Teachings Article
Shining with Divine Light
By Gurudevi Nirmalananda
July 2025
We love the moon’s silvery-white light, a cooling light. Its soft glow illumines the darkness, soothing and calming your mind. Yet the moon is not the source of its light. It merely reflects the light of the sun. Similarly, the light of Consciousness shines through your mind. The source is within, your own Divine Essence.
If your mind were clear and spacious, your mind’s light would be cool, soothing and comforting. This is why spending time with your Guru is so valuable — the Divine light shining through their mind cools, soothes and comforts you.
Lokanandah samadhi-sukham. — Shiva Sutras 1.16
Such a yogi experiences the bliss of Consciousness in every situation, and it is transmitted to those in contact with him.
The Guru’s influence is unerring. Like sitting under a shade tree, you cool down. As you cool down, you settle into yourself. By Grace, your settling inward goes deeper — into your own Self.
You blossom like night-blooming jasmine in moonlight. I use this metaphor because Baba had a row of these shrubs in his India Ashram. I walked by them on my way to the hillside meditation hall every morning at 3 am. Their fragrance was intoxicating! Now I know that it was not only the shrubs that were blooming. It was me, too.
However, if your mind is full of limiting notions, Consciousness first has to burn them away. I know how it works because my Baba gave me this — the fire of yoga burning away everything that held me back. Shaktipat initiates this inner process which leads to moksha, liberation.
The process is called purification. You are burning away the inner impurities. It can get hot, especially if you try to keep yourself limited and small. The alternative is clinging to your feeling of being incomplete. You already know this is painful.
Your yogic future is described in the Shiva Sutras:
Tad-arudha-pramites tat-kshayaj jiva-samkshayah.
Bhuta-kanchuki tada vimukto bhuyah patisamah parah.
— Shiva Sutras 3.41-42
The yogi is established in knowing his own Self, with the ending of all desires and the sense of separateness destroyed.
Liberated while alive, using his physical body as an outer covering, he is unbounded like Lord Shiva.
The knowing of your own Self is the goal, but not merely during your meditations. When you bring your own Self with you into life, you are filled from the inside. This makes you free from desire. And your sense of separateness, aloneness and isolation is gone.
In the beginning, meditation works like you have a light switch inside. You flip between two options: a) absorbed in Consciousness or b) lost in the world. You are either looking inward or looking outward.
Yet there is only one reality, that which encompasses both inside and outside. When you discover your own Self, you are like a light bulb, with light shining from the inside, spreading all around. You have no off switch. You never tire of shining with the light of Consciousness.
Because you are based in your own Divine Essence, you feel completely fulfilled. Desire cannot arise. You still take care of your body and interact with others, but in every moment you are coming from a different place inside.
You are free, unbounded like Shiva. Based within, you recognize the Divine in everyone else. Separation is gone, like a dream disappears when you wake. Yoga’s promise is that you will be liberated while you are in your body.
Many other meditative systems say you cannot attain the highest while you have a body, because the body is inherently limiting. But tantra says that Shiva has become everything, including this world, including your body. Thus your body is a holy temple. God resides within.
Sarira-vrttir vratam. Katha japah
Danam atmajnanam.
— Shiva Sutras 3.26-28
Remaining in the body is his only continuing sacrament. Every word of such a being is japa.
He disseminates knowledge of Self all round. This is his gift.
A sacrament is a sacred act. Western traditions usually sequester sacraments in churches and temples. Yogic tradition recommends they be done anywhere, at any time and frequently.
If your mind is entwined in worldly concerns, meditating attunes you to the sacred within. Thus it is a sacred action. You can do a chant, an arati (candle flame ceremony) and/or mantra repetition. These and other yogic practices work like pressing a reset button. They invoke Divine Consciousness to fill you as much as you allow.
For one whose mind is shining with the light of Consciousness, their choosing to remain in the body is their sacred act. Their continuing presence brings blessings to all. My Baba is an example of this. He faced death a year before I met him. A medical team worked on him for three hours to save him during a serious heart attack. Later, Baba said, “Nityananda sent me back. He said I still have work to do.”
I was part of that work. Every day I had with him, I knew was precious time. He had come back into his body to serve me as well as others.
With such a yogi, his every action is sacred. The world is his temple. All his words are mantras, saturated with shakti (energy). As there is nothing he seeks from the outside, every action is motivated by pure altruism, sharing what he has attained.
As much as I loved Baba’s discourses, I especially treasured sitting with him in silence. I sat with him 2-3 hours daily for almost a year. Much of the time, tears were sheeting down my face, though I felt no distress. I brought a hand towel with me so my clothes didn’t get wet. After several months, Baba explained, “The tears are the runoff from the melting of the iceberg covering your heart.”
Yes, his presence melted me at an inner level that words don’t reach. Like an iceberg in the sun, I melted. Beyond grateful, I owe my life to Muktananda. He spoke of his Guru Nityananda in the same way. Disciples of all great masters say the same, including Buddha, Jesus, Abhinavagupta and the Vedic sages. A Guru should be as luminous as the sun, but without its heat. A Guru should be as cool as the moon, but without its stains.
July’s full moon honors the Guru. Guru Purnima is the holiest of all holy days for yogis. Grace flows most abundantly on this day every year. Grace is the fifth of God’s Divine actions: creation, maintenance, destruction, concealment and revelation (grace). While Shiva has concealed himself by being the world, Grace is his revealing of his unceasing presence.
Yoga specializes in the inner revelation, that you find God within you, being you. Shiva uses a human being for this Divine purpose. Why a human being, instead of a tree or a star or mountain? Because you are most affected by other human beings. The Guru is one who has given themselves over completely, for they desire nothing else.
While the above sutras describe the Guru impeccably, they are not about the Guru. They are about you. They describe your yogic future, if you allow. For this, simply do more yoga.