By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

You want to solve problems. You want to be creative. You want love and joy. You want to care and share. Where does all that come from?

It all comes from within. As you settle in deeper and deeper, you can base yourself in your own Divine Essence. It is Grace that gives you inner access, but it is your own efforts that give you the inner steadiness, the deep inner center that sets you free.

This is freedom, in Sanskrit — moksha. It means liberation. It means you won’t have to come back for another lifetime. You can if you want to, but you won’t be stuck in the repetitive cycle for eons. You’re free!

In honor of 4^th of July, the American holiday celebrating freedom, I focus on freedom. I do realize that July 4 is about political freedom – but I like to use it every year to celebrate spiritual liberation. That you really can become free:

* No more inner shadows.

* No more knee-jerk reflexes.

* No more need, greed and fear.

When you find your own inner essence, and when you base yourself in your own Self, you are free from everything that used to drag you down. It’s great!

And it’s a little strange.

* For your past is still your past, but it doesn’t drag you down.

* And your life is still your life, but it’s not weighty and constraining.

* And your future is still your future, whatever you think it could be or should be – it’s up to you, but you’re not holding your breath waiting to see.

You know what freedom is? That your sense of self doesn’t come from your past, nor your imagined future, and not even from the circumstances of your life.  Your sense of self is an inner sense, an inner knowing, a wordless Knowingness… of your own Beingness. 

In the Knowingness of your own Beingness, you have fulfilled life’s highest purpose – liberation! Freedom!

And you have the freedom to create, to care and share. To give without measure. Free to be without analyzing or strategizing, without making up for or trying to attain. And your mind becomes your greatest tool. Instead of having mental shadows that block your inner light, your mind shines with the light of Consciousness. Chetana, it’s called in Sanskrit.

Expanded mind. Divine mind. Your heart overflows. What a way to live!

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Bittersweet chocolate is the best.  The sage Narada agrees, describing the yearning for God as the most painful and most blissful of the 11 types of Divine Love.  

Today, I honor my Guru on the anniversary of his departure from this earthly plane.  It is a day of great grief and a day of great gratitude – both of which are based in Divine love.

Grief is when you feel you’ve lost something important to you.  Yet the fact that it was important means you are grateful for what it gave.  Thus, grief is the flip side of gratitude.

Wonderfully, this gives you a pathway out of grief — simply express your gratitude.  When you put words to all you’ve received from that source, you are filled up inside and there’s no room left for grief.

I was in Spain when Baba left.  At the pivotal time in India, it was sunset where I was, on private retreat in a small town overlooking the Mediterranean.  That sunset lasted longer than any I’ve ever seen, with colors ranging from golden orange into deep purple.  

As I sat and watched it, Baba spoke to me inside.  For a long time.  Mostly it was wordless communion, but sometimes a few words would come – deeply loving while giving me direction for my life.

He was my sunset.  He was my sunrise.  He was the sun that lit up my whole world, even my inner universe.  Or I thought he was.  As long as he was in his body, I could see only Baba.  He took up the radar screen of my mind in an ecstatic and glorious way.  It was a whole lot better than anything else I’d had on my radar.

It was only after he was gone (seemingly gone) that I could look past my mind and discover what he had given me.  He gave me my own Self, the vast profundity and inner reality of Beingness being me.  But frankly, I’d rather look at him than look at me.

That’s bhakti yoga, the science of Divine Love.  Tukaram, a poet saint of India said it this way, “Please, please, dear God.  Keep me just a little separate from you, so there’s still a ‘me’ to love you.”  Yes, I love to love Baba.  Which is why I indulge myself in sweet moments of Divine Grief – so I can feel the love, the longing, the yearning, while I know I am the One who was He.

There is only One Reality, the ultimate, ever-existent, present-right-here-and now Beingness.  Called by many names, our tradition honors the One by the name Shiva, meaning the Auspicious One who plants his auspiciousness in all.

But it’s not like planting a seed in earth, with the seed being different from the earth.  Instead, Shiva plants himself in you by being you.  Shiva is being you while being me, while being all and beyond all.  Oh, Shiva!

So when I look for Baba, I find him inside. I love to look at his photos, but it is always he who is looking through my eyes.  I masquerade as a bhakta, lost in love of the Divine, while being the One who is being both the lover and the beloved.  There’s no better way to live, always lost in Divine Love, yet knowing that it is me loving me – even when I am loving you.

Jai Muktananda!  Hail to Muktananda!  As he said about himself, I also proclaim to the world – I don’t care what anyone says about my Baba.  He gave me everything.  

And he sends me to share it with you. Does anyone want some bittersweet chocolate?  We can laugh and cry together.  It’s a glorious way to live!

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Enlightenment is not what you think.  Firstly, enlightenment is not what you think it is.  Secondly, and more importantly, enlightenment is not about your mind, so it’s not about what you are thinking.  Yet your mind can keep you from being enlightened.

In other words, you must use your mind to get enlightened, but you use your mind in a way that gets you beyond your mind.  Enlightenment is a state of being, not a state of mind.  It is a deep inner feeling, but not an emotion. Best of all, it’s effortless.  

Being unenlightened is hard!  You have to constantly review your anxieties and limitations.  Your sense of self worth is dependent on how others see you, which means you’re always performing, trying to win their good opinions.  Worse, your opinion of yourself needs help.

Enlightenment is a state of profound ease and joy.  It needs no external support or feedback as it arises from within.  The ever-arising flow of Divine Consciousness washes away all anxieties and limitations.  This is called freedom, freedom from who you thought you were so you can be who you really are – Consciousness Incarnate. 

How do you get enlightened?  You get it from one who has it. It’s just like if you are shopping for shoes.  Don’t go to the florist.  You’ve probably been trying to get enlightened by learning from unenlightened people.  No wonder it’s hard!

It’s time to go shopping for enlightened beings.  Find a few, meet them in person if you can. Try out the practices they give and see what you get.  Just like shoe shopping – slip them on and walk around in them for a bit. 

But the difference with enlightened beings is that you want one that both uplifts you and challenges you, so you can’t stay in your old ruts.  It’s dark in there.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

It’s not just spring, there’s something more going on.  New possibilities, a bounce in your step, fresh energy, even optimism – after years of laying low, it’s time to emanate again.  For us in the northern hemisphere, it coincides nicely with spring.

Planetary cycles have held us up for several years, with the pandemic and fear of death hovering over every encounter.  Only a few weeks ago, it felt scary to go out without a mask, but now I don’t think about it.

Unmilana is the Sanskrit word for blossoming forth.  It is also translated as the opening of your eyes or the uncovering of the sun at the end of an eclipse.  It feels that way.  You can poke your head out.  The sun is shining!

When bears emerge from their winter hibernation, they spend a couple of weeks in “walking hibernation.”  They get out less; they do less. You may be in that phase yourself.  After all, home has been a safe haven for quite a while.  But your comfort zone can become a trap. 

Unmilana also means coming forth, along with becoming visible.  While online connections have made visual connections possible during our period of seclusion, there’s nothing like getting together in person.  There’s even biochemistry to it.  

When women get together, their bodies produce more serotonin and oxytocin, which are called “happiness hormones.”  With male bonding, testosterone and cortisol are more involved.  Bottom line, it’s physical as well as mental and emotional.

In yoga, we focus on a deeper reality, the spiritual dimension of your own being.  This is a time of great opportunity. You could blossom forth from your deeper dimensions or you could get lost in worldly drama.  It’s all described in this sutra:

Svecchayaa svabhittau vi”svam unmiilayati. — Pratyabhij~nah.rdayam 2

By free will alone, Consciousness blossoms forth the universe on the screen of her own existence.

You’re doing the same thing as you emerge from your pandemic seclusion, with one minor exception.  The sutra says the unmilana or blossoming forth of Consciousness is what created this universe, while you are blossoming forth into the universe that already exists.  Since you are part of the universe, you get to choose what part you will play in it. 

Will you be a consumer or a producer?  If you were holed up during the pandemic, your focus was on consumption, specifically how you could get everything you needed to make it through an unknown time period.  Now that you are emerging into the world, you have an opportunity to focus on what you can give.  

To draw from your depths and to share with others, this is unmilana – also translated as twinkling.  Like a star at night, you can bring the light of your own being into the world, which makes a difference for everyone. 

How do you find the light of your own being?  Look in the direction where it resides.  That’s inside.  Meditate. 

By Satguru Swami Nirmalananda  

I had years with him.  I lived and studied with my Baba, both in America and India.  After I got past my initial awe of his incredible teachings, I relaxed into his energetic embrace.  I deepened into inner realms beyond my imagining.  Subtle unravelings freed me from psychological patterns laid down in my childhood, which I now recognize as karmas brought from lifetimes past.  

He left this earthly plane 40 years ago today.  It was overwhelming to lose him.  I didn’t know who I was without him as an external anchor.  Yet it was even more overwhelming to discover that his presence had become stronger.  The anchor was now inside.   

He had prepared us so well, explaining countless times that a great being doesn’t leave when they die.  Such a Master merges into Self, thus is found in the Self of all.  Their external form was only a masquerade anyway.  Living in the whole of Beingness, they are only seemingly limited to a single form.  I didn’t understand, of course, not until I experienced it.  And even then, I didn’t understand, not until I’d experienced the passing of other loved ones.  There’s a difference – a big difference. 

When Baba left, I was sitting by the sea, watching the most extraordinary sunset I’ve ever seen.  It had more colors and it lasted for hours.  All the while, inside, he was revealing truths I need to know.  I sat in a Divine communion with him that has never ended. 

But to call it Divine communion is misleading, for there must be two in order to commune.  Inside, there is only One, which yoga calls Shiva.  But for me, that One is Baba.  Shiva became Baba in order to give me my Self, who is Shiva.  Yes, it’s circular reasoning, even confusing.  Yes, it’s entrancing, entwining, enrapturing, enchanting – and Baba was all of that.  I live in that Divine mystery.  He unveiled it for me while he embodied it.  He set me free.  Thank you, Baba.