By Swami Shrutananda

You always look better at the end of a meditation program or yoga class.  That’s because, when you arrive, often you don’t look so good. Perhaps your skin is ashen and dry.  Or your face, your neck and shoulders are crooked – even your gait.  You may look anxious and worried, the outside showing what you feel like inside.

All this makes the light in your eyes dull and your face wrinkled.  Instead of skipping though life, you may be limping along.

I watch people come in for yoga classes and meditation programs. They limp in. They skip out. It’s completely reliable. 

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda, Changing Your Future, Teachings Article, April 2023

In the 16^th century, explorers looked for the Fountain of Youth to feel young and more alive again.  Yoga is the Fountain of Youth.  I love watching you during your yoga class or meditation program.  When it ends you look younger.   Your spine has lift.  Your face softens as your wrinkles melt away.  You have color in your face.  More light shines through your eyes.  You look radiant and you feel full of life.

I went through this too.  Before yoga, I was getting physical therapy for a neck & shoulder injury.  Unfortunately, it was not taking care of my pain. Then I started yoga.  My spine lifted and lengthened.  My pain lessened as my shoulders, neck and head moved back in line with my spine.  As I did more yoga, I felt better and better. 

Then Gurudevi taught me to meditate. I felt even better.  The pain in my neck completely went away.  My body was more fluid, and my mind was sharper and clearer.  I had more energy. I felt younger and more alive.   

How does this work?  Yoga and meditation ignite your own healing power.  Through these practices, the energy that was trapped by your spinal tensions begins to flow.  This energy is yoga’s fountain of youth.  When this energy is flowing through your spine, you get younger.  Simply look in the mirror.  This energy enlivens your body, your mind, your heart, and your life. 

Where does this energy come from?  Your own Self.  From your yoga practice you deepen more and more into the source of youth – your own Self, your own Divine Essence.  This is the mystery and the majesty of yoga.  As you deepen within, your own mystical energy flows stronger and stronger through your spine.  Along with being enlivened and youthened, you have access to deeper, richer and more profound experiences of your own Beingness.

You feel younger when you are more your Self. This is because your own essence that is arising is ever young.  It is the eternal.  Yet your body does have a limited life span.  Tick, tick, tick.  It means that the time is now!  Do more yoga and to deepen into your own Self while your body and mind can respond.

In a Teacher Training program, a middle-aged student was frustrated with another student who often distracted the group with her antics.  At one point the frustrated student said, “You are younger.  I am older.  I have less time left to deepen into these teachings.”  The younger yogi got it.  

Unfortunately, the frustrated teacher had less time than she thought.  A few years later she was diagnosed with cancer and died.  How much time do you have left?  Nobody knows.  How do you want to spend your time?

The poet Bhartrihari warns:

I thought I was enjoying sense pleasures;

I did not realize they were enjoying me.

I thought I was spending time;

I did not realize it was spending me.

   — Bhartrihari Vairaagya Shataka, verse 7

The reality is you always find time for what you really want to do.  If you want to feel better, you can make time for it.  It means that you miss out on another opportunity.  You can’t do everything.  Are you choosing to get old – or young?  Are you choosing to be peace-filled – or anxiety filled?  What you choose determines what you will get.  It is a personal choice.  To be young and vitally alive, as well as to deepen into the eternality of your own Beingness, do more yoga.

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 Swami Satrupananda

I delight in stopping at our local gas station and convenience store.  While the location is convenient, it’s the people that make the difference.  One of the cashiers recognizes me.  She calls me “Dear.”  We chit-chat and exchange smiles.  Simple, yet caring and meaningful. 

In contrast, I tried to have a conversation with ChatGPT, the newest artificial intelligence (AI) buzz. “Dear ChatGPT, how are you today?” I asked.

It replied, “As an AI language model, I don’t have personal feelings or emotions…”  There was no eye contact.  No smiles. No connection.  I went on to ask ChatGPT a variety of questions and got lots of interesting facts.  It is impressive technology.  But it does not compare to my exchange with the cashier. 

Human relationships are important.  “Namaste,” a customary greeting in India, illuminates the significance of human relationships: 

I honor the place in you in which the entire universe dwells.

I honor the place in you in which is love, truth, light and peace.

When you are in that place in you & I am in that place in me, we are one.

(attributed to Ram Dass)

When you truly greet someone, you see and honor the One Divine Reality that is being them.  It is the same Divine Reality that is being you and everyone.  The One Divine Reality is also the source of the whole universe.  Love, truth, light and peace arise from this One Divine Reality.  When you truly greet someone, it is the Divine Reality seeing and honoring the same Divine Reality in the other. 

The One Divine Reality has become everyone and everything.  You can see and honor the One Divine Reality in all its manifestations.  As I write this blog, the Ashram cat jumps onto my lap asking for food and cuddles.  While I see her as the one Divine Reality being a cat, she sees me as a source of food and pets.  It’s a delightful exchange, but it’s not as meaningful as with humans.  That’s because we humans have the capacity to know our own Divine Reality.  Therefore, when humans see each other, there is a capacity and depth of seeing that is deeper.  So human relationships are important to being human.

While relationships are important, they are also challenging.  When your dear ones are at their best, their one Divine Reality shines through their eyes, words and deeds.  They are so loveable.  But your dear ones aren’t always at their best.  When they are having a bad day, the One Divine Reality isn’t shining through as much.  Instead of being bathed in the rays of Divine Reality pouring through them, they are like a dark stormy cloud casting shadows.  You respond to their clouds and even forget your own light.  Then the two of you are lost in the shadows.  Relationships can be difficult.

Spiritual seekers have taken different approaches in dealing with the trickiness of human relationships.  A popular approach is to avoid human relationships.  Throughout time and across cultures, people have left relationships to live in solitude in the name of their spiritual search.  Saint Benedictine left Rome because he was disturbed by the immorality of the people.  He lived as a hermit in a cave for three years.  Similarly, India has a strong tradition of yogis living in the caves of the Himalayas. These yogis left relationships behind to avoid their distraction and impact.

In contrast, other spiritual traditions make relationships the keystone.  Some orders of nuns marry Jesus as part of their vows.  Bhakti yogis in India focus their practice on their love for God, typically Krishna as an incarnation of God.  Seekers on these paths pour their human capacity for relationship towards God.  God purifies and expands this human capacity.

Kashmir Shaivism is founded on a living human relationship.  It is centered on the Guru-Disciple relationship.  The Guru is one who abides in their own Divine Reality and has the duty to uplift others.  They don’t have any clouds casting shadows on their Divine Reality.  Instead, they shine brightly all the time.  When a Guru greets you, they only see your Divine Reality.  This is the blessing of the Guru-Disciple relationship.

One of the rituals that focuses on this divine sighting is called darshan.  The disciple comes up to the Guru, typically bows, and then has a moment with the Guru.  I have done this ritual with my Guru, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, hundreds of times.  

Recently, I had the opportunity for darshan after a deep meditation.  I felt grounded and expanded in my Divine Reality.  When I bowed and came up, Gurudevi was looking at me.  I could tell that she was seeing something more in me than I was experiencing.  She sees my Divinity even when I can’t.  Yet by seeing her seeing me, I knew there was more to me. And it felt magnetic.  Based in her Divine Reality, Gurudevi was drawing out the same One Divine Reality in me. 

Kashmir Shaivism also emphasizes that you are in a relationship with a living Guru.  You can have relationships with the past Gurus, similar to how the nuns marry Jesus and bhaktis devote their life to Krishna.  But the living Guru talks back.  The living Guru gives you practices.  The living Guru incorporates the reality of your physical form and senses.  The living Guru gives you a full bodied, multidimensional relationship.  In this way, all levels of your being may be purified by the light of the Divine Reality that shines from them.

The goal of the Guru relationship is for you to know your own Divine Reality.  The Guru sees the Divine Reality in you.  The Guru shines their Divine Reality fully to you.  You follow the Guru’s directions and practices to cooperate in the process.  Then you come to know your own Divine Reality all the time. Then you shine fully.  You then bring your Divine light into your relationships.  You don’t need your loved ones to shine to make them loveable.  Instead, you shine.  You see and honor the Divine Reality in them. 

By Swami Samvidaananda

As a teenager in the Eighties, I loved when Prince sang, “Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate this thing called life.”  At least, that’s what I thought he sang.  The lyrics are actually “to get through this thing called life.”  I’ve had it wrong all this time!  

I think I misheard the lyrics because I actually celebrate this thing called life. Sure, at times I’ve felt like life was something to get through.  There’s been pain and the uncertainty of hard times.  But alongside that, I’ve had glimpses of the sacredness of life.  Moments of perceiving how being a human being is a precious opportunity.  And then I met my Guru.  She confirmed the reality of those glorious glimpses.  She teaches that life is Divine:

What seems to be only a mundane world is Divinely designed to engage you fully.  Each and every person, critter and object is made of the One Divine Energy, shakti, coalescing into a separate and fascinating form.  When you step into the marvel, the awe and majesty of this amazing creation, you live in the bliss of Consciousness

– Gurudevi Nirmalananda, “Being a Yogi in the World”

The world is made of Divinity.  Well before modern day physics, yogis knew that everything is made of energy. Named shakti, this energy is not an inert, lifeless substance.  Shakti willingly, knowingly, blissfully chooses to be the dance of Existence.  More than merely conscious, she is Consciousness, concentrating into everything.  Every thing on this planet, every thing in the universe, every thing that exists.  Including you.  

You might think, “Well, okay, everything is made of Consciousness.  But not me.”  What are you made of, Swiss cheese?  Oh, Swiss cheese is made of Consciousness, too.  If everything that exists is made of the same substance, then that has to include you.  Your body is made of consciousness-concentrate.  Every cell is distilled Divinity. 

It’s like what Salinger’s short story character Teddy McArdle says:

I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up, and all.  It was on a Sunday, I remember.  My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God.  I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.

— J.D. Salinger, “Teddy,” Nine Stories, 1953

Do you know what he means?  As a human being, you have the unique capacity to know that everything is God, like Teddy did when he was six.  You’re not just a part of God, like you, Teddy, his sister and the milk are pieces of a God-puzzle.  All the pieces together make up the whole.  

It’s more like you are a drop of water When you drop into the ocean, kerplunk!  You merge with it.  Then, which part is the ocean and which part is the drop?  You’re the whole ocean.  Your Self = God = Consciousness = the One Divine Reality.  That is who you are.

So, how come you don’t know that’s who you are?  You do know, sometimes.  You get glimpses, like I did.  But it’s not enough.  You want more. To know your Divinity all the time, your capacity has to be activated. 

Gurudevi can do that for you with an initiation called Shaktipat. She is a Shaktipat Master, empowered and authorized by her lineage.  She doesn’t just tell you that you are Divine; she gives you the experience.  And she teaches you to meditate, so you can do your part. 

Every time you meditate with the lineage mantra, you immerse your mind in your Self.  Your mind needs the help, because it is used to focusing on the mundane instead of the Divine.  And it convinces you that you are small, separate, unworthy and unlovable.  

But when you meditate, you drench your mind in your Divinity.  Over time, your mind becomes less capable of blocking your bliss.  So you know the marvel, awe and majesty of this thing we call life.  We each have our role.  And we each are the whole — the whole of Divinity.  Outside and inside, there’s only One.  You find the One inside when you meditate.  Gurudevi will show you how.

By Swami Prajñananda

Life is so precious.  I think we often forget that our years are numbered.  If you were to leave tomorrow, would you be satisfied with your life?  

I often wondered this, especially before yoga.  That made me do more.  Get a degree.  Get a new job.  Travel here.  Go there.  My purpose of life always seemed a little bit beyond my grasp.  I would wonder, “What is life all about?”  Is it about sleeping, eating, working, unwinding and doing it all again?  This felt to me like sleepwalking through life. 

There once was a crow king and an owl king.  They both lived in their respective parts of the forest with their family and friends.  One day the two kings met up.  The crow king had been pondering a question for some time.  He asked the owl king, “Why do you work at night?”  The owl, surprised, responded, “Oh brother, it is not I that works at night, it is you that works at night!”  

The crow was taken aback.  “This owl clearly is deluded,” he thought.  He shared this sentiment with the owl which sparked a long and heated debate.  The debate went on all through the day and into the night.  As the sky grew darker and darker, the owl pointed up and said “Ah, crow, now it is day!”  The crow exclaimed, “What are you talking about — look how dark it is, clearly it is night!”  Now they really started to fight.

A swan came by, in the midst of their arguing, and said, “Stop your fighting.  You are both right. What is day for a crow is night for an owl.  And what is day for an owl is night for a crow.” 

This story has a mystical meaning.  Most people live like the owl, caught up in the world and unaware of the deeper dimensions of their own being.  This lack of awareness is like night to a Self-Realized Being.  Such a one lives in the light of their own Divine Essence.  Yet the light they live in is so bright, it blinds one who does not know. 

Spiritual practice is all about turning your night into day.  It is about turning your not knowing into knowing.  This is explained in Katha Upanishad 1.3.14: 

Arise, awake!

Approach the great beings and understand the Truth.

The path is like the sharp edge of a razor,

Difficult to tread and difficult to cross.

(Translation by Swami Nirmalananda)

This sutra calls you to action: “Arise, awake!”  What are you doing with your life? Sure, you can get a BA, an MA, a Ph.D.  You can get your dream job, your dream house, your dream family.  

Yet, what do you have if you do not know who you are?  Yoga says your ultimate purpose is to know your own Divine Essence.  Your Essence is the substratum of this entire universe, while at the same time completely and individually you.  There is more to you than you think.  Arise!  Wake up to who you truly are. 

How do you do this?  “Approach the great beings and understand the Truth.”  You go to one who knows. Just like anything else in your life, you need a teacher.  In yoga, the one that guides your way on the path is called the Guru.  A qualified Guru is one who lives in the knowing and being of their own Divine Essence AND can show you the way.  

This is very important because the spiritual path is as sharp as a razor’s edge.  It is difficult to tread and hard to cross.  The spiritual path is as treacherous as climbing the steepest mountain on the narrowest trail.  Without a guide, you are vulnerable to slipping, falling, getting lost and ultimately not arriving at your destination. 

This is why the Guru is so important.  The Guru saves you from the traps along the path.  They even save you from the traps you lay down for yourself.  Plus, a Shaktipat Guru, like Gurudevi Nirmalananda, can do even more.  In addition to guiding you, she puts rocket fuel in your tank.  You are sped through the process at lightspeed!  

You have the unique opportunity to be Self-Realized in this lifetime.  Yet, how far will you go?  The answer is up to you.  While the Guru shows you the way and fuels your progress, you must take the steps yourself.  So what will it be?  Are you ready to wake up?

By Swami Shrutananda

Really!  Where is God?  God is inside. The One Divine Reality has chosen to become the universe and everything in it.  This is described in the Pratyabhij~nahrdayam, sutra 4: 

Citi-sa.mkocaatmaa cetano’pi sa.mkucita-vi”sva-maya.h.

Consciousness willingly takes on contraction, in order to become both the universe and the individuals, who have the universe as their bodies in a contracted form. – Rendered by Swami Nirmalananda

Before yoga, I looked for God outside.  God was up there somewhere.  My mind would imagine a white bearded guy up in the sky.  Some people see God as the formless.  Others see God in nature: in the sky, the trees, the majesty of the mountains, etc.  

Yoga agrees that God can be experienced when you look outside.  This is because the One Divine Reality manifested all things and becomes all things.  Yet this sutra also says more.  

The One Divine Reality, called “Consciousness” in this sutra, has chosen to become everything in this universe, including you.  God has become you and me.  Now, consider which is closer, God on the outside or God on the inside?  This is why yoga gives you practices for looking inside — particularly meditation.  

“Self” is the word yoga uses for the One Divine Reality when found inside.  Meditation, especially Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation, gives you deep and profound experiences of your own Self.  God has not only become me, but God is also being me.  God is being you.  This is a pretty radical statement.  

At first, I didn’t take this teaching personally.  Yet I finally got it when I heard my Guru — Gurudevi — explain it.  She said, “Seeing your own inner Self is more tangible than the sky.”  When I heard those words, God crystalized into being me.  In my physical body, with my mind, through all the levels of my own being, I experienced that I am God.  I am the One Divine Reality whether looking outside or inside.  There was a joy, an aliveness, a delight in being me! 

This is the foundation of all the yoga practices and teachings: God is being you.  Where is God?  Right here!  You are a physical tangible expression of the One Divine Reality.  Additionally, your mind is a contracted form of the One Divine Reality.  God is being you.  

To fully understand this radical statement, you have to personalize it.  Say it out loud, or even whisper to yourself, “I am a physical, tangible expression of the One Divine Reality.” 

God wants to be you.  God, the Self, is willingly choosing to be you with all your quirks and idiosyncrasies.  God delights in being you.  All you ever wanted was to be more you.  This is what yoga gives you.  Yoga gives you the knowing and the experience that God is being you. It is time to know that you are truly Divine.  

How do you come to know?

• Do more Satsangs with Gurudevi.  She offers them every Sunday and Wednesday online or in person.  Gurudevi’s teachings and presence propel you inward to experience yoga’s profound, mystical truth that you are the Self.  

• Do more meditation.  Meditate every day.  For support in making your daily meditation consistent, join our online Meditation Club.  Gurudevi will make meditation deep and easy for you.

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.