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Incarcerated Student Shares

The following are some of the many letters we receive from Siddha Yoga students in prison.

Greetings!

Just a short note to say thank you.

Siddha Yoga studies have really helped change my life. I began Siddha Yoga meditation during a long period in an Intensive Management Unit, commonly known as Solitary Confinement.

Until I began my Siddha Yoga studies, solitary confinement was really hard. I learned from the Home Study Course to turn inwards. I began to exercise. Soon I was doing time as opposed to it doing me. Siddha Yoga meditation and I did about two years together then. Just the course and me.

Now I continue to read the lessons daily. I’m housed in a more appropriate unit, and I have a little job. If I could advise other prisoners, I would tell them to be patient with themselves and be kind to all. Finally, I would say that true wealth is measured strictly in what one can do without. The stuff you teach works. It works very well. I’m one of the lucky ones, as I found peace and it was where I least expected it. It was in the midst of life’s struggles.

I wish you all well. Many blessings, and above all, peace and love. Thank you for all the help and lessons.

Sincerely,
A Siddha Yoga Student in prison

Dear SYDA Foundation,

I wish to express my gratitude for Gurumayi, for Grace, for the lessons, and for those involved in the SYDA Foundation. By the time you send my next lessons I will have completed my ten-year prison sentence and I will be beginning another chapter in this life.

When I went into prison, I thought that I was doomed to a life of episodes of bad luck, and I lived in a constant state of fear. I had no clue that my life was in fact the sum total of every choice I had ever made, coupled with my chosen perspective in any given moment. I did not know that I was creating my own reality from moment to moment. What a relief to see things differently!

Through the Siddha Yoga practices, I can see that in my ten years of prison I’ve been presented with necessary life lessons that I could not have experienced otherwise. There is a certain peace and security in the feeling of knowing how things happen to work out. This new perspective has given me a sense of trust and confidence that has changed my whole life. I am very grateful today.

It seems to me that more than anything else, daily life is about all the opportunities to express love. Knowing this one thing has changed the meaning of life for me.

Thank you so much. I look forward to my lessons, and it is exciting to think of where the Shakti may bring this one in the future.

Sincerely,
A Siddha Yoga Student in prison

With Love in my Heart and a great respect towards each Siddha Yoga student,

I was in prison for 6 ½ years. For a time I felt anger and hatred toward each being around me and truly felt that something was missing, so I began to search.

I felt lost because I thought everyone was my enemy. One day I decided to just sit down and meditate because I would see this person doing it, and I could see in him a peace that I wanted to experience. Through this person I received the most beautiful gift I ever expected to get: Siddha Yoga meditation. I started experiencing new things and saw a positive change in my life. It was so beautiful how very shortly after reading each lesson I could feel a transformation of peace and joy in me. I started to see each person as they truly were: extraordinary beings, each one of them alive in this vast universe. I started loving myself. I started feeling the messages that God gives us through nature. I realized that the purpose in life is to be happy by going deep inside, and the deeper I go the more happiness I receive.

I realize now what great work you do through this course, and I am sure that just as I went in to break the chains that suppressed my heart, your work will aid others’ hearts in this process.

With love in my heart,
A Siddha Yoga Student recently released from prison

Dear Siddha Yoga Friends,

I am writing to let you know just how valuable the Siddha Yoga teachings and practices have been for me in my prison life. I have learned so much about myself and others during theses years of studies.

I have learned how to love completely. I have learned that I have a connection with God that links me to Him and brings me in perfect union with Him. I learned that we choose from moment to moment how we will direct our attention, which in turn determines our experience of that moment.

A serene meditative state always exists within us even during our most frantic, stressful moments. At any point in my life I have the power to direct my attention away from stress and toward the inner serenity that is constantly present at all times.

I could go on about all I have learned but there would not be enough words to explain how valuable this Home Study Course has been to my life.

So thank you for all the love you have given me over the last 3 years. I am about to leave here in 40 days. I know my life will be better because my thoughts are better.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart,
A Siddha Yoga Student in prison