Halleluia, Halleluia” is sacred, but singing “Row Row Row Your Boat” is not. Sweeping the floor at the Ashram is sacred work, seva – but sweeping the floor at home is chores.

Every religion gives us sacred acts to perform. From the sacraments of Christianity to the samskaras of Hinduism, to the ceremonies of Judaism and the five pillars of Islam – they all say:  “Do these things, they are sacred actions.”

What does that mean?

It means you participate in an outward act, maybe a great event or perhaps a simple lighting of a flame – the outward act is a visible sign of an inner experience, invoking Divine Grace to open you up.

How wonderful!  You can do something on the outside to experience spiritual upliftment on the inside.

In other words, it’s not about the outer action. It’s about the inner experience…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

I recently watched a video of an eagle being set free. It had been injured, was rescued and spent quite some time in medical treatment and rehab. Then the big day came. 

The whole care team stood back as this huge dog crate was set near the edge of a cliff.  They crouched down behind the crate as someone opened the door, then sprinted around to join the group hiding behind the box.

The eagle poked its head out, stepped out, looked around.  It flexed its wings and hopped a few hops. It flapped a few flaps. And walked around some more. It took its time.

And then it launched – and soared out over the cliff face.  Everyone cheered. Freedom. Not only was the eagle happy, but so was everyone who saw him fly away. Even me, watching the video.

The bliss of freedom.

Freedom is your nature. Freedom is inherent to you. But this is not political freedom, not society or cultural standards. This is a deeper level, inside. Freedom is so important.

This is why our society uses incarceration as a punishment. You lose your freedom. Imprisoned, your hours are regulated. You have no privacy. You can’t make choices nor connect with the people you treasure most fully.

Yet, even if you live free, no prison bars, no ankle bracelet – you can be imprisoned by your mind. You meditate on your limitations. You obsess on your limitations, reviewing them over and over.

OK, you also meditate on other people’s limitations, but your mind returns to your own again and again. With each review, you reinforce them. You shrink day by day. It’s even physical – you shrink as you age.

Ideally, as you age, you’d get wise. And wisdom would help you get free. For that, you’d have to meditate on your essence, your own Divine Essence. Oh Shiva. Thus the goal is inner freedom. 

While you may have some work to do in order to secure outer freedom, it is the inner freedom that matters. As you turn within in meditation, as you develop your ability to settle deeper and deeper within, you discover that the space inside your skin is bigger than the space outside. Even with your mind – you can think yourself to the moon and back much quicker than you could make the trip. 

Your essence is unbounded. The inner infinity of your own being is undeniable. You fly free.

And like the eagle, you still eat. You still look for and enjoy companions in life. You still engage in the process of being alive, in a body, on this earth. But inside, you know. You know something that gives you the ever-arising bliss of freedom – you know your own Self.

But the way you approach your life changes, for you live in a state of freedom. You are free FROM need, greed and fear. Free from desire. Free from obsession, free from limitation. For you know your own Self. This happens gradually. It is a process, bit by bit. 

You are probably a creature of habit. I had a roommate in Baba’s Ashram who habitually tossed her clothes onto her bed. The mound grew day by day. I don’t know if it was things she was…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Yoga defines love as your recognition of the Divine in another. When you see someone’s Divine Essence shining through, you love them. And when you let your Divine Essence show, they are drawn to you.

Aside from living the constant bliss of Consciousness, this is another reason to delve into your own Divine Essence. Yoga’s purpose — life’s purpose — is to discover your own Self and to live from that inner dimensionality.

I have just given you the secret of how to be popular. It’s simple. Ease into your own Beingness and abide there. People will see your Divine light shining through and be captivated by you.

It’s not your wonderful personality that others love. It’s not your wit or intelligence. It’s not your beauty or even if you are a good cook. Yes, all these things matter, but they are the icing on the cake. The cake is your essence. When you abide in your own Divine Essence, you will be loved.

Of course, the one that gets the most out of it is you. This is because, for you to shine with Divine light, you have to turn on the light switch. It’s inside.

This definition of love is the opposite of what I was taught when growing up. Family, friends, media, teachers and my high school dances all pointed at external attractiveness. If you looked just right, you’d catch somebody’s eye and things would progress. The goal was to find someone who would say  the magic words, “I love you.”

What does that mean? Really?

Does it mean that I love you and want to take care of you – or does it mean I love you and I want you to take care of me. Or maybe it’s mutual, so we’ll take care of each other? That means loving is taking care of?  It’s like a garden? You plant some seeds, take care of them and then harvest the crops? Love is an investment?

Somehow I wanted love to be something more, something exalted, something all-consuming, something that would fuel my jets, so I could fly into the sky. Oh, wait. That’s lust. Hmmm.. it was very confusing. Confusing and frustrating. At least, it was for me.

When I found yoga’s definition of love, it was a big relief. It is in the Guru Gita:

Yasya sthityaa satyam-ida.m yad-bhaati bhaanu-ruupata.h,

priya.m putraadi yat-priityaa tasmai “srii-gurave nama.h. —  Shree Guru Gita 37

I bow to the revered Guru, whose existence is the world’s source,

whose light shines as the sun, and by whose love others are loveable.

What it means is that the Guru is the Self. Only one who knows the Self can serve as Guru.

And the Self that they know, which is what drew me to my Baba, the Self is the One Divine Reality which is the source of this world.

While Self is being you, and me, Self is the light that shines as the sun. And Self is what makes others loveable. When you see Self shining through them, they are loveable.

When they are being cranky and selfish, they are not very loveable. When they are being pushy and mean, or uncaring and distant, they are not very loveable.

One woman told me, “Now that I’m in my 60’s, I realize, I always loved my kids better when they were clean. When they were dirty and stinky, I didn’t love them as much. After I gave them a bath, I loved them more.” Is that what makes you loveable – that you’re clean?

When someone is focused on their fears, their neediness, their greed and their reactions, how loveable are they?  They might be quite pitiable, but pity is not the same as love. Is that what you want to receive, someone else’s pity?  Or do you want to be loved?

When you are peaceful, even compassionate, you are easier to love. Everyone wants you to be patient, understanding, generous and helpful – Divine virtues all of them! When you are full of Divine virtues, you are loveable. Where do these Divine virtues come from?  They blossom forth from within…

You want to be happy? 

To get happy, you’re probably using the methodologies that you learned from your family and in school. 

Let me ask you – the people who taught you those methodologies, were they happy?

Is that the kind of happy you want to be?

I clearly remember wondering about this when I was growing up. I would see my family, my friends and their families – they had happy moments.  They would laugh, even dance around the room, even giggle, and then they would go back to “normal”.

When I got on my own, I tried doing what they taught, and found I got what they got. Intermittent happiness. I wanted more.

It took me decades to figure out that the problem wasn’t me. What I needed was better teachers.

I went looking. It took a while to find my way to someone who was actually happy – beyond happy, who lived in bliss. Best of all, he shared the bliss. He was contagious.

This is described in the sutras, that you need a teacher who shares their bliss. Not by doing anything, but by being so deeply centered in their own Beingness that they ooze bliss germs. A sutra explains this:

In all places and times, the yogi experiences the bliss of the Self, which is transmitted to all who come in contact with him. 

Lokaananda.h samaadhi-sukham. — Shiva Sutras 1.18

In all places and times, the yogi experiences the bliss of the Self, which is transmitted to all who come in contact with him. 

My Baba was like this. Nityananda was like this. People would go and sit with him, in silence, for hours. And get more and more bliss-filled the longer they stayed…

Yoga uses words of power – ancient words, vibrating with the energy of the sages of India, words that reveal the mysteries within.

Specific combinations of Sanskrit words that open up your understanding of your life, better yet – your understanding of yourself. Mantras.

However, all words are powerful. They don’t have to be Sanskrit words to be powerful. I remember being about 8 years old and using a schoolyard chant:

Sticks and stones will break my bones

But words will never hurt me.

While I was chanting it aloud, I knew it was a lie. I used the little ditty because other kids were saying words that did in fact hurt me.

All words are powerful. Words of love are powerful. Words of hatred are powerful. Which ones do you remember longest? Is that about them or is that about you?

The good news is that yoga gives you such a deep inner sense of your own being that others’ words don’t hurt you.  Is that even possible? That other people’s opinions of you don’t determine your sense of personal value, of personal identity, or your own worth?

Yes, it is possible. More than possible, it is predictable, completely reliable, just like the sun comes up every morning. Yoga gives you a sense of worth that comes from inside. It’s called — self-worth. When you look for others’ opinions to make you feel good about you, it’s called other-worth, not self-worth.

It’s a deeper sense of self that you need. And when you uncover it, you still care about others – but it’s because you care about them. It’s not because you depend on how they see you. This is one of the many freedoms that yoga promises.

Every tradition, every religion, every ancient culture, every meditative system has words of power. Examples include OM in Hinduism and yoga, Adonai in Judaism, agape in Christianity and nammanittoom in the Algonquin language.  When you use these words of power, they have an effect.

Yet these different words in different languages and different traditions actually have different meanings and provide different effects. Most of them are about connecting with God in some way, as though God were separate from you.

In yoga, we use words that point you to God within – to your own Self.  In yoga’s language, Shiva is being all, including you. So you use words that turn your mind and heart toward Shiva on the inside – toward the One who is being you, your own Self.

All the other words you use are about chopping the world into bits, then comparing them. It’s like the clouds in the sky yesterday, white puffy shapes marching across a brilliant blue sky. I could compare the clouds to each other, even find one I liked better than the others, and it would be gone in an hour. But the sky remains.

In yoga, you look inward, into the background of your own being, the foundational essence of which you are made. Then you discover, you are the one who IS the background, that which underlies your own existence underlies all of existence.

Because your mind grabs for words, you need words to find your way in. Then you discover that you are…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

It’s not fireworks, not volcanoes firing off, no comets flying by – the moment of enlightenment is a letting go.  It’s not orgiastic. It’s not amping up.

It is – finally – standing down off red-alert. There’s no need to prove yourself anymore, nothing to get from others, no push to become more, learn more, go more, do more, have more, BE more.

You ease into the Beingness that you already BE.

The sage K.semaraaja, in his commentary on the Shiva Sutras describes it this way “…the yogi… [in] continuous repose and delight within himself…” You ease into your own Self, you settle deeper and deeper within, until you are so deep that inside — is outside.  It’s all you.

Just like your hair is part of you, as well as your fingernails and toenails. Your breath is part of you.  In this way, you discover that the universe is within you.

The first time I experienced this, I was doing an arati to my Guru’s Guru. We call it the Standing Arati, for you stand while chanting in Sanskrit for 30 minutes.  It starts with candle flames being waved to Nityananda, with bells, drums and gongs, while conches are being blown.

After several minutes of this, my body vibrates – the energy of Consciousness climbing my spine — Kundalini. Climbing my spine and spreading through my whole body.

After the conches and flames and bells and drums, then we chant: (singing) “Arati avadhuta, jaya jaya arati gurunatha…” Plus another 25 minutes of chanting.  Ending with cymbals and drums again.

Morning and night – every day. Great bookends on your day!

One day, when I was still learning the chant, still stumbling through the Sanskrit, I was looking at the page and then looking up at Nityananda’s murti, his life-size statue – then looking at the words, then at his murti again.

My eyes became riveted to his form – I couldn’t look down, so I couldn’t chant. My gaze became fixed on Nityananda. My gaze narrowed and strengthened, like a laser beam.  I was boring into his form.

Then my eyes closed and I was boring into my form – deeper and deeper, into my own form. Narrower and narrower, deeper and deeper, vast and black inside, like I was boring through time into the origin of the universe…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Everyone wants equanimity, or so they say. But I don’t see people working on attaining it.

Mostly they follow the herd, led by the news, the politicians, the musicians, the social media influencers, and their family and friends. The whole point is to whip you up into a frenzy and keep you there until you collapse out of exhaustion, which makes you able to sleep. Then you get up and do it again.

You probably have tried to get a little peace by withdrawing from news, the politicians, the musicians, the social media influencers, and even you family and friends. But you bring your mind with you, even when you isolate yourself or numb out.

Another way you may try to attain equanimity is by having everyone in your life do what you want them to do. If they do what you want, then you will be even-minded. If the economy, if your job, if your family, if the plumbing doesn’t clog up – you can be at ease. If the world will simply go the way you want, you can be calm, peaceful and equanimous.

If you are working on equanimity by getting everyone to do what you want them to do, you’re not working on equanimity. You’re working on coercion and control of others.

Equanimity happens from your skin – inward. It’s not what you do to handle things outside of your skin. It’s what you do to handle you. Equanimous means that you are even-minded, no matter what happens.

The Kularnava Tantra says:

Tulya-nindastutir-mauno nirapeksho niramayah,

ityadi-lakshanopeta.h “sriguruh kathitah priye.[1] — Kularnava Tantra 13.50

O Dear One, he is qualified as a Guru who has such qualities as serenity, desirelessness, self-control, and equanimity in the face of praise and censure.

They are not buoyed up by compliments. They are not tormented by blame. They are serene in the midst of it all, even-minded. This is the Guru, of course. Not you. Except that the Guru is a yogi, who attained all these qualities before being appointed to serve as Guru.

It doesn’t say that being a Guru makes you serene, desireless and equanimous. It says that only one who has attained these qualities may serve as teacher. This comes from a section of the text that gives you ways to assess the Guru. Others of the yogic texts also give you similar lists that tell you what qualities to look for in a teacher.

As a Westerner, of course, I had never heard of Gurus, nor did I have a clue what to look for in one. But the tradition says that, while the Guru must test the disciple, the disciple must test the Guru. And exactly how do you do that? The truest measure is…

[1] Tulya-nindaa-stutir-mauno nirapek.so niraamaya.h,, ityaadi-lak.sa.nopeta.h “sriiguru.h kathita.h priye.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

While I was doing deep internal work, it was the external world that showed me my spiritual progress. I was more centered and peaceful in the midst of life. Less reactive. Less needy. More decisive, simply knowing what to do.

Anxiety left me, for I wasn’t hoping to get something outside of me that would complete me – I felt complete within my own Self. A subtle level of bliss was always there, an undercurrent, under everything else in my mind.  I could rely on this inner buoyancy, like I was floating in an extra salty sea. I used the world to help me gauge my deepening spiritual state.

Baba did it a different way. He used his inner experiences to gauge his spiritual progress. One of the reasons is that he had lots of inner experiences! Fortunately he wrote about them for us, so we can learn from his mystical inner expansion.

He had physical kriyas, spontaneous movements, classical yoga poses during his meditations. And pranayamas, yogic breathing patterns. He saw lights and colors, Gods and Goddesses, heaven and hell, other worlds and much more. One reason he did it that way is because he had 25 years of full-time yoga practice before he got Shaktipat.  

I had 0 years before Shaktipat.  Well, I had 4 or 5 months as I had started a yoga class a few months earlier. When I got Shaktipat, I had no clue what was happening to me.  I loved it, but was at sea without a compass.  Until I read his books and listened to his discourses.

Still, I haven’t seen all the things he saw. I’m not so visual as he was. I am more kinesthetic, so I feel my way inward. Like I can feel the Truth, rather than see it. For me, it’s a feeling.

And Baba emphasized feeling – bhaava. He said, “God is in your feeling.”

How do you know love? It’s a feeling.

How do you know happiness? It’s a feeling.

How do you know God?  God is in your feeling.

This is why yoga gives you ways to get better at feeling. One way is by cultivating your proprioception, your ability to sense your body and its movements – the yoga poses do this for you.

Another way is by cultivating your energetic enlivenment. Your yogic breathing practice does this, giving you more prana, making you more alive.  Baba said that every disease is due to…

— Excerpt from March 16 Satsang Discourse, available for viewing in our Deep Teachings Videos.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

I remember learning how to float on my back. “Just relax,” they told me. 

But when I relaxed, I folded in half and headed toward the bottom of the pool butt-first.  If I stiffened, my whole body went under. If I kept kicking or moving my arms, I wasn’t floating.

I discovered there was a trick to it – a relaxing without caving in, an ease and feeling of surrender to the water. It’s a sweet spot that’s a lot like meditation. I don’t know if floating made my mind still or if I had to still my mind in order to float. But there is a trick to it. I’ll call it coasting the edge.

It’s the same edge that you coast when you’re watching the sunrise or sunset. You stay still for quite a while, as there’s nothing to do but watch and wait.  The colors play across the horizon, brighten, darken and disappear.

Except, did you see it all? Or did you get so still that you lost track of the outside? There’s a trick to it.  To truly enjoy the sunrise, you have to settle inside, yet still perceiving the glory playing out in front of you.

This is how you get enlightened — inside and outside at the same time. The magical moment where it is easiest to learn how to do this is at the ending of your meditation period. It is so magical that it has a name – vyutthana…

This is why some of you like to stay in bed after the alarm goes off. Or you don’t want to use an alarm at all. What’s happening?  You wake up but you don’t move, hoping to drift back to sleep – but not really all the way to sleep, just sort of halfway in, coasting the edge.

This is a meditative state called turiya – it’s very close to enlightenment. It’s full of bliss, but it is unfortunately unconscious bliss. You drift on the edge for a little bit, then fall back asleep. You might use a snooze alarm to wake you again, so you coast inward again… and maybe again… how many times?

I call this snooze-alarm meditation. And when you do finally get up, you’re heavy and slow, a little dense and thick. It’s hard to get moving. That’s because you chose unconsciousness over Consciousness.

But if you get up early, especially before the sunrise, you choose Consciousness. So many of you are already waking up spontaneously at 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning. You may call it the middle of the night.  Yoga calls it brahma-muhurta – the body of God. It is two hours…