Svaroopa Vidya Ashram’s Podcast

Gurudevi asks, “How can intellect (enlightenment) and heart (devotion) possibly go together?” This article explains why both are necessary for the full experience of the highest. In a Shaktipat tradition the first step is to have the experience you seek. Yet once you’ve been awakened, practice and study are not enough. Devotion is also an important part of the process. The tantric pathway to the goal involves both your head and heart. The highest level a human can attain is recognizing their own Divine Essence and expressing it in loving service to the world.  

Gurudevi explains that the condition of your mind depends solely on what you are steering it towards. She states, “When I got Shaktipat and began studying with Baba, life became meaningful and blissful. I got happier and happier.” The guru awakens the dormant spiritual force that has been slumbering in you for ages and ages. Then the 2-dimemsional map of life that has shaped your body and mind begins to change. You discover the whole universe within your own being. Once you know your own Self, life makes sense in a whole new way.

Gurudevi speaks lovingly of her early experiences with her Guru, Swami Muktananda. She asks, “What kind of love is it that never needs to be spoken? It’s the kind of love I wanted and the only kind I was able to let in.” When you know your own Self, the whole world changes. In science this world process is described as the butterfly effect. It means that your own individual spiritual practices and your growing progress toward enlightenment uplifts you and the whole world. You care and your caring changes where the world is headed.

Satguru Swami Nirmalananda Satsang. 

For more, please visit https://svaroopa.org/.

Yoga doesn’t promise that you’ll be free from pain. Yoga promises that you will live in the bliss of your own Beingness. What do you want to focus on, even while the pain is there? Yoga gives you the skill to shift your internal gaze to whatever you choose. While you focus on the greater Reality within, yoga also offers many simple yet powerful tools for pain. Still, life doesn’t become perfect, and the world’s pain doesn’t go away. In fact, pain is the motivator that makes people change. The guru’s job is not to get rid of your pain but to free you from your limited idea of yourself.

Gurudevi explains that the yogic sense of equanimity is about more than even-mindedness. Equanimity is one of the qualities of being established in the Self. This inward deepening into Self frees you from emotional reactivity. Describing her own experience, Gurudevi says, “Yoga gave me a superpower: the ability to choose how I wanted to feel. I was freed from the ups and downs.”  Yet equanimity is not the goal. It is a sign that you are deepening within as you progress toward enlightenment.

This talk was given on the anniversary of Gurudevi first receiving Shaktipat from her Guru, Baba Muktananda. She summarizes her pivotal experience this way: “The ways of a Siddha (perfected one) are mysterious. A Siddha is totally transparent and has nothing to hide. Yet, only by seeing Baba again and again did I get the eyes to see.” She concludes that yoga’s ancient and modern sages promise that you will know yourself as the one Divine Reality. They also promise that you will recognize that Divine Reality in everyone and everything. That knowing is a holy, intimate, and glorious way to live.

Gurudevi takes us on a deep dive into understanding why bliss is never boring. Since you are made of Consciousness and bliss, when your mind stops, bliss arises within. Getting your mind out of the way is the purpose of most yogic and meditative systems. But Gurudevi cautions that you cannot use your mind to master Consciousness. Ultimately, your mind must melt back into the Consciousness of which it is made. Svaroopa® Vidya specializes in the melting. This is because of the initiation called Shaktipat, which awakens the power of upliftment within. Then you live in bliss, whether your eyes are closed or open.

Gurudevi discusses Swami Muktananda during the celebration of his birthday.  He knew the truth of ultimate reality and how to find it within.  He lived in that knowingness and shared it with others.   Sent by his Guru’s command, he traveled the world and initiated tens of thousands in the sublime inner path of Self-discovery.

You are usually seeking happiness from the external world.  Gurudevi says you need to use your mind to seek the root of happiness within.  Track inward to the root of your own existence.   By deepening inward, you experience the Consciousness that you already are.   Water the roots of happiness that lie in the deepest dimensions of your own being.