“शुभारंभ” – The Beginning of Spiritual Life

I chose Paramanand yoga institute among thousands of yoga schools in India because I felt it will give me the philosophy part of yoga and spiritual experiences. And it did give all of this to me, even more I must say, and I could try many things out of my comfort zone.

I could feel dedication from all of your teachers, especially our asana teacher Ramaji  and Dr.Shiv, who we talked about Bhagavad Gita with, and of course from Guruji.

And your guidance, your meditation classes, just amazing. The transformation happened, I think mainly the raising up the Shakti part, because I couldn’t put myself in meditation for some 5 years, and now it happened, and is happening even away from the ashram, away from the group experience. And this was my concern, but you told me once that it will be the same outside of your guidance, and it is true. This morning I transcended the time again, and you were there guiding me….. Thank you for this.

But I want to share my experience in ashram anyhow, even if I am already away.

Days were pretty hectic and short, fast paced timetable didn’t allow any unnecessary things to be going on. The Maun during karma yoga, maun during eating times, I loved it. And I think that I learned here to do every part of work with joy and no grumpy face…with a smile inside and with a song on my lips. And maun many times even without the ticket.

Was having a hard time with terrible headaches due to sinuses infection, and I am prone to headaches sometimes, but this was very bad, 10 days! My sleeping was bad because of it, ….
I miss Jala Neti with the group, I miss chanting and music from the ashram across the street, I miss the morning view of the sun rising up … I miss the cows there ….
even though we had a lot of homework, I loved it, because this was the only way you could make us learn something new in such a short time. And it is just the beginning, just small easy glimpses on Bhagavad Gita and other books, pranayama, meditation, but it is a start that gave everyone a nice understanding of Scriptures.

And what I learned the most here is that I have to find everything I am searching on the outside, in my inner true self. I hope meditations will be helping me.

I needed to find peace within me, to find calmness, and certainty about who I am and my path. And I haven’t been able to feel these, I believe the schedule is quite intense as I felt a lot of nervousness when we had to teach, especially since  I am prone to be nervous with these kind of events. Slowly I hope to overcome these… but anyhow, I could always deliver and teach, and during our morning asana classes I could learn all the names of the asanas – I could have never done that on my own. Now I know quite a lot of asana names!! Proud of that!

Asana practice, I could see I am able to hold Padmasana for 4 or 5 minutes, which I never could, and my back bending asanas are much more better than they used to be. Now I know that with discipline and practice one can achieve so much.

I learned to love pranayama, as I never liked it before. But now I got a much deeper understanding of it, and even kriyas like kapalbhati …

And I love my name, divine happiness, it is from that 14th February that I have been experiencing my Shakti rising, and my sinus infection rising. It happened on the same day, as if something wanted to be expressed from me with Shakti, but there is an obstacle. I will meditate on it. I hope to get an answer.

My name is Nives or Ma Nanda Anand, comes from small country Slovenia. Until 8 years ago I was mainly involved in the material world and ambitions in work carrier as an engineer etc. But I resigned the job because of feeling of suppressing my inner self; disease and depression came out. I started searching for answers in ancient knowledge, Jyotish, Vedic astrology, so I have done some studies in this field.

During this I went on a longer travelling journey to heal myself after having illness, and at the end of my journey I discovered yoga that helped me with my physical illness. Did my 200hr teacher’s training in Goa in 2014, and felt transformed.

After I came back home, I started having yoga classes for my friends and one year ago I started feeling that I have nothing else to give them. Nothing more to teach them. Expansion of classes was out of the question. I started craving for more knowledge and after a deep research I was lucky to have found Paramanand yoga Institute and decided to come for an experience. I am now a 500hr yoga teacher and having the certificate in yoga therapy as well. Glad I did. I want to spread the light and I want to be the light.

Glad I did. I want to spread the light and I want to be the light.

Nives (Ma Nanda Anand)