General Articles 
Naked Before God
4 January, 2017 @ 11:45 pm
“I stood before God, the Source of All That Is naked and vulnerable like a child knowing perhaps for the first time who I really AM.” This thought drifted through my mind as I waited at the international airport in New Delhi for my return flight to San Francisco. I smiled as I reflected on how this event came to be.
Coming Home
4 January, 2017 @ 11:36 pm
Lea: Ever since I first came to SRSG to join my husband, loving efforts have been made by the ashram community to make me feel welcome and at home. And indeed, every time we return to this beautiful place, it feels a little bit more like home. And despite little difficulties like the issue with the banknotes or running out of gas for our daily cooking, I really enjoy being here more and more.
I got into yoga to lose weight, but somehow it never left me. Do you have any advice?
27 December, 2016 @ 8:56 pm
There is a popular misconception that yoga will help people lose weight by raising their basal metabolic rate. This does not happen no matter how vigorous one's asana program may be. What it can do is to gradually help a person to change their relationship with their body starting from accepting oneself wherever you may be.
Is it normal to want to do both yoga as well as finance/business? Is it necessary to give up family life to focus totally on spirituality and self-realization?
18 November, 2016 @ 10:01 pm
Swami Rama has said many times that a householder can attain moksha and cites Rama, Sita, many married saints, sages and highly evolved spiritual persons, such as Gandhi.
Little Light
4 November, 2016 @ 11:55 pm
The Seed for Motherhood Some years ago I was seated in front of the Ganga river when I realized that in my life I had raised many defensive walls to protect myself against what I believed responsible of my suffering, Loving too much. I now smiled at that belief, but anyway that very day I wrote down in my travel note book that I realized I did not know how to give. I also did not know how to receive.
What does this sentence mean from Swami Veda? “When you will have exhaled inwards and inhaled outwards twelve breaths without pause, you will have entered the Great Reservoir.”
29 October, 2016 @ 10:12 pm
Over the years Swami Veda often quoted the classic texts on Yoga in which there were quantitative prerequisites given for attaining samadhi. One text said that if a person could sit ABSOLUTELY still for such-and-such a period samadhi could be attained.
Swami Rama on YouTube
27 August, 2016 @ 8:18 am
Swami Rama is on YouTube.
When it comes to Sannyasis, use of Samadhi appears to be a fashion. Is it a word used to refer to the death of a Sannyasi?
20 July, 2016 @ 10:19 pm
Mahasamadhi is the yogic process of consciously leaving the body at the moment of death, having gathered the pranas in the heart center and then utilizing the udana-vayu to conduct the pranas from the body through the “solar gate,” the brahma-randhra at the crown of the head. Such a yogi returns to rebirth only by choice.
Yoga Sutra 2.33, Part 2
5 July, 2016 @ 12:46 am
“Words Don’t Teach, but the Application of Words in Everyday Life Does” Yoga sutra 2.33 (vitarka badhane pratipaksha bhavanam)* vitarka = uncertainty, doubt, questionable badhane = opposing, removal, suspended, annulment pratipaksha = opposition, opposite, adversary bhavanam = thought, manifesting, producing, imagining Yoga Sutra 2.33 says, “When negative thoughts present themselves cultivate and think the opposite thoughts with feeling;”1 “To obstruct thoughts which are inimical to Yoga contrary thoughts will be brought. 2 And, Swami Veda says, “When misratiocinations (When logic and reason have gone haywire [Editors’ definition of misratiocinations]) and deviant thoughts present themselves one should counter these by cultivating and impressing upon oneself the opposite principles in contemplation.”
Is it possible to attain samadhi without having a guru?
27 June, 2016 @ 11:10 pm
Guru is not necessarily a separate physical being. Understanding the connection/immersion of the self with the greater Self is important as there is no separation when realization occurs. Guidance happens then when the connection is made because Ego disappears and that is what samadhi is about.