Interview with
Nayaswami Shivani Lucki

Nayaswami Shivani Lucki has lived at Ananda since its founding in 1969 in California. Together with her husband, Nayaswami Arjuna Lucki, they have served in Ananda Europa since 1985. Shivani is currently the director of the Ananda Raja Yoga School of Europa, which trains meditation teachers in the techniques of Self-realization, and the inspiration behind the development of the Ananda Self-Healing Center.

Question: As a pioneering member of the Ananda World Brotherhood Villa in California, and Ananda Europa in Italy, you have witnessed Ananda’s growth from its infancy to its maturity. Are you satisfied with the way Ananda has developed over these 40 years?

Answer: When I arrived at Ananda Meditation Retreat in the summer of 1969, there was hardly anything to speak of: beautiful forest land, thick with trees and populated by animals (a small part of what now is Ananda Village), a temple and dining room-kitchen building, and a few primitive houses. I slept under a pine tree for the first few months, and later moved into a very small caravan and then into a teepee – an Indian-style tent.

But what I felt was that there already existed the Ananda World Brotherhood community, in its entirety. I couldn’t see it, but I could feel it: the friendship, the joy, the constant inner peace, the freedom of living for God. It was there then, and that has never changed.

The image I have is that of a master artist, like Raffaello or Leonardo, who sketches in detail the outlines of a large fresco, and then permits the students in his bottega to fill out design using their own skills and talents. Yogananda is the great artist whose sketch exists mostly on the astral and causal plane; Swami Kriyananda continues to bring those designs to the physical plane and oversee the bottega, and there are hundreds, even thousands now who are creating the colors and strokes that make the design a living reality. I am grateful, immensely grateful, to be one of the students who has the chance to add color to the design.

Question: Would you say that “Pioneer” is a word which accurately describes you? You have started many things - in California, the first organic gardens, the yoga training programs; in Europe many of the courses, the Ananda Yoga Academy and the Raja Yoga School, the Clarity Transformation Seminars. What motivates you to get so many things started?

Answer: I think each one of us is born with a long history of past experiences which influences our character, our decisions and the course of our lives. In the early years of Ananda Village I worked in the organic gardens, and I loved the planting season, putting the seeds or the small plants into the carefully-prepared soil and watching them grow to maturity. And now I love to plant the seeds of new initiatives that makes the life-transforming teachings of Self-realization available to many people.

Question: This year you are working on the launch of the Self-Healing Center. Why self-healing and why now? What distinguishes this healing center from other new-age, alternative healing centers?

Answer: Many years ago I started to read the original writings of Yogananda, many of which have never been published in their original form. From carefully studying his early Yogoda Lessons, and his commentaries on the Bible and the Bhagavad Gita, I came to the realization that fundamental to our spiritual progress is the development of our will power. To aid in this development, Yogananda teaches us how to use our will power for healing physical, mental and spiritual maladies.

I discovered a wealth of information about how disease takes hold in the mind and body, and marvelous, you could call them cutting-edge techniques for curing them. We all want to improve our health, and we usually go to someone else to be healed. But Yogananda encourages people to make the effort to heal themselves, to take responsibility for every condition of their lives, and to become free from the enslavement of past bad habits. In so doing, we not only improve our health, but we gradually become freed from the ego, and we gain the capacity to act independently from past conditioning. True spiritual freedom and independence from self-imposed slavery: what an enormous step forward this is for human beings!

I think the time is ripe now for Ananda Europa to develop a complete program based on these self-healing techniques – mature in the sense that the teachers are more mature in their own spiritual lives and experienced in transmitting the techniques. Mature also in the sense that people want to have more control over their lives and their health and are willing to make the effort required.

Question: The Self-Healing Center is starting off with many courses. If someone is just getting beginning to get acquainted with spiritual teachings, which courses do you recommend they take first?

Answer: Yogananda developed a set of self-healing exercises which he calls the “Yogoda system of body and mind perfection,” and upon which he based a method of self-healing:

“The method which can directly and quickly rouse the life energy to effect healing I term ‘Life Therapy,’ or direct healing by the rays of the inner Life Force.”

In the program called Life Therapy this method is taught and is applied to four general areas of healing: the physical body, the mind and emotions, the control of vital energy, and the development of spiritual awareness. So for a beginner, this course is very useful.

But all of the courses are useful and accessible to everyone, because they are based on the Life Therapy methods.

Question: What can you tell us about the healing Intensives. Why are they limited to a small number of participants, and how are they different from the other healing courses?

Answer: In these programs we want to give each participant their own spiritual coach who will work with them throughout the week to help them clarify their situation, to more clearly define their life goals, and help them in learning the techniques that are being taught.

The daily schedule is somewhat different from the usual one at Ananda, because a group of teachers and counselors stay with the group throughout the program, and the yoga and meditation practices are adapted specifically for the group. A small group of people can receive more individual attention, and also create a bond of trust and sharing that is more difficult to achieve in larger groups.

Question: I see a brochure here about Individual Consultations being available. It talks about something called “Ananda Life Coaching” and “Ananda Therapy” and “Spiritual Counseling.” Is this something new? Can anyone request a consultation?

Answer: Many of the Ananda Assisi teachers now have decades of experience not only living and teaching these spiritual practices, but also in counseling others. Now it is possible for anyone to request a session.

There are three kinds of private meetings available:

Ananda Life Coaching: The purpose of these individual sessions is to help you to perceive your life situations in a different light - from a “superconscious” or more comprehensive perspective; and to help you find the directions and solutions which are already known to your higher Self.

Yogic Therapies include an initial consultation-evaluation process, followed by a one-hour practice session of exercises which can then be practiced at home. The therapies include Life Therapy, Ananda Yoga Therapy, Art as Therapy, and Flower Essence Therapy.

Spiritual Counseling sessions are brief meetings during which you can request for yourself healing prayers, the Purification Ceremony, or help in your meditation practices.

Question: How can one make an appointment for these kinds of sessions?

Answer: Program guests can make appointments at the Reception office when they arrive, or call ahead to schedule them. It is also possible to come to Ananda specifically for one of these sessions as well – the Reception office coordinates the appointments, giving precedence to program participants.

Question: Do you have any words of wisdom for people who want to improve their lives?

Answer: The words of wisdom are from Paramhansa Yogananda:

“Joy and God are One. Joy is the healing that you want first, the healing of the ignorance of the soul…The greatest healing you should pray for is the healing of your ignorance, so that you will never go back to the old form of life. The best and highest reward in our life toward God Consciousness is the realization of unceasing happiness, which we call Peace, or Bliss.”

Let’s finish the interview with his prayer, “I am not the body:”

Beloved God, I know that I am not the body, not the blood, not the energy, not the thoughts, not the mind, not the ego, not the astral self.

I am the immortal soul that illumines them all, remaining unchangeable in spite of their changes.

My body cells are made of light, my fleshly cells are made of Thee. They are perfect, for Thou art perfect; they are Spirit, for Thou art Spirit.

Eternal youth of body and mind, abide in me forever, forever, forever.

Help me to learn, O Spirit, to live more and more by direct cosmic energy and less and less by food.

O Father, Thy unlimited and all-healing power is in me. Manifest Thy light through the darkness of my ignorance.

O Spirit, teach me to heal the body by recharging it with Thy cosmic energy; to heal the mind by concentration and smiles.