Welcome to the Siddha Yoga path
Sign In Subscribe to Update Emails
December 2021

Yoga — Skill in Action
Offering Seva in Shree Muktananda Ashram

Seva, selfless service, is one of the core spiritual practices on the Siddha Yoga path. At Shree Muktananda Ashram, staff and visiting Siddha Yogis from around the world offer their skills, talents, and energy in support of the SYDA Foundation’s work—serving the Siddha Yoga Mission.

In a great scripture of India, Shri Bhagavad Gita, Lord Krishna teaches, "Yoga is skill in action." By serving with love and attentiveness, we cultivate proficiency, self-confidence, joy, and evenness of mind, and we strengthen our connection to the inexhaustible source of joy and power at the core of our being. Practicing seva in this way, we move toward attaining the goal of yoga: the steady awareness of our union with the Self.

As you view these photos of Siddha Yogis engaged in many different types of seva, you are invited to reflect on how each expresses skill in action through qualities such as focus, respect, and enthusiasm.

galleries-motif

Click here to share
As I looked at these inspiring pictures, a flood of memories came to mind of when I offered seva at Shree Muktananda Ashram. Seva has always been my favorite practice. For me it cultivated a joy of presence, a wholeheartedness, an attention to detail, and a profound gratefulness for my Guru no matter which seva I had the good fortune to offer. While offering seva, I always felt I was bathing in a river of bliss, a pool of nectar supported by grace which somehow washed my heart and mind clean. Just remembering seva does this for me.
 
Early on in my sadhana I wrote these lines about my transformative experience of seva:
 
I came to do some seva.
That's all I came to do.
But somehow something else occurred.
Of this I'll share with you.
 
She opened up my heart
as I swept the kitchen floor.
She opened up my heart
in ways I hadn't known before.
 
And now I greet so many
who come for seva too.
And Gurumayi,
it's just amazing,
all is see is you.
 

Massachusetts, United States