The Satchidananda Ashram–Yogaville ground is charged. Once someone tells you to notice it, you cannot stop noticing it, and I mean this in more than a figurative sense. A practitioner who arrives with a settled enough mind can feel the field the way you feel a...
Deepening your meditation practice requires more than simply sitting for longer periods of time. A truly effective practice depends on cultivating a sufficient level of refined energy. This energy expresses itself as alertness, mental clarity, willpower, conviction,...
The majority of the suffering that you experience is caused not by something outside of yourself but by your internal reaction to things. And those reactions that bring pain are usually based on attachments and expectations that are unfulfilled. You make an...
The full moon of Guru Poornima has waned, but the contemplation it awakens does not end with the observance. Only a few weeks later, on August 19, we mark the Mahasamadhi of our beloved Guru, Sri Swami Satchidananda (Sri Gurudev). These two sacred observances...
In the Integral Yoga Tradition, certain sacred sounds become woven into the rhythm of daily life. They are not reserved only for formal worship or special ceremonies; they accompany us through the ordinary and extraordinary passages of human experience. Among the most...
Editor’s note: On July 31, 1966, Sri Swami Satchidananda arrived in New York City for what was expected to be a brief visit. Sixty years later, and as we also mark the 40th anniversary of the Light Of Truth Universal Shrine (LOTUS), we revisit Sri Gurudev’s own...
Nalanie Chellaram, founder of Service in Satchidananda and one of Integral Yoga's master teachers, asks the question: What do you fear - Death? Sickness? Having no money? In this, the first in a video series, Nalanie discusses some of the different fears we may have,...
Recently, Integral Yoga master teacher and center head Nalanie Chellaram was in conversation with Amber Bishop Garcia,host of the holistic series "Activate with Amber" on GBC (Gibratar's public service broadcaster). In this powerful conversation on grief and healing...
At the Vedanta Society of New York, Swami Sarvapriyananda recently addressed various topics including: How to understand Advaita’s Atman and the Buddhist doctrine of no-self? After enlightenment, why might one still show anger or other ordinary human reactions? How...
I’ll be honest with you. Pratyahara isn’t a word I use often in class. Funny way to open when it’s literally in the title but stick with me. I was introduced to it during my Yoga teacher training, the fifth limb of Patanjali’s Eight Limbs, the withdrawal of the senses...
Somewhere along the way, Yoga became something we do – 60 minutes on a mat, a few breaths, a few shapes. But Yoga was never meant to fit neatly into an hour of your day. It was meant to shape your day and your way of being. The asanas (poses) are only one small...
Svadhyaya is the sacred practice of self-study through spiritual teachings. More than simply reading spiritual texts, svadhyaya invites us to seek wisdom that reveals our deepest nature, and then to bring that wisdom fully into the way we live, think, and serve. As...
There is a Hindu scripture that compares our human mind with a monkey. It says that the mind is like a monkey—a drunken monkey. And not just like a drunken monkey, but like a drunken monkey bitten by a scorpion. Just imagine the condition of that monkey! So, how are...
In the first of this series on "Adapting to Change," Integral Yoga teacher and SIS founder Nalanie Chellaram answers questions centered on what we need to change in order to find peace. How do we find fulfillment when we're not clear about what we want to do with our...
During a workshop at the Integral Yoga Institute of Gibraltar, Swami Ramananda (president of the Integral Yoga Institute of San Francisco) spoke about Yoga not just a practice but integral to our daily lives. He reminds us that if we limit our practice of Yoga to one...
From the banks of the Kaveri and the quiet intensity of the Samadhi Shrine of Sri Sadasiva Brahmendra, Sambasivam Chaitanya’s journey did not pause. It continued, as it so often would in those early years, not according to any fixed plan, but in response to a series...