Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati
CSYT, RYT 500, E-RYT 500

Swami Nirmalananda Saraswati, formerly Rama Berch, makes the highest teachings accessible to everyone, guiding them to the knowledge and experience of their own divine essence. She shares her incredible knowledge in a personal and life-embracing way, through her humor as well as her caring presence. Whether she is teaching meditation, yoga poses or how to bring yoga into daily living, her programs are always wonderfully deep, supportive & life changing. This is because she learned it from her Guru and she lives the yoga in her life. Her credentials include certification and training in five yoga styles as a hatha yoga teacher, advanced hatha yoga teacher, and pranayama teacher as well as certifications as a meditation teacher and yoga philosophy teacher. Swami Nirmalananda created Svaroopa^® yoga and founded Master Yoga Foundation to be its home. She also served as the founding president of Yoga Alliance and San Diego's yoga teacher association.

Born in Los Angeles in 1946, she married before completing college and started into a traditional family life in the suburbs. She describes that "a divine discontent grew to an undeniable urge that affected everything in my life, but I didn't know what to do with it." She began exploring psychology, yoga, meditation, healing, massage, and Eastern traditions in the 1960s. Her studies did not satisfy her inner promptings, which led her to a divorce and raising her three children as a singe mother. "I found my destiny when I attended a program at a meditation center in 1976. I had no idea what was happening, but I had found my Guru and everything began to fall together after that."

As a result of her visit to the meditation center, Swami Nirmalananda received a powerful and spontaneous initiation six weeks later. She describes, "I was walking down a hotel hallway at the end of a psychology conference, and an ecstatic energy began to surge up my spine. I entered my room, sat down on the floor for some odd reason, and my feet twined themselves into the full lotus position, though I didn't know what it was." Swami Nirmalananda had received maha-shaktipat-diksha from Swami Muktananda, though he was physically in India at the time. The seed had been planted in the evening meditation six weeks earlier, sprouting later in a dramatic and ecstatic way. "I didn't understand what had happened to me but I knew it was important. I knew I wanted to return to that meditation center even though I didn't see the relationship between these two seemingly separate events."

MahaKundalini initiation shows up differently in every person. In Swami Nirmalananda, it manifested as spontaneous yoga poses that moved her throughout her hour-long meditation every morning before her children awoke. She reoriented her life around these early morning adventures, as they became the most important part of her day. Studying Baba's books, attending the weekly meditations, and learning how to play several Indian musical instruments provided a structure that supported the blossoming within her, while life speeded up around her. "In hindsight, I can see that I had to complete certain karmas, but it got really crazy." She completed her college degree with two years of work packed into one, while she continued to work at her accounting practice, which inexplicably doubled. The morning meditations gave her the energy to handle all of these challenges, while raising her children, baking bread, and studying yoga asanas (poses) in two different styles with two different teachers. The asanas were very important to her because of the spontaneous poses every morning - she wanted to understand what was happening to her.

New Year's Day in 1977 offered a pivotal moment, when Swami Nirmalananda attended a weekend meditation seminar at her Guru's ashram in Oakland CA. The first swamis initiated by Baba had just returned from India to lead the seminar. When Swami Shankarananda stood up in his flaming orange robes, Swami Nirmalananda (Rama) says, "I felt the inner impulse by which I had always lived my life. It arose within me and said, 'I want that.' I knew I would become a swami one day."

All of this had been happening without Swami Nirmalananda having met her Guru physically, so she traveled to Ganeshpuri India in October 1977. Though she had never traveled internationally, she says, "I never thought anything was strange, even in such a different world as India was then. When I walked down the airplane steps and placed my foot on India's earth, an ecstatic impulse arose inside, saying 'Mother!' I knew I had come home. In that moment I realized that I had never felt at home anywhere in my life before then." Swami Nirmalananda asked Baba for permission to move her family into the ashram; he told her he was coming to America and they could join him there. Swami Nirmalananda sold her home and her accounting business, and moved the family into the Los Angeles ashram, where she served as part of the management team under Swami Shankarananda's direction. She also taught asana classes and served as one of the ashram musicians.

By this time, Swami Nirmalananda had pursued her interest in asanas by apprenticing with one of her early teachers as well as becoming certified in another style of hatha yoga. She had taught her first classes in her home beginning in 1976, though "I really knew that I didn't know what I was doing." Her experiences of the spontaneous asanas every morning showed her the power of the spine as a conduit of consciousness. "But when we did the poses in classes and in teacher trainings, that spinal opening wasn't happening. There was a lot of efforting and it was getting in the way. The whole idea of 'posing' and of perfecting the body was somehow foreign to me." It would be 15 years before she would understand what had happened inside her.

Swami Nirmalananda lived and studied in the ashram with her Guru until the end of his life, amassing teaching certifications in many yogic disciplines. One of her most important relationships during that time was with Chakrapani Ullal, a renowned Vedic astrologer who has continued to be a key adviser and supporter ever since. Most importantly, Swami Nirmalananda's immersion and total focus on Baba's teachings laid the foundation for her life and work since, especially in India during the extraordinary last year of his life. She says, "Six weeks before he left, he sent me back to America to raise my children and to teach." She was helping to establish the yoga program in the Madrid ashram when Muktananda took mahasamadhi, the final absorption into consciousness. Swami Nirmalananda describes, "Baba came to me as he was leaving, and told me that he had already given me everything. I didn't know what he meant at that time."

She started teaching asana classes in her new home in southern California, while working in accounting during the day in order to support her children. "Slowly, I began to fall apart. For me, Muktananda was everything - and still is. But I didn't yet know how to live my life without being in his physical presence." She traveled to Ganeshpuri in 1985 for the anniversary of Muktananda's mahasamadhi, but it didn't help her integrate her yogic knowledge into her life. In pain from neck and back spasms and suffering from deep despair, she describes that she was rescued by a message from Gurumayi Chidvilasananda, whom Swami Nirmalananda had known from her years with Baba. "I went to her and cried at her feet for over an hour. She invited me to move into the ashram." With her children now in college, Swami Nirmalananda lived and studied with Gurumayi for four intensive years, gradually learning how to live in the world as a yogi.

Just before moving into the ashram, Swami Nirmalananda experienced a serious traffic accident, that left her in pain and mostly bedridden for two years. "The ashram community took care of me, bringing me food and treatments in every healing modality under the sun. Everything helped a little but nothing made a significant difference. As I lay in bed, day after day, I wondered, why me?" Swami Nirmalananda now cites this time period as the beginning of her true understanding of the human body. She was unable to practice asana or the vigorous pranayamas, so she discovered the healing power of Ujjayi Pranayama by working with it gradually and slowly. She says that she is now grateful for this experience because, "I know pain. I am not afraid of it. I am not afraid of my pain; I am not afraid of your pain. This gives me great freedom, and makes me able to see past the problem to the cause. Then the solution is easy."

When Swami Nirmalananda returned from the Ganeshpuri ashram, she began teaching in San Diego. Her classes were in the classical hatha yoga tradition, coming from her in-depth training during her years in the India. Even though her classes grew and she opened a successful yoga studio, Swami Nirmalananda could see that her students were not getting the radical physical changes that she enjoyed in her early years. She began to create variations on the classical poses, based on her internal knowledge of anatomy. Students were amazed and delighted with the immediate results. The student body doubled in size, and then doubled again.

Over the next year, her knowledge and understanding of the body blossomed more fully every time she taught. Her ability to explain the process expanded every time a student asked a question as well as with every pain a yoga therapy client brought in. Swami Nirmalananda describes her unique and powerful way of teaching as "a cosmic download, given to me by my Guru. He gave it to me in one instant, whole and complete, but it took me 15 years to figure out what I got. I certainly am a slow learner!" She was urged to name it and accepted the help of a student in establishing the copyright and trademark protection for Svaroopa^® yoga, protecting both the name and the body of teachings in order to preserve their integrity. Yoga Journal listed Svaroopa^® yoga as a style in 1996, providing national recognition of its growth and effectiveness.

Another serious car accident threatened to sideline Swami Nirmalananda in 1989, in which her car was totally destroyed by a concrete truck. Her old injuries surfaced along with the debilitating pain. However, she was fully recovered within three days using Svaroopa^® yoga's techniques. "Now I can see that my mind had to catch up with my body. Once my mind understood the physical changes that had been occurring in all those poses in all those meditations, I could duplicate the results in minutes."

Gurumayi authorized Swami Nirmalananda to establish a teacher training in 1990, which Swami Nirmalananda describes as being "still very much a mixed-style approach, with a lot of classical hatha yoga, yet incorporating the asana variations that I had been teaching for only two years." Thus the graduates were certified as hatha yoga teachers, instead of Svaroopa^® yoga teachers. Only with the creation of the DTS mentoring program did Swami Nirmalananda create Certified Svaroopa^® Yoga Teachers, and many of the earlier graduates completed an Upgrade Program in 2001, in order to clarify and complete their understanding and skills. Many of Swami Nirmalananda's students and clients wanted to learn how to do the yoga therapy she was doing, so Swami Nirmalananda created the Embodyment^® Yoga Therapy training for them. In 1994, she became a graduate trainer for Phoenix Rising Yoga Therapy for two years, and then decided to design the Svaroopa^® Yoga Therapy system.

A group of students worked with Swami Nirmalananda to found Master Yoga Foundation in 1992, creating the not-for-profit organization that now supports Svaroopa^® yoga teachers and students worldwide. Gurumayi gave Swami Nirmalananda and the founding Board of Directors her formal approval for the new organization and Swami Nirmalananda's teaching during a public program, attended by one of her key staff members, who was surprised that Swami Nirmalananda (Rama) was given such a rare and important approval.

Swami Nirmalananda met Swami Chidananda when he visited San Diego, and "was deeply touched by his depth within the tradition and his ecumenical approach, which was very different than the training I had so far." He presented flowers to her at the end of his public program. Swami Nirmalananda was mobbed by the students at the program, and says, "I quickly escaped out the side door. The attention should be on him, not on me."

Swami Nirmalananda began her studies of ayurvedic medicine when she created and directed the yoga program for Dr. Deepak Chopra. For five years, the guests consistently gave the highest evaluation of their retreat to their Svaroopa^® yoga classes. "During these years, I met and taught many celebrities. The one that touched me most deeply was Dr. Benjamin Spock. I had the honor of leading a team of yoga teachers and therapists that cared for him in the last years of his life." After Dr. Chopra moved his center to a new location in 2001, Swami Nirmalananda continued her ayurveda studies in seminars with Dr. Vasant Lad and Swamini Mayatitananda (Mother Maya). She explains that her ayurvedic studies have deepened her yogic lifestyle, especially the annual panchakarma treatments she undertakes in India.

In 1996, Swami Nirmalananda attended a meeting about national standards for yoga teachers and teacher training programs. She continued to participate in the thrice-yearly meetings, ultimately serving as the founding president of Yoga Alliance, which entailed years of full time work for the fledgling organization, while she was teaching for Master Yoga and Dr. Chopra. Swami Nirmalananda also worked with local yoga teachers to found the San Diego teacher association, Y.E.S. (Yoga Education Society), serving as the founding president and creating a big yoga event, Yoga San Diego.

She met with Swami Satchidananda several times due to his support for Yoga Alliance. These meetings laid the Foundations for Master Yoga's hosting him in a public program in San Diego. Master Yoga also hosted Shree Ma several times, enabling Swami Nirmalananda to enjoy an important relationship with this important teacher in her life. Swami Nirmalananda thanks Shree Ma for "giving me a course correction when I needed it, and always showering me with blessings and love, which I still didn't know how to find on my own."

After meeting Jean Klein, Swami Nirmalananda experienced the state he described, which made her see that the different meditative traditions provide different inner experiences, with the ultimate attainment in each system actually being different from one another. This deepened her dedication to her own Guru and renewed her commitment to fulfill the promise of yoga as he described it. "Every great teacher I have met has helped me clarify and understand what I had already been given by my Guru. Yet I needed their help to see it clearly and to stay on the path." Swami Nirmalananda continued to travel to study with Gurumayi several times a year, as well as meeting several other important gurus when they were visitng America, including Amma (Mata Amritanandamayima) and Sri Sri Ravi Shankar.

Swami Nirmalananda had several powerful meditations with visions and experiences of Bhagavan Nityananda of Ganeshpuri. He gave her a subtle initiation several times, three days in a row. "I didn't understand what was happening, but afterward I could see that my students were getting something new from my teaching." While there had always been a few students who got spontaneous shaktipat, the number increased dramatically. Swami Nirmalananda (Rama)'s presence clearly affected them in a new way, and many began talking about Swami Nirmalananda appearing in their dreams. In accordance with her lineage, Swami Nirmalananda continued to direct their attention past her, to the current head of the Siddha lineage, Gurumayi.

Svaroopa^® yoga teachers began inviting Swami Nirmalananda to teach in their cities, so she added weekend workshops to her schedule, holding the first one in Calgary Canada. That led to her teaching at many yoga conferences and yoga retreat centers, including Kripalu Center, Mt. Madonna, Feathered Pipe Ranch, Hollyhock, Omega Institute and others. Swami Nirmalananda also traveled to teach many workshops in Australia, England, South Korea, and Mexico as well as yoga studios throughout the USA.

In 2001, Swami Nirmalananda announced that she had not been to India for 14 years because she had given that time to creating Master Yoga Foundation. Now she was taking time off for a yatra, spiritual pilgrimage, to the most important sites that Baba had named. She returned from an arduous trip through 28 cities in 35 days, knowing that something had changed inside her. "I felt an inner independence. By this, I mean I felt like I didn't need to depend on anyone outside of me in order to anchor my inner state. It was so new that I didn't know how to trust it, so I continued visiting my gurus for their support and guidance for another 7 years."

By now, Swami Nirmalananda was traveling to teach so much that she could not support her local students and the other teachers in Master Yoga's San Diego studio. The local community dispersed to the many teachers she had trained in San Diego and Swami Nirmalananda intensified her support of the worldwide Svaroopa^® yoga community. By 2003, she was teaching more than half of the year on the East Coast, so she accepted a student's offer to open a teaching facility in Rehoboth Beach DE. She established a home in each city and began to commute by plane several times a month.

Swami Nirmalananda continued traveling to India for biannual personal retreats, returning each time with her state obviously deepened. Her ability to teach and lead others to their own inner experience expanded simultaneously. She describes her 2005 retreat in Pondicherry as a pivotal experience. She arrived for one early morning meditation, surprised to find hundreds of people in the usually empty courtyard. Soon, they all stood and formed lines, which she joined. After an hour in line, she was amazed to be able to walk through Shree Aurobindo's private quarters. This was an annual event that comemmorates his unveiling; his meditations had made such radical changes in his body that his very dark skin had turned pure white and a formal unveiling was held to celebrate it. Swami Nirmalananda says, "I understood so much more about what Baba had already given me. While the physical tools of Svaroopa^® yoga are very powerful, ultimately the body won't really change until the inner experience of consciousness opens up. My body opened up because Baba gave me that inner gift." Her meditations the next morning were profoundly different, as she stepped into a new level of something that had been there from the beginning.

When she returned home, she began to emphasize the importance of meditation as well as Ujjayi as a bridge to healing, transformation and the inner experience of Self. She asked the Board to establish a home base that would allow her to establish a permanent home. After traveling extensively for more than 12 years, in order to teach others and support Master Yoga, she felt the need to have time and space to deepen her inner experience.

Yoga International published an article on the Magic Four in 2005, asking Swami Nirmalananda to write the article and do a photo shoot for the poses. When Swami Nirmalananda went to the Himalayan Institute for the photo shoot, she had a personal meeting with Pandit Rajmani Tigunaith. He invited her to visit the most important tantric sites in northern India. "This shifted my attention from the formless to the form, and I found myself craving land and trees. I needed land, so I could plant the shakti that was growing in me."

Master Yoga's Board saw the need for the whole community to have a more central location as well as to support Swami Nirmalananda's needs as their Master Teacher, and moved to the Philadelphia area in 2006. After one year an overnight fire destroyed the building and everything in it. Swami Nirmalananda's response was, "Instead of worrying, send blessings." The Board created a big fundraising campaign,"Rebuilding From the Ashes", which energized the world-wide Svaroopa^® yoga community and began shifting Master Yoga to the next level of leadership and service. The growth of the Board and their new clarity freed Swami Nirmalananda (Rama) to begin looking more deeply at herself.

Swami Nirmalananda continued to travel to spend time with both Panditji and Mother Maya at every opportunity, always learning from their teachings as well as basking in their grace-filled presence. In early 2008, each of them urged her to take the next step - to become a swami and to open an ashram. This was external confirmation of her inner impulse, which she now knows is spanda, divine vibration. A leading Svaroopa^® yoga teacher in Australia, Janet Murray, had already reconnected Swami Nirmalananda with Swami Shankarananda after a 25 year gap. They had a sweet reunion in September 2008, during which Swamiji offered sannyasa initiation to Swami Nirmalananda (Rama). She went to Ganeshpuri with him in February 2009, at which time the initiation was completed.

Master Yoga's Board is completely supportive of Swami Nirmalananda's next step, and is working hard to free her from some of her current administrative responsibilities, as well as to plan for the empowerment of the Teacher Trainers and the whole community while Swami Nirmalananda turns her focus to the ashram and its residents. Swami Nirmalananda will continue to head Svaroopa^® yoga and teach for Master Yoga, even once the ashram is established.

Swami Nirmalananda says, "My first guru was my mother; she taught me to love God. My second guru was my father; he taught me unconditional love by giving it to me. I live in undying gratitude to Muktananda, who opened the door to my own divinity. Yet I didn't know how to step across the threshold, and needed the nurturance and support of so many gurus along the way. My heart melts in gratitude to their love and support. Yet my true Guru is Muktananda - there is nothing but Muktananda."

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