By Swami Prajñananda 

In December 2019, I flew to India to take my vows as a swami, a yoga monk.  Before I left, I was worried, “What if I get sick?”  I didn’t consciously think about it, but it was definitely brewing in my subconscious.  In the end, my worries manifested into reality.  I got a very sore and swollen throat.  It lasted throughout the vows ceremony and the duration of the trip.  Surprisingly, it was a blessing in disguise.  

Amazingly, I did not mind.  I was having such deep experiences.  And even more, I finally got it: I am not my body.  It was completely freeing.  I was able to settle deeper into my own essence which the pain of my body cannot touch. While I could still feel my throat was raw and swollen, I was abiding at a deeper level within. I was experiencing the bliss that is beyond the limitations of my body.  

Ever since, I have not been scared of getting sick.  I still do my best to take care of my body, but it is not based in fear.  

I got sick again a couple of months ago. I got Covid. I got it worse than I thought I would. I went through the gamut of symptoms: fever, chills, body aches, sore throat, congestion.  Eventually, I experienced difficulty breathing as well as fatigue.  This time, I wasn’t worried about being sick.  Even though my body was in bad shape, I didn’t feel “I am my body.” However, I did uncover a different sticky identity, “I am my capacity.” 

With Covid, I was laid up for what felt like way too long.  I couldn’t teach my classes or support the Ashram with my administrative work.  I couldn’t cook or clean.  My whole identity of someone who is competent and capable was threatened. I realized that I’ve held the belief that my self-worth comes from what I do.  

Since this underlying belief has come into my awareness, I’ve been able to look at it. Gurudevi’s recent teachings has supported me in doing so, especially this excerpt:  

Yoga says that you are the perceiver, not what you perceive. Whatever you are seeing or hearing, as well as what you are doing, you are the one who is experiencing it. You are the experiencer, not the experience. You are the doer, not the action or its results. Know who you are, even while you are perceiving and acting, and you are free. This is yoga’s promise.  – Gurudevi Nirmalananda, Perception & Action, September 2022 

Yes!  This makes so much sense to me.  I perceive my body, so I must not be my body.  I perceive my mind, so I must not be my mind.  And oh yes!  I perceive my capacity to act, so I must not be my capacity.  I am the perceiver, not what I perceive.  I am Shiva.  I am the One Divine Reality that is being my body, mind and capacity in order to participate in this world. My participation does not make me more or less of who I am.  I am the One who is being me and being all and beyond all.   

This knowing is completely freeing while at the same time profoundly grounding.  Without the knowing, you are lost in limitation.  But when you know, you can fully embody individuality without being limited by it at all.  The knowing is the key, the key to your own freedom.  Yoga gives you the key.  So if you are not yet free, you must do more yoga. 

By Swami Shrutananda

The Truth is your inherent nature is limitless.  Limitlessness is inherent to your essence like the wet is the inherent nature of water.  Water would not be water if it were not wet.  In the same way, your own essential nature is limitless, unbound, and free.  While this is your human potential, your current condition is that you are bound.

Gurudevi Nirmalananda describes it this way in her commentary on Divine Sutras 1.2:

J~naana.m bandha.h

Consciousness takes on limitations, binding Herself with limited knowledge, limited happiness, limited ability, limited time.  This is called bondage and is caused by the not-knowingness of your own Divine.  The purpose of yoga is freedom, the freedom to know and to be your own Divine Self.

Consciousness is the One, the Source, the Ultimate Reality.  To become the universe and everything in it, including you and me, Consciousness takes on levels of contraction — limitation.  Due to this contraction, we feel like small, limited human beings.

I see these limitations play out when I’m teaching a Yoga Pain Clinic.  I love to help people with their aches and pains; they come to find out how yoga can help.  Yet they have a limited idea of the true healing capacity of their own body.

They also suffer from limited happiness, especially due to their pain.  They have a limited ability to conceive of what they can really do with their body and in their life.  They feel they have limited time, so how can they fit yoga into their already too-busy life?  Yet, if they don’t do the yoga, they will not heal.  It only works if you do it.  

Near the program’s end, I teach a few easy Svaroopa^® yoga poses they can do at home.  I know the yoga poses will help many of the conditions that participants brought in.  Yet many think they cannot do what I’m teaching because of their condition.  It is like they have put a plaster cast on their body with their mind.  They think, “I can’t move this way.  I can’t move that way.”  During the Pain Clinic, the yoga poses work on their mind as well their body.  This frees them from the limitations they have imposed on themselves.

A few years ago, a new yogi told me he could not get on the floor.  He had had a double knee replacement.  I told him that yoga could still help him.  I was teaching the Svaroopa^® Yoga Magic 4, to release spinal tension from tail-to-top.  The first two poses are in a chair, which he could do.  

The third pose, Anjaneyasana (Lunge), is done by kneeling on the floor.  He restated he could not get on the floor.  So I had him do a variation of the pose in his chair.  The final pose was Jathara Parivrttanasana (Rotated Stomach Pose), for which you must get on the floor.  I demonstrated it.  Then I looked over.  He was on the floor doing it!  

The shackles of his mind were beginning to loosen.  He was freed from the limitation of what he thought his body could not do.

This same student had already signed up for my four-hour yoga workshop later that afternoon.  He asked me, “Can I do it?”  I said, “Yes.”  As the afternoon progressed, I watched as this student got up and down off the floor many times.  Each time was quicker and easier.  

By the end of class, he wanted to try Anjaneyasana (Lunge) on the floor.  He tried, but the limited movement in his knees would not allow it.  Yet his mind was open to the possibility.  This was huge!  The shackles, the limitations, which he had put on his body, were dissolved.  By the end of class, his face glowed, his were eyes bigger and brighter, and his body was lighter.  He was radiant! 

Svaroopa^â poses and the breathing practice give you great benefits, both physical and more than physical.  You may have begun yoga to heal your body or decrease its pain.  You soon discover that there is a deeper essence.  You discover the “you” that is more than your body and more than your mind.  Yoga calls it svaroopa, your own Divine Self — limitless You.

By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

I confess that I get it all mixed up.  The Fourth of July means so much to me because I associate it with yoga’s promise of freedom.  The original date was all about political freedom, I understand.  But the word “freedom” makes me think of yogic freedom, which is so much more.

Yogic freedom ends the inner burdens that weigh you down:  your thoughts, memories, desires and fears.  Dissolving these delusions makes you able to breath freely, laugh and love all.  You give from the depth of your being and revel in the bliss that is ever arising within. 

When the fireworks go off in the sky, I associate them with the inner fireworks that deep meditation can provide.  The light inside is so much brighter than anything that shines outside!  You’re living in the dark when you’re always looking outward for happiness.  Look inward and discover who you really are.  Your essence is Divine and always has been.  Now, finally, it is the time to know.  You have waited lifetimes for this opportunity.

I realize that I am extraordinarily fortunate. The events of 1776 laid the foundation for a society that gives me access to education and travel, as well as opportunities and lifestyle choices few people in the world enjoy. Having taken full advantage of these freedoms, I am grateful for them all.  Yet I found them unfulfilling.

No matter how many classes I took or books I read, I was still intellectually unsatisfied. No matter how many destinations to which I traveled, I never felt that I belonged, not there and not even at home.  The many opportunities turned into many successful endeavors, but I was still unsatisfied.  I wanted more.

My yearning, along with the angst of my post-war generation, called my Baba to America.  He was one of many spiritual greats who brought the yogic tradition to us.  I didn’t know enough to go looking for him, so he came and found me.  Beyond merely fortunate, I am saturated with Divine Grace.  Grace fills my life and my being.  I’m so full that it overflows, which makes me want to share it with you.

That’s why I teach.  That’s why I write.  That’s why I get up in the morning, the purpose of my life, a Divine Purpose to which I am able to dedicate myself.  I am so fortunate.  Freedom is the gift I received from my Guru, which is why I love July 4. It’s all about being free on the inside.

Freedom is your destiny.  All you have to do is want it.  Then act on that holy desire.  Do more yoga.

By Swami Prajñananda

Gods and Goddesses, heroes and heroines — the great Greek epics with tales of heroic deeds enchanted me as a child.  The seeming impossible made possible kept me rapt. 

I especially loved Hercules.  He performed deeds that no one else could, due to both his strength and strategizing.  As I grew up, I would apply myself in the same way, taking on challenges that were bigger than me.  Whether it was athletic or academic success, I would not stop until I achieved what I set out to do.  Yet, once completed, I was ready to move on to the next thing.  

I just wasn’t satisfied.  No matter what I achieved, I was still left with a feeling that there was something missing.  And it was true!  I was missing me.  When I met my Guru, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, she gave me a new direction to turn:  inward.  

My striving to be something has transformed into discovering that which I already am — perfect, whole and complete.  I learned that nothing I achieved on the outside would make me more whole on the inside.  Wow!  After years of striving to improve myself and my life, this revelation was groundbreaking.  Yet to live in that knowing all the time is the true Herculean task. Gurudevi describes: 

Your task is to first find the Divine in your own Self, then to see God shining through, as all that exists.

 Yoga & Worldly Life by Gurudevi Nirmalananda

You know how to get tasks done.  You have so many in your life, some more challenging than others.  Yet all the tasks have taught you something.  I often think that the challenges and goals I have taken on so far were all in preparation for this ultimate task, finding my own Self.  It is the same for you.  The skills needed to get a job or a degree are transferable to your spiritual upliftment.  Finding the Divine in your own Self requires persistence, dedication, problem solving and more. 

Yet you need a guide, someone to show you how and where to pour your efforts.  This is the job of the Guru.  Gurudevi not only shows you the way; she explains the path and gives you the experience she names.  She gives you the yoga practices that were given to her by her own Guru.  They have been passed down through the generations of yogis, dating back through time.  We receive these same tools because they work.  When you do the practices, you get the results.

First, you discover your own divine Self.  This is the deeper dimension of your own being — that which is perfect, whole and complete.  You taste it in your very first Svaroopa^® yoga class or meditation.  Yet it is easy to forget who you are when you leave your yoga space.  Your task is to find your Self again and again and again, until again becomes always.  You root so deeply into your own Divinity that you can never be uprooted again. 

Once you are settled in your own Self, you see the world differently.  Most people look at the world as separate and even scary.  Yet, when you know your own Self, you are given divine vision.  Instead of a scary world, you see a divine world.  You see God shining through, as all that exists.  With your divine eye, nothing is bad, nothing is to be rejected or feared.  It is all to be respected and cherished.

This is the path laid out for you by the Great Masters in this yogic tradition.  First you find your Self; then you see the Divine in everyone and everything.  What a divine task!  Are you ready to take it on? 

By Swami Satrupananda

“I am imperfect,” your mind tells you this again and again.  Does it, unfortunately, sound familiar?  Yoga calls this ignorance.  The good news is that yoga also provides a cure: Shaktipat, the sacred initiation from a Satguru.

Yoga is the science of maximizing the human experience.  Part of this science is defining what keeps us limited.  The belief that “I am imperfect” has a Sanskrit name: aanava mala.  And it is just that, a belief, not a truth.  That’s why aanava mala is often translated as ignorance.  We don’t know who we really are.  

You are perfect, whole, full and complete.  Whenever you feel otherwise, you don’t know the Truth of your Divine Nature.  But this is not an ignorance that can be solved with more education.  Therefore, my teacher, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, translates aanava mala as Divine Amnesia.  You have forgotten your own Divinity.

Instead, your mind says that you are small and insignificant.  It’s right there in the Sanskrit words.  Aanava means fine, minute and exceeding smallness.  Mala means dirt, dust, filth and impurity.  Your Divine Nature is veiled by a layer of thinking that you are finite, minute and small.  That means when you feel this way, you are so close to your own Divinity.  There is just a thin layer covering your true nature.  While it is just a thin layer, it’s a scary one.  It’s painful and overwhelming to feel this exceeding smallness.  

And there are two more veils (malas) that cover your inherent Divinity.  The next mala is maayiiya mala. Maayiiya means “proceeding from maaya.”  Maaya is the delusion of seeing the world as being different from you.  It keeps you from perceiving that everyone and everything is the same one Divine Reality covered by the malas.  Because of maayiiya mala, you see it all as separate.  

The third veil is karma mala.  Karma means action.  This veil propels you into action.  There is nothing wrong with action.  However, karma mala propels you into thinking that you are your accomplishments.  You believe you are what you do.

The truth of your existence is that you are the one Divine Reality, full, complete, perfect and whole.  Your Divinity is covered by these three veils: feeling finite; feeling different/separate from everyone and everything; and feeling your worth is based on what you do.  While you are the one Divine Reality, yet entangled in veils, you feel yourself to be so much less.  This is the human condition.

The cure is Shaktipat.  Shaktipat is an initiation given by a Satguru.  She ignites your own inner power of upliftment and pierces aanava mala.  The veil is torn.  You can thus see and feel your own Divine Nature.  The torn veil of aanava mala will never fully conceal your Divinity again.  The tear is permanent.

That was my experience.  In the moment I received Shaktipat, I had a profound experience of knowing and being my own Divine Nature.  Then I went back to my life and to my mind, which clearly needed some reprogramming.  I couldn’t live in the Beingness and Knowingness of my own Divinity all the time.  Yet I always knew that I was more.  It wasn’t a mere remembering of my experience; it was an inner knowing that I was more.  

It was so painful.  I knew that I was more, but I wasn’t experiencing the more.  I remember sitting in my apartment a few months after receiving Shaktipat and wishing that I could go back to not-knowing.  And in that moment, I realized that I could never not know.  I might not experience my Divine Nature all the time, but I would never not know that I was more than what my mind told me.

That’s the incredible gift of Shaktipat.  It tears aanava mala and gives you access to your own Divine Nature forever.  Once aanava mala is pierced and you know your own Divinity, then maayiiya mala can longer bind you.  You know that everyone and everything else is also made from the same Divine Reality.  It’s a huge masquerade party, everyone and everything seemingly separate from you – how fun!  

When you know your own Divinity, you continue to act in the world, but it does not define your worth.  Karma mala no longer limits you.  While you know that you are Divine, you take actions in the world simply because you care.  All of this, and so much more, comes from Shaktipat.

Once Shaktipat tears aanava mala, it is just a matter of time until the veil dissolves completely.  Then you live in the Knowingness of your own Divinity all the time.  It’s the promise that is described in Gurudevi Nirmalananda’s name.  Nirmala means without malas.  Gurudevi is free from the limitations of the three malas.  She always knows her own Divinity and sees it in everyone and everything.

You too can live in that freedom once you’ve received Shaktipat.  It’s just a matter of time.  And you control the timing.  If you do the practices that Gurudevi Nirmalananda did, and tells us to do, then you’ll get there.  If you do more of the practices, you’ll get there sooner.  It’s that simple.  And it’s guaranteed.  

You have the ultimate cure to the feeling of “I am imperfect” right here in America.  Come get Shaktipat and do the practices so you will know that you are perfect, whole, full and complete.

By Swami Shrutananda

There are pastry makers, ones who are skilled in making bread.  There are peace makers, ones who bring about peace.  Also, there are God makers, ones who reveal your own God-ness, your own Divinity, to you. 

You, an ordinary human being, can be transmuted into God.  This is described as changing ordinary metal into gold.  In the Middle Ages, the so-called “philosopher’s stone” was the most sought-after substance in the world of alchemy.  Through it, alchemists could reach the legendary goal of turning ordinary metals, particularly lead, into gold.

However, alchemy was a spiritual path, a Kundalini path, which predated medieval times.  It originated in India during the pre-Vedic times more than 20,000 years ago.  The teachings were written in a code language.  The veiled meaning was transforming the human being into the Divine, God.  The metal that was to be transformed was the human being — your body, mind and heart.

During a Weekend Workshop, I gave a talk on “You are Divine.”  As I was giving the teachings, a student kept interrupting and asking questions.  She was being a little aggressive, and other students were becoming uncomfortable.  Plus, they could not hear the teachings I was trying to give them. 

More and more frustrated, the vocal student finally blurted out, “Are you trying to tell me that I am Divine?!”  I said, “Yes!”  Then she sat quietly and listened through the rest of the talk.  Something shifted inside her.  What you believe will determine who you will become. 

You have all experienced your God-ness.  This is certainly true if you’ve received Shaktipat.  Yet it is also true if you have not.  Watching a sunset, upon first seeing a loved one, or listening to your favorite piece of music — any of these open your experience of God:

Unfortunately, most people have only a momentary experience.  Mysticism is about the difference between experiencing God momentarily compared to always knowing that you are God.  And yoga is pure mysticism. 

— Gurudevi Nirmalananda [1]

In yoga, through the Grace of the Guru, you come to live in this knowing you are God.  Who is the Guru? 

The texts are clear: the Guru is God.  So are you, but you don’t know it all the time, not yet anyway. How do you understand someone who lives in the knowing, who settles deep within — into being the Self and never loses it?  What would you want to call that person?  Even from ancient times, they have been called the “God-men of India,” tracing back to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians as well as those from India.

— Swami Nirmalananda [2]

The Guru lives in the knowing of their own God-ness.  The  Guru’s job is to make you into Himself — into that which the Guru has already become.  That is God.  This process unfolds from the inside out.

In Kashmiri Shaivism, the pivotal point is whether or not the Guru can give Shaktipat.  A Shaktipat Guru is a God maker.  God makers are very rare.  Swami Nirmalananda is such a Guru.  When you receive Shaktipat, your Kundalini is awakened.  Kundalini is the energy of revelation, ready to flow up your spine from tail to top. 

This profound movement clears away all that gets in the way of knowing you are God.  Your thoughts, the way you use your mind, your memories and feelings, along with your physical body are transmuted.  Through Kundalini, you are uplifted and purified.  Through this transformation you come to know you are God, you are the Self.

Our meditation system comes from a lineage of God makers.  They support you in your meditations, so you experience the depths of your own being, your own Self.  I had a very tangible experience of this in meditation.  As usual, I began meditation by repeating the mantra given to me by my Guru.  I was carried deep within by the mantra. 

Then I saw a God maker.  It was Nityananda, another Guru from this lineage.  He was walking on a dirt path away from me, walking through the mist. 

I kept repeating mantra and got on the dirt path to follow him.  I wanted to go where he was going.  I knew where he was leading me, to my own God-ness, my own Divinity, my own Self. 

As I followed him, I was propelled even deeper within.  I was immersed so deep within that I couldn’t remain conscious at that level of my being.  When I surfaced from that deep plunge within, and I opened my eyes I felt more like my Self.  I was sitting in timeless space, settled and expanded at the same time. 

Once you have received Shaktipat, your most important practice is meditation.  Meditate every day.  Every meditation is alchemy — transmuting, transforming you. 

When do you become God?  You are in charge.  Do more yoga.

[1] Enlightenment in the Midst of Life, Lesson #1: Stepping Into Life (Downingtown PA, Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram, Year-Long Programme 2018)

[2] Guru & Self, Lesson #5:  Guru is God (Downingtown PA, Svaroopa^® Vidya Ashram, Year-Long Programme 2014)

By Swami Samvidaananda

I love spring.  Crocuses and daffodils bloom in the yard.  The trees’ limbs unfurl fresh new leaves and blossoms. Spring feels like a celebration of life.  Every day there are new signs of life.  Every day feels fresh and new.  I treasure that feeling.  I used to rely on the newborn beauty of spring to trigger it for me.

That changed when I found yoga.  Yoga says the entrancing newness of spring is always available to you.  It’s a quality of your Divine Essence.  This is described in a yogic text called the Shiva Sutras:

iccha-shaktir uma-kumari

In every moment, the yogi enjoys the newness of life, the gift of the Goddess. — Shiva Sutras 1.13

Uma-Kumari is the Goddess.  She is the energy that births the universe into existence.  She existed before time began, and she exists now, creating every moment anew.  She uses her Divine will, iccha-shakti, to blossom forth the world and everything that exists.  Everything that exists is made from her own existence, out of pure delight.  Including you.  You are an expression of the Goddess.  

You are made of her Divinity.  Except she and you are not two.  There’s only One.  One Divine Reality, called Goddess, called God, called Self.  Your Self.  You are the One Divine Reality.  Except you don’t know your Divinity, most of the time.  You get glimpses, like the way springtime gives me a fleeting glimpse of the glorious ever-newness of life.

So how does the yogi enjoy the newness of life in every moment?  This gift of the Goddess comes from another gift.  It’s the mystical initiation called Shaktipat.  Shaktipat awakens within you the knowing of your own Divinity.  That capacity to know has been lying dormant within you.  It is like a seed buried in the soil, awaiting spring.  My teacher, Gurudevi Nirmalananda, is a Shaktipat Guru.  She is a yoga master who has the capacity to spark awake your inner knowing.  When you receive this awakening, you’ll know your Self: immortal, ever-existent, ever-new. 

You probably won’t know all the time, right away.  A rare few do.  For the rest of us, we have our part to play.  Meditation is your most important practice.  The meditation in this lineage is called Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation.  Every time you meditate, you clear away more of the blockages that keep you from living your Divinity.  It’s like your seed has been awakened and is doing its best to grow.  But the soil is a little rocky.  Meditation clears away the mental and emotional pebbles and rocks that get in your way.

And day by day, meditation by meditation, the energy of your Divinity arises within you.  It’s the source of your aliveness, your joy and your happiness.  It’s the source of life itself.  So is it any surprise that you will become more fully alive, more fully present, more fully engaged in your life?  Whether the flowers are blooming and the birds are singing, or it’s a frigid winter day.  Or it’s a hurricane!  You’ll embrace it all, celebrating every Divine moment.  This is your destiny.  Gurudevi will give you Shaktipat if you want her to.  Are you ready?