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Check out our recently added course offered by Grace Van Berkum: Gracious Living Yoga Lifestyle Retreat. [http://www.sivanandabahamas.org/course.php?course_id=3779]

Over the course of 5 days, Grace will guide you through the 5 points of Yoga established by Swami Vishnudevananda and teach you how these principles can help you lead a gracious, healthy, vibrant life, with a strong focus on plant-based nutrition to help heal the body and planet.

This retreat will include nutrition lectures, discussions and demos, yoga classes, special workshops on yoga poses, and different types of meditation and relaxation exercises. You will leave this retreat feeling energized, empowered, and inspired. So JOIN GRACE for 5 Days of lifestyle tips for healthy, gracious living!

June 2-6, 2013
Only $350 for 5 Days
BEGINNERS WELCOME & ENCOURAGED!

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Most of us recognize that our health cannot be separated from what we eat, what we do, and what we think. Ayurveda provides us with a system for understanding the energies and qualities that are set in motion by our daily living practices, so that we can use them to counteract or prevent the imbalances that cause disease. Ayurveda is becoming better known in the West and its influence is growing rapidly. Those who learn Ayurveda today will be pioneers of this movement that will continue to grow significantly in the future.

This program is a thorough, foundational course for students based on the books and distance learning programs of Dr. David Frawley (Vamadeva). The course is designed for students of all kinds. There is no required medical background for those wishing to take the course although knowledge of Ayurveda can enhance the practice of medical doctors, chiropractors, acupuncturists, nurses, psychologists, yoga therapists/teachers, nutritional counselors, physical therapists, massage therapists, and other health practitioners.

This course offers yoga teachers an opportunity to integrate the sister sciences of yoga and Ayurveda into a holistic approach to healing: 100-hour certification awarded jointly from the Sivananda Organization and The American Institute of Vedic Studies upon successful completion.

For more information, please visit the course page on our website. http://sivanandabahamas.org/course.php?course_id=3449

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Q: If a person has suffered evil at the hands of another, and they hate that person, what is the best way to get rid of that anger?

Answer: The best way to approach it is to have a practical understanding of the law of karma. If you understand karma, you will never hate another person. The only reason someone would hate you is because you hated someone in the past. There is no other reason. I hated someone in the past, and this became a cause for someone to hate me in the present. If I want to remedy this situation, it’s very simple, and it doesn’t matter what the other person is doing to me. I just have to love this person. I don’t have to love what the person is doing or even refrain from stopping it, which is not the idea, but I have to love the person.

Be aware that if you hate, you’re going to be hated in the future. If you hurt another person, you can be one hundred percent certain that someone will hurt you. The only reason people hurt us is because we hurt other people in the past. This is the cause. The remedy — the smartest way to go about it — is to do only good and nothing but good.

When you say in the past, do you mean in the past of this life, or in past lives?

Karmic results usually do not ripen immediately, although it is possible to experience karmic results from the past of this life in the case of very strong, very intense karmas — either positive or negative — but this is rare. Most karmic consequences come from previous lives.

So one is not aware of the karmic connection?

If you do not understand how karma works, you are not aware of it. If you do understand how it works, however, you are very much aware of it. If someone speaks ill about me, I know immediately what I need to do. I should stop speaking ill about other people. The only reason people speak ill about me is because in the past, I spoke ill about other people, and this tendency is still within me. If it was not there anymore, this would be over, finished. So if you want to cure it, find good things in other people, speak well about them. Even bad people have some good points. Another example would be if I am experiencing a lot of violence. In fact, it would be impossible to experience violence, or even to see violence, if I had not been involved in violence in my past. So I have to remove the cause. If I don’t remove the cause, this will just continue; it will get worse and worse and worse. It is counter-intuitive, but you can see it. If you slap me, the most logical thing for most people is to slap you twice. Then you slap me twice, and this is how it goes. Real wisdom is seeing that you have been slapping people for so long that now they never stop slapping you. You had better stop slapping other people and get into the business of healing.

The law of karma is very easy to understand, and once you understand it, it is very helpful. It can help a lot of people, it can help the planet. Please do not hate.

Om Shanti, Om Peace.
Swami Swaroopananda, Director

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Subscribe to Sivananda Bahamas’ YouTube channel and be in the running to win a copy of the book, “Yoga: Your Home Practice Companion”. It’s easy to enter, just click on THIS link and press the subscribe button to automatically enter yourself into the competition. After we reach 1,008 subscribers, three lucky winners will be drawn at random and announced in our next newsletter, May 1st.

UPDATE >> MAY 1, 2013: We’re a little over halfway to our goal of 1,008 Youtube subscribers, so we’re extending the competition for one more month. Three lucky winners will be drawn at random and announced in our next newsletter, June 1st.

Not only will you be winning this beautifully inspirational book, you’ll be able to stay up-to-date on all of the ashram’s latest video content which includes question and answer sessions from our Director, Swami Swaroopananda, musical performances, presentations from renown experts from a variety of fields and much, much more.

The competition starts on April 3 and will end on April 28. Entrants must be over 18. All existing subscribers will also be entered into the drawing, so what are you waiting for? Help us reach our 1,008 mark — get over to our YouTube channel HERE and subscribe now!

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The Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat is currently accepting applications for our Karma Yoga Residential Study Program. As part of a community of like-minded people, Karma Yogis practice ‘selfless service’, a priceless skill for a fulfilling life. Deepen your knowledge and practice of Yoga, open your heart, learn some useful skills and enjoy the beautiful white sand beaches of the Bahamas and a variety of ashram programs in your free time. You don’t have to be a Yoga teacher to join the Karma Yoga program – all that’s needed is a willingness to serve and lead a yogic lifestyle. By joining our karma yoga program you help us to better serve the world.

Karma Yogis serve in various areas and department at the ashram, including:

• Dining and Food Services
• Gardening
• Marketing and Communications
• Housekeeping
• Boutique Operations
• Administrative Duties

For more information on our Karma Yoga Program, please visit our Residential Study page. To apply, please email Nassau@sivananda.org and mention “Karma Yoga Application” in the subject line, or call us toll free at 1-866-446-5934 or at 1-242-363-2902. If you have a special skill in one of the areas mentioned above (or others), please let us know.

We look forward to welcoming you at the ashram!

Om shanti,
The staff of the Sivananda Ashram Yoga Retreat

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Q: It is said that the fastest way to enlightenment is to be with a sat guru and let him take you over, literally following everything he says. What do you think of this, and how can we take advantage of it in this organization?

Answer: This has nothing to do with an organization. You should know that the moment you find your own guru you are within the last leg of your spiritual journey, the happy but difficult end. It is difficult because it is not the purpose of the guru to make life easy or to please us. On the contrary, the purpose of the guru is to help us get rid of the arch enemy of any spiritual practitioner, which is the ego. Not only theoretically, but practically, and this is a very painful process.

The yogic teaching is that when a person is ready, the guru will be at the doorstep, just outside the door. You may open the door and bump into your guru and not recognize your guru, but if your guru shows up you are very blessed. That doesn’t mean it is going to be easy. Don’t think that the appearance of the guru is the herald of easy times. No, it is the herald of difficult times and in the beginning, the guru will make our life difficult.

It has to be like this. Guru means a spiritual preceptor, our spiritual preceptor. Sat means perfect, so a sat guru is a perfect guru, a perfect spiritual preceptor. Such a preceptor has two qualities, according to the yogic scriptures. The first quality is that he or she is fully enlightened. Actually, we don’t use the word enlightened in yoga; we use the term Self-realized. The person is perfectly Self-realized, completely Self-realized, and having attained the highest spiritual realization, knows the Ultimate Truth directly. The second quality is that the teacher is also a master of the scriptures, so the teacher is a master of yoga in the full sense of the word – ultimate realization and a master of the scriptures. When a person has both qualifications, such a person is called a sat guru. Why does he need the scriptures? He needs them in order to communicate the knowledge to others, the way a musician needs an instrument in order to communicate music. It is very difficult, very rare to find such a teacher so if you find one, make sure you don’t lose him or her. Just hold fast, which means that when such a teacher gives you spiritual instruction, do your level best to practice it with devotion. Pray hard that the teacher will not disappear.

Getting such a teacher has nothing to do with this or that organization. It is a personal matter. Every person has his or her own guru. Now it may happen that all the people here have the same guru – Swami Sivananda, Swami Vishnudevananda – it can happen, but this is not the rule; the rule is that everyone has his or her own guru. It may be the same person, but it does not have to be the same person. Ultimately, all the gurus are one. There is an ultimate guru and all the other gurus are manifestations of that ultimate guru. But the manifestations are different. So my teacher is like this and your teacher is like that. This is how it works.

Finding our teacher is very precious. We should cherish it by pleasing our guru. One way to please the guru is to actually practice the teachings. Another is to help other people. Gurus are immensely pleased when we serve others; it brings them great joy. When Swami Vishnudevananda was giving the diploma of the Yoga Teacher Training Course – back when he was teaching the course himself – he would give the diploma with a prayer. This was his prayer: Whatever good you received, please go now and share it with others. Whatever good you received, please don’t keep it to yourself. That’s the idea. Share it with others. The yoga teaching is not for you, it is for all.

Om Shanti, Om Peace
Swami Swaroopananda, Director