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…

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[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…

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

You have already had many expansive experiences. Yoga doesn’t have a copyright on bliss. It simply makes the bliss more accessible and longer lasting.

The goal is to live in the constant bliss of your own Self. Bliss is your essence. Bliss is your nature. Anything that stops your mind makes space for the bliss of your own Beingness to arise inside.

If you’re not in bliss, your mind is messin’ with you. You’re chasing your thoughts instead of abiding in the spontaneous bliss of Consciousness. How do you want to live? You get to choose.…

For me, it all changed once I got Shaktipat. Having a Guru made life easier for me, both easier and more understandable.

Life was more understandable because I could see the bigger picture. It wasn’t about what was happening today, not even about “what’s happening to me,” but it was about where I place myself on the timeline. And the timeline was longer – spiritual development spans lifetimes.

It felt like, instead of a sprint where I exhaust myself as fast as I can, I was on a trek where I needed to pace myself – steady, consistent progress, taking care of my mind and body along the way. Yes, life became more understandable.

I also found life to be easier. This was because I had inner depth, so little things didn’t throw me off center anymore. It was like I became a Weeble. You remember the kid’s toy, “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.”

Consider what happens if you don’t have a Guru.

• • You’re always looking for something, but you don’t know what you’re looking for.
  • You look everywhere because you don’t know where to look – inside.
  • Everything that happens is critical to your sense of self-worth, which depends on the outer world, which is always changing.
  • Other people’s opinions of you make you who you are. So you’re always trying to manage their minds, not merely your own.
  • And you look for escape hatches – ways to trigger bliss, peek experiences, p-e-e-k, but you don’t know how they work. Or what you’re peeking at.

This is called “normal.” It is also called bondage, that you’re tied up in knots, the gnarly knots in your mind and heart. And in your body. Yoga gives you a way to begin unraveling the knots. Yoga explains that there is something worth finding, but it is located inside.

Yoga gives you a peek at it, a glimpse of your own Self.  And tools to attune yourself to your own Self, ways to progressively surrender into who you really are.

And yoga gives you proof. Proof that there is a destination worth going to, proof that there is a path and a process, and proof that the goal is attainable. The Guru is the proof.

— Excerpt from Expansive Experiences discourse 2/16/25

Yoga’s promise is freedom. But there is no freedom without bondage.

People who live in oppressive situations long to be free, whether they are in a political quagmire or if they are in prison or merely trapped in a job or relationship that stifles them. Or their own mind. If you’re not in bliss, your mind is messing with you.

Yes, anyone who is in bondage longs for freedom, even strives for freedom. Even the critters want to be free.  I lived in San Diego for many years. In one beach town, called PB or Pacific Beach, there are a lot of outdoor cafes. One of the best parts of the meal was when the local flock of parrots would arrive overhead.

Fifty or sixty birds, all very noisy, all different sizes, from the giant macaws to the smaller Amazon greens. They flocked together. And when they flew in, landing on the rooftops and utility lines, you couldn’t hear your friend talking. The parrots were so loud, clearly having a good time. Cawing, yes. Singing, whistling, and talking – clearly they had been pets that got out somehow.

One day I was driving down a side street and saw a man outside, holding some bird treats in his hand, calling lovingly to a big macaw on a street light overhead. “Come on home, sweetie pie… Come on home…” But the bird wanted to be free.

So do you. Even if you aren’t confined by others or limited by external circumstances, you long for freedom. This impulse to freedom, the desire to fly high, to expand to the sky and beyond – it’s built into you. It is your own inner knowing of your own Self, Consciousness arising within, ready to blossom, ready to shine, effulging forth from your own Divine Essence. Oh, Shiva.

This longing for liberation is what propels you into spirituality, into seeking, into finding a place like this that offers answers – so you can see if these answers match your inner itch…