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 Swami Shrutananda

My tears began to flow.  I was on a long drive back to the Ashram.  I found several religious stations that played upbeat and positive music.  A Christmas song about Jesus was the one full of the most tenderness and devotion, “Mary, Did You Know?” by Pentatonix.

The song makes Jesus personal:  “Mary, did you know… when you kiss your little baby, you kiss the face of God?”  “Mary, did you know that your baby boy is Lord of all creation?”  Mary, did you know “that sleeping child you’re holding is the great, I Am?”  Probably not.  

For me, the song describes the potential of a human being by describing the Jesus’ greatness.  Probably your mother did not know your greatness unless she herself was Self-Realized.  Yet, more importantly and more personally, do you know your own greatness, your own Divinity, your own Self?  Probably not.  Some students describe their knowingness of their own Beingness when they were young.  However, they shut it down as they grew.  

Does your mother need to know the greatness of your being for you to know?  Do others in your life?  If so, you will be waiting for a long time.  Yet this is what the Guru sees in you when they look at you or think about you.  Even if you cannot, the Guru sees your own greatness, your own Divinity, your own Self. 

When I hear devotional songs about other great beings, I think of my Guru, Gurudevi Nirmalananda.  I feel fortunate to have a living Guru.  I can tangibly see her form.  I can hear her teachings, made so relevant to me in this day and age.  I can talk to her on the outside or inside.  She is always accessible.  The yoga we practice comes from Siddha Yoga.  It is the yoga of being in relationship with a siddha, a Self-Realized being.  Gurudevi is such a being.

This song “Mary Did You Know?” touches me so deeply.  It touches my inner yearning to know my own greatness, my own Divinity, my own Self.  It brings up tears because the knowing is so close, yet just beyond my reach.  

Fortunately, I have a Guru, a living Guru, who reveals my own Divinity to me.  It is the function of the Guru to help you to reveal your own greatness to yourself.  This happens through the Guru’s presence, teachings and the practices they give you.  This is the gift of a living Guru.  

The Guru performs miracles.  The Guru’s miracles don’t include walking on water, curing blindness or bringing the dead alive.  The Guru’s miracle is much more personal to you.  She burns away that which gets in the way of you knowing your own Self.  You will feel fresh and new, and full of joy.

Gurudevi’s Guru said:

The power of the human being is so great that he can even transform himself into God.  God lives hidden in the heart of every human being, and everyone has the power to realize that.

-Swami Muktananda, Where Are You Going? page 5

You are embodied Divinity.  You already are God.  That is amazing.  But you simply don’t know, not yet.  Through your yoga practices, you come to know that you are God.  You are the Lord of all creation.  You are the great I Am.  The knowing is hidden within.  The Guru reveals that which is hidden in your own being.  It is the Guru’s function to reveal your own Self to you.

Traditionally, yoga does not honor a great Guru’s birthday.  We honor the anniversary of their death.  At the end of life, you see what that little baby did with their life.  Those we honor knew their own greatness, their own Divinity, their own Self.  And they helped others to find That within themselves.

Do you know?  Do you want to know?  Get a Guru.  I have one and I’ll share.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Up close and personal — I’ve missed it during the pandemic.  Online is so useful, but there’s nothing like being together in-person. I’m delighted to serve so many of you through Telecourses and zoom satsangs, but when we get a weekend together, so much more happens. So I’ve created a program with five weekends, interspersed through the year. 

Digesting Life

5 weekend retreats with Gurudevi

Beginning February 17

Our group size is limited so we can dive deep together.  Every day, we’ll intersperse yoga practices with mental processes.  The practices deepen your experience of the inner infinity of your own Self.  The contemplations are to help you understand your inner experiences as well as to help you understand your life experiences. 

After each weekend, you take your new sense of Self home with you.  In the same place, with the same people and activities, you try out the new you.  Then you come back and we work it through.  What you learn about yourself makes you more powerful and more loving at the same time. 

Your enrollment is for all five weekends. Carve the time out of your schedule and make these weekends a priority. Don’t miss any! Your presence is a support to others, even while you’re in the process yourself.

By Swami Samvidaananda

The birth of Jesus is celebrated today.  It’s a holy day that honors a great being.  Merry Christmas!

I grew up in an Italian Catholic family.  I adored the baby Jesus nestled in the little wooden manger under our brightly lit Christmas tree.  I was taught that Jesus was both human and divine, and I believed it.  But I didn’t understand how it could be true.  I wanted to know. 

And then I found yoga.  Yoga opened up my ability to experience Divinity ― my own and the Divinity of everything that exists.  Yoga says you can experience your Divinity.  This is because there is One Divine Reality, and that Reality is your own Self:

Caitanyam-aatman — Shiva Sutras 1.1

Consciousness-Itself is your own Self.

(Translated by Swami Nirmalananda)

Consciousness is the source and substance of everything that exists.  The physicists and yogis agree that everything is made of energy.  The yogis go a step further.  They explain that everything is made of conscious energy: Divine, Sublime and Self-knowing.  More than conscious, it is Consciousness-Itself.

The sun, the moon, the stars, your houseplants and your pets are all made of cosmic Consciousness.  They are all inherently Divine.  And so are you.  Cosmic Consciousness is your own Self.  Except, you don’t know your Divinity, not enough of the time.  Instead, you experience yourself as limited.  You feel small, separate, and painfully alone. But you have the capacity to experience your Self.  This is yoga’s purpose: to reveal your Divinity to you.  

How does yoga do that?  Well, not with yoga poses, as beneficial as they are.  Yoga says, spend time with a living yoga Master, a Siddha.  That’s what I do.  I meditate with Gurudevi Nirmalananda Saraswati.  She knows her own Divinity.  She sees everything that exists as that same radiant Divinity, all the time.  In this tradition, she is described as Self-Realized.

Other traditions have their own names for those who live in a pure, steady, spiritual state.  In the West, Christianity recognizes great beings as saints and mystics.  The meditative traditions of the East — in India, Burma and Thailand ― call them enlightened, illumined, God-intoxicated. 

What happens when you spend time with such a being?  Their ecstatic, God-saturated state is catching.  They love to share!  They don’t even need to try.  They radiate Divinity.  They are like a tuning fork, emitting a pure tone of bliss.  When you’re with them, you begin to vibrate with bliss too.  

That’s because their bliss is your bliss.  Their Divinity is your Divinity.  There’s only One Divine Reality, and it is your own Self.  There’s only one difference between a Self-Realized being and you.  They know they are the Self and you don’t.  Not yet.  But you can. 

With a Siddha like Gurudevi, it’s not like going to a concert.  There, you catch a blissful high, then go home and lose it.  The yoga masters in her lineage give you more than a temporary experience of your Self.  They are empowered to give Shaktipat, the mystical initiation that awakens you to your Inherent Divinity.  

She received this initiation from her beloved Guru, Baba Muktananda.  And he received this initiation from his Guru.  And his Guru had a Guru, who had a Guru, who had a Guru, in a lineage of Shaktipat Gurus that stretches through time.  

When you receive this inner awakening, your Divinity is revealed to you.  You know your Self in a way that you will not lose.  Oh, you may get distracted and forget for a while, then remember again.  But you can’t ever not-know your Divinity the way you did before, unto lifetimes.  Meditation will clear your mind, body and heart from the inner distractions that get in your way.  So one day, you will be Self-Realized.  You will know your own Divinity.  And you will see everything that exists as that same radiant Divinity, all the time.

I wanted to know how it’s possible to be both human and divine.  Now I know.  Because when I meditate with Gurudevi, she gives me my Self.  I experience my Divinity reliably, unfailingly, gloriously.  And I am still human.  Do you want to experience your Self?  Then meditate with Gurudevi Nirmalananda.  She will be delighted to teach you how.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda 

When I lived in my Baba’s Ashram, one of my yoga-buddies often spoke a few words aloud, “An attitude of gratitude.”  While I knew that she was reminding herself, it still had an effect on me.  What I noticed was that I didn’t have an attitude of gratitude.  There I was, living in an Ashram with an enlightened being, but I wasn’t grateful.   

I was cranky, needy and impatient.  I definitely wanted what Baba was giving — the blessings, the Grace, the inner awakening and enlivening process that he was furthering in me.  I wanted all of it.  I wanted it NOW!  I wanted more and more, faster and faster.   

Every few days I would pray silently, “Dear Baba, faster, please.  Can’t you make this go a little faster?”  Then a few days later, I would be buckling under the intensity of my own growing pains.  So I’d pray, “Baba, Baba, softer, gentler…  Can you make it easier on me, please?”  The breathing space was immediate. 

Yet, a few days later, I’d have amnesia and ask again for more, “Speed this up, Baba!  I want to get enlightened now.”  One day I realized what I’d been doing repeatedly!  So I offered a new prayer, “Baba, please set the right speed for me.  You know more than I do.” 

Only then did I discover gratitude.  From that point onward, I could see that he knew more about the process than I did.  I could rely on his spiritual power to carry me through, like no one else I had ever known.  This is why I now live in a continual flow of gratitude. 

My life is full of Guru’s Grace.  I am grateful to the one who opened up the mystical reality for me.  My heart is always being filled from the inside.  My gratitude expands every day. 

When I teach, I am grateful for the opportunity to share this ancient spiritual science of yoga.  I thank each student who chooses this profound path and shares the process with me.  I am even grateful to myself, for the perseverance and diligence that made me able to receive all that Baba gave – and made me able to share it with others. 

I love Thanksgiving Day.  Every year we get to join in a national celebration of thanks.  But for me, one day is not enough.  Yes, I live in an attitude of gratitude.  It’s a glorious way to live! 

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. 

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.

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^[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)

By Swami Samvidaananda 

“You are your own Guru,” wrote a renowned Guru, Swami Muktananda.  As a brand-new yogi, I didn’t know what a Guru was.  Let alone that I was supposed to be my own Guru.  That’s how I took this teaching when I first heard it.   

Fellow yogis seemed to confirm my understanding.  At classes and conferences, I met wonderful, independent, confident yogis.  They had focus, dedication and a daily home practice.  They were doing it for themselves.  I admired them.  I wanted to dedicate myself to yoga, too.   

So I found a teacher, one that I admired and respected.  And she taught me that “guru” is Sanskrit for teacher.  A Guru with a big “G” is a spiritual teacher.  A guru with a small “g” is any kind of teacher.   

How many gurus have you had in your life?  So many.  Your first guru is your mother or whoever raised you.  They taught you to eat, to walk, talk, play peek-a-boo and blow out birthday candles.  You had gurus who taught you to read and write, to play soccer or trombone.  

My dad learned how to be an electrician from his dad.  So my grandpa was my dad’s electrician guru.  Anything you’ve learned to do, a guru has shown you how — even if you go to YouTube or you read a blog or a book.  These are all created by people who are sharing what they know, so you can know.

The yoga teacher I found all those years ago is a Guru.  Her name is Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati.  She has dedicated her life to sharing with you what she knows: the mystical truth of your spiritual essence.  She teaches that there is One Divine Reality that is the source and substance of all that exists.  That One is called your Self.  

Gurudevi not only teaches you about your Self; she awakens you to the knowing of your Self.  And then you foster and further your own knowing every time you meditate.  That’s why this meditation is called Svaroopa® Vidya Meditation.  Vidya means experiential knowing, and svaroopa means your own Divine Self.  

Awakened to your hidden Divinity, you see the glorious Divinity of everyone and everything that exists.  This is a Divine world created of Divinity, expressing Divinity, rejoicing in Divinity.  That Divinity is you.  You are Divine.  You always have been.  You just didn’t know it, at least not all the time.  

When your Guru reveals it to you, then you know.  And then, you know that  “you are your own Guru.”  Because you are the One, and She is the One. There’s only One. 

Yoga is not DIY.  You do not have to figure it out on your own.  You need one who knows, one who can give that knowing to you.  Swami Nirmalananda will tell you she only has something to give because she got it from her Guru, Swami Muktananda.  And he would credit everything he had to give to his Guru, Bhagavan Nityananda. 

And he had a Guru, who had a Guru, in a lineage of Gurus that stretches through time.  Do you want a Guru?  Swami Nirmalananda will be yours, if you want her to be.  You’re the one who decides.