By Swami Nirmalananda & Vidyadevi Stillman

There are so many wonderful strategies for managing money, successful relationships, improving your health, etc.  You do these things to attain happiness by improving your life.  Yoga also improves your life and makes you happy, though yoga’s true goal is spiritual upliftment.  The ancient teachings speed you toward attaining the ultimate — the knowing of your own inherent Divinity.  Yoga calls this your “Self.”

A powerful yogic strategy is outlined in the “eight limbs” of yoga.  These important practices and how they move you toward your Self.

Yama niyama asana pranayama pratyahara dharana
dhyana samadhayo’stav angani — Yoga Sutras 2.29

This is a “list sutra,” meaning it lists the practices, while explaining more fully them in later sutras.

1. Yama: restraints, including:
   Ahimsa — non-harming                    Brahmacharya — celibacy
   Satya — non-lying                              Aparigraha — non-greed
   Asteya — non-stealing
2. Niyama: observances, including:
   Shauca — purity, purification           Svadhyaya — study of the texts on the Self
   Samtosha — contentment                Ishvara-pranidhana — surrender to God
   Tapas —  doing the hard stuff
3. Asana: body positions, postures
4. Pranayama: working with your breath and the pauses between your breaths
5. Pratyahara: turning your attention inward
6. Dharana: focusing inward, contemplation
7. Dhyana: meditation
8. Samadhi: inner absorption

In Sanskrit, these eight limbs are called “ashtanga” (ashta means eight; anga means aspect, angle or limb).  A modern yoga style is called Ashtanga Yoga because the founder, Pattabhi Jois, describes all eight limbs happening during their aerobic sequences.  Patanjali’s description is from 2,000 or more years ago, and emphasizes the seated pose, specifically so you can comfortably sit still, for long and delicious meditations.

Anga does not mean hierarchical levels or rungs on a ladder.  You don’t have to do the limbs in order.  It’s more like a climbing tree:  you can skip some limbs and still climb to the top.  Thus, many Westerners begin with the third limb, yoga poses, or with the seventh limb, meditation.

Fortunately, when you skip limbs, like with yogis who begin at asana (poses), the limbs you skipped happen to you automatically.  You may not understand what’s happening because you didn’t get the teachings about the earlier practices.  It can be surprising when, after starting yoga classes, you find you’re becoming a vegetarian (ahimsa – non-harming).  Or you realize that you’ve lost interest in shopping (aparigraha — non-greediness).  You may discover the bliss of chanting (ishvara-pranidhana) and begin studying yoga texts (svadhyaya).  Yoga is happening to you!

Vidyadevi reports, “A regular yoga therapy client complained that she didn’t like drinking alcohol anymore because she didn’t feel good the next day.  Shaucha (purity) was happening for her.  She wasn’t too happy about it.”

These are signs of spiritual progress.  Yoga is cultivating an inner alignment with your own Divine Self by basically “cleaning up your act”  This means “your act” has been getting in your way of your spiritual upliftment.  No matter the limb in which you start this process, you get the whole process.  It’s like walking into a room.  No matter which doorway you enter through, you still get the whole room.

Originally published January 2018

By Swami Nirmalananda & Vidyadevi Stillman

You may think yoga is about your body while meditation is about your mind.  Both are partial truths, but partial truths are the worst kind.  What you want is the “capital-T Truth,” the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth, “so help you God.”  Yoga says you will need God’s help to find God.  Yoga and meditation are both about finding the right place to look.  And using the right tools.

In order to meditate, you need to be able to sit.  Thus, you’ll probably need some yoga poses to help you with your body.  Yoga’s ultimate pose is the seated pose.  It’s specific to getting enlightened.  You need to sit in order to delve into your own existence.

Our tradition is a Shaktipat tradition, one that uses the power of God’s Grace to reveal God’s presence, within you, being you.  Once you’ve received the Great Awakening (maha-shaktipat diksha), you must meditate in order to give Kundalini (the meditative energy) time to climb your spine.  This opens into the exploration of the inner realms of your own being, all the way to your inner Divinity.  Every time.  So easy.  So deep.

Let’s say you were able to procure a seat on one of the rocket ships going into outer space.  you’ve trained for this scientific mission to explore the farthest reaches of deep space. You’ve prepared your body for the rigors of deep space travel.  Even now, you can easily find online workout plans to train like an astronaut, moving your body into different angles to stretch and strengthen.  On the launch pad, after all your preparation, you are sitting in the rocket for lift-off.  The rocket, powered by potent liquid propellants, will shoot straight up into the heavens.

Your asana practice works like this.  Your preliminary yoga poses prepare you for your trip inward, and then you sit for “lift-in.”  The energy that climbs your spine, Kundalini, is the rocket fuel.  This energy takes you up toward the inner sky, the cosmic reality of your own inherent Divinity.

This energy does not move horizontally along the floor.  This means you must get up from Shavasana and sit.  You are propelled inward very quickly and deeply as you sit and repeat the mantra of this tradition, available from Swami Nirmalananda online.  You are now an explorer in the inner realms of your own being, discovering your own essence, the source of the universe.

This is why Svaroopa^® yoga teachers emphasize the seated poses.  Our first Teacher Training immersion, Foundations, begins with seated poses.  We return to them many times in the two or more years of further training.  Our final module focuses again on the seated poses, precisely because they are the most important poses.  In this spiritual process of interiorization, the seated pose is the gateway to the progressively more powerful practices in the eight limbs.

Sthira-sukham-aasanam — Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras 2.46

Asana is the seated pose, easy and upright [as the beginning point of meditation].[1]

How do you get to the point that you are able to sit? Just as Patanjali recommends, you work on your mind and lifestyle, and then cultivate your body’s ability to sit in easy, upright stillness.  While the sutra defines what an asana is, the poses are not the point of the sutra.  Funny, isn’t it?  Poses are not the point of yoga practice.  Sitting is the point.

Swami Nirmalananda says, “Simply sitting still quiets your mind.  Patanjali explains this in his following sutras, describing how your breath smooths out and suspends into timelessness.  It even happens when you watch the ocean or the night sky.  Yet the inner awakening of Shaktipat offers more, a whole level of inner experience that Patanjali does not describe.  For this, you have to study with a Shaktipat Master, as I did.”

Once you’ve received Shaktipat from such a Master, you have the experience that those yogis in the high Himalayas sought, the inner knowing of your own Divinity.  Svaroopa^® yoga is the Yoga of Grace, which is the revelation of your own Divinity.  This is the gift given by such great beings.  Not only mantra, but our core opening poses can invoke your inner awakening.  To cooperate with it, after your yoga practice, sit.  Settle into your easy upright seated position as a way to soften into the deeper dimensions of your own Being.  Your Self is not so far away.  Just sit.

Previously published May 2018

[1] Rendered by Swami Nirmalananda

By Swami Nirmalananda & Vidyadevi Stillman

Yoga’s asanas (poses) did not come from a bunch of yogis playing charades in the forest.  “Ooo!  Ooo!  I know!  It’s a frog!  No, a rabbit!”  “Bingo!  You’re right!”  “Wow, this feels really good.  My back feels better, my breath more open, even my mind is calmer.  Hey guys, let’s put this on the list.” There are some yogis writing that the forest sages made up the poses, having their disciples stand like a tree, pose like a tortoise or move like a cat, but the origin of these sacred body positions was not conjured up by anyone’s mind.

The sages in the Himalayas were living and practicing far from mainstream spirituality of the time, both Classical Yoga as well as Hinduism.  Studying with the tantrics meant the new yogi began by receiving a transmission of energy from the Guru, an initiation called Shaktipat.  Shaktipat awakens your inner power of upliftment, the sacred energy called Kundalini.

As this energy flowed up their spine from tail to top, different yogis had different experiences depending on their individual nature and readiness.  Those who were more kinesthetic, rather than visual or auditory, experienced physical movements.  Other yogis copied their spontaneous movements, which are today’s yoga poses.

Vidyadevi says, “After I received Shaktipat, during meditation my body would move spontaneously into Fish Pose, with my chest lifting and my head leaning way back.  Over time, this movement completely cleared up chronic neck and sore throat problems.   Through the years, Kundalini has moved me into other poses as well, as gunk was cleared out of my spine.   Some of the positions were painful, though beneficial, while others were pure ecstasy, with bliss pouring up my spine.  I can see why ancient yogis copied others’ spontaneous movements to get what I got.  But what I got was much more than mere improvements in my body and mind.  I got my Self.”

Doing the moves in the photos and videos, too many yogis are pushing or forcing their body into the poses, without realizing they’re tightening their spine in order to get the same look.  When Kundalini moves you, the asanas are effortless and profoundly opening.  In Svaroopa^® yoga we don’t copy “the look.”  Instead we use the asanas to give you the openings Kundalini would provide by moving you into spontaneous poses.  You get the results, amazingly deep and amazingly easy.

Many have already gotten Kundalini awakening through our core opening practice, but whether your Kundalini is awakened or not, your asanas are tremendously beneficial.   It’s incredible how they improve your physical condition along with your mind and emotions.  Yet, these are side effects, not the real reason for the poses.  Ultimately, your spinal decompression prepares you for the true meaning of  “asana,” to be able to relax into an easy, upright seated pose.

Sthira-sukham-aasanam — Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras 2.46

Asana is the seated pose, easy and upright.

This sutra is a “definition sutra,” meaning it defines the third of eight pivotal practices known as the “eight limbs.”  The first two limbs, yama and niyama, are lifestyle practices.  They are about how you handle the world and how you handle yourself in the world.  Asana is the third limb, in which you begin working on your body.

Just like in English, Sanskrit words change meaning over time — except for “aasana.” It is one of the rare Sanskrit words that has remained the same for 10-15,000 years.  It means “to sit,” as in “the disciples sat close to their Guru while He gave the teachings.”

What does the Sanskrit dictionary say?  It begins with “sitting, sitting down,” and expands the meaning to “seat, place, stopping, dwelling, encamping, abiding.”  It clearly doesn’t mean “to move fast, to jump around, or to hang from a trapeze,” as so many Westernized yoga trends offer.

Yoga’s eight limbs take you through a process of interiorization.  Your lifestyle practices have calmed your mind and emotions, so next you work with your body.  Asana is not about the external world.  You leave your day behind to do your yoga class or home practice.  You may think it’s for your health or for peace of mind, but it’s all for the purpose of learning how to sit.  The seated pose is the single most important pose of all!

By Swami Nirmalananda & Vidyadevi Stillman

Chakras are not important.  It’s the nadis that count, especially the central energy channel (nadi), through your spine.  All the other 71,999,999 nadis radiate off from it.  Secondary nadis crisscross the central sushumna nadi from side-to-side several times, creating energy whirlpools that are your primary chakras.  If the energy flowing through your nadis is low or imbalanced, the whirlpools won’t whirl.  Chakra means “whirling disc,” so the whirl is essential to the meaning of the word as well as to the inner function each performs.

Also depicted as a series of lotuses, your chakras depend on your nadis in order to function.  Svaroopa^® yoga works on your nadis, thus balancing all your chakras.  Every Svaroopa^® yoga class is a full nadi opening and chakra-balancing session.

The true power of the energy flowing through your nadis is significantly greater than most websites convey — more than most teachers know.  Vidyadevi says, “Only a Kundalini master really knows.  I can see that this is true because I’ve been studying with a Kundalini master, Swami Nirmalananda, for years.  Only now am I beginning to see what she knows.”

The map of inner development shown in the chakra drawings clearly displays the inner process of spiritual development.  First you uplift your focus from your lower three chakras, into and through your upper three and beyond.  Beyond the six chakras, your sahasrar (crown) blossoms you into what you have always been, though you didn’t know.

You don’t lose your lower 3 chakras when your crown blossoms.  Once your chakras are opened, it’s like you’re able to use both hands to play all the keys on the piano.  Your heart is open while you are paying your bills, which is a first chakra issue (survival & security).  You see and understand your own inner dimensions while you are arguing with a teenager, a second chakra issue (esteem & affection) mixed with a third chakra (power & control).

Even if you’re not yet enlightened, you run on the energies of your chakras.  When the energy flowing through your nadis opens and balances your chakras, every interaction is inspired.  Every thought is scintillating with Consciousness.  Every choice is made for the betterment of others.

While many in chakra workshops are seeking improvements in their life and relationships, yogic literature says the chakras are about your inner work.  They map the mystical process of spiritual growth that reliably unfolds once Kundalini is awakened.  Nadis are more important than chakras because spiritual progress comes from Kundalini moving through your central nadi.  Swami Nirmalananda says, “This is why I rarely teach about chakras.  They’re like neon lights, drawing your attention to something, but the neon lights don’t work unless the electricity is flowing.  I focus on the electricity.”

The vinyasa (sequencing) of Svaroopa^® yoga uses the poses to create an inner opening from tail-to-top.  This invites your next step: the unlocking of the energy at the tip of your tailbone for the inner arising of Consciousness-Itself (Kundalini).  For this you need shaktipat, the awakening of Kundalini.

Kundalini rises upward, passing successively through the chakras. — Vij~nana Bhairava 29

Signs that Kundalini is awakened include heat climbing your spine, inner sensations or even spontaneous physical movements.  Svaroopa^® yoga comes from Swami Nirmalananda’s experience of these physical movements, clearing away imbalances and blockages from her nadis.  This is where all yoga poses and breathing practices originated from.

Once you’ve received Shaktipat, you may experience certain chakras being opened in meditation, perhaps seeing a lotus, the God or Goddess residing in it, or the colors within it.  You may feel subtle sensations of the inner unraveling, even tickles or thrills of bliss.  You get what you need and what you are ready for.

When you cooperate with this process, it goes easier and faster.  This is one of the things that makes Svaroopa^® yoga unique.  Each pose targets specific areas of your spine, to reliably unravel the blockages in the same way that Kundalini does.  This inner opening also opens up profound mystical experiences for you.

Other styles of yoga teach practices to invoke Kundalini, while scholars study about Her in the Sanskrit texts.  Yet, without Kundalini being awakened, it’s like they’re studying swimming without getting wet.  Theory doesn’t take you to experience.

The most important feature of Svaroopa^® yoga is that our teacher, Swami Nirmalananda, is a Shaktipat Guru.  She knows Kundalini.  Thousands of Svaroopis have gotten Kundalini awakening.  While you get amazing physical benefits from our core opening practice, this inner awakening is the most valuable result.  It opens up the mystical dimension of your own Self.

originally published September 2017

By Swami Nirmalananda & Vidyadevi Stillman

Yoga’s map of chakras is very well known, a beautiful description of the multidimensional reality within your own body.  Yogis perceived and mapped these energies thousands of years ago.  You may have seen modern drawings of different colored lotuses along a spine, depicting the human energetics system.  Your spine is the main energy channel (nadi) of the 72,000,000 nadis that make up your body.

Three nadis are primary: the central channel through your spine plus one on each side.  Your left and right nadis crisscross several times, creating energy whirlpools that are your primary chakras.  Located along your spine, they are in the center of your torso, both front-to-back and side-to-side.  Each is an energy vortex that can blossom like a lotus, though currently partially closed and probably imbalanced. 

So many books and internet sites offer information though few report yoga’s teachings accurately.  Swami Nirmalananda says, “Artistic misrepresentations don’t help you explore the mystical dimensions within; like a GPS gone awry, they lead you in the wrong direction.”  So, what do you need to know?

Every chakra has multiple colors in it, not the single color usually depicted.  The different colors in the lotus center, on the petals, and in the Sanskrit letters on each petal have deep significance, along with other intricacies to be blissfully explored within.

You have no blue or green chakras.  It is not a rainbow in there!  As you explore, you will find a lot of red in various centers, which is the color of energy, blood and embodiment.

Chakras are grouped along your spine, not evenly spaced.  Check the accuracy of a drawing by seeing if the lower three chakras are all below your waist.  Many modern writers and artists don’t accurately separate your first 2 chakras, at the bottom and top of your tailbone, only 1½ – 2” apart.

You have only 6 main chakras, not 7.  The energy center at the top of your head is not a chakra, because it is not a whirlpool where nadis cross.  And it’s already open.  This is the good news.

The value of this map of Consciousness is that it clearly displays the inner process of spiritual development, uplifting your focus from your lower three chakras, through your upper three and beyond.  Chakras 1, 2 & 3 are about external circumstances and your power of choice; 4, 5 & 6 are about progressive openings into transcendental consciousness.  Beyond chakras, your sahasrar blossoms you into what you have always been, though you didn’t know.

Before Kundalini can arise, She descends — Shakti (cosmic energy) contracting to become the individual and the universe.  This contraction is from top-to-tail, a downward flow through increasing levels of densification and individuality.  Shakti locks Herself down in a coil just below the tip of your tailbone, at which point She is kundala (coiled), therefore called “Kundalini.”

Svaroopa^® yoga pose sequences always start at your tailbone, creating an inner opening from tail-to-top.  This invites your next step: the unlocking of the energy at the tip of your tailbone for the inner arising of Consciousness-Itself (Kundalini).  For this you need shaktipat, the awakening of Kundalini.  This is the job of the Shaktipat Masters.  Swami Nirmalananda says, “This is the great gift I received from my Baba, and share with you today.”

Originally published September 2017

Swami Nirmalananda & Rukmini Abbruzzi

Not even switching from pumping iron to pumping out Sun Salutations will do it.  If working on your body would make you enlightened, all the joggers and weight lifters would be on their way to enlightenment.  You must also engage your mind in your spirituality or your mind will hold you back.

As powerful and reliable as the poses are, your mind is the primary cause of your physical tensions. You tuck your tail under like a frightened puppy with every stress, every worry, and every fearful thought.  Consider how many of these thoughts do you have in a day.  Could you ever do enough asana to counter them?

You take a Svaroopa^® yoga class and the lengthening of your tailbone reliably opens the doorway to your innermost essence.  Your body, mind and heart all open up blissfully as well.  Yet ten minutes later, a driver cuts you off on the road or you indulge in a favorite worry, and your tail tucks under again.  You instantaneously re-install those painful patterns of tension and compression. Rukmini shares:

I’ve experienced my mind’s ability to tighten my body all too many times.  Once at the end of a class, I rolled on to my side after Shavasana feeling so wonderful: relaxed, peaceful, content, at ease.  I stood up to leave, looked at the time and realized that class had run late and I’d be late for the babysitter. Before I knew it, my tailbone tightened and I was practically back to square one – the contentment and ease disappeared.  All it took was a thought.

When class ends, you still have to deal with your mind.  It’s wonderful that yoga offers more practices for your mind than the number of physical poses.  Mantras, chanting, sutra study, seva and vichara (self-examination) free you from old mental and emotional patterns.  This means your mind won’t tuck your tail under again.

While the Sanskrit word “asana” is familiar, usually defined as “pose,” it has very ancient roots.  In the many versions of Sanskrit over five or more millennia, the meaning and use of “asana” has remained the same.  It means “to sit.”  Patanjali says your seated pose must be “sukha” (literally meaning sweet, which is relaxed and comfortable) and “sthira” (steady, motionless).  The physical benefits you gain from your other asanas make you able to relax into your upright seated position without slumping or wiggling.  As you settle in your seat, your body and breath settle into stillness, bringing your mind to stillness as well.  That’s the doorway into meditation, the ultimate yogic practice.

Meditation makes you new again. Your inner immersion dives into more subtle and expanded levels of your Self.  You become the vibrant, peaceful, whole, complete, joyful you that you always wanted to be, because it’s who you really are.  It’s who you have always been, just behind the churning of your mind: svaroopa, your own Self.

Asana is a great start towards discovering what is and has always been there – your own Divine Essence, hidden within you. But it’s just a start.  A baby step. To get the rest of what yoga promises, you have to stop moving.  Think of it as an “adult time-out.”  You also have to get up out of Shavasana and sit.  In fact the seated pose is the king of all yoga poses; it is the supreme physical accomplishment.

Swami Nirmalananda reports on a national yoga conference she attended.

Medical researchers were giving slide shows summarizing their research on yoga, each one having 20 minutes to educate all of us.  My airplane was late, so I sat at the back of the hall, behind 2,000 yoga teachers.  I was horrified to watch them wiggle and squirm through the second presentation.  Before introducing the third presenter, the emcee announced, ‘We’ll have a break soon.  I know you can’t sit.’  Don’t they know that the purpose of all the asanas is to make you able to sit?

Sthira-sukham-aasanam — Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras 2.46

Asana (the seated pose) is motionless and comfortable.[1]

This is why Svaroopa^® yoga teachers emphasize the seated poses.  In Teacher Training, we begin with seated poses in our first immersion, Foundations, returning to them many times in the two or more years of training.  Our final module focuses again on the seated poses, precisely because they are the most important poses.

Pose by pose, Svaroopa^® yoga unravels the deepest layers of tension in your body, tensions that you’ve been accumulating for years, for decades, even for lifetimes.  These tensions and blockages have made you tired and cranky, literally bent out of shape. Each time you dissolve these core tensions, you are gaining more of the healing benefits of the poses:  increased strength and flexibility, improved balance and posture, reduced stress and anxiety, normalized blood pressure, stabilized blood sugar, better bone health, younger spine, improved immune system, better sleep, enhanced focus, uplifted mood, deep sense of well-being, peace of mind, increased happiness.  All of these and more are yours when you make yoga a regular, ongoing part of your life.  The benefits of yoga are truly amazing.  And meditation offers even more.

Originally published April 2016

[1] Rendered by Swami Nirmalananda

By Swami Nirmalananda & Rukmini Abbruzzi

You are so much greater than you could ever imagine!  Yoga’s sages say your inherent essence is the whole of Divine Consciousness.  How great is that?  Yet your Divine Essence is hidden within and must be unveiled. The human condition is that you don’t know your own Self.  The ultimate task of every human life is to discover who you really are.  Yoga’s stated goal and purpose is to unveil your spiritual greatness to you.  The sages gave us the asanas (yoga poses) as a way to start that process.

While recent research studies prove yoga’s value, those studies are not proving that yoga is better than exercise. Sometimes exercise beats out yoga in the studies, though sometimes yoga beats out exercise.  Sometimes they come out the same. Research proves that exercise gives you 90% of yoga’s benefits because they are studying exercise-oriented yoga styles.

But what if your yoga is a spiritual practice?  Researchers haven’t studied Svaroopa^® yoga, so they haven’t compared spinal decompression to exercise.  They haven’t compared the bliss of the Self to the bliss of jogging.  Even if they do begin these comparisons, they’ll probably continue to measure physical and psychological benefits, not spiritual progress.  Yoga’s stated goal and purpose is to unveil your spiritual greatness to you.

The true value of Svaroopa^Ⓡ yoga’s poses is found in the inner opening to your own Divine Essence.  Fortunately, the same poses free you from pain, open up your breath and heart and give you a new lease on life.  But their true value is their spiritual power.

While you can use the blissful baby steps of Svaroopa^® yoga poses as an entry point to meditation as well as work on your mind and heart with yoga’s many powerful techniques, there’s more available. Svaroopa^® yoga is all about your spine because of the meditation energy that arises through your spine.  It is because this uplifting energy flows upward that you have to sit up.  Get your spine vertical.

Your own inner power of revelation, the energy of your own enlightenment is arising within you.  Called Kundalini in Sanskrit, it has been sparked awake by the Grace that underlies and infuses your practices.  This is the gift that Swami Nirmalananda brought from India and passes along to us.  If your goal is a spiritual goal, if what you want is liberation, this energy of upliftment will carry you all the way.

Along the way, this Divine inner arising expands what you get from yoga exponentially.  Amazingly, meditation will fix your body, open your heart and transform your mind, while it gives you your own Divinity.  You can have it all!  The goal is greater than merely the physical and psychological benefits yoga poses offer.  The goal is your own Greatness.  And with the Grace of your Svaroopa^Ⓡ practices, your goal is guaranteed.  Dive inside and discover your Self.

Excerpt from Asana, Mind & Grace, originally published in April 2016

By Swami Nirmalananda & Rukmini Abbruzzi

Musicians, artists and writers base their livelihood, even their life, in their creativity. Yet everyone is creative, even if you don’t think of yourself that way. For example, coming up with a solution to a problem is creative: that moment where you think, “Oh!  I know what to do about that.” That aha moment is an inner arising; it bubbles up just as joy and happiness do. You have an amazing potential hidden inside you.  So how do you tap into that potential and become more creative?

You currently use your creativity in a limited way: to plant a garden, to decorate your home or your body, or even to bring a new life into the world.  Creativity is blissful!  This is why there are so many arts and crafts stores with so many options for you to explore and enjoy.

Rukmini remembers how much her children loved to be creative:  “They’d come home from pre-school with more drawings and paintings and macaroni art than could ever fit on the refrigerator, excited and happy to share each one with me.”  Do you remember the joy and pride of showing your mom, ”Look what I made!”  Being creative feels wonderful, because in your own small way you’re being Brahma.  You’re experiencing the flow of Consciousness, being Shiva and manifesting something from your own being.

Swami Nirmalananda says, “When my Guru was living and teaching in Los Angeles, we held many programs on creativity, which were well attended by actors, screenwriters, producers, cinematographers, musicians, set designers, etc.  The famous and the wannabes came.  They wanted to tap into their creativity and Baba showed them the way to the source of their creativity — inside.”

Your Svaroopa^® yoga and meditation practices progressively dissolve your creative blocks.  Energetic blockages in your spine keep you from your own creativity and worse, keep you from experiencing the source of your creativity — your own Self. Especially once Kundalini is awakened, your yogic openings clear the way for your creative capacity to blossom forth from within, along with the radiance and bliss of your own being.  Meditation is particularly effective because it is the direct route to your own source, plus it clears and reconditions your mind, so the light of creative consciousness can shine into your life and into the world.

Don’t allow yourself to get sidetracked along the way.  It’s easy to lose track of your goal to know your own Self when a solution to a problem, an idea for a song or other creative impulse bubbles up during your meditation.  Your mind has a catcher’s mitt, so you start catching the arising bubbles, which makes your meditation be merely about your life, a way to solve problems or make money.  This is a trap.

Remember the goal — to know your own Self as Consciousness-Itself.  Meditation will take you all the way in, but you have to put down your catcher’s mitt and meditate longer.  Get past the rising bubbles of creativity to find the source they’re coming from – your own Self which is Consciousness-Itself.  You will not only get one answer from there; you’ll find all answers there.  You don’t merely have the capacity to be creative for a few moments.  You are the Source of creativity itself.  When you base your life and being in that inner reality, you live in an endless flow of creativity that never dries up.  You won’t have to wait until you meditate.  You will live in the experiential knowing (svaroopavidya) of your own Divine Essence.

Originally published August 2015