Commitment to Serve — Opportunity to Grow

Since his arrival in America in 1960, Gurudev’s pioneering work preserving the spiritual depth of yoga has made an historical impact in the yoga community worldwide. Thousands of teachers have been trained in his methodology and are practicing and teaching in 37 countries.

The Amrit Yoga Institute is a nonprofit organization founded to preserve the authentic values and timeless teachings of the sacred Lineage of Swami Shri Kripalvanandji (Bapuji) and Bhagwan Lakulish (Dadaji). Gurudev’s lifelong dedication has brought healing and spiritual awakening to hundreds of thousands throughout the world.

We want you, as part of your commitment to this heritage, to help us by participating in the creation of a permanent retreat center. Through this work we can ensure that these timeless teachings of Sanatan Dharma continue to expand, deepening the lives of those who encounter them and bringing transformation to humanity for generations to come.

Renovations Coming This Year

The Amrit Yoga Institute celebrates five years in Salt Springs with continued steps toward creating a fully equipped retreat center. We are currently exploring the possibility of an addition to the lodge with the local planning and zoning departments. The proposed renovation will result in a greatly expanded, air-conditioned practice space and an enclosed dining area on the lakeside of the lodge building. This project requires about $400,000. We have already secured over $100,000 from a generous donor as well as the commitment from a south Florida contractor to build the addition at cost.

Income generated from programs is reinvested in the programs themselves or allocated toward maintenance of existing facilities. We are actively seeking funds to make this work possible. Please contact info@amrityoga.org to find out how you can help.

Future Steps

Our capacity to serve and to thrive is directly connected to your interest and support. The gifts we receive from you are used to take tangible steps toward bringing our shared vision into reality. Priorities for further development of the Amrit Yoga Institute include:

• Installation of a commercial well and pump
• Purchase two emergency generators to handle fundamental electrical needs during power outages
• Expanding bathroom facilities in the lodge
• Integrated phone and voicemail system
• Fully equipped commercial kitchen, to bring meal production on-site
• Upgrades and climate-controlled storage for our computer servers
• Removal of the concrete go-cart track and addition of an environmentally friendly parking lot at the southeast corner of the property
• Topsoil, landscaping and gardening to convert these grounds into a meditative, tropical sanctuary
• Library of Gurudev and Bapuji’s writings, photographs, and video/ DVD

Thanks to You...

With your generous support, this year we have been able to:

• Offer 19 scholarships to individuals for participation in Amrit Yoga certification programs
• Initiate architectural, engineering, and zoning processes for renovation of the lodge
• Paint the back wall of the Darshan Room to improve the background color for video recordings
• Purchase new microphones, improving the recording quality of lectures and darshans, as well as a microphone splitter to improve both live sound and recording quality
• Install new antennae, expanding network computer access to the entire property
• Rewire computer connections in preparation for the future phone system
• Remodel the office, creating some new individual office space

In Loving Remembrance

It has been one year since our dear Mataji left her body to continue her soul’s journey. May the blessing of Mataji’s presence continue to grace our daily work and may the memory of her life of service and surrender teach us how to live from the heart.

We are grateful to all of you who have chosen to continue her legacy by making a gift to the Mataji Fund. Through your generosity, we have raised $80,000 for the Mataji Fund. Visit our website at www.amrityoga.org/mataji-fund.htm to learn more about the Mataji Living Legacy or to make a gift to the current exciting projects planned for Mataji’s hometown of Halol.

Schoolchildren and Trustees of Nutan Elementary School in Halol, Gurjarat welcomed Gurudev and Govardhan Parikh, Trustee of Kripalu Seva Ashram, this July to discuss building a new pre-school adjacent to the existing school, which serves more than 1,000 students. The Urmila Amrit Desai Shrishuvihar, named in honor of Mataji, will help prepare youngsters entering Nutan.

Visit www.amrityoga.org/mataji-fund.htm for the full story.

Devotion to Practice Fuels Growth

The Amrit Mala program is one powerful way you can help the Amrit Yoga Institute grow in service to you and many others. Amrit Mala is a vehicle to enhance our connection to each other and to the teachings of the Lineage through the deliberate act of giving. We use a commitment to allocate $1 per day in support of the Amrit Yoga Institute as a channel for integrative intention. As this intention bears fruit, our practice deepens and the mission of the Amrit Yoga Institute moves forward.

Amrit Mala is designed for everyone’s participation and yields extraordinary results:

• One person committed to Amrit Mala = $365 per year
• One mala = 108 beads
• One Amrit Mala = 108 people
• 108 people giving $365 per year = $39,420 per year
• 3 Amrit Malas = $118,260 per year

As we join together in the Amrit Mala, we create a powerful engine to fuel the mission of the Amrit Yoga Institute. Amrit Mala gains power through growth, so please visit our website for more information: http://www.amrityoga.org/amrit-mala.html. Join Amrit Mala and share this program with everyone you love. Contact info@amrityoga.org with questions.

Guidance for Giving

As you consider the possibility of deepening your connection to the Amrit Yoga Institute through giving, don’t hesitate to contact info@amrityoga.org for support. Here are some ideas that may inspire you:

• Honor a birth or the passing of a loved one, or celebrate your own birthday
• Make a gift on Guru Purnima, honor your wedding anniversary or your child’ s wedding
• Find a project that ignites your inspiration and work with us to make it manifest
  Examples:
  
  • Love to cook? Fund part of our kitchen!
  • Love nature? Help us fund landscaping and gardening
  • Attended a program when the power went out and you couldn’t take a shower? Help us purchase an emergency generator!
  • Tired of waiting for the bathroom during retreats?...you get the idea!
• Consider making a commitment over three or five years as a challenge to yourself
• Consider including the Amrit Yoga Institute in your estate plans

A message from Gurudev...

Our path is a path of commitment. On this path, there is nothing that I can give you. Only your commitment can give you what you want to achieve. Inner growth requires greater commitment to creating internal shifts than to making external changes. Your commitment to personal growth creates the foundation that assures your growth in the midst of all obstacles you encounter all along the way.

When you want something badly enough, all your attention and energy is committed to the fulfillment of getting what you want. Energy follows attention. No matter how inspired you are, without ongoing support and inspiration, you will lose your focus and intention and will get lost in the mental jungle of your doubts, fears and indecision. Being in an environment of like-minded seekers creates a synergy of energy where habitual behaviors and self-destructive patterns can be overcome more easily.

The Amrit Yoga Institute is your spiritual home that:

• Supports your commitment to your spiritual practice
• Nourishes your inner growth and transformation
• Creates a space for you to distance yourself from everyday routines and distractions, to reflect and reevaluate the challenges of daily life
• Nurtures and guides the development of your inner guru through direct connection with the external guru

Many of you have expressed your desire to be part of a place where embodiment of the teachings can be lived and continuously reinforced in a caring, loving, supportive community. The Amrit Yoga Institute is that environment, where personal growth and transformation can happen joyously and effortlessly.

We are moving forward excitedly with development of our facilities to better serve you. You are invited to support the Amrit Yoga Institute in our endeavor to create the environment to facilitate not only your own personal transformation, but that of a large growing spiritual family. When you are truly grateful for the profound shifts that you have experienced in your personal life and health, you will naturally want to share this with others.

Contributing financially to the Amrit Yoga Institute is the perfect vehicle to express your love and appreciation, from your heart to another. Sharing from the heart creates an opening for you to receive that which you provide. This commitment is a rare opportunity to serve the Lineage in a very real way.

A Message from Malay...
We write to you this summer to share news from Amrit Yoga Institute and to invite your participation and connection with the work of our Lineage. Summer is often a busy time, filled with travel, outdoor chores, fun and family visits. Our work at the Amrit Yoga Institute is intended to create ideal conditions for you, our family, to continually deepen the communion we create together through the practice of yoga on and off the mat.

Over the last six months our programs have continued to grow. We have enjoyed the company of more than 1,000 program participants so far this year and we are looking forward to several full programs coming up this fall. Gurudev, accompanied by Amrit Yoga teachers and staff, has been teaching in Iceland, Dubai, Bali, and India. Kamini and Chandrakant continue to teach throughout the country, from California to Rhode Island and in between. Amrit Yoga communities, led by you – practitioners dedicated to sharing the light of these teachings – are growing and developing all over the country.

As the light of our Lineage grows, so does our commitment to creating a center where people can come to deepen their connection to the source within. Those of you who have visited us here on Lake Kerr know the potential of this place as a retreat center. We want to develop this beautiful property into a program center that can serve moderate-sized groups in comfort, simplicity, and beauty. Bringing this intention into form requires focus, dedication, investment, and perseverance.

The Amrit Yoga Institute has become a spiritual home through the blessing of your involvement and support. We invite you now to join us in the fearless pursuit of our intention to grow through love, service, and surrender. Deepen your commitment to this intention and your practice by joining the Amrit Mala, make a gift using the enclosed reply card, or contact us to find out how you can help at (352) 685-3001 or info@amrityoga.org.

As you plan for fall and the coming year, please check our website at www.amrityoga.org for new programs and updates. We look forward to sharing the journey with you in the coming months.

Jai Bhagwan,
Malay Desai

July 10, 2007 — Ocala Star-Banner: Amrit Yoga is Front Page News!

The Ocala Star-Banner ran a front-page feature about Amrit Yoga, Yogi Desai and the Amrit Yoga Institute: http://ocala.com/article/20070710/NEWS/207100322/1025/NEWS

Watch the Flash movie and listen to Priti teach a class and Gurudev speak on the meaning of chanting.
http://www.ocala.com/assets/slideshow/EnchantedSpaces070707/index.html

2006 - Growth at Amrit Yoga Institute

Gurudev has shared his intention to create a center where we can relax, renew and transform ourselves and our lives through the practice of yoga. With your involvement and support, that vision is taking shape. This year we were able to advance program development and to accomplish several essential projects to support the infrastructure at the center.

Our vision is to create a facility with the capacity to serve 100 people. Currently, our capacity is 35 guests plus staff. Growing programs present a welcome challenge. Plans are moving forward to expand our facilities over the next few years. Our next stage of growth will require strength of intention, support and funding from our worldwide Amrit Yoga family. Many of you contribute to this work by teaching Amrit Yoga, attending programs, and performing seva at the Institute. Your continual connection through teaching, learning and service allows us to move forward.

Opportunities to Serve: Teaching from Bapuji

When one lives just for oneself, life is full of pain. When one lives for everyone else, life is full of bliss. One who donates anything to the family, society, nation, and the world, according to his capacity, is a truly wealthy and cultured person. It is irrational to equate wealth with material abundance. Actually, anything considered valuable is an asset and is, thus, a form of wealth and prosperity. From this perspective, we should treat as assets and wealth our physical and mental health and well-being, our love, and our knowledge. Some portion of whatever one gets should be set aside for others; only then should the person whole-heartedly enjoy whatever remains. Donation is a basil leaf through which the subsequent enjoyments become prasad (blessed food).

Thanks to you…
With the blessing of your generous support in 2006, we were able to:

• Develop continuing education credits for bodyworkers and mental health professionals
• Renew accreditation with the Yoga Alliance for all of our teacher and professional training programs
• Continue our scholarship program to provide assistance to deserving individuals in attending Amrit Yoga trainings
• Implement our strategic plan to bring senior Amrit Yoga teachers to your neighborhoods throughout Canada and the USA
• Create more program space by removing the bowling lanes in our darshan room and expanding the shop
• Replace the roofs on all of our buildings

Mataji’s Legacy

Mataji’s passing in July touched all of us. Her life was a guiding light for all who practice selfless service. The Amrit Yoga Institute established The Mataji Living Legacy Fund to continue Mataji’s karma yoga into the future, and the fund is already growing. Proceeds from the Mataji Fund will be used to provide needed educational supplies for children and financial support to women in a yogic environment that aligns with the spirit of Mataji’s lifelong mission. Visit http://www.amrityoga.org/donate-mataji.htm to learn more about the Mataji Fund and how you can help.

“When you help another person, you don’t even know how that act of giving or how many other people could be affected by your generosity.” Mataji

Support the Amrit Yoga Institute through www.amrityogatravel.com

Announcing the new Amrit Yoga Travel site! When you book all your personal and business travel at www.amrityogatravel.com, an average of 8% of your purchase—40% of all commissions—will be donated to the Amrit Yoga Foundation at no additional cost to you. Services include air travel, car rentals, lodging, vacation packages, travel insurance, event tickets and many other extras.

We encourage all of you to use this site for all your travel needs, whether for work, vacation, or group travel, and to explore the extra features of the site as well. Tell your family and friends about the site and you will be helping the Amrit Yoga Institute while you also fulfill your travel needs!

Our heartfelt thanks to Paula Bayer and Your Travel Biz, who created and donated this site for the Amrit Yoga Institute. Please contactus at the Amrit Yoga Institute for more information: (352) 685.3001 or info@amrityoga.org

A message from Gurudev...

I extend to you an invitation to share in the grace and blessings I have received from Bapuji. The experience of carrying out his vision in America and perpetuating the spiritual depth and dimension of yogic practice has touched every part of my life. It has changed me at the very core of my being, and has been a profound support in bringing the power of lineage to you.

I feel that our center has progressed very well with your participation, love and care. I invite you to join me in carrying on our mission by being a co-creative participant in developing Bapuji’s vision. Sharing from the heart creates an opening for us to become the recipient of that which we provide. This is how giving becomes receiving.

You have already contributed so much in the past. Your personal participation and unqualified support is at the core of the expansion of our facilities and ability to reach out to others. Now we have come to a stage where it is crucial for all of us to share in the continuation of the authentic values and timeless teachings of our lineage.

As we experience rapid growth we have discovered that we need to extend our facilities to accommodate this growth. With your help we can continue to expand our programs to all those that want to deepen their practice and become part of our lineage of light and love.

Your loving support of this vision is a co-creation in the spirit of compassionate service.

A Message from Malay...
We write to you with excitement and gratitude for all that is happening at the Amrit Yoga Institute. Our dedicated family of people carrying the light of this lineage into the world—of which you are a part—continues to grow. This year we celebratedthe graduation of nearly 150 new Amrit Yoga teachers and Amrit Method™ Yoga Nidra facilitators and served many more people in additional programs throughout the year.

Now is a powerful time to be connected. As Gurudev enters deeper into his sadhana, we all experience new depth and inspiration in our practice of these timeless teachings. As is always the case with transformation, growth at the Amrit Yoga Institute has come along with profound change. Transformation has produced both growth and profound change at the Amrit Yoga Institute this year. Following are some brief highlights which we hope will bring you joy and inspiration to continually renew your connection to your practice and to our shared purpose of serving in ways that nourish ourselves, our families and the world.

As a member of our cherished Amrit Yoga family, we invite you to impart the power of your intention to this ongoing work by making a year-end donation to the Amrit Yoga Institute.

Your giving will help us fulfill the vision of Amrit Yoga and our lineage. It is in this spirit that we ask for your gift now. You can donate online or download a printable donation form. Please don’t hesitate to contact us at (352) 685-3001 or info@amrityoga.org if you have any questions. As we move toward another year of growth and transformation, we look forward to connecting with all of you.

Please check our 2007 programs calendar and stay tuned for updates on the magical unfolding of the work we share. Many blessings for health, peace, and prosperity in the coming year.

Jai Bhagwan,
Malay Desai

Spring 2004

Pilgrimage to Mother India

In January, Gurudev led a group of 35 people on a unique tour of Northern and Western India, designed to provide participants with an intimate experience of the culture and spiritual heritage of this lineage. The focus of the tour was a pilgrimage to the holy site of Bapuji's Mahasamadhi, or burial site, at Malav Ashram, as well as an extended stay at the Kayavarohan Ashram, the site of the Lakulish Temple, where Bapuji spent most of his years of sadhana. Gurudev offered his special understanding, insights and the experiences that helped develop his spiritual heritage, his unique path of love and spiritual unfoldment in the Lineage of the Masters.

Gurudev and Mataji on the steps of Dadaji's Temple in Kayavarohan.

The group prepares to attend their first puja to Dadaji at Kayavarohan.

At Kayavarohan Temple, puja is performed to the Dadaji statue every morningat 5 a.m. The "pujaris" cleanse and adorn the statue with garlands, tilak and oils.

Mahadsamadhi Temple which houses Bapuji's burial site at Malav.

Gurudev holds one of the marble plaques depicting Bapuji's spontaneous asanas that will adorn the interior of the temple in Malav.

Malay (in blue shirt) and group visit the house where Gurudev lived in Halol as a young boy (far left) .

Gurudev tells the group about his boyhood visits to Bapuji when he lived in this goshala (cowshed) in Halol, Gurudev's hometown.

Just outside Bapuji's goshala in Halol, Gurudev shares a story about Brahma bulls.

Malay Desai captured the entire tour with his ever-present video camera.

A gate over one of the entrances to the Rishikesh Ashram depicts Krishna and Arjuna in a battlefield scene from the Bhagavad Gita.

A typical mealtime at the ashram in Rishikesh.

Gurudev (center), Shri Swami Chidanand Saraswatiji (far left) and Mataji offer arti in a ceremony on the banks of the Ganges River in Rishikesh.

Swamaji and Gurudev perform a ritual agni hotra prior to the arti ceremony on the Ganges. A lifesize statue of Shiva sits in meditation in the river.

An awe-inspiring 12-foot tall Shiva in majestic meditation at Parmarth Niketan Ashram in Rishikesh.

Gurudev and Mataji look on as Balayogi gives an outdoor lecture in Rishikesh.

Gurudev gives morning darshan to the group at the Welcome Hotel in Baroda. All photos Copyright © 2004 Amrit Yoga Institute