By Satguru Swami Nirmalananda

I was confused about the difference between mysticism and magic for a long time.  One reason is because Western yoga and meditation often bring alternative theories into their yogic quest.  What is magical?  What is mystical?

Magic is when you use subtle perceptions to make material changes in your life and in the world.  You’re looking for outer fulfillment.

Mysticism is when you use subtle perceptions to explore the subtle dimensions within your own being.  You’ve figured out that, even if your life were perfect, it wouldn’t be enough.  The answer has to be found within.

By the time I took my first Yoga Teacher Training (YTT), I’d already learned about Tarot cards and the I Ching.  I studied some palmistry, astrology and other nonconformist things.  At the time, I couldn’t have explained why I was curious about these things, but now I can see that I was trying to understand myself better.  The tools I’d been given by family and in 20+ years of schooling weren’t working for me.  Even the things they told me to avoid — well, I tried them out — and they didn’t work either.

Still it surprised me when my YTT teacher brought in some of those things as well as some I hadn’t heard about previously.  She shared everything she knew about yoga but it didn’t fill up all the training hours, so it seemed like she brought in the kitchen sink.  She probably thought it was all related.  I suppose it is, but it’s a distant relationship, like gold is related to mud.

If you want genuine and profound inner expansion, you will have to give up channeling, Ouija boards, pendulums, mind-reading, foretelling the future and other psychic phenomena.  Why?  Because all those things are about finding ways to manage the world, not ways to discover your Divine Essence.  If you’re flowing your energy outward, into the world, you cannot be flowing it inward, to see and know who you really are.  It’s really quite simple.

However, Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras lists many such siddhis (psychic powers) and tells you how to develop them.  While few modern translators even bother with these sutras, there are 48 of them, over 25% of the text.   In other words, yogis have always been known for having amazing powers, like levitation, being invisible, bilocation, materialization and more.  Yet Patanjali also tells you, “Don’t use these abilities.  Using them will hold you back for lifetimes.”

Spirituality is not about magic.  It’s not about impressing other people, even with your yogic body or your ability to hold your breath for a long time.  You don’t get to flaunt your inner peace or your more refined understanding of life.  Instead, show them your open heart and open mind by listening more than you speak.  Ask how you can help.  And follow through.  That’s yoga.

Right now, listening, caring and helping is a yoga practice.  It’s a practice that mimics the way you will live once you’re enlightened.  When you know your own Divine Essence, you’ll see the same in others.  Thus there’s nothing to be proud about, for you are no better than anyone else.

In addition, your inner experience of your own Self is so fulfilling that you won’t crave outer things nor pursue them.  You have nothing to fear should you somehow lose everything.  What freedom!

It gives you the freedom to listen, to care and to help.  Why?  Even when you’re enlightened, you still have a body and live in the world.  And the world needs you.  More than ever before, especially because you have more subtle and powerful perceptions, so you have more to offer.  Yet you know that it all comes from one source, the One Source that is in everyone, the One Reality that is being you – Shiva, your own Self.  This is mysticism.  And it’s pretty magical too!

By Swami Shrutananda

Your inherent nature is light. You are the light of consciousness, in a unique and individualized form.  That light shines through your eyes, fills your heart and is the flash of creativity.  The light of your own being arises from its inner source.

A great sage, Shankaracharya, described it this way:

Here, within your own body, through your own mind, in the secret chamber of intelligence, in the infinite universe within your heart, Self shines in its captivating splendor, like a noonday sun. By its light, the universe is revealed.

– Vivekachudamani 98-99,  rendered by Gurudevi Nirmalananda.

The physicists and yogis agree that the Big Bang emanated energy which became light; the light coalesced into matter.  Everything is made of solidified light.  Even your body is made of light.  You are embodied light. You simply start “within your own body.”  In Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation, you begin by settling into your body, deepening into your seat and allowing your spine to be easily upright.  The tool used to turn your mind inward is to apply your mind to mantra.  With mantra you are using your mind to go through your mind and beyond your mind.

Mantra carries you deeper within where you find “the secret chamber of intelligence, in the infinite universe within your heart.”  The “secret chamber of intelligence” is a knowing that is beyond the mind’s knowing.  It is the fully enlivened, fully embodied, fully expanded knowing of your own Self.

Here, “Self shines in its captivating splendor, like a noonday sun.  By its light, the universe is revealed.”  This means that the Self, your own Self, does not get its light from anything else.  It is the source of light.  Also, it does not get its capacity of knowing from anything else.  It is Knowingness-Itself.  It doesn’t get its existence from anything else.  It is Existence-Itself.  Everything else in the universe that exists gets its existence, its knowing and its light from the Self.

This light is not merely physical light.  It is your mind’s capacity to know, whether you are looking inside or outside.  I experienced this in meditation.  I was looking at my mind being separate from me.  I wondered who was the one who was looking at my mind?  Who was asking the question?  I felt the vastness of my beingness that was deeper than my mind.  It was beyond my mind.  From this experience, I knew I had a mind but was more than my mind —a lot more than my mind!  Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation specializes in giving you the experience of your own Self, so you can discover that you are more than your mind.  From this inner depth, you know your own radiance.  This is the goal of yoga.

Having the experience of your own Self makes you glow.  As a teacher, I can tell when someone is having a deep inner experience of their own Self because they are so radiant.  Yet at other times that light is blocked.  Svaroopa^® yoga practices dissolve the tensions through the multiple levels of your body, mind and heart.  They clear away inner blockages that hide the radiance of your own Self.  Every pose, yogic breath, mantra repetition and meditation opens up your inherent flow of happiness, joy and light.  It’s like cleaning a picture window so clean that you cannot tell it is there.  Then the radiance of sunlight shines through the clear glass without being diminished by layers of dust and grime.  You experience your own radiance more and more fully, as well as share it with the world.

Kashmiri Shaivism says the whole of the light of Consciousness is intact within you.  This ancient yogic tradition promises that you can have this experience while you live your life.  The purpose of the Guru, and the service the Guru provides, is to be the embodied light of Consciousness that reveals your own Self, your own radiance, to you.  Thus, you experience and come to embody the light of Consciousness that you already are.  We call this Grace.

By Swami Samvidaananda

Amazing.  That is how I describe the yoga and meditation that I practice.  I don’t have a better word because it’s hard to describe the wonderful and powerful experiences that unfold.

• Physically, you get amazing benefits.  You become free from pain, and your strength and stamina increase.  You gain vitality and resilience.  A yogi friend recently shared that she did not get her usual spring allergies.  They’re gone.
• Mentally, you get amazing improvements.  Your stress levels go down, your depression lifts, you experience equanimity.  Calmness and happiness, even joy, become your baseline.  You don’t sweat the small stuff so much.  You handle life’s big challenges more easily.  I’ve talked to many yogis who recognize that they are handling this pandemic with much less fear than BY (before yoga).  They are taking steps to keep themselves, loved ones and everyone safe.  They recognize that they are making their decisions based on intelligence, rather than anxiety.
• You love more, and, no surprise, you are easier to love.  You light up the lives of those around you.  Like the Debbie Boone song from the Seventies, “You light up my life, you give me hope….”  I know I’m dating myself, but I loved that song.  You light up people’s lives.

Amazing, right? So I was delighted to learn that a primary text of the Kashmiri Shaivite meditation system says this:

Vismayo yoga-bhuumikaa.h. — Shiva Sutras 1.12

The wonders of yoga are truly amazing.

(rendered by Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati)

Vismayo means amazement or wonder, and yoga-bhuumika.h is the stages of yogic development.  If the benefits I’ve described were the only things yoga and meditation did for you, that would be wonderful.  Yet, there’s more.  The physical and mental benefits and changes are not actually the wonders that this sutra is referring to.

This sutra is about the deeper inner experiences.  They are harder to put into words, specifically because they are beyond words.  Deeper than words, deeper than your mind, as you immerse yourself into the depths of your inner knowingness and beingness, you have amazing wonder-filled inner experiences.  They unfold within, in a progression mapped by the ancient sages.  You are following the same inner path they followed, with their teachings to guide and protect you along the way. 

Not long into studying with Swami Nirmalananda, I began to understand that there is an inner map.  She has already traversed it; she knows what’s around the next corner.  She knows the rocky ground that you currently may be picking your way across.  And she can assure you that an incredible vista is about to open up.  Her teachings guide you and protect you along the way.

Wherever you are on the map, there are amazing inner stages yet to come.  Whatever experiences are currently blossoming forth within you, there’s more — more than you can currently imagine.  That is because your mind cannot fully imagine the “more” of who you really are.  It is when you go beyond your mind that you discover your own Divinity.  That is the goal and purpose of Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation: for you to have the experiential knowing (vidya) of your own Divinity (svaroopa).  Awakening you to that inner knowing is the specialty of this lineage of Gurus.

Swami Nirmalananda has the calling, the capacity and the mastery to awaken you to your Divinity.  She lights the flame of your enlightenment within you, so that you realize who you are.  You will know that you are concentrated Consciousness — distilled Divinity.  You are the One Eternal Reality that is the Source of unending joy, peace, and bliss, manifesting the universe and everything in it, including you.  You have always been Divine, you have never not been Divine.  You just don’t know it all the time.

Once you have received the inner awakening, called Shaktipat, every time you meditate, you experience your Divinity.  Your mind and senses are increasingly saturated in your own Divine Essence.  The light and bliss of your own being shine into and through you, more and more.  Your Divinity is not only in you, it is you, and everything else.  And when you go inside, you know this, in progressively deepening stages.  The sutra is saying that it keeps getting better.  I can vouch for it from my own experience, it keeps getting better.  How amazing, how wonderful!  But don’t take my word for it.  Have the experience yourself.

By Swami Prajñananda

The day of my grandma’s funeral, the sun was shining.  I remember thinking how odd it was that Mother Nature continued on while my family’s world was turned upside down.  In the past few months, the whole world has turned upside down.  Yet the sun still shines, the rain still falls and the wind still blows.  So where do we go from here?

As a yogi, you must develop your inner state and you also must act in the world; both are important.  If you deepen your inner state but hide away, the world will not be uplifted by your practices.  However, if you act from a place of fear, then your actions are ineffective, even harmful. Thus, while you participate in the world, you must develop your inner state.

To develop your inner state, meditation is your most important practice.  When you meditate, you are deepening your capacity to abide in the knowing of your own inner being.  Yet do not be so quick to leave that knowing behind when you get up from your meditation seat.  This is when your other yogic practices become important, especially mantra.  When you repeat mantra through the rest of your day, you are streaming consciousness through your mind.  Consciousness is who you really are.  When you weave mantra through your day, you are developing your ability to stay grounded in the state that you discovered in meditation.  Then, when you act in the world, your actions are powerful, uplifting and contagious.

An ancient yogic text explains the state of such a yogi:

Lokaananda.h samaadhi-sukham — Shiva Sutras 1.18

Such a yogi experiences the sweet bliss of the Self in every location and situation, and shares it with others. — Translation by Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Such a yogi is one who has discovered their own inner being, called the Self.  This yogi takes the knowingness of their Self into their life.  The knowing of who you are is blissful.  This is because the nature of your Self is Bliss-Itself.  Just as the nature of water is wet and the nature of fire is heat, the nature of your Self is bliss.  This is why you feel better when you meditate.  Through continued meditation, your ability to abide in the blissful knowing of your Self expands and deepens.  But this sutra does not merely promise bliss.  It goes on to say that you experience the bliss of the Self AND you share it with others.

Bliss is contagious.  You already know when someone is angry: anger spreads and infects those around them.  So why wouldn’t this happen with bliss as well?  Your inner state not only has an effect on you, it has an effect on those around you as well.  As you deepen into your Self, those around you feel it.  Your inner state makes a difference, but only when you step into the world.

While you may still be in the process of deepening into your Self, the Guru is established in Self.  The Guru is the yogi that the text describes: “The Guru experiences the sweet bliss of the Self in every location and situation, and shares it with others.”

The Guru loves to share!  When you spend time with the Guru, their blissful knowing of the Self starts to rub off on you.  While you may not be fully established in that state yet, you are on your way.  The more time you spend with the Guru, the more you deepen into the knowing of your Self.  While you and the Guru are both the Self, the difference is that you don’t know it yet and the Guru does.  Spending time with the Guru is a yoga practice, and it includes being in the Guru’s presence as well as doing the practices the Guru gives you.  To live in the knowing of who you are, spend more time with the Guru.

By Swami Sahajananda

Words powerfully affect you; you respond to words immediately.  They can lift you up to new heights of spiritual elevation.  Or they can go the other way, binding you in delusion.  Words are influential.  Politicians know this and use words to sway people to their point of view.

Did you ever hear a talk which held you spellbound?  The speaker’s choice of words created a quality of awe, greatness or wonder.  The talks of many spiritual teachers have touched me this way.  I felt they had laser-beamed right into my heart, addressing my deepest yearnings and questions.  Their profound spiritual experiences fueled their powerful words, reaching beyond my mind.  Their words brought about the ah-ha moment for which I’d been searching.  Powerful language transmits deep teachings that open you to the knowing of your own Divine Reality, your Self.

Yoga says the cosmic process is the source of the power of words and names it matrika.  All language flows from this cosmic process.  A classic teaching story tells of a teacher expounding on the power of words to an audience of seekers.  A man in the audience shouted, “Stop talking this nonsense about words.  I came here to hear about liberation!”  The teacher responded, “Hold on, hold on — I am getting there.”  Appeased for a bit, the man sat for a while longer.  But then he stood and again shouted, “I want to hear about liberation.  Not this nonsense about words!”  Seeing the man approaching, the teacher shouted, “You stupid ignorant man!”  Red-faced, the heckler was stopped in his tracks.  Then the teacher looked at him and said, “If words aren’t important, why did my words get you so upset?”  The man sat down and listened to the rest of the teacher’s talk intently.

This story illustrates the supreme energy of words, which flows from matrika. The philosophy of Kashmiri Shaivism explains the power of words by tracing matrika, their source, back to the creation of our universe.  Shiva is Consciousness-Itself, the Primordial Oneness, that is everything and beyond everything that exists.  Shiva is stillness.  Then Shiva decided to move; Shiva in movement is called Shakti.  This movement is the cosmic energy that manifests the universe by contracting into all the various forms of existence, seen and unseen.  The first and subtlest movement of that manifestation is the constant vibration which can be perceived as sound.  The primordial sound is OM.  It is so sacred that it is not to be spoken aloud, but is called the pranava.

As the process of contraction continues, the cosmic matrika splinters the one primordial sound into many sounds.  They are the letters of the Sanskrit alphabet, which combine to form words.  Matrika is a form of Consciousness-Itself, that which created the universe.  This ultimate source of words accounts for their profound power.

Now you can see how words have the power to either bind or liberate you.  Every feeling and emotion originates from your mind, powered by words.  The yogic texts promise that whatever you are thinking, that is what you are becoming.

For instance, if you congratulate yourself for a good job on a project, you feel good, even elated.  Or if you berate yourself, trying to figure out what you did wrong, you feel bad.  Words bring you pleasure or pain.

It’s not just spoken words that have this effect.  Words create thoughts that control how you feel.  Such words weaken you and make you feel small.  When you tell yourself that you are no good, not smart enough, etc., your own words enhance your bondage.  They keep you stuck in the endless patterns of your mind.  Your mind can do this without help from anyone else!

A Siva Sutra states that the power of words can bind you by giving you limited knowledge:

J~nanadhi.s.thana.m mat.rka. — Shiva Sutras, 1.4

Matrika (the cosmic power of words) is the source of limited knowledge (the not-knowing of your own Divinity).

Words trap you in limited knowledge.  Fortunately, they can also be used in the opposite way: to take you to new heights.  Your mind is the place where you have free reign to say whatever you want to yourself.  This means you can make a choice about the content of your thoughts.  You can use words to unbind you and reverse the direction back to Consciousness, which is the essence of your own being.  These words take you towards liberation, back to the source.

To become liberated, use words that are sacred.  Sacred words remind you that you are Consciousness Itself, open you into Consciousness and take you toward liberation.  Mantra repetition is one of the main practices of Svaroopa^® Yoga.  Gurudevi Swami Nirmalananda received the mantra of divine sounds from her Guru, Baba Muktananda; he received it from his Guru, Bhagawan Nityananda, who was given it by his Guru, and so on back through countless ages.

The mantra of Svaroopa^® Vidya Meditation is permeated with the blessings and Grace of all the yogic sages who have repeated it, going back thousands of years.  It was passed down from one Enlightened Being to the next.  The mantra holds the abundance of benefits of their practices.  When we repeat it, we are the beneficiaries of their practices, which allow us to steep in their Grace and blessings.  These sacred words are thus imbued with the enlivened power of Guru’s Grace.  They expand you past your limitations.  Repeating mantra, you are using your mind to go beyond your mind.  These powerful words will set you free.

Matrika is the secret behind mantra.  With these sacred sounds, you can access Grace.  Through the Gurus of this lineage, who imbued the mantra with their blessings, it is readily available.  Words have the power to bind us or to set us free.  Words give us the opportunity to dive deeper inside to access our Divine Essence.  The Self has always been there, waiting for us to take the journey inside.  Mantra, the sound form of God, is the vehicle that takes you to your own Self, your Divine Essence.  Mantra makes it easy to access the Self.  It is your choice what you are going to say to yourself.

By Swami Satrupananda

It’s all about you.  That’s the good news and the bad news.

Let’s start with the good news.  Yoga is all about you.  The practices of yoga are for the purpose of discovering who you truly are.  Who are you?  You might answer that question with any, or all, of the following:

Profession – I am what I do. “I am a doctor. I am an engineer. I am a yoga teacher.”

Relationships – I am who I know. “I am a son. I am an aunt. I am a friend.”

Location – I am my location. “I am a Pennsylvanian. I grew up in Kansas.”

While these are all true, there is even more to you.  Yoga asks: who is the one being you while you do these things?  Who is the one in these relationships and living in these places?  And when these life circumstances change, do you become a different person?  Yoga says, “No.”  While your external circumstances change, and even as you adapt to then, there is an unchanging you.  When you get a new job, who is the one who did your old job?  It is the same you who is doing your new job.  Who is that you?

Who are you, really?  The answer is found inside.  Yoga specializes in turning your attention inward and discovering who you truly are.  That could be surprising, given the popularity of yoga poses.  Yet the original purpose of the poses is to prepare your body to sit for meditation.  It is in the practice of meditation that you turn your attention inward and explore who you truly are.

Who do you find when you turn your awareness inside?  The yoga sage Shankaracharya described it this way:

Chid-aananda-roopah shivo’ham shivo’ham.

My nature is the bliss of pure consciousness. I am Shiva. I am Shiva.

Yoga has many names for your inherent “you-ness.”  Shankaracharya uses the name Shiva for your you-ness.  Around 800 CE in India, he composed the Atma Shatkam, his poem of bliss and Consciousness.  His refrain “Shivo’ham Shivo’ham” follows each verse. Thus he repeats, “I am Shiva, I am Shiva.”  He knew that we need the repetition.  That’s because we don’t yet know who we are.  And that’s the bad news.

When you don’t know your inherent nature as bliss — as Shiva — you think you are something less.  You think you are your profession, your relationships and locations.  You work hard at getting the right job, having perfect relationships and living in a beautiful location.  Your mind keeps you busy with worries and anxieties.  “What do I need to do?  What do they think about me?  Where do I want to live?”  It’s all about you.  Unfortunately, it’s all about a small sense of you.

The problem is that you are focused on who you are on the outside.  You are simply focused on the wrong you.  Yoga says to turn your attention inside.  There you find your inherent you-ness.  Then you will live in the pure bliss of Consciousness.

When I first learned these teachings, I got distracted by the pure bliss of Consciousness.  Can you really blame me?  This promise was such a radical change from my day-to-day experience.  Yoga was promising me not merely joy but bliss.  Without realizing it, I assumed that I had to change who I was to achieve it.  I was missing the key part of this teaching.  Bliss is my nature.  I already am the bliss of Consciousness.  The Svaroopa^® yoga practices have opened me up to my inherent nature.  When I am settled into bliss — my own Divine Essence, I feel that I’ve come home.  I describe it as, “I am me.”

That’s the good news.  You are you.  You don’t need to do anything to become you.  Your nature is the bliss of pure Consciousness.  Inherently, you are bliss itself.  It is the fundamental quality that makes you “you.”  This “you” has been the same, from childhood through adolescence and into your adulthood.  If you took bliss away, then you wouldn’t be you.  It’s like if you took water and tried to make it not wet.  You can’t.  Water is inherently wet.  You are inherently the bliss of Consciousness.  This is the good news.  Yoga is all about discovering who you are.  And you discover that your true essence is bliss.

You simply need to focus on your true Divine Essence.  Yoga’s practices are designed to get you beyond your external sense of who you are to a deeper sense within.  So it’s all about you.  Which “you” are you going to focus on?

By Satguru Swami Nirmalananda

“Coincidence is God’s way of remaining anonymous.”  I remember the first time I heard this saying, recognizing instantly how true it is.  My life had newly been full of surprising and serendipitous happenings, quite different from the hard slog I’d known before.  I was on the cusp of a new lifestyle, though I didn’t know it at the time.

“Synchronicity” was what Carl Jung called it, explaining it as a “meaningful coincidence.”  He also described it as a “connecting (togetherness) principle” that is without identifiable cause.  Except that we have the power to cause synchronicities to happen!

For me, that’s what International Day of Yoga is about.  When we put our heads and hearts together, honoring this important part of our lives, we create an energy wave that impacts the whole world.  What if Yoga Day became as big as Thanksgiving — that everyone would get together to celebrate the incredible gift that yoga is.

This year, many Yoga Day events will be held online due to the pandemic.  In some ways this is incredibly empowering, with teachers able to reach people who would never walk in the yoga studio’s door.  I’ve been deeply touched by my students’ comments about having SVA’s online programs bringing yoga and meditation into their home.  The online connection is serving yogis in a whole new way.  How can we use that for Yoga Day?

I’m hoping to get everyone to hold a party!  We’ve got one planned in Downingtown, but you don’t have to be in Downingtown to come.  Several hours of free programs are stretching over the whole weekend, June 20-21.  Of course, if you were here, I’d feed you too.

You can create your own yoga party by simply doing more yoga, or getting a few friends online and doing it together.  Maybe your teacher is holding an event.  If not, invite her or him to yours.  And post it on our Facebook page — we want to know what’s up.

When we get more people doing more yoga, the world will change.  Together we can create the synchronicity that uplifts and heals the world.  It certainly needs our help!

By Swami Shrutananda Saraswati

The sages always start with the highest teaching: you are an individualized form of the formless Reality.  Hearing or reading about your own Divinity reminds you of something you already know.  It’s like with tuning forks.  Striking one gets the other to vibrate.  When your Divinity is named and described, deep inside you feel something resonating with the outer naming.

When this indescribable Reality — the unnameable Essence that is the “who” that you are — is named, you know.  This knowing is beyond words.  Yet the great sages do put it into words.  Their mystical words give you access to what they found inside: your own Divinity, the Self, your own Self.

Swami Nirmalananda translates the description of the Self by the sage Shankaracharya in the Vivekachudamani:

The Self is birthless and deathless.  It neither grows nor decays.  It is unchangeable, eternal. It does not dissolve when the body dissolves.  Any name or idea your mind has of it is limited.  It is much greater.

Each of these descriptions applies to your own Self:

“The Self is birthless.”  The Self was not born when this universe came into existence.  That One Primordial Reality decided to blossom forth the universe upon itself, within itself, as itself.  What raw material was there to form this universe?  Only the Self.  Thus, the Self was not born when this universe came into existence.  Today, moreover, physicists say the universe is expanding.  Expanding into what?  The yogis say the Self.

Your birth was not the beginning of your own existence.  You existed before you were formed in your mother’s womb.  You existed even before the universe came into being.  You, your own Self, is birthless.

“The Self is deathless.”  Things, relationships, cars, plants, even houses, come into being and then die.  Maybe the house you grew up in no longer exists.  There used to be mountains the size of the Himalayas in the middle of the US.  They are gone now, worn away by wind and rain.  Stars are born and die.  Galaxies come into existence and fade.  Even universes come and go.  According to the yogis, this universe is not the first that has come into existence.

Your mind cannot conceive of anything that is birthless and deathless.  Yet this is a description of your own Self — the One Ever-Existent Reality that underlies the foundation of your own being.  The Self, your own Self, was never born and will never die.

“It neither grows nor decays.”  Your body grows and decays.  This process started when you were born and will continue until you die.  Your mind complies with that.  We construct buildings and highways that grow into towns and cities.  Then they decay.  Whole civilizations have grown and declined.  Yet that One Reality neither grows nor decays.

This means that you, the Self, do not grow into your Self.  You are whole, full and complete as you are, though you have yet to discover your essence.  Your own Self will never decay, will never diminish.  You are unstainable, inviolable.

“It is unchangeable.”  It is very hard for our minds to understand that something can be unchangeable.  We see things change all the time.  From day to day our mind and emotions change, our bodies change, and our world changes.  Popular American author Louis L’Amour summed it up:  “The only thing that never changes is that everything changes.”  Yet you, the Self, are unchangeable.

“It is eternal.”  Eternal does not mean a long time, for example, billions and trillions of years.  Eternal is ever-existent.  That One Reality has always existed, has never not existed and will continue to exist even when the universe no longer exists.  You, the Self, are that One Reality.  You, the Self, are eternal.

“It does not dissolve when the body dissolves.”  Your body comes into existence and then dissolves.  Yet you are deathless.  The Self does not stop existing when your body dissolves.  The “You” that is the Self is more than your body.  You are more than your mind.  You are more than your body and mind together.  “You” do not dissolve when your body dissolves.  You continue to exist.

I recommend that you take these descriptions of your own Self personally.  Read the statements below out loud:

“I am birthless and deathless.  I neither grow nor decay.  I am unchangeable, eternal.  I do not dissolve when my body dissolves.”

Slow yourself down and repeat these statements.  What happens?

Maybe now you have a greater idea of who you really are.  Yet “Any name or idea your mind has of it is limited — it is much greater.”  To go beyond the idea, the concept, and the theory to the knowing of your own Self, you must meditate.  The experiences you have in meditation on your own Self make your knowing possible.  The Self reveals the Self within you to you.

Your mind cannot see the Self, any more than an ant can see the top of a tree.  Your Self is greater than any idea your mind has of it.  Much greater.  When you find a Shaktipat Guru, and are given the enlivened mantra, your meditations will be deep and easy.  Each repetition of the mantra invokes Grace, which reveals your own Self to you.

Like the waves on the ocean, your mind is a superficial level of your own being.  To know your greatness, you must plunge deeper into the depths of your own being.  The function of a Shaktipat Guru is to support you in your inward exploration. A Shaktipat Guru is an agent of Grace, and my Guru — Satguru Swami Nirmalananda — is such a Guru.  Through the Grace of my Guru, I have come to know and to experience the ever-deepening, ever-timelessness and the ever-blissfulness of my own Divine Being.  This is the gift of the Guru — to reveal the indescribable You to You.

By Swami Prajñananda

Looking at all the suffering in the world, you may question, what is the point of all this?  Life can be so hard.  If you have had these thoughts, you are not alone; they are age-old.  While the world is in crisis right now, it is not the first time and it will not be the last.

You can see this in the Bhagavadgita, an ancient yogic scripture.  Arjuna, a warrior, is poised at the brink of a world war.  With his world on the verge of mass destruction, Arjuna is questioning his part in it.  Krishna, his charioteer and an incarnation of God, gives Arjuna yoga’s teachings.  Krishna explains to Arjuna that you experience both pain and pleasure.  Yet, these experiences come and go, they are not permanent.  In our current time, with a situation that feels like it can last forever, Krishna’s teachings are important to remember.

Yet beyond his teachings on impermanence, Krishna shares the priceless gem of knowledge with Arjuna, the purpose of a human life.  An eternal reality exists within us all, beyond the reach of pleasure and pain.  This eternal reality is your own Self.  It is not born and it does not die.  It does not age and it does not get sick.

Even when your body undergoes changes, your own Self is untouched.  Like an orange that falls from a tree, while the outside may get bruised, the nectar of the fruit is unaffected.  If that same orange was washed and the outside perfumed, the nectar inside would still be unchanged.  Similarly, your own Self is absolutely free from external influence, whether they are painful or pleasurable.

The heart of yoga’s teachings is that you are that eternal reality.  The problem is: you don’t know it yet.  You get caught in the idea that you are your body or that you are your mind.  It’s like dressing your dog up as a shark.  Even though the outer covering is a shark, your dog is still a dog.  It is the same for you, even though your outer covering is your body and mind, you are not your body nor your mind.  You are the one who has a body and who has a mind.  You are the Self.  To discover this truth for yourself, you must look inward.

Swami Muktananda explains:

“Inside, there is great divinity.  Just as a person absorbed in deep sleep doesn’t experience pleasure or pain, only great peace, so one who is absorbed in meditation does not experience the pleasures or pain of the outer world.  He experiences only the bliss of heaven.”

This is Muktananda’s promise to you, that you will experience the bliss of heaven no matter your external circumstances.  He tells you how you attain this: by becoming “absorbed in meditation.”  This means that you turn your attention inward.  Instead of focusing on the external world, you focus on your own divinity.  Yet, while your focus is inward, you still participate in the world.

Can you act in the world without getting caught up in its ups and downs?  If you had asked me this question before yoga, I would have said no, that it was not possible.  Now, not only do I know it is possible, I experience this inner steadiness.  This is your future, and even more.  Yoga’s promise is not only that you will experience inner steadiness, but you will abide in your own Divinity.  You are that eternal reality.  To live in this knowing, do more yoga.

By Swami Samvidaananda Saraswati

Contagion is the rapid spread of, unfortunately, a virus.  Or of fear.  Laughter is also contagious.  So is enlightenment.  That’s why I study and live with a yoga master — a Guru.  She is enlightened.  When I see her, learn from her and do the practices she teaches, I experience a taste of enlightenment.  Everyone around her does.

How is enlightenment contagious?  It’s similar to how moods are contagious.  Spend time with a gloomy friend, and your mood will start to sink.  Do you know someone who always looks on the bright side?  They’ll have you putting on rose-colored glasses.  Yet enlightenment is deeper than a transitory mood.  It’s a blissful state of living your Divinity.  Enlightened beings are saturated with bliss.  Such a person is called God-intoxicated.  They vibrate with bliss everywhere they are, whomever they are with, whatever they are doing. They’re like a tuning fork, emitting a pure tone of bliss.  When you’re with them, you begin to vibrate with bliss too.

It’s not only yoga masters who are God-intoxicated.  There are mystics and saints within every religious tradition, as well as outside of them.  They know they are Divine and live from the depths of their beingness.  I was raised Catholic, and I loved to read about saints.  Most of them lived so long ago, I had the idea that saints only existed in the past.  But enlightenment is available now.  It’s a human capacity so it is always possible.  Mystics and saints walk among us.

We call them holy.  They are whole; they do not feel needy, limited or incomplete.  They are not looking outside of themselves for something to make them feel good, or to make them feel fulfilled.  Filled from the inside with the Light of Divinity, they radiate that light.  It spills from them in the form of their words, their actions, their glances.  When you spend time with them, or read about them, or even think about them, your state shifts.  You experience your Inherent Divinity, which yoga calls the Self.  A yogic text from more than a thousand years ago describes this:

lokaananda.h samaadhi-sukham  — Shiva Sutras, 1.18

Such a yogi, living in the bliss of Consciousness, is contagious.  Everyone who comes into contact with him experiences a taste of enlightenment, according to their readiness.
— translation by Swami Nirmalananda

My Guru is a modern-day mystic.  Gurudevi Nirmalananda is contagious with the bliss of Consciousness.  Everyone who sees her, hears her or even thinks about her experiences a taste of enlightenment.  And she offers more.  She is a Satguru, which means she can awaken your inner knowing of your Self within you.  The awakening is an initiation called Shaktipat.

Once you receive Shaktipat, you don’t have to settle for merely tasting enlightenment.  Enlightenment is assured.  In this tradition, the goal is called Self-Realization, because when you are enlightened you realize, “Oh, I’m the Self.”  It’s not a startling, “drum-roll please” kind of moment, because you have always been the Self.  You are never not Divine; you just don’t know it all the time.  At least not yet.

Shaktipat gives you the ability to know all the time.  Even though it gives you the ability, abiding in the bliss of your Self 24/7 is not instantaneous.  You have to do your part.  A process blossoms forth to clear the tensions and constrictions that block your radiance from shining forth all the time. Your most important practice to support the process is meditation.

When you do abide in the bliss of your Inherent Divinity, you will recognize everyone and everything as another form of that bliss.  You will bring your bliss with you everywhere you go.  Your bliss will uplift every loved one and every stranger. This can be your future.  Enlightenment is not reserved for a few. This is the purpose for which every human is born.  This is the purpose for which you were born:  to be the one who is contagious with bliss.