By Mangala Allen & Swami Nirmalananda
Your essence is Beingness. There is nothing that you are not. Your essence, this Beingness, contracted to form matter out of energy in order to become you. Consciousness creates your spine in order to take on form: creating your heart, mind and body. The movement is toward contraction. This contraction continues throughout your life as your spine tightens and shortens. We call it aging. You are shrinking.
Svaroopa® Yoga’s spinal decompression reverses this process. As you release the tension in your spine, your process becomes one of expansion — both outer expansion and inner expansion. It is through the inner expansion that you come to know yourself as the Consciousness you have always been. This makes your spine very important indeed!
“Your spine is the conduit of consciousness.”
— Swami Nirmalananda (Physics, Anatomy and Yoga, 2/2006)
SPINE www.thinglink.com
The energy of consciousness contracted inward and downward, becoming most concentrated at the base of your spine, which is at the bottom tip of your tailbone. The process of expansion must begin here. It is when you release tensions in your tailbone muscles that contraction boomerangs toward expansion. An inner awakening occurs and a higher frequency of energy begins arising within you, Kundalini. This is your very essence arising to meet you so you can know your Self.
Unfortunately, you have been working hard to maintain, even to propel, the momentum toward contraction through your life choices. This makes you become tighter within your body, as well as small-minded and less tolerant of the world around you. You want it your way and you want it your way now!
When you make the choice to intervene in the process, you actively work to decompress and expand, beginning the process of discovering your own Self as Consciousness-Itself. You develop an ease of being. You enjoy living in your own skin. You develop gratitude for your life experiences, even the tough ones.
Swami Nirmalananda adds, “You don’t merely connect to your Self, but you become your Self. This is the transformation that makes you able celebrate life in every moment.” You discover upwelling joy arising within you; it is available to you always. You no longer need everything to line up just so in order for you to be happy. You enjoy life because you are happy to be alive.
When you recognize yourself as Divine, you realize that everyone and everything else is Divine, too! This is the mystery, finding Divinity in everything, from the smallest grain of sand to the ever-expanding cosmos and beyond. There is nothing that is not Shiva (Consciousness). To know this is ecstatic beyond description.
I can describe all this because I have experienced this, going through this expansion process guaranteed by Svaroopa® yoga. This path of expansion is a path of Grace, which my teacher got from her teacher. Since I met Swami Nirmalananda, I have been transforming. Now I enjoy life and even welcome its challenges. Nothing outside of me has changed significantly, but how I view it and the choices I make in my life have. This is due to the expansion I am experiencing since stepping onto this yogic path. It is very important to open the pathway of your spine.
“The release beginning at your tailbone provides:
1) Profound physical benefits,
2) transformative changes that effect how you feel in your life, and
3) the awakening of a profound energy flow through your spine,
assuring you to access of your own Divinity.”
— Swami Nirmalananda
(Your Spine: Anatomy, Energy & Consciousness, May 2013)
When your spine is open, you will experience deep meditation. This absorption into your own Self is where the inner transformation arises from. Then you are able to bring your Self into your life. It’s absolutely amazing!
OM svaroopa svasvabhava namo namah
To your inherent Divinity again and again I bow