http://www.expandinglight.org/ananda-school-of-yoga-and-meditation/

Ananda School of Yoga & Meditation, 14618 Tyler Foote Road, Nevada City, CA (2025)

11/06/2025

Yoga philosophy shows us that our thoughts, emotions, and actions are shaped by three universal forces — the gunas:

🌿 Sattva – clarity, harmony, upliftment
🔥 Rajas – restlessness, action, desire
🌑 Tamas – heaviness, inertia, darkness

The teachings yoga and meditation help us to consciously align with sattva, the quality that elevates our awareness and opens us to divine grace.

Each choice we make — every thought, every habit — can either cloud our consciousness or help it shine with light. The power of choice is in the present moment! There are no obstacles, only opportunities!🌞

11/03/2025

“The secret of meditation is radiating blessings from your heart outward to all the world.” – Swami Kriyananda

This expansive secret of meditation helps us avoid the ego pitfall of meditating for the self and rather than for the Self.

When we meditate without this attitude of blessing others, we begin to revolve around ourselves the thoughts of, “my growth,” “my happiness, “my enlightenment,” reinforcing the opposite of what meditation is truly for: liberation from the sense of “I,” of ego, separation. ⭐️

🧘‍♀️🙏Inner stillness and devotion help us feel our divine connection with everyone. The desire to send blessings from your heart arises naturally as you deepen your meditation.

When you pray for others in this way, your consciousness naturally expands until you feel God’s love for all creation within you. 💕

🧘‍♀️⚡️One person in deep, inner communion radiating love and blessings does more good for the world than we can imagine.

10/30/2025

Highlights from our Advanced Pranayama Workshop practice teaching sessions. 🧘‍♀️

🫁👨‍🏫One of the best ways to dive deeper is to learn to teach the techniques in a supportive environment!

10/27/2025

“The joyous rays of the soul can be perceived if you interiorize your attention. Do not search for happiness only in beautiful clothes, delicious dinners, and other comforts. These will imprison your happiness behind the bars of outwardness.

If you have made up your mind to find joy within yourself, sooner or later you will find it. Seek it daily, by continuously deeper meditation within, and you will surely find everlasting happiness. Make a steady effort to go within, and you will find your greatest happiness there.

Happiness comes, not by helplessly wishing for it, but by dreaming, thinking, and living it in all circumstances. No matter what you are doing, keep the undercurrent of happiness, the secret river of joy, flowing beneath the sands of your thoughts and the rocky soils of hard trials.”

– Paramhansa Yogananda, How to be Happy All the Time

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10/27/2025

“The joyous rays of the soul can be perceived if you interiorize your attention. Do not search for happiness only in beautiful clothes, delicious dinners, and other comforts. These will imprison your happiness behind the bars of outwardness.

If you have made up your mind to find joy within yourself, sooner or later you will find it. Seek it daily, by continuously deeper meditation within, and you will surely find everlasting happiness. Make a steady effort to go within, and you will find your greatest happiness there.

Happiness comes, not by helplessly wishing for it, but by dreaming, thinking, and living it in all circumstances. No matter what you are doing, keep the undercurrent of happiness, the secret river of joy, flowing beneath the sands of your thoughts and the rocky soils of hard trials.”

– Paramhansa Yogananda, How to be Happy All the Time

10/23/2025

🧘🫁Pranayama is the fourth stage of Ashtanga Yoga, Patanjali’s eight-limbed path.

💨Pranayama does not mean “breathing exercises”—or any other yogic technique, for that matter.

Rather, it is one of the goals of all yoga techniques: the state of being in control of the
life-force within us (prana = life-force and yama = control). 🎯

In fact, it is a very specific kind of control: that of reversing our habitual flow of prana, so that rather than flowing outward to the senses, it flows inward to the spine, to the Self. 😇🧘🧘‍♀️🧘‍♂️

Want to learn more? Join our upcoming 5-day Advanced Pranayama workshop.
📍The Expanding Light Retreat
🗓️Dates: Oct 26–31, 2025

10/20/2025

😊🌟The secret of a happy life is ego-transcendence.

🎯The goal of yoga is to seek oneness with all that is, to rise above the ego and identify with the formless spirit.

Anything that shrinks our awareness into a narrower identity squeezes inward on our happiness, deprives us of lasting fulfillment, and increases our suffering. In other words, the secret of a happy life is a minimum of self-preoccupation.

Maya (delusion) will always try to trick us into seeking happiness through ego-affirming means. In doing so, it carefully avoids the only thing that actually works: offering yourself into a greater reality.

✌️The way to defeat Maya’s ego-narrowing arguments is to constantly remind yourself that happiness and fulfillment come through self-expansion — an expansion unattainable by the ego, but inevitable for one who achieves release from it.

10/16/2025

⚡️Ever wondered how to really practice Yogananda’s Enegization Exercise, Spinal Recharging, safely and effectively? You’re not the only one!

🌟A common misunderstanding is focusing too much on twisting the hips. The priority is to twist the shoulders toward the midline, while the hips gently move in the opposite direction, like wringing a towel.

Here are 3 more alignment tips to protect your spine and feel the full energizing power of this exercise:

1️⃣ Keep the gaze forward
2️⃣ Spine and legs stay straight
3️⃣ Fists at hip level, not at the waist

Correct alignment is important as this will allow you to isolate and recharge the spine more effectively without causing pain or strain!🌟

Want to learn more about how to share the Energization Exercises correctly? We are offering a 4-week online Energization Teacher Training starting Jan 8, 2026.

👉 Click link in bio to learn more!

10/13/2025

“To seek happiness outside ourselves is like trying to lasso a cloud. Happiness is not a thing: It is a state of mind. It must be lived. Neither worldly power nor moneymaking schemes can ever capture happiness…

Learn to be secretly happy within your heart in spite of all circumstances, and say to yourself, Happiness is the greatest divine birthrightthe buried treasure of my soul. I have found that I am secretly rich beyond the dream of kings.

Persons of strong character are usually the happiest. They do not blame others for troubles that can be traced to their own actions and lack of understanding. They know that no one has the power to add to their happiness or detract from it, unless they themselves allow the adverse thoughts or wicked actions of others to affect them.

A strong determination to be happy will help you. Do not wait for your situation to change, thinking that therein lies the trouble. Try to be happy under all circumstances. If your happiness sometimes seems dependent on certain conditions, then change your circumstances so that you will be happy all the time.”

- How to be Happy All the Time, Paramhansa Yogananda

10/09/2025

Feeling overly critical, impatient, or striving for perfection lately? You might be in a Pitta imbalance.

🔥💦This Ananda Yoga sequence with side bends, twists, and grounding poses is designed to cool, soften, and soothe the intensity of the beautiful fire you have burning within you and bring it back to a steady, healthy glow. ✨

Practice it once a day to calm and soothe the body, mind and emotions 🥰🤗

👉 Swipe through the carousel to see the complete routine 🙂

1️⃣ Cooling Breath | Sitali Pranayama
2️⃣ Warm Up | Cat-Cow & Threading the Needle
3️⃣ Half Moon Pose | Ardha Chandrasana
4️⃣ Eagle Pose | Garudasana
5️⃣ Head-to-the-Knee Pose | Janushirasana
6️⃣ Cobra Pose | Bhujangasana
7️⃣ Child Pose | Balasana
8️⃣ Supine Twist | Jathara Parivartanasana
9️⃣ Fish Pose | Matsyasana

10/06/2025

✨ We can never truly experience the world outside ourselves—only through the reports of the senses to the brain. As long as the life-force is trapped in the body, our awareness is limited.

But there is a way out. 🌌 When the life-force withdraws from the senses and flows up the spine to the spiritual eye (the Christ center), our consciousness expands beyond the ego into Infinity.

Thus, the spine is the highway to the Infinite. 🚀 Your body is the temple of God. The true pilgrimage is inward. The ultimate offering is to place your very life-force on the altar of inner communion with the Divine. 🙏

10/03/2025

🧘Are you restless in meditation?
🔑The key is not quieting the mind, but calming the heart.

💙 Desires and attachments originating from the heart agitates the mind.

The great sage Patanjali in his Yoga Sutras states, “To be spiritually free, we need to neutralize the desires and attachments of the heart.”

😌One simple tool to calm the heart is to keep the inhalations and exhalations equal. This slow breathing pattern naturally soothes and cleanses the emotional baggage in the heart, thus quieting the mind and awakening soul intuition. ✨

Ananda School of Yoga & Meditation

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