by Yogeshwari (Lissa) Fountain

Of all the yoga tools at your disposal, mantra repetition is the most effective and empowering.  It is spiritual energy distilled into a word form.  It clears through the debris of your mind, those diverse patterns painstakingly instilled through lifetimes.  Swami Nirmalananda promises that this will enable you to live in “progressively more and more clarity and integrity, leading to transparency.”

When you look through a grimy windshield, you may still be able to see through the schmutz, but your vision is impaired and the light diffused.  Mantra dissolves the layers of schmutz in your mind.  As your mind gets clearer, the radiance of your own inner light shines through.

There are ways to incorporate mantra into your life.  Out loud repetition is called “japa,” best done with 108 repetitions at a time, moving the rudrakhsa beads on your mala to keep track of the count and to stay on-focus.

You can do internal japa, repeating mantra silently, not only for meditation but in the midst of life.  In this way, mantra becomes a background hum of Beingness,  instead of your mind’s habitual background noise of what to do next, who said such and such, and “I’m not good enough.”  By continually repeating your mantra, you will no longer be perpetually looking outside of yourself for happiness and completion.  You’ll know:  I am already That.

Recently on retreat in India, I spent 20 days being bathed in the sound current of ancient, primordial mantras from the Vedas.  We did yaj~nas (Vedic fire ceremonies), pujas (worshipping different gods) and sunrise and sunset “agni hotras” (mini-fire ceremonies).

The mantras chanted were wholly unfamiliar, yet I could feel their purifying powers working on me, beyond my mind.  The priests would chant the mantras in a steady and rapid stream of sound that became a sacred cosmic vibration.

As I allowed myself to be carried along in this current, there was a cleansing of my mind, dissolving of decades of societal conditionings.  I cannot tell you how this works, only that it feels like a surrender into God’s voice, by becoming the One that moves from the outside-in and from the inside-out.

“Mantra repetition gives you the opportunity to start clearing out your mind,

so you can live in progressively more and more clarity and integrity,

leading to transparency.” — Swami Nirmalananda

When you repeat mantra in the midst of life’s activity, it dissolves the duality that keeps you trapped in your mind’s preferences, always saying, “This is Divine but that is not.”  Some layers of artifice were taken on by Shiva in becoming you, but you have layered more in there, creating and reinforcing one superficial identity after another.

But with mantra repetition, it’s easier to live a life of integrity: who you are on the outside, matches who you feel yourself to be on the inside.  And this leads to transparency, the ability to see all the way through to the Self in yourself, and in everyone and everything.  There’s nothing to hide anymore, no one to judge, because you find your Self in everything you see.

Is this an easy path? Try remembering to repeat mantra all day long, and then you tell me.  I find it far easier to quiet my mind by dipping repeatedly into a bowl of popcorn!

But mantra is a Divine and longer-lasting intervention for your mind.  This helps you recognize what a trickster your mind actually is.  It will have a thousand ways to tempt you with “small-s self” sabotage.  Yet Swami Nirmalananda has given us a mantra “to save us from ourselves”.  All we need to do, is to repeat it.

OM svaroopa svasvabhavah namo namah

To your inherent Divinity again and again I bow

By Mangala Allen & Swami Nirmalananda

Your essence is Beingness. There is nothing that you are not.  Your essence, this Beingness, contracted to form matter out of energy in order to become you.  Consciousness creates your spine in order to take on form:  creating your heart, mind and body.  The movement is toward contraction.  This contraction continues throughout your life as your spine tightens and shortens.  We call it aging.  You are shrinking.

Svaroopa^® Yoga’s spinal decompression reverses this process.  As you release the tension in your spine, your process becomes one of expansion — both outer expansion and inner expansion.  It is through the inner expansion that you come to know yourself as the Consciousness you have always been.  This makes your spine very important indeed!

“Your spine is the conduit of consciousness.”

— Swami Nirmalananda (Physics, Anatomy and Yoga, 2/2006)

SPINE www.thinglink.com

The energy of consciousness contracted inward and downward, becoming most concentrated at the base of your spine, which is at the bottom tip of your tailbone.  The process of expansion must begin here.  It is when you release tensions in your tailbone muscles that contraction boomerangs toward expansion.  An inner awakening occurs and a higher frequency of energy begins arising within you, Kundalini.  This is your very essence arising to meet you so you can know your Self.

Unfortunately, you have been working hard to maintain, even to propel, the momentum toward contraction through your life choices.  This makes you become tighter within your body, as well as small-minded and less tolerant of the world around you.  You want it your way and you want it your way now!

When you make the choice to intervene in the process, you actively work to decompress and expand, beginning the process of discovering your own Self as Consciousness-Itself.  You develop an ease of being.  You enjoy living in your own skin.  You develop gratitude for your life experiences, even the tough ones.

Swami Nirmalananda adds, “You don’t merely connect to your Self, but you become your Self.  This is the transformation that makes you able celebrate life in every moment.”  You discover upwelling joy arising within you; it is available to you always.   You no longer need everything to line up just so in order for you to be happy.  You enjoy life because you are happy to be alive.

When you recognize yourself as Divine, you realize that everyone and everything else is Divine, too!  This is the mystery, finding Divinity in everything, from the smallest grain of sand to the ever-expanding cosmos and beyond.  There is nothing that is not Shiva (Consciousness).  To know this is ecstatic beyond description.

I can describe all this because I have experienced this, going through this expansion process guaranteed by Svaroopa^® yoga.  This path of expansion is a path of Grace, which my teacher got from her teacher.  Since I met Swami Nirmalananda, I have been transforming.  Now I enjoy life and even welcome its challenges.  Nothing outside of me has changed significantly, but how I view it and the choices I make in my life have.  This is due to the expansion I am experiencing since stepping onto this yogic path.   It is very important to open the pathway of your spine.

 “The release beginning at your tailbone provides:

1) Profound physical benefits,

2) transformative changes that effect how you feel in your life, and

3) the awakening of a profound energy flow through your spine,

assuring you to access of your own Divinity.”

 — Swami Nirmalananda

(Your Spine: Anatomy, Energy & Consciousness, May 2013)

When your spine is open, you will experience deep meditation.  This absorption into your own Self is where the inner transformation arises from.  Then you are able to bring your Self into your life.  It’s absolutely amazing!

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo namah

To your inherent Divinity again and again I bow

By Yogeshwari Fountain & Swami Nirmalananda

“I will be the gladdest thing under the sun.  I will touch a hundred flowers, and not pick one!” — Edna St. Vincent Millay

To look out upon a field of flowers, to smell or touch their delicate beauty, without the desire to pick even one, is a state worth aspiring to.  To be experiencing the bliss of Beingness, while experiencing the world, so you don’t need to grab at the things around you.

Even when you forget your inherent Divinity, you have always been Divine.  While you are a bound soul, yet you have infinite capacity for freedom and joy.  Yoga says you have to learn how to stay involved, genuinely caring for others and enjoying the things of life without depending on them for your sense of self.  It’s not easy.

Your “small-s” self gets entangled in your senses, making your sense of personal worth ride on the outcome.  It comes down to how you use your mind.  It can either be an instrument of pure perception or a sticky Velcro strip, attaching to what you experience, need or want.  Yoga sets you free.

“Your mind becomes free from all desires, for externals, and for things promised in the scriptures, giving a state of complete freedom and joy.”  — Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras 1.15 (rendered by Swami Nirmalananda)

To realize yoga’s promise for yourself, you have to work on yourself.  Built into every desire is a dependency.  Every desire props up a personal identity.  If you don’t fulfill that desire, you feel like you’re going to die!  That’s because your identity depends on that thing for its very existence.

Each of your many identities is part of creating your sense of meaning and purpose in life.  This is a shaky platform, indeed.  When your propping gets knocked out from under you, which life guarantees will happen, who will you be?

You are more than your current identity; you are more than all your identities put together.  You cultivate these many identities because, at the root, you’ve forgotten that you are God.  The ancient sages called this spiritual amnesia, “avidyaa”, the not knowing of your own Divinity.  I know it well:  the indefinable angst that haunted me all my life, until I found my inner Self.

Last month I got entangled in a family drama.  My siblings and I were grieving the death of our mother, so there were the predictable irrational flare-ups.  Each of us wanting our own way, defending our superficial identities.  In frustration, there were moments I wanted to withdraw, to “detach.”   You know how that looks.  You throw up your hands, and say,” I’m done” or, “I’ve had it” or, “I’m out of here!”   But the truth is, yogis don’t bolt.  Nor can they rest on their “spiritual” laurels.  Thus, any discomfort becomes an opportunity for inner clearing and growth.

I could see that, having been my mother’s primary caregiver, I was now reluctant to share the responsibility with my siblings.  My desire “to serve” wasn’t as selfless as I’d thought.  I was surprised to find how dependent I’d become on the identity of the self-sacrificing daughter, capable of doing everything.  In the moment I became aware of this identity, one of the kleshas, something shifted inside.  I was able to let go.  My breath opened up and the energy starting flowing again.  Grace swooped in and freed me.  I could interact with my family lovingly, without being limited by the old stories and my shaky identities.

How do you base yourself in Self?  Moving past your most cherished delusions to the light of consciousness requires an intervention — the cosmic force of Grace, revealing your Divinity again.  Relying on common sense won’t do it.  You know this because you’ve tried, many times before!

In Sanskrit, the name of this cosmic force of revelation is “Guru.:  Swami Nirmalananda is a living manifestation of that conduit of grace.  She reveals to you who you really are, Consciousness-Itself.

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

When you abide in such complete freedom and joy, you can participate in what life has to offer without needing it to fulfill you.  The sutra promises that you won’t even cling to the desired results of your spiritual practices!  You could pour yourself into your yoga, without even the need to become enlightened.  Imagine repeating mantra for the pure devotion of it, not so you’ll be happier or calmer, or so that your life will improve (although it will).  Imagine, being the gladdest thing under the sun!  You will touch a hundred flowers, and no longer need to pick one.

by Mangala Allen

Your mind is important. Respect your mind’s power and direct it for your benefit. You can enjoy what your mind gives you or you can suffer from the condition of your mind.

“The condition of your mind is of the greatest importance according to yoga.”  — Swami Nirmalananda (The Pairs of Opposites)

When your mind is busy, you experience an endless stream of thoughts. They can even tumble around running into one another. Sometimes it’s hard to follow one train of thought without getting derailed and following a different train. Following multiple trains at the same time is now mainstream.

Photo courtesy of Pixabay

Some reports say you think 65,000 thoughts a single day. These thoughts are seldom relevant to the present moment. You think about the past and how you wanted things to be different.  You think about the future, about how you would like things to be. You spend an abundance of time thinking about how you might proceed in order to achieve what you desire.

It is so easy it is to get lost in your thoughts. You even begin to believe you are your thoughts. You believe what your mind tells you, whether true or not. Your mind can create many stories based on untruths.

A friend of mine, whose opinion I greatly respected, came to see a performance I was in. I looked for her afterward, anxious to hear what she thought of the production. She was nowhere to be found. For her to rush out so quickly, I was sure I must have been just awful. I began to think about how difficult it would be for me to get cast in another show after performing so poorly. I tied myself up in knots imagining all sorts of scenarios. It turned out she hadn’t made it to the performance after all. All my imaginings were for naught. I created my own suffering. I let my mind convince me of things that were simply untrue.

“The condition of your mind is of the greatest importance, according to yoga.”
— Swami Nirmalananda

Yoga reveres a quiet mind. Yoga’s practices quiet your mind for you. It is when your mind becomes quiet that you can truly experience and appreciate the wonder of your essence, called “Self.”

You experience your own Self in meditation. Each time your mind becomes still you have an experience of Self.  Learn to steep in this profound experience. You saturated your mind with the Self and bring more and more of you into your life. You live from a deeper level instead of from your head or heart. Your mind becomes very different. It is not disturbed by anything.

“Everyone has a conflict going on between the heart and the head, between stillness and mental agitation.”
— Swami Muktananda (From the Finite to the Infinite, page 388)

I am fortunate to have a teacher who has helped me understand the importance of the condition of my mind.  She taught me the practices she learned from her teacher. I am learning day by day to live from my own Self and let my mental agitation go. I am truly on a path of Grace.

OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo namaha

To your Inherent Divinity again and again I bow

By Mati (Sandra) Gilbert

Food is important.  People eat to get nourished and to feel satisfied.  Though food can never fully nourish you and fully satisfy you, you try.  Yet what is lacking is your own Self for the food that is nourishing to a yogi is to know your own divinity.

You decide whether to pursue excess eating and drinking as well as fighting and the other instinctual pleasures of the world.  Animals pursue these activities.  What separates you from them is the ability to find and know your own Divinity.  Only human beings have the capacity to know the divine Consciousness vibrating within.  The study of sutras is one of the yogic practices that moves you toward your Self.

J-naanam anna.m

Knowledge is Food.  Pure knowledge is the only real nourishment, that which gives full satisfaction.  — Shiva Sutras 2.9, rendered by Swami Nirmalananda

You gain yogic knowledge in order to pursue the bliss of knowing your inherent Divinity.    Once you know and abide in the knowledge that you are Divine, you experience the world on a whole new level.  You still participate in activities of the world, but those activities do not consume you.  You remain established in the knowledge of your Self.

For the last several months, the challenges in my personal life has kept me in a constant turmoil.  As a yogi, I had the tools — mantra and meditation — to keep me grounded to some degree.  I used those tools but there were periods of time when my personal challenges seemed to win.  My small “s” self was powerful.

Swami Nirmalananda, my teacher, came to our yoga studio to hold a meditation satsang last month.  Just seeing her face made me feel better and more secure.  She gave a lecture on the ocean, how both the waves and deep water interact and how they are different.  My personal challenges were the waves, which kept me in a constant state of frustration and impatience.

Seeing and hearing the wisdom in her words made me yearn for the deep ocean where it is calm.  In this state, I am my capital-S Self: knowing I am more that my current emotional state.  I am Divine.  Do I lose my Self from time to time?  Yes. However, each time is shorter and less stressful.  I become more centered in my Self every time I say mantra and meditate.  Swamiji’s presence and love keeps me more grounded in my Self.

Yes, food is important.  It is a way to keep your body and mind healthy.  Getting the teachings about the Self truly nourishes your inner yearning.  Once I found my teacher, and through the Grace that flows through her to me, I now know I am Divine.   And my goal for today and the future is to always live in the knowingness that I am Consciousness-itself.  Even though you are always the Self, knowledge of the Self is the rarest of gifts, and it comes only through the Grace of the Guru.

By Yogeshwari Fountain

I thought I understood the nature of Aatmaa, your Divine Self.  It made sense to me that “the formlessness of your inner Essence, Aatmaa, is eternal and never decays.  You are an infinite being, having a human experience.” Yes!  However, I now realize that what you learn with your mind is nothing compared to what you experience in your heart.  You may think you understand something, but until you experience it on the inside, it remains a theory.

I recently had the privilege of tending to and being present with my mother through the last week of her life.  Day by day, I experienced the truth of Shankaracharya’s Vivekachudamani:

“Aatmaan is birthless and deathless.  It neither grows nor decays.  It is unchangeable, eternal.  It does not dissolve when your body dissolves.”

As her body systematically shut down, she shed her limitations; the radiance of the One Self being her expanded exponentially.  I sat in awe.  I chanted mantras.  I lay beside her in bed and read to her, and did mundane things like manicures and looking through photos.  I listened to her process, how she was figuring out what was left to be resolved, as she shared her vivid dream life and random thoughts.  She was shifting in and out of God’s time, the Eternal Self.

I stayed steady in my own Self, going along on an amazing cosmic ride through time and space.  This openness utterly took me by surprise.  Fear of my mother’s death had haunted me since childhood.  As a dear friend reminded me, I’d told her to expect me calling in hysterics when Mom passed.  Yet, when she did, I was sad yet fearless, and grateful for it all.  Even as I was surrounded by other’s deep grief, I felt full inside, closer to my mom than ever.  What happened? How did she cross the ocean of this world without me being shattered?

First, I was aware that Aatmaa was not born when my mother was born!  Aatmaa is being all that exists in form, and beyond form, while being you, me and everything.  This Self that you are is sustaining you, bringing your mind and senses into existence: making your eyes able to see, your ears hear, your tongue taste, and your mind think.  Yet when each of these senses dissolve, which I witnessed happening in my mom, Aatmaa does not die.  There is no death, even as the physical body decays and expires.

As my mom’s desires and identities faded away, there was only Presence left.  It didn’t feel like our relationship was slipping away, but actually solidifying.  There was more of me with her than ever before.  I was experiencing svaroopavidya; the experiential knowing of my own Self.

Most people view death as a transition into a better “place,” moving into the light or finding God at last.  But a yogi doesn’t wait until death for the liberation of the light, of God, of knowing the Self.  The purpose of a yogi’s whole life is to live in the Self NOW.  Teachers take it to another level, spreading that inner effulgence into the world.  Without the practices of yoga, I would not have been was able to abide in such peace during my mom’s transition.

I was also given the great gift of time (years of caregiving with my mom) and a supportive and loving husband.  And throughout it all, I felt cocooned within my Guru’s grace.  I realized that without Shaktipat initiation, I would have been burdened by the weight of my past karmas, stuck in my head, stuck in my “stuff.”  Instead, I felt clear and present.  Without mantra repetition, my mind might have spun into old limited fears around death.  And without the foundation of meditation, I would have been lost!  In Swami Muktananda’s book Does Death Really Exist?, he describes it this way:

“When we meditate, we become established in the seat of the inner Self, and then we are liberated from death.”

I will be learning from my mother’s departure for many years to come.  It will be an integral part of my sadhana, and of what I know myself to be, Consciousness-Itself.  On the day of her death, my family and I walked along the beach.  It was a glorious Indian summer day.  The monarch butterflies were everywhere!  “A sign from mom” they said joyfully, “there she is!” I said to myself, “Yes, and there I am”.  For in yoga, there is no here or there, no you or me, no beginning and no end.  There I am, there you are, being Shiva, for there is only the One, being All.

OM svaroopa svasvabhavah namo namah

By Mangala Allen

Thousands of years ago, yoga’s sages explained that energy became light. Light became matter. Everything is made of light.  Scientists now agree, calling it the Big Bang, but they’re still trying to figure it all out.  Yoga explains it fully:

“The Big Bang was not an explosion, with light expanding into a field of darkness. It was an implosion, with Shiva contracting within Shiva’s own being to contract light into matter and bring the universe into existence.”  — Swami Nirmalananda (Dark & Light, December 2010)

This means you are made of light. More than that, you are the source of the light that has become the universe.  It shines from within your being. So, let it shine!

While you are the light of Consciousness, Consciousness took on contraction to become you. A human life is a process of contraction until you decide to go the other way, embracing a process of expansion. Yoga begins the expansion by helping you become present in your own body.

Svaroopa^® yoga poses accomplish this by dissolving the unnecessary tensions in your body. When you release these physical tensions, your mind becomes calm. When your mind is calm, you experience who you are — beyond your mind. You know your Self as the light of Consciousness you are.

My teacher, Swami Nirmalananda, says, “You are that light, that presence, that beingness. You are that which the ancient yogis called That.”

While you are born into contraction, the ultimate purpose of human life is to turn that process around, so you can expand into your That-ness. Yoga specializes in inner expansion, the process by which your light shines from your innermost being, fills you from the inside and flows into your life. Yoga removes the blocks that prevent your light from pervading your body and shining into the world.  Yoga’s process reveals your Self, your inner source, to you.

Doing poses, reading books and watching videos are a way to put a toe in the water, testing out if you want this inner expansion. To go further, you need a guide, someone who has gone through the process and thus can direct you in the most efficient and effective way. You need a Guru, one who can take you from darkness (gu) to light (ru).

You are at your best when you are aglow with your inner light. You experience light, love and joy and share it with others. This is how you want to live in every moment of every day. When you have the experiential knowing of your That-ness, you recognize everyone is That as well. You see the light shinning in everyone and everything, already there.  You experience life and everyone in it in a whole new way.

A disciple once asked Swami Muktananda , “Who are you?”  Baba replied, “Certainly, I can say one thing: I am that which people call That.” (From the Finite to the Infinite)

This is not new. This teaching has been passed down through the ages; it is the essence of our yogic tradition. Generation by generation, teacher passed it to disciple, repeating the cycle since the beginning of time. My teacher is guiding me along the path to knowing I am That. In the beginning, I got glimpses. Now I am becoming more and more established in my own source, my Divine essence. I am the light that fills me and flows into the world.

Remember:  “You are that light that presence that beingness. You are that which the ancient yogis called That.”

Let It Shine, Let It Shine!