The Durga Devi Puja was my teacher, Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati’s, favorite festival. He often ate very light during the festival and would remain absorbed in deep contemplation. Each morning he, and we, would chant mantras to the cosmic mother in all of her many aspects. Culminating in over 700 verses being chanted by the end […]
Happiness
How to Relate with a Crazy Parent
What is a healthy parent? I define it as a protective force, a guide, a support, a place of profound unconditional love and nurturance. Not all people have experienced this with their parents. What is a crazy parent? In this sense, a crazy parent doesn’t mean a clinically or mentally ill person. Nor is this […]
Mantra Meal 101
Chant Mantras Over Your Meal & The Elegant Art of Vegetable Picking I knew nothing about cooking. I grew up in the 1970’s where the main dishes in our house consisted of canned this and processed that. Later when I was in direct training with Guru ji I learned the art of cooking. Guru ji […]
Soul Fire
Discipline as a Structure for Freedom As I mentioned in my previous blog Freedom Found in Yogic Rituals, as a child, I had an intense thirst for soul understanding. As destiny would have it, at 13 years of age, I was to meet a great Yogi named Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, who was at that time […]
Manorama: What Almonds and Sanskrit Have in Common
As a young kid, I knew nothing about almonds except, of course, that I liked eating them. My grandma always had a dish laid out on her coffee table with a mix of shelled nuts. I recall enjoying the action of cracking the nuts and popping them into my mouth each time we visited her. […]
Manorama: Awaken the Rebel Within
My Rebellion When I was a teenager, I’m sure my parents would tell you that I took rebellious to a whole new level. I was the classic youngest of three children and I bucked the system every chance I got. I thought a lot about freedom and in those days I felt my freedom in […]
Where is Your Energy?
You are beautiful. You are powerful. You are free. You are a Luminous Soul. ~ Manorama Once when I was working with a private student in NYC I noticed that she was talking non-stop and her eyes were darting here and there. Her energy was wild. What I mean by wild is that she engaged her […]
The Conversation: Art & Spirituality
The Conversation is a quaterly blog series devoted to the dialog between Yogis & Artists By Manorama An interview with my brother, Artist, Carl D’Alvia, acclaimed sculptor, & Rome prize winner on Art & Spirituality. “Every beauty, which is seen here by persons of perception, resembles more than anything else that celestial source from which we all are […]
Chant Mantras & Work with the Obstacles
According to Lord Patanjali the obstacles to experiencing yoga are: Confusion, egoism, depression, physical pain, lethargy, exhaustion, skepticism, a lack of interest, over attachment to sensuality, delusional perception, failure to reach the state of unity and the inability to remain there once you have experienced it. These are all considered to be obstacles to the […]
Learn to See What You See: practical steps to understand your prana
Part 2 In last month’a blog, I spoke about the vital need for the yogi-in-training to understand his/her prana, which means breath, energy, life force and soul. In the Luminous Soul Method, awareness of your prana is a foundational aspect of your practice. The more you consciously work with your prana the more you connect with […]
The Art of Listening
It’s hard to speak and listen at the same time. In Luminous Soul, we cultivate the art of listening. We learn to focus on pulling inward and listen to: The mind, the thoughts, the body, the heartbeat, and the inner sound known as nadam. There is something about listening that links us with our highest […]
Sustain & Grow Yourself with Vishnu
Language is symbolic. We use words to suggest meaning about the thoughts we want to convey. Your inner dialog also moves in a similar and powerful way. What your inner language tells you, will affect how you live. In Yoga, we look at the gods not as deities apart from us rather as representations of […]
The Gift of Your Life
We are all energy moving through form, we just don’t know it yet. ~ Manorama What is the gift of your life? … The people I admire the most always live in an awareness of the blessing of their lives. Guru ji, Shri Brahmananda Sarasvati, was aware of the gift of his life. My mother, […]
Devi Puja
Each of us work with rituals that sustain and nourish us. This month I am suggesting that students work with this simple Devi Puja, as a new ritual for immersing in and supporting your practice. Rituals do not exist to make us more neurotic and rigid. They exist to help us see and experience beyond […]
Happiness, Humanity & The Free Flow of Energy
According to the dictionary, vibration is defined as: ‘of or relating to the act of vibration.’ Hmmm… ‘Relating to the act of vibration’… I sat with the definition a bit and chuckled … after reading it I was left contemplating the word vibration, as well as something about relating. Happiness Someone recently asked me what […]