True to Yourself Podcast 17: Celebrating the Eternal Victory of Light Over Darkness with Ananta Ripa Ajmera
Welcome to a celebratory return to this show after over a year! In this episode, I open up and share the challenges I've personally faced since I recorded the last show. Join me as I reveal how I transformed these obstacles into powerful catalysts for growth, making each day a joyful celebration of the eternal victory of light over darkness.
Prepare to dive deep into the ancient wisdom of the Vedic spiritual tradition. Discover profound insights behind the 4 goals of human life - a timeless roadmap for purpose and fulfillment.
This episode also unveils my transformative 9-step framework, a roadmap to leading with integrity and unlocking spiritual liberation along the way. As you embark on this journey with me, you'll gain the practices and knowledge needed to navigate life's challenges and align with your highest potential.
As we move forward, each episode will be infused with the essence of my transformative framework. Together, we'll systematically explore diverse spiritual topics, uncover hidden truths, and empower ourselves to live with integrity and purpose.
Podcast cover photo copyright www.lizdaly.com.
Resources:
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Connect with me on Instagram for spiritual empowerment, inspiration and guidance to awaken your inner guru: www.instagram.com/ananta.one
Embark upon a heroic spiritual journey with daily rituals from the ancient Indian goddess tradition in my award-winning book, The Way of the Goddess: www.theancientway.co/wayofthegoddess
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TRANSCRIPTION
Episode 17: Celebrating the Eternal Victory of Light Over Darkness
By Ananta Ripa Ajmera
[00:00:00] Welcome back to the True To Yourself podcast. I am your host, Ananta Ripa Ajmera, and this is a place where we explore the power of authentic living. I am so happy to be back with you after a year or so of not recording any fresh content. This past year for me has seen a lot of changes in terms of my book getting released and moving a couple of times, and having to deal with a pretty major car accident and having my Instagram account hacked and held hostage, and a variety of other life challenges that have made recording new content, a bit of a time challenge. But I wanted to actually record this session today to celebrate the victory of the light over darkness. I feel that every time I face challenges, I now really feel equally imbued with the power to be able to overcome them, and with the ability to understand each of the challenges that life is bringing to me as invitations, as opportunities to learn new ways to really connect with that light of the highest truth, which is the light of spiritual knowledge that actually sets us free.
[00:01:33] I am an author and a spiritual teacher, and my deepest belief is that the greatest teachers are those who push us to own our true power. Therefore, all these challenges that we face in life are really our divine portals and our gateways to discovering the strength, the power, and the truth of who we really are as embodied spiritual beings on a journey to simply remember our true identity.
[00:02:07] When we look at all of the spiritual teachings of all of the different world's traditions, it really boils down to something quite simple, which is to reconnect with who we really are at our core, and there are so many ways that we get lost, unfortunately, in our modern lives. Especially, we get lost in the pursuit of artha as it's called in Sanskrit and kama, which is pleasure in Sanskrit.
[00:02:39] And I felt that it's important to be able to come back to this podcast and come back to my platform for being able to connect with you and to really structure all of the content that I will be sharing around how to actually achieve all of the four goals of human life as outlined by the Vedic spiritual tradition that I have been studying in for the past over 12 years.
[00:03:08] This is a really amazing tradition because it's not just telling us to throw everything away, to be able to pursue truth and God and to know who it is we really are. This tradition is actually empowering us to be able to achieve four different goals of life in a way that is integrated and in a way that never forgets the main purpose of our human birth, which the Vedas tell us, is to realize who we really are as spiritual beings. When we talk about these four goals of life, they are known as dharma, which is the pursuit of noble values artha, which is the pursuit of abundance, kama, which is the pursuit of pleasure and moksha, which is the pursuit of spiritual liberation, of reconnecting with who it is we really are. These are the four goals of life, and I think a lot of times in spirituality we're told to suppress artha and kama, and to just push these aside in favor of realizing our true self and pursuing noble values. But what is actually really important is to have noble values and have spiritual liberation as our north star to realizing abundance and to experiencing true pleasure in life.
[00:04:50] I have developed a nine step framework. Or actually you could say it's 10 steps because the 10th step of it is celebrating the victory of the light over darkness, and these 10 steps are really teaching us how to systematically achieve these four goals of life in a way that is always anchored in the truth and is anchored in values and is anchored in morality.
[00:05:21] A lot of times we find that it's hard to trust in spiritual teachings, and it's hard to trust in spiritual teachers because unfortunately there just really is so much corruption that goes on in the name of God and in the name of spirituality. It really breaks my heart how much this is happening, and even to learn that some teachers out there are even corrupting the teachings and distorting the teachings to be able to manipulate innocent vulnerable seekers along the way.
[00:06:00] I myself have experienced firsthand the corruption that goes on in the name of spirituality. There were even some so-called gurus who tried to stop the publication of my most recent book, The Way of the Goddess Daily Rituals to Awaken your Inner Warrior and Discover Your True Self.
[00:06:23] That itself meant that I had to really awaken the inner warrior that I had written about to be able to even allow for my voice and my lived experiences to be released and to be able to reach all the people who deserve to hear this message of how to liberate yourself with the true teachings.
[00:06:47] Fortunately, whatever I have studied have has come from sources that have been very authentic, and I feel that the teachings I have learned have been very pure and liberating to follow. Therefore I felt, especially in hearing recently at Harvard Divinity School's conference on all of the spiritual abuse that goes on that, because I have been fortunate to receive knowledge that is pure and I have truly benefited from it, I feel it's important to be able to share my knowledge and share the experiences of transformation that I have had personally with this knowledge, to be able to give thanks for receiving this and to be able to pay off the debt of receiving true, pure good knowledge and teachings, and especially because there is so much of corruption. I feel that when the good people who really believe in these teachings and really practice them, keep quiet out of modesty and humility and a reticence to speak, it just allows for what is not true, what is not authentic, what is not really pure to be more prevalent, and when we have something pure and good to offer, I feel that it's wrong to not offer that.
[00:08:16] I feel it's so important to be able to do this from a spirit of gratitude and from a spirit of truly having received so much in the way of blessings, even though I've had challenges, obviously along the way with this very darkness of so-called teachers in spirituality doing things that are very much against the teachings.
[00:08:41] These so-called gurus were claiming that they had a copyright on all the ancient wisdom teachings of India, which is just the craziest thing I can ever imagine. And I actually laughed when I got that notice last year because I just, you know, it's, it's meaningful when we laugh. It's somewhat of a release of a different variety of emotions, right?
[00:09:09] Not just feeling funny, but laughing is like crying sometimes. And I feel like I needed to laugh to just whew, let the emotions that I felt about this go and to also not give it any more power than it needed to have. You know? And that was really the victory. The victory was internal. The victory is always internal.
[00:09:33] The battle is always won the moment that we decide to face it, when we're already anchored in truth, when we're already committed to living a dharmic life, to living a life that's committed to noble values. Then when these dark forces come, I feel that they're just a fun test. They're just an invitation to make sure that we're really on our task, that we are really on track with living the knowledge and practicing it in every transaction of our lives.
[00:10:08] It is said in the Vedic spiritual tradition that dharma rakshati rakshata, that whoever protects dharma, gets protected. Whenever we are protecting what is pure, what is noble, what is truthful, what is honest, what is following the standards and laws and norms of the universe that we live in, then those same natural laws come and protect us.
[00:10:41] Anytime we transgress the law, which is the law of karma, then anything that we do that is out of alignment with the greatest good of all automatically comes back to bite us, and nobody has to do it. There's no need for a vengeance or getting back at people because when you truly understand the law of karma as one of the most important spiritual laws that governs this entire planet, then you'll automatically understand that you don't have to do anything.
[00:11:16] People doing dark actions that are coming from a space of true ignorance of the Self, which is with a capital S, which is the same in me as it is in you, are automatically going to get punished by their actions. We don't get punished for our actions in life. We get punished by them.
[00:11:38] Similarly, we can get liberated by our actions. And when we do actions that are purely in service of higher values and purely doing what it is we feel we ought to do, because it is what we can do to be of service to truth and to be of service to the light, then those actions that are not motivated by a desire for a gain or a desire for someone else to benefit, then those are pure actions. Those are going to free us from incurring any kind of karma, which causes us to have to experience the duality of the light and the dark, which is what this whole material universe is made up of.
[00:12:29] When we were born, we somewhere agreed and signed up that, okay, we've got karma. There are reasons why we are being called back to this universe. We're going to have to deal with whatever is our lot in this lifetime to be able to exhaust. So there is in Vedic spiritual tradition, this idea that karma is a really big cloud. We have something called sanchit karma, which is like the whole cloud memory, if you will, a storage house of all kinds of karma that we've been accumulating through all of the different births that we would have had.
[00:13:07] In the Vedic spiritual tradition, we're believing very much in the law of reincarnation, that when we drop one body, we enter into another body. We can be an animal body, we can be in a plant body. We can be in a human body. To be in a human body, to have a human birth is considered the greatest blessing of all of the different kinds of births we can possibly have. Only a human birth allows us the privilege to be able to pursue all of the four goals of life, which are pursuing values, dharma, pursuing abundance, artha, pursuing pleasure, and pursuing the most elevated goal of all, which is moksha, which is liberation from the bondage of having to be born choiceless in some kind of body, to some kind of mother, to some kind of family that we didn't choose, that we didn't sign up for. And when we get born, we're all helpless as infants. And so we're subject to whatever are the past conditionings of our parents, of their parents, of so many generations of people and whatever net knowledge or ignorance they had that informed their actions or lack thereof. And therefore, we are really just a product of our ancestors. And when we don't question the predecessors, when we don't question what came before us, then we are just blindly following whatever may be good, may be bad that others have done before us.
[00:14:45] But when we are awake, truly, to our potential as a human being in a human birth, we have this incredible opportunity to actually pursue the quest of spiritual liberation. And the key to pursuing that is developing our intellect. The intellect is different from intelligence. The intellect is that which allows us to question. It is that which allows us to be able to think critically, to be able to look at things and not just take them for granted. Okay.
[00:15:27] In all the generations of the past, for example, in my family, women were expected to take a subservient role to men. They were expected to be able to serve other people's needs while betraying their own, while denying that they even had needs.
[00:15:45] And you know, it's just like that. So why should I do anything different? Right? That's the normal kind of script and I think for a lot of us, for a lot of cultures it is that way and in a lot of families it is that way. And yet because we have an intellect that can question, we can actually ask ourselves.
[00:16:06] Okay. Why is it this way? Does it have to be this way? Is there any way that I can do something different with this great opportunity that I have in my human birth to not just subscribe to being a subservient person who always puts the needs of others ahead of my own, but to actually question first of all, who am I?
[00:16:32] And when I know truly who I am, by studying the ancient shastras, or the ancient spiritual texts and traditions, then I will understand, if I have understood correctly, that who I am is the same as who you are in essence. And in reality, that affects the way that I'm going to treat you, and that affects the way that I'm going to look at my opportunity that I have as a human being in a human birth to actually question the whole structure and the whole system, and to do things differently.
[00:17:07] If the Self in me is the same as the Self in you, which is the same as the Self in any being, then whether it's a male being or a female being, or a transgender being, or an other gender being, or a non-gender being, the Self is the same in all. And if I have truly understood that, then even when I am being treated differently or given different expectations than say someone assigned a male body and a male birth, then I'm not going to automatically just take it for granted that I need to internalize that treatment towards myself.
[00:17:47] Just because I may be treated differently as a female identifying being doesn't mean I have to agree with that. It doesn't mean that I have to pass those scripts of disempowerment on to the next generation because I know who I am through the ancient Vedic tradition, the spirituality, I have discovered the goddess within, which is actually within all living beings.
[00:18:12] And the way I understand the goddess and the divine feminine is that power within all of us, regardless of gender, to be able to really give birth to this most authentic version of ourselves, which the light of the lamp of the Garba dance of Navratri represents.
[00:18:33] You may be like, what the heck is the Garba dance? What is Navratri ? I had those questions, too, when I was growing up and didn't know what these traditions were. So I grew up Indian American in Toledo, Ohio, and we used to go to high school basketball courts that would get converted into dance floors every fall for these goddess worship festival celebrations where everyone, male, female, all genders, would dance in a circle in a circular way to celebrate the divine feminine, which was represented by a light or a lamp in the center of the dance. And I used to just take for granted that, oh, we do this. But when I started to develop my intellect and my ability to question and to no longer take anything for granted, I started to question everything, including this festival. And I knew that somewhere within that, there's something really profound to it. There's something really valuable to it that if I just understood it would actually change my life. And in fact it did, and I learned much later, later on in my journey that the Navratri tradition is the nav, nine, nights, ratri, of the Warrior Mother Goddess Durga, and the battles that she fights to be able to conquer all kinds of demons, which are of both an internal and an external nature.
[00:20:00] These demons are representative of our inner demons, of fear, of anger, of jealousy, of hatred, of vengeance, of pride, of arrogance. All of these things that keep us separate from one another and separate from our true Self. These are the demons that Goddess Durga is conquering through the nine nights of Navratri.
[00:20:27] And when we do the Garba dance, Garba itself is a Sanskrit word that is derived from Garbo, which is the divine womb of reproduction and of recreation of this entire universe, and it lives within each of us. When we truly take to this path of deconditioning all these cultural scripts, all the racist scripts, all the gender discriminating scripts of life, and we really, you know, question the setup and we start to understand this unlimited power within us to be able to be the author of our own life script and the master of our destiny, then we actually are unlocking that light within, which is symbolized by the light we are dancing around during the Navratri festival. I got so fascinated by the symbolism of this incredible Vedic spiritual festival that I really went deep, deep, deep into it, and I studied in traditional spiritual lineages in order to understand what is the relevance of all of this to me here today.
[00:21:43] And for me, it really became about unlocking and finding that goddess within and doing so in order to liberate the full authenticity and the full power and the full spiritual essence of who I really am. I believe that the only way to lead and really the only way to serve is by example. And therefore I developed this 10 step framework out of my experiences of transformation of my own darkness to light into this book called The Way of the Goddess.
[00:22:23] And I actually have it right here. So this is my book and it's about awakening your inner warrior and discovering your true Self. And I didn't intend when I wrote this book for it to just be another book that I would write and that you can read. I really felt, first and foremost, that this is my project of personal transformation and spiritual growth, and whether it ever even reaches the light of the day, I am going to write this book because it's going to be my way of awakening my own inner guru to be able to celebrate, at every step, that victory of light over darkness.
[00:23:06] So each of the nine steps outlines how you can take your own journey through darkness to light, to be able to cultivate the power of stability in your first chakra. The power of creativity in your second chakra, the power of transformation in your solar plexus, the power of love in your heart chakra, the power of voice in your throat chakra, the power of intuition in your third eye center, the power of truth in your crown chakra, the power of rejuvenation in your higher heart chakra, just above the crown chakra, and the power of intention in your astral chakra, which is even a little bit above that.
[00:23:53] And every step of this journey holds the potential to unlock more and more of that true, authentic self within you. And I share with you about my personal stories of embodying each of these powers in each of these chakras. How to know if they're out of balance and what to do to bring them into balance and to be able to connect with the light ultimately that lives with them.
[00:24:21] So I thought for the True to Your self podcast here, where we are exploring in depth the power of authentic living and our true Self and being true to that Self, that I would actually restructure this offering to now take you on a journey every month through the nine chakras and the nine powers in more depth so we can really spend some time unlocking all of these powers, one by one, for a whole month. We can talk about this month, the power of stability. And then in the next month, in June, 2023, we will go into the power of creativity. And every month, I'll come and share with you about the inspirational themes, about the stories of transformation I've had with these different powers, and I will bring in guest speakers who will also illuminate different aspects of these different powers, as well as talk about common health issues that you can holistically address through unlocking some of the practices that will liberate these different chakras, which I've written about in my book.
[00:25:37] The intention now for the podcast is to really support you to be able to live the book, to be able to embody these powers and not just take it as intellectual entertainment or something great to read. I hope you will read it and enjoy it. But I, I hope for something much more than that for you and for me. And that's why I wrote the book. And so even when it got attacked, even when I wasn't sure if this book would ever reach the light of the day, I knew that it had unlocked the light of my own soul. And that was really all that mattered. That was really the main purpose, because I knew that if I can just unveil my true Self, having gone through so much of trauma, having gone through so much of heartache and so much of betrayal and so much of darkness really, that we all experience in different ways due to our karma in different ways. We have different experiences, but we all know darkness. We've all experienced it, we've all been there, and I felt that, you know, if I've had so much of it in my life, and I'm not even that many years old, then if I can conquer it, if I can overcome it, if I can really prove to my own self that I can, in fact, be the hero of my own spiritual journey, then that itself is going to be how I will spread light in this universe.
[00:27:03] That itself will be how I share with people. Whether a publisher is going to publish this or whether I self-publish it, or whether I just write it and really be it and live it, that itself is the purpose of writing the book, and that purpose has really anchored me through every storm that I've faced in life, in the writing of the book, in the, whether the book will come out or not stage.
[00:27:34] And then finally when it came out and in sharing it with people and every time it's just been an opportunity for me to reflect, for me to go back, for me to review reflect, and recommit myself to this sacred path of transformation and to really transforming any experience that is dark into light, and to be able to then come and share through podcasts, through workshops, through courses, through our community, from the beauty and the power and the hard earned experiences of real life.
[00:28:13] I really feel it's so important for real life to meet spirituality. So often, we can meet people who are spiritual masters who seem kind of removed from life, right? Who may be wearing robes, who people may be touching the feet of because they have renounced everything and left everything behind and are so great because of that.
[00:28:36] I don't know about you, but I've met more than one person who's just been hiding behind the robes, behind the titles, behind the so-called grandeur of renunciation, when in fact renunciation is actually what unlocks the key to fulfilling abundance, the goal of life, of abundance, not just for yourself, but to be of service than to all living beings.
[00:29:06] The root of dharma, of noble values, of living the noble values is artha, which is abundance. When we are abundant beings, we can be generous beings. When we have abundance to share, we are able to share it and we are able to spread it to those who don't have as much and to empower people to be independently able to do whatever it is we may wish for them.
[00:29:40] When we are practicing renunciation, we are practicing renunciation of the fruit of our labor, of the fruit, of our actions. And this actually is what brings us abundance. It seems so contradictory, but when we are truly practicing renunciation, it empowers us to be abundant. And when we are truly abundant, we are able to be truly noble and able to really fully express dharma in life.
[00:30:11] And so, Renunciation should not just be something that separates us. It should not actually separate us at all. It should be something that we practice as a way to bring abundance to all. And so I feel that, you know, there's a lot of shadows in the spiritual world and even in understanding renunciation that need to be explained, that need to be corrected, that need to be unveiled for people to really understand that actually it is renunciation also as an attitude and the spirit of renunciation that even allows you to enjoy life and that there's nothing wrong with enjoying life. We are not just meant to endure life. We are meant to enjoy it. And the Vedas teach us when we're anchored in dharma, when we are anchored in moksha, how to truly enjoy our life because we will be fully present for pleasures as and when they come, but we'll also cultivate this wonderful knowledge of the transience of everything in life. And when you truly know how transient everything is, then whatever is coming and going, including the pleasures of life, you'll know that, oh, this too shall pass, and therefore let me be present with it. Let me truly enjoy it. Let me savor the flavor of what is presenting itself in the now because this is a part of my life.
[00:31:46] And what I feel is that we need more platforms. We need more people to really show us how to bring spirituality into worldly things and not lose ourselves in the pursuit of the worldly things at all. Because what happens oftentimes is that people who are wearing robes, people who are so-called renunciates, are actually also gravitating towards pleasures and are gravitating towards abundance, but then end up doing it in a very subversive way, in a very negative way, in a very difficult way, because they would've suppressed these human urges or these human pursuits and put themselves onto a pedestal, but then are still wanting these things. And actually it's the want itself that leads us to problems.
[00:32:42] Experiencing pleasure will not take you off of your spiritual path. Experiencing pleasure, if you are anchored in your Self, will just be another experience that you don't have to assign so much value to. We don't need it to be enlightened, but we don't need to not have it to be enlightened. Enlightenment is really quite separate from pleasure altogether, but when we have an enlightened intellect that can discern between what is bringing us towards truth and spirituality and liberation, and what is pulling us away from that, then even when we're going into worldly experiences, if we're anchored in who we truly are, then we just experience whatever is organically coming our way without seeking it out, necessarily, without chasing it, without, you know, going after it.
[00:33:41] But just simply allowing whatever pleasure is karmically allotted to us in our prescribed timeline, in the way that it's meant to unfold. When we are able to really be anchored in ourselves as spiritual seekers, then even when we are working, when we are acting, because we all have to act, there's no such thing as having a holiday from action, right?
[00:34:07] Because even though you're on a holiday, you have to act. You have to do things. You have to go for a walk. At the very least, you have to feed yourself. So we all have to act. And action is not something that is optional. It is required for our human life. And while we are acting, can we actually act in such a way that we are being of service to noble values and we are actually also even expressing these values through our money and through our finances? Can we really bring that spirituality into our relationship with our pocketbook? Can we really bring that contemplation of, is this expenditure bringing me closer to my Self, or is this bringing me farther away from my Self? Is this subscribing more and more to the myths and the illusions of life, or is this actually allowing me to experience something wherein I continue to feel connected to my true Self, right? So we have to bring these dialogues into the real world, and I believe that, you know, oftentimes when people are invested into spirituality and are truly, you know, on the renunciate path, they can talk high spiritual things, but they may not people to understand trauma. They may not be able to understand how to connect the high spirituality with the dark, low experiences of life. Right. Well, they may not always be able to help us to be able to process what it means to have gone through betrayal while understanding and applying the spiritual knowledge to understand the experience in a spiritual way and to be able to unlock that entanglement we may have emotionally from the experience. That's something that we need to be able to have by feeling our emotions, and I don't feel that it's talked about enough in the high flying spiritual circles that you know, we are human beings and we are vulnerable, and we will experience heartache, we will experience darkness, we will experience pain as a part of the human condition.
[00:36:20] And so on the other side of the spectrum, we have real human feeling. And I feel that sometimes on the Renunciate path, we are told to somehow let go of those feelings, or we misinterpret the teachings to believe that we have to detach and not feel our anger, especially if we're spiritual beings. We're not supposed to be angry, but that's where I feel, on the other end of the spectrum, is feeling all our feelings, right?
[00:36:47] So there's this polarity of like feeling everything fully, having all our emotions, and then knowing who we are truly as spiritual beings and understanding everything in life as a spiritual experience, as having the potential for spiritual lessons to unfold and manifest into our lives. So these are often taught separately, right?
[00:37:07] Like there's emotional, healing, feeling, therapeutic places where you can go and just feel everything. Punch a punching bag, like get your emotions out and, and that's great. That's important, that's necessary. But often those spaces don't remind you that actually you are not these emotions. You are the Self.
[00:37:29] You are here on a human journey and can you go through this, feel what you need to feel, but not act in a way that's going to impact other beings from that space. Right. Can you actually bring these two slowly together, bring the real, deep, vulnerable, authentic feelings and emotions with this spiritual truth of who you really are and how to understand everything in life without spiritually bypassing those experiences?
[00:38:02] Because to heal, we have to feel, but we also have to remember and know at every stage, at every experience, at every moment, who it is we truly are as a soul. Because when we are connected with that, then everything in life can come and go, but we'll find that equanimity within, when we can bring our emotions together with the knowledge of who we really are.
[00:38:29] And that, to me, is what a spiritual warrior does. A spiritual warrior, such as that of the Warrior Goddess Durga, as an example of a spiritual warrior, is someone who can bridge these two: pure emotion and genuine, authentic spiritual understanding and spiritual knowledge. And spiritual knowledge is when you are in darkness, remembering that you are not that darkness, right? When you are going through sickness, you are not sick. You are the Self having an experience of something temporary, something transient, something that, if you look at it through the lens of spirituality, is there to teach you something, is there to, to bless you actually with with some understanding that can improve your life, that can empower you to be of service.
[00:39:21] And when we are truly of service and we are just serving not for motives, not to get anything as a result of it, but just doing what we ought to do because it's the right thing to do, then we are able to align ourselves with nature. And when we align ourselves with nature, we are liberating ourselves and we are experiencing through our day-to-day transactions, pleasures and support of noble causes, liberation that comes from that knowledge and from the ability to feel everything but not act on those feelings in a way that would harm others or harm ourselves in the process. There's a lot to learn and being a spiritual warrior also means not being afraid to look into all the dark experiences of life to see what is it that we can learn from it?
[00:40:25] What is it that we can take from it to better our journey, and by our example, than to show others what is possible for them? That's what a spiritual warrior does. And so, each month in this podcast journey, we will get to explore what does it mean to be that spiritual warrior and to be able to journey through all these different chakras and how they're going to support us on our path of transcendence and truly, becoming the hero of our own spiritual journey.
[00:41:05] So I'm so looking forward to taking this journey with you, step by step, and celebrating, at each and every step, the eternal victory of light over darkness, because, truly, it does always triumph.
[00:41:22] Truth, alone, triumphs over everything. And if you're feeling really excited about this, and as we are journeying through the podcast, if you're feeling like connecting live and being able to ask questions and being able to talk to other people who are going through this journey as deeply and sincerely as you are as you listen, then I would love to extend a really warm invitation to you to join our Circle of Life community program, which just launched officially yesterday, May 1st Beltane Day.
[00:41:57] And this community is a really safe and sacred space to be able to explore the power of practice in community. Once a month, I'll be leading a circle, where I will be coaching you on how to actually apply this high spiritual knowledge to the dark, difficult, everyday situations we face to really unlock your own spiritual powers from within.
[00:42:21] And it will be an opportunity to not just learn from me, but to also tap into our collective wisdom that we all have. And I really love as a teacher, to first and foremost, awaken the guru within all who come to my classes, because I believe that there is a guru that lives within us all, and that the highest role of a true guru is to awaken that guru within others.
[00:42:48] I unfortunately encountered people who, you know, got really threatened when my own inner guru awakened. But then I have had gurus who have celebrated the guru within me. So I've had both light and dark, and I choose to connect with the light, to spread the light, to celebrate that light in circle and community with others who are seeking to really awaken their true Self. To do the hard work and to have all the support and resources you need to be able to unlock that inner wisdom and the wellness that ultimately comes from within. So in our Circle of Life Community Program, we have an amazing library full of guided visualizations that will help you to embody each of these chakras. We have recipes that you can make from the Ayurvedic perspective, which will nourish your body, mind, and soul, and help you digest your food better. And if you're still having trouble digesting your food, we've got food guides in there, which will help you know what to eat if you have constipation, what to eat if you have diarrhea, what to do if you have covid, and all these educational resources from an Ayurvedic perspective that will empower you to be able to have step-by-step processes for cultivating spiritual powers within you to have health guidance, to have all kinds of embodiment tutorials. We have a beautiful Qigong lesson in the library already, which supports you to embody the spirit of different animals. And we have a beautiful dance tutorial from my Odissi classical Indian dance instructor in the library.
[00:44:31] So there's already so many beautiful offerings in there that are awaiting you, and we'll be continuously adding on to this library. Every week, we'll be adding a video, a recording of one of our live sessions. We'll be doing member-led workshops. We're gonna have a reflexology workshop this month. We'll be having aromatherapy, we'll have yoga.
[00:44:54] We will have so many beautiful offerings that you can benefit from. And I will also be having my hand trained students who have gone through the first level of my Spiritual Warrior certificate program there to support you, to connect with you personally, one-on-one, to really share their experiences of connecting with their light through a deep journey they've had with me through these nine steps and nine chakras of The Way of the Goddess Book.
[00:45:23] So you can connect with them right away, as soon as you get into our community. We'll have our community outreach coordinator, Gabrielle, reach out to you and connect you with someone to support you on your journey. So it's a very personal community. It's very, fertile with a lot of possibilities for growth and transformation and really, you know, celebrating that victory of light over darkness in big ways and small ways, in personal ways, in, impersonal ways.
[00:45:53] And, we have lots of resources and things to help you, and we're also really open to your inputs. What are you looking for? How can we serve you and really help you, empower you to achieve all the four goals of human life? We've got conscious business development resources in our library. Also, if you've always wanted to become an author yourself, if you feel like you're called to share your voice with people, to give hope to people through social media, through group coaching, through a one-on-one practice, we have all kinds of resources and guidelines and connections to be able to help you with your process, including a book proposal writing template, and all sorts of things along those lines as well.
[00:46:36] And I'm happy to share about how to do all of this while keeping your spiritual North Star anchored firmly in who you really are. So that awaits you. And the recipes you'll really enjoy the tutorials, the dancing are all kama, they're pleasurable, they're enjoyable. We have, of course, a lot of teachings on how to be a dharmic soldier, how to really be a warrior for truth, for the good, noble values, and all of our live circles and power practice circles will really empower you with moksha, with liberation in the here and now.
[00:47:15] And once a month, I'm also offering a really special Awaken Your Inner Guru webinar. So if you got really intrigued by these four goals of human life and how to achieve them, I would invite you to join me for a webinar to be able to go into them. And I'll share more specifically about my experiences with each of these goals and about some of my students' experiences as well.
[00:47:38] And about how you can start to achieve these goals while staying anchored in your own true Self. So you can check all of this out by visiting theancientway.co/links. If you just go to that page, theancientway.co/links, you'll have links to all these different resources to sign up for the Awaken Your Inner Guru webinar to be able to join a free trial.
[00:48:07] Actually, we have a 14 day free trial of the Circle of Life community program. So you can try it out, risk free, for two weeks and see how you feel with it and, and then decide if it's for you or not. And then we also have all kinds of other blog articles and things that you can find on the website and a quick navigation to what you may be looking for on that, the theancientway.co/links page.
[00:48:33] So I encourage you to check it out and I will be back on here with you again soon. To begin with our first exploration of getting grounded in the first root chakra with practices for stability and how we can connect with that power of stability in our day-to-day life. So stay tuned and I look forward to being in a beautiful divine connection with you as we all unlock the power of our most authentic, true Self.
[00:49:11] This is Ananta Ripa Ajmera. Wishing you a wonderful week, and I look forward to connecting with you again next time.