By Swami Shrutananda Saraswati

The first time I went snorkeling in the ocean was in a shallow cove.  The water was a little murky.  Yet I was amazed by what was under the surface: giant kelp, seals, bat rays, orange fish, crabs, etc.  I had the real experience of what I had only heard of or seen in pictures or on TV.  It was 3-D and vibrant.  There was a whole new world to explore under the surface of the ocean.

Of course, I wanted to experience more of what I found beneath the ocean’s surface.  Because I did not learn how to scuba dive, I went to deeper, clearer waters like the Red Sea and the Great Barrier Reef.  I had even more extraordinary experiences of this magical world of coral reefs, sea turtles, parrot fish, sea horses, etc.

Through yoga, I found an even more phenomenal world to explore — inside.  The ancient sage Shankaracharya described this:

The true nature of your own Self is extremely subtle. It cannot be perceived by the mind, due to the density of which the mind is made. It is known in your inner state of absorption, which is attained by plunging inside. Plunge deep within your own being to know your own Self as Consciousness-Itself. Allow yourself to know and to be that which you already are. — Vivekachudamani [rendered by Swami Nirmalananda]

Like the surface of the ocean, your body and your mind are only superficial levels of your own being. There is so much more to explore under the surface, deeper within. According to yoga’s sages, there are 36 dimensions to be experienced within.

These deep inner experiences are easily accessible in Svaroopa^® yoga classes as well as in your home practice and especially in Svaroopa^® Vidya meditation.  This is the specialty of the Svaroopa^® Sciences. By plunging deep within, having the inner experience of the profound reality within.  You know that which you already are, your own Self as Consciousness-Itself.

Your body is a physical reality.  Your mind is a non-physical reality, like electricity, gravity, love, happiness.  You can’t give me a scoop of gravity.  You can’t give me a scoop of love.  Even though the mind is non-physical, it has a density to it.  You know this.  People sometimes say, “I have brain fog,” or “I am feeling dense.”  Some days your mind is more dense than other days. Yet even on your best day, your mind has a density to it.

Your mind and your body are the most contracted levels of your being.  So what ability does the mind have to perceive these subtler realities?  One scientist provided a very yogic answer to this question:

Our brains aren’t trained to see anything other than our world, and it will likely take something from another dimension to make us understand. – science.howstuffworks.com

Yoga’s sages agree that “our brains don’t understand how to look for anything more,” saying that this means you have to go beyond your mind.  They discovered all 36 dimensions by diving deep into meditation, exploring the inner realms of their own being.  All of yoga’s practices purposefully take you beyond your mind, so you experience the multidimensionality of the universe, which is here in your own human body.  This is why it is so valuable to do poses and yoga breathing: to begin with your body and to go deeper, so you get to know who lives in it.

This is how a yogi lives in the world: from the inner experience of multidimensionality of your own being, the depths of your own being.  By living in the knowing experience of your own multidimensionality, you bring your human capacity to its fullest blossoming in this lifetime.  This is the power of the Svaroopa^® practices.  Do more Svaroopa^® yoga.

by Gurudevi Nirmalananda  & Swami Shrutananda (the yogi formerly known as Vidyadevi)

When you feel more joyous, you feel more alive.  You already experience this sometimes, but look a little more closely at the feeling of being more alive compared to less alive.  Most people are looking for life’s events to make them feel more alive.

Some people push the limit in order to get that feeling of aliveness; if you are hanging onto the side of a cliff with your fingers and toes you have to be 120% there!  While adrenaline is involved, there is another quality as well.  On the edge, for many people, provides a quality of hyper-aliveness.  Adrenaline junkies do things like jumping out of airplanes (skydiving), ski avalanches, bungee jumping, etc.

People also do things to feel less alive, to numb themselves out, because their life is too painful.  People take alcohol and drugs, sleep a lot, withdraw from others and avoid participating in life, etc. They do things to make themselves feel less alive.

What if they could give you a psychological self-assessment test for “more alive”?  You already know that yoga makes your body more flexible, makes your digestion work better, makes your breath move more fully and makes your heart pump more efficiently (and therefore more easily). Your stress chemicals are down and your endorphins are up, your muscles are working efficiently and you feel your body in a whole new way.  Your body is more alive! You are more alive!  You are more present in it!

How does yoga do this?  With a fast-paced yoga practice, you might think it’s like exercise.  With Svaroopa^® yoga, you might think it’s because you are in a quiet room with spiritual music and stacks of plaid blankets.  But when you think this way, your mind has again gone looking for the environment to make you joyous and alive. This is not what makes yoga work.

It’s easy to see with Svaroopa^® yoga.  It makes you both more joyous and more alive because it gives you the inner experience of your own Self, svaroopa.  When you experience your own Self as Consciousness-Itself, you draw from the deepest dimension of your own being, which automatically makes you be more present, more alive, more joyous – more you!  Shankaracharya wrote about this over 1,300 years ago,

“That Supreme Reality, which has become everything that exists, has become you, and is manifesting as you, through your body…”[1]

Since your yoga makes you both more joyous and more alive, now you don’t have to look for other people to give you a fix. You no longer step into the world feeling needy and dependent, waiting for something to make you feel better.  Yoga makes you feel better before you step out, so you go into the world carrying that sense of inner fullness with you.  You have something to share.

Vidyadevi describes, “A few years ago I had a yoga therapy client who always came in for an Embodyment^® yoga therapy session before her in-laws came over for dinner.  This event was not a joyous occasion for her.  She planned the therapy session, not for her body, but to change her inner state.  From that deeper state she was able to allow the evening to play out, yet be fully joyous, fully alive and fully present.”

This all happens because of what the sage Shankaracharya describes,

“There is a self-existent Reality that is the foundation of your own inner sense of self. This self-existent Reality is your very Self.”  — Vivekachudamani

This is the way a yogi lives in the world.  What a way to live!

Do more yoga.

Originally published November 2014

by Gurudevi Nirmalananda  & Swami Shrutananda (the yogi formerly known as Vidyadevi)

It’s the season of joy!  Our year-end holidays, with the decorations, music, gifts, special foods, family and friends, makes this a joyous time for so many people.  Yet for others this is a time of stress, anxiety or unhappiness, and the knowing that their expectations or hopes of joy can’t be fulfilled.

The problem is that the percentage of your life during which you experience joy is too low.  Even when you feel such joy, it is too short because the situation you depend on for your joy doesn’t last.   You invest so much time and energy trying to create certain circumstances, ones that will make you more joyous.  But it doesn’t last because you’re looking for the joy to come from outside.

The yogic sage Shankaracharya said, in his text titled Vivekachudamani,

“…your own innermost Self [is] the ceaseless joy within you.”

This means you have the capacity to experience “ceaseless joy” within.  Instead, you settle for only periodic joy.  Life really is about joy.  Being more joyous is THE measure for quality of life.  The problem is that you’re dependent on unpredictable externals to trigger joy for you.  You’re not getting it from your “innermost Self.”  But you can.

You can go a yoga class when you are not feeling joyous at all and you’ll feel different at the end. If a researcher gave you a psychology self-assessment test before class, you might be at 40% or 62%; the test at the end would show you higher, maybe 78% or even 90%.  If you have been looking for yoga to make you more joyous, this is a sign of your intelligence.

Shankaracharya warns,

“The true nature of your own Self is extremely subtle. It cannot be perceived by the mind, due to the density of which the mind is made. It is known in your inner state of absorption, which is attained by plunging inside. Plunge deep within your own being to know your own Self as Consciousness-Itself. Allow yourself to know and to be that which you already are.”
— Vivekachudamani

You already have these deep inner experiences in Svaroopa^® yoga classes, in your own home practice and especially in Svaroopa^® Vidya meditation. By plunging deep within, having the inner experience of the extremely subtle reality within, you know that which you already are, your own Self as Consciousness-Itself.

You already rely on yoga to make you more joyous.  Svaroopa^® yoga reliably gives you your own Self.  When you lose your Self, simply do more yoga and meditation.  If it worked before, it will work again.  It will give you what Shankaracharya promises,

“At this innermost level, you never cease to experience infinite joy.”

This is the way a yogi lives in the world.  What a way to live!

Do more yoga.

Originally published November 2014

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

I found myself singing along with the music as I stood in line at Starbucks, “Deck the halls with boughs of holly, Fa la la la la, La la, la la.”  I love the decorated shop windows and the little huts going up in the shopping malls — “Santa Claus is coming to town…”  This is a joyous season, whether you celebrate Christmas or not.  At the same time, this is the most stressful time of the year, and a time when more people commit suicide than any other.

Two people can walk down the same sidewalk, passing by the lights and decorations on every side, and have two different experiences.  This is because it doesn’t matter what you are looking at on the outside — it is what you are looking at on the inside that matters.  The lights, decorations and music are all reminders, but what they remind you of is different for every person.

One person is reminded of all the people she still has to buy gifts for, and how limited her budget is.

Another is reminded of the upcoming visit to his extended family, and is looking forward to the reunion with great joy.  Yet another dreads the family scene/  These two people can even belong to the same family!

Someone else is reminded of so many joy-filled Christmas mornings and is delighted to be creating the same for her own children or for a family whose name she got from a list at the local homeless shelter.

One person will look at all the happy shoppers and be reminded of all the poverty and injustice in the world.  She may donate her time or shopping money to an organization that is working in these worthwhile arenas, or she might just complain about life.

There are many people who see every decoration as a reminder of the Divine Birth they celebrate from 2,000 years ago.

Some are reminded that they don’t celebrate Christmas because their religion is different than mainstream America.  Some of these people like being different.  Others want mainstream America to approve of them.

Some people use the joyfulness of the season to remind themselves of all the reasons they are not joyful, whether it is the problems of their life right now or the history of their life so far.

Where your mind goes is personal to you, but it determines how your entire holiday season goes.  Your inner reality is so much stronger than the outer environment.  Yoga says, “Look deeper!  Look within and see that you are Divine Consciousness.”

A yogi uses every event as a reminder to look within.  Everything in the world is used as a reminder of consciousness.  Consciousness has become all that exists, and you can see this.  There is an inner dimension that far transcends the outer events.  Whatever you see, and whatever you do, say or think is an opportunity to recognize the divine within the mundane.  This includes the holiday decorations along with the traffic jams.  It includes the garbage that needs to be taken out, the ringing of the alarm clock, the errands to be run, and the smile of a child sitting in Santa’s lap, as well as the tears of another child who is afraid to sit up there.  This is true, not just for five or six weeks at the end of every year, but in every moment of every day, all year long — every year.

Along the way, you can use everything as a reminder to look at consciousness.  The One Divine Reality has become everything that exists, and you can see this (or remember this) in every moment.  You must learn to see it.  Without being able to see the divine in everything, you live like a thirsty man in a desert, looking everywhere for water and never finding it.  Instead, everything in life is a reminder of consciousness — just look again.  Look past your reactions and see the divine in everything.  Start with your Self.

Originally published December 2003

By Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Animals are ruled by their instincts. As a human, your body has physical instincts as part of your basic equipment.  These instincts can lead you to eat too much, sleep too much, measure your worth by what you own, and seek love through sexuality.  This lifestyle will never be fulfilling because it is impossible to fulfill all of your instinctual cravings.  There’s a demon inside who always wants more.  You have to choose: are you going to experience and express your divine qualities or will your instincts lead the way?

While philosophers question what the human being is, yogis ask a different question: How do I become fully human?  The answer is that you must utilize the human specialty fully: cultivate your awareness.  As you explore your ability to be aware, you discover that awareness is more powerful than instinct.  It’s quite easy to do.  Here’s how: When instinct wants to take over, expand your awareness.  Instinct makes you Velcro your awareness to a single thing.  All you have to do is expand your awareness.

As an example, let’s consider a plate of cupcakes, the newest culinary trend.  When you focus on the specific cupcake you want, Velcro takes over your mind.  But if you expand your visual focus, like widening a camera lens, you see the whole plate.  Now you will want to offer your compliments to the baker.

Continue expanding your awareness.  Breathe and expand your gaze wider, and you will see the other people enjoying the yummies, Now your heart opens a little more, not only to the baker but to all those who are enjoying her wares.

Continue breathing and expand to see the room you are all in, with your host (yourself, a neighbor, the bakery or the yoga studio) giving generously of their facility and time.  You can keep expanding your awareness to include the city, state, region and whole country you are in.  You can include all the family members of the people present, and the generations that preceded and will follow them.

Now your instincts no longer pull you to the cupcake.  You may still choose to take one, if you like.  Yet your experience is now completely different because you are more aware.  The cupcake will even taste better, but that is not the point.

As you become more aware, you become more fully human.  As you become more fully human, you become more fully divine.  Your own divine essence shines through you because it is you.  While the divine is present in everything that exists, the human being has the capacity to experience it most fully.  You are the human who can experience and express the divine fully.  That’s what this human life is for.

Here are some of your divine qualities from Krishna’s list in the Bhagavadgita.  There are probably no surprises here.  You like yourself better when you live this way.

steadfastness

vigor, fortitude

generous nature

straightforward, speaking only truth

absence of anger, hatred and pride

freedom from need, greed and fear

peacefulness, gentleness, compassion

You must intentionally cultivate your divine qualities.  Instincts are seductive, but the light of your divinity is even more powerful, if you choose to follow it.  The key is choice.  In every moment, you have the ability to choose what kind of human you are being.

Originally published July 2010

By Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Echoing through the ages, the question continues to arise:  what is a human being?  Considered by the ancient Greeks and by many philosophers and priests since, the question is now being explored in modern media through comparison with vampires, werewolves and zombies.  While movies and TV shows are pursuing a lucrative theme, they are also offering a modern-day version of Krishna’s discourse in Chapter 16 of the Bhagavadgita, which is subtitled “The Divine and Demoniacal.”  Krishna expounds on your innate divinity and how to fulfill the purpose of your life for 15  chapters, and then clarifies that the human being is a mix of divine and demoniacal qualities.  You have to decide which qualities you will express in your life.

Yoga’s sages described that every species has a unique quality.  They said that the bee has the most sophisticated sense of smell, with modern-day scientists now agreeing.  The sages described the deer as specializing in sound and being very responsive to music, but scientists haven’t investigated this yet.  The elephant has the most sensitive sense of touch, which is why they throw dirt on their backs as a sunscreen.  If you have seen a baby elephant being massaged and cradled by its mothers and aunts, you understand how powerful their sense of touch is.  In my early years of study with my Guru, Vijayananda, the Ashram elephant, visited the courtyard every day.  Baba fed him chapattis (wheat tortillas), sugar cane and chocolates, ending the visit with an oil massage.  One of the attendants would lean a ladder against his side, climb up and spread essential oils all over his back, taking the time to rub the oils in.  It was amazing to watch Vijayananda’s eyes; clearly he was in bliss.

What is the unique characteristic of the human being?  As a human being, you have an innate capacity to be aware, a capacity shared by no other creature.  You are not merely aware, you are aware that you are aware.  You know that you know; you see that you see; you think that you think.  While your mind is very powerful, you are more than your mind — and you know it.  You are awareness itself; your own Self is Consciousness-Itself.

Yet you have an ability to lose it.  You can lose track of this great capacity in the blink of an eye.  You get lost in things, in events, in situations and in other people.  When you get lost in anything, it is your Self that you are losing.  As a human, you have both divine and demoniacal qualities, so you must choose what you are doing with them.

To understand the choices before you, you must first understand what the divine and the demoniacal are.  Yoga’s cosmology describes multiple planes of existence, including the three worlds:  this physical realm, the celestial sphere and the nether world.  The celestial realm abounds with devas and devis (divine beings, male and female), plus apsaras, gandharvas, angels, cherubim, seraphim and more.  Their bodies are made of light and they sip amrit, the nectar of immortality.

The nether realm is populated with demons — but they are not evil beings.  They are beautiful beings, with powerful bodies and huge sensual appetites.  They base their life and being on their instinctual drives.  Their primary motivations are power and pleasure, and anything that helps them satisfy these impulses is pursued with a single-minded focus, regardless of how it affects others.  Demons are selfish, self-centered, and unrestrained in their appetites, but they are not evil.  This is an important distinction.

Yoga’s cosmology says that evil does not exist.  There is no devil; there is no evil force tempting you; you have no evil hidden within you.  Instead, this is a cause-and-effect universe.  You choose to shine with the light of your own divinity, or you hide it with the shadows you create in your mind.  You must choose where to live — in the light or the shadows.  The most powerful tool you have is your power of choice.

Many of yoga’s practices address this predicament directly.  For example, when you choose to practice ahimsa, non-harming, you choose to resist the inner impulse to cause pain to others.   The impulse arises in every human; it is one of the demoniacal qualities that Krishna warns about.  To understand it more clearly, don’t call it “demoniacal,” but label it with a simpler name — “instinctual.”  Your instincts tell you to lash out, to get back, or to get even or to get ahead.  You must not follow your instincts.

Instead, look to a higher quality that is already there within you, a divine quality.  Find the empathy, love or compassion that makes you able to give another person some breathing space.  Or you can look for an intelligent way to handle yourself in a difficult situation.  Most importantly, you can find a way to remain peaceful inside, which makes you able to make better choices and follow through on them.

You must intentionally cultivate your divine qualities.  Yoga gives you the ability to make an intelligent choice, an inspired choice.  In every moment, you have the ability to choose what kind of human you are being.

Originally published July 2010

By Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Flow is a technical term in yoga.  It’s not about moving your body.  Instead it’s about living in a continuous ecstatic state called “turiya” in Sanskrit.  This is one of these words that have no exact equivalent in English, because it names something that we simply don’t discuss in our everyday use of the English language.  Translated as “the fourth state,” it names a level of inner experience that is deeper than thought.  It is the constant background of beingness, just behind where you usually find your mind.

It is called the fourth state because there are three others:  waking, dream and deep sleep.  Everyone knows these three states, cycling between them 24/7.  But even while you are awake, there is this deeper level of knowingness and beingness inside.  Even when you are dreaming, and even when you are sleeping, there is this deeper level of your own existence.

You already know this because you have experienced this before.  Have you ever had a dream that you knew you were dreaming while you were dreaming?  Or maybe you had a time that you knew you were sleeping while you were asleep.  Who’s the you that knew you were sleeping or dreaming?  This is the you that is your real essence – svaroopa, atman, Self, divine essence, svaroopa, Shiva.  It’s there now.  You are there now.  You are here, now.  You are Shiva.

Maybe you have experienced your own Self in Shavasana. While your teacher was guiding you through your awareness of each area of your body, you were deeper in there, somewhere in there.  Maybe you could hear her or his words, or maybe not.  But you were deeper, and you knew it.  Or maybe you were deeper and you didn’t know it until you “bobbed” out, and then you wanted to go back to where you had been – even though you didn’t know where it was, or how to get back.  But you knew it was good.  Really really good.

That’s the Self.  That’s your own Divine Essence.  That’s Shiva.  Unfortunately your ability to know your Self at this level is currently limited.  Your access is short-lived and too infrequent.  That’s why yoga has practices:  to prepare you to dive deeper, stay longer, and ultimately to live from this level of your own beingness.

When you experience the fourth state while you are awake, you are living in a fluidity that pervades all of existence.  My Guru described it like water mixed with milk.  Just as the water mixed with the milk pervades it thoroughly, consciousness pervades all that exists.  When you know your own Self as consciousness, you see and experience it pervading all, becoming all, being all – inside and outside, all at the same time.

Then every moment of life is lived in the flow.  There’s no need to control, because life is always going the right way, whether your mind understands it or not.  Thus there’s never a need for you to object to how things are going.  Still you must participate in life.  You are alive, so you must participate.

How do you participate without trying to control?  You simply let go of your objections.  Whether you relax your body (a mini-Shavasana), or you use a few Ujjayi breaths, or you repeat mantra or say a prayer – accept that whatever is going on is reality.  Whatever is going on is going on.  Once you quit objecting, you see it more clearly and you can make better decisions about what to do.  You can even do whatever you do more effectively, and it works better.

It’s like when you make a wrong turn on a road trip.  After driving for some time, you realize you’re in the wrong place and going the wrong direction.  Complaining about it doesn’t get you to your destination.  First you stop.  Secondly you find out where you are.  Now you decide which route to take – to backtrack to where you should have turned, or to find a new route there.  Life is like this.

Life is like this because of the cause-and-effect nature of the universe.  The ancient texts describe that Shiva created the universe with certain built-in qualities and functions.  The parameters include gravity, light, love, the multiplicity of forms, the infinite hidden within each finite form, and cause-and-effect (called karma in Sanskrit), as well as others.

Whatever you do has an effect, whether it is an action, a word that you speak or even a thought.  Yes your thoughts have an effect, mainly on you.  Your thoughts, words and actions produce results, though not always immediately.  Every action you perform and every word  you say creates a result at some point, either now or in the future.  Every thought you think creates a result at some point, either now or in the future.   Another reason to cultivate a quiet mind!

Those boulders in your river, the ones that disturb the smooth flow of your life – you put them there.  They are your karma.  You cannot give credit for your karma to anyone else:  not your parents, not your boss, not society nor even your DNA.  Everything you have to face in life is the result of some prior action, word or thought, in this lifetime or even in previous lifetimes.  You have only yourself to thank.  So there’s no point in objecting.  Every rock in your river is a gift you gave yourself.

Go with the flow.  Lean back and soften into the moment.  Lean back in your own body and soften into your life.  Lean back behind your mind and find that deeper level of your own being, so you can see the flow pervading all that exists and recognize it for what it is – the Divine Reality, which is you.  Do more yoga.

Originally published May 2010

By Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

A yogini told me about her family vacation several years ago, a week-long river rafting trip.  Her father had worked for two years to get rare reservations for this special trip plus assembling all his children and grandchildren for a great adventure.  They had a great time, all the way through the last rapids of the trip, where the guides checked all the straps on everyone’s life jackets, and then told them they would be running the rapids without the raft.

Assuring them that it was safe, and that they had done this with hundreds of people, they gave the secret teaching that would make it work.  “As the water swirls you right into a big rock, just relax.  It will swirl you up and over the rock and you won’t get any scrapes or bruises.”  Our yogini repeated a mantra of her own devising through her whole ride, “Shavasana, Shavasana.”  She was the only one who emerged with no scrapes or bruises.  Laughing.  Victorious.  Ecstatic.

Go with the flow.  This means is that control is an illusion.  You are not in control, no matter how hard you try to be.  Life is actually not about control.  If it was, and if you really could control everything, you’d never laugh.  You’d never love.  You’d never be ecstatic.  You have to give into the flow in order to laugh and in order to love.  You have to flow with the river in order to experience the bliss.

Life is a lot like that river.  Some sections are smooth and idyllic, and others have big boulders and churning water.  While you’re not in control, you still must understand the cause-and-effect nature of the universe, just like the river guides who paddle in just the right places and who use their paddle to steer the boat in others.  That’s not control.  That’s intelligence.

You must learn to use your intelligence in a different way than you have been.  You have been using it to try to get what you want, or to impress others, or to learn more and more stuff that fills your head with more and more thoughts, which make you more and more unhappy.  Thoughts do make you unhappy.  Just watch your mind for a few minutes and you’ll realize it.  This is why yoga focuses on quieting your mind.  This is also why we love rivers, because watching one, or even rafting on one, has a wonderful effect on your mind.  Even thinking of a river has this effect – it calms and quiets your mind.  Technically, that’s called yoga:  the quieting of your mind.

If you thought river-thoughts all the time, your mind would be your friend.  Right now, it’s not so friendly.  It harasses you.  It cuts you down.  It drives you crazy.  It never gives you a moment of peace.  So you do yoga to quiet your mind.  The lessons you learn in your yoga class and personal practice apply to life so beautifully, as do the lessons you learn on the river.  Sometimes, like in this story, the lessons are the same:  go with the flow.

Originally published May 2010

By Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

I love to introduce new students to yoga by starting them with the Shavasana adjustments.  Once they lie down on their back, I make sure they have enough blankets under their knees and then I shift one shoulder blade on the floor underneath them.  After realigning that shoulder, I ask, “What is the difference?’  Most students report that the shoulder feels lower, flatter or more relaxed.  But quite a few report that their other shoulder is tighter.

Instead of reporting that the one I adjusted feels better, they focus on the discomfort in the other one.  If I now adjust the second one, then they report on a different pain in their body, and then another…  They don’t know how to actually feel GOOD.  When their first shoulder feels good, they quit looking at it, and they go looking for any spot of pain to focus on.

Your mind loves to do the mental equivalent of picking at scabs.  When you have a cut that is still healing, the scab forms and the healing is going on underneath.  It progresses so well that the edges of the scab become loose.  You know that you really should leave the scab alone and let the healing process continue underneath, but you pick at the edge.  When you pull on it, sometimes you pull it all the way off and the bleeding begins again.  You have reinjured yourself and the healing process will take longer this way.  Yet you do it with your body — and you do the equivalent process with your mind.

You have some say in where your mind goes.  Picking at the unhealed hurts is not a way of healing them.  Living in the constant memory of difficult things you experienced in the past is a way of perpetuating the pain or even reinjuring yourself.  Living in constant worry about the future is a way of creating pain from events that you may never have to live through.  It’s almost as though you have an addiction to pain.

There is another alternative. Instead of having to choose between feeling pain and feeling nothing, what if you could actually feel good?  It is simply a matter of choosing where to focus your attention.  With this new yogi, still lying in Shavasana with only one shoulder shifted into place while noticing the other (unadjusted) shoulder, I say, “OK — your other shoulder still hurts.  But, how does this one feel?  I moved it — does it feel any different?”

It can take two or three tries before she or he can actually describe the shoulder that was adjusted.  She/he stammers and searches for unfamiliar words – words that describe a sensation of feeling good.  It is an important moment, which is not just about the body.  This is an important learning — learning how to feel good.  Learning to look at what feels good, even if everything else isn’t perfect.

This is an important change in perspective, though it is not really yoga.  It is a good beginning because, in yoga, you have to learn to look at what feels good.  Yet this new ability is not for the purpose of feeling good.  It is so that you can retrain your mind.  It is not training your mind to deny the problems that need to be taken care of, but it is being able to choose your attitude while you are handling them.  When you can see the bright side, you can smile in the midst of the storm, and it is even good for your health!  If that were all that yoga offered, it would be a lot.  As your body is opening up, your attitude is lightening up.

Still, this is all preparatory training.  This training prepares you to use your mind in more powerful ways — to use your mind to look beyond your mind.  You learn how to use your mind to look at Consciousness-Within.  Once you begin this process, you become free from the old patterns and reactions.  You become free, progressively and powerfully free.  This is yoga’s promise.

Originally published December 2003

By Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati

Built into your humanness is the innate yearning for transcendence, which is cultivated by the Svaroopa^® yoga practices.  While you are moving your body, taking care of your aches and pains, improving your health and mood, increasing your stamina and vitality, balancing your immune system and resetting your endorphins — you are also cultivating the call of your heart for mystical experiences.  Once you truly realize that you cannot get true satisfaction from outside, you can experience the yearning in its true form.  Kusuma Sachs described it beautifully in her blog:

The yearning is a sense of deliciousness that you know is there, but just beyond your grasp.  It is a tingling vibration deep in your being, promising something more, something that you know is more than you can even imagine.  It is the welling up of tears for no reason; it is the  longing for that which you know – and yet can’t grasp onto.  It is the elation that wells up, just by contemplating yearning itself.  It is the swelling of your heart into an expectation of unknown joy.  This is the yearning.  You know it so well.

To allow yourself to feel the yearning directly, without mundanating it, is both painful and delicious at the same time.  I made up the word, “mundanate,” meaning “to make mundane.” It is the opposite of the word “sublimate,” which means to make sublime. The contemplative traditions (monks and nuns) practice celibacy and prescribe that the initiates sublimate their sexual energy.  You may have thought that sublimating means repressing, denying, avoiding or even expressing sexual energy in abnormal ways, and may even have thought that sublimation refers only to sex.  In fact, sublimation means to make the mundane into something sublime, supreme, or complete. In terms of celibacy, it means you turn that overwhelming desire and energy toward God, who provides you with a deeper, more complete satisfaction than you have ever experienced, even with good sex.

While something mundane can be made sublime, it also goes the other way.  The sublime can be turned into the mundane.  This is what I see when I look at the popular yoga calendars.  The sacred postures that open you up to the experience of your own divinity have become circus posters, showing contortionists wearing almost nothing.  When the yoga poses serve their original purpose, they are a rocket ship to God.

You yearn for this experience.  The yearning is built into you, inherent within you and every human being.  Most of the people you know mundanate the feeling and look for satisfaction in a new job, a new pair of shoes, a new spouse, etc.  You’ve tried doing it yourself; after all, you had such good role models!  But it doesn’t work for you.  Somehow you know you are looking for something more.  And you get no satisfaction from all that efforting, as Mick Jagger says:

I try, and I try, and I try, and I try
I can’t get no, I can’t get no…

The “trying” gets in the way.  You get satisfaction by surrendering to your own core essence, which is the divine all-pervasive, ever-existent One Reality, which yoga calls “Shiva.”  You are Shiva.  This surrender is not a “giving up,” but a “giving in” to your Self. Discover your own core essence. Know your own Self.  Be that which you already are, the source of full and complete satisfaction.  And carry that into your life.

Do more Svaroopa^® yoga.