Early Life and Childhood Years
Ma Yogini Shivagni was born on April 24, 1988 amidst the lush green foothills of Himalayas, in the city of Dehradun, 45kms from the auspicious land of Rishikesh. She was born in a simple, middle-class family and was the only daughter of her parents, Shri Om Prakash Singh and Shrimati Anita Rani, both of whom were employed with the State Government of India. She also has a younger brother, who is two years younger to her. Ma Yogini Shivagni’s mother is a religious, generous and a known honest woman.
Yogini Shree spent most of her childhood years in solitude. She took care of her sibling when her parents were at work. She also had a loving grandmother who loved her so dearly out of the thirty grandchildren from her eight offsprings. Most of her childhood and teenage years were spent in her own company since television was banned by her father for her entire schooling period. She took care of her brother like a mother (and sometimes like a typical sister fighting with the brother) right from school till parents returned from office in the evenings. Even after they returned, her mother hardly had time for her children because after busy day at work, she had to reach home, cook and prepare things for the next day.
Yogini Shree’s mother is one the most hard-working woman in her family, devoid of any vestige of procrastination and laziness. Whenever her mother had free time, she would spend it with the kids teaching the virtues of a good human being and how to inculcate them. Later, she learned the art of working hard and persevering from her mother when she started appreciating her mother’s contribution to her upbringing.
Ma Yogini Shivagni was also good in her studies. She was a very quiet child, reserved, introvert, and often lost in her own world. Her only recourse was her books which were her only defense from the outside world as she hardly could connect with them. Ma Yogini Shivagni excelled in her studies as she was often considered as the brightest and most well-behaved child in her school. As a child, she also excelled in music, sports, and writing. She played the harmonium, sang praise to God in satsangs since the early age of eight. She was also in the school basketball team and would often be the one who would read the entire fiction section of her school library. She also took great care of how she was dressed (from an early age) and how she looked since she considered Saundarya Shastra (aesthetics) as an important part of a human being’s worldly life.
To the outside world, Ma Yogini Shivagni appeared like a normal, quiet, and maybe even arrogant kid (her reserved nature, but the fashionable appearance was mistaken as her being arrogant), but she had a different world of her own. She would choose to share her feelings with nature because she and nature were one existence in two forms. She would interact, invoke and absorb in her the energy of the five elements- the Sun (she always woke up before sunrise in her childhood), air, water (whenever rain came pouring down), earth and ether. She was constantly in touch with the five elements and washed off her pain and worries with the energy she received from the elements. She often would say to her brother, swaying in a particular rhythm dancing very slowly, that she didn’t belong to this world. She belonged to a different world, a more beautiful world where the wonders of art and music were everywhere to be enjoyed, where every plant, and apparently all things that people consider as non-living on this earth, seemed to be happier. People of her world were happier and in bliss compared to her current world.
Ma Yogini Shivagni as a child was not much religious as she only liked to sing the divine hymns because of her love for aesthetics. Her mother was devout of Lord Vishnu. But Yogini Shree would accompany her mother while she performed rituals almost every day and sing hymns to the Gods. One day, her mother asked Yogini Shree the most important question of her life. The few liner conversations became the turning point in Yogini Shree’s life. Her mother asked her, “Who is your Ishta Devata?” Yogini Shree asked back, “Who is an Ishta Devata? How does one get to know who their Ishta is?” Her mother replied, “Which Devi’s or Devata’s form attracts you the most? To which humanized form of God you feel an affinity to?”
Ma Yogini Shivagni kept quiet for a while. She went inwards. It didn’t take her long to decide that her Ishta, the Lord of her existence, is Lord Shiva- Mahadeva. The realization struck her deep and at that point, she didn’t know that Lord Shiva will not let her rest until she basks in his lap.
Though the demands of her school life and her world of books subdued her spiritual side she still secured herself from the outside world that hardly understood her. She grew up and it was in her teenage years that the question, ‘what is the purpose of being here?’ rendered her restless each day and night, throughout her teenage years. By this time, she lost touch with her religious self also and focused more on what went in school, studies, and at home with an ever-demanding father with his severe addiction to alcohol.
She still reinstates today that she has a very important purpose of being here on earth for humanity. She knew that one of the focal aspects of her purpose of being here is to revive ancient Indian knowledge tradition. Then she had no idea about Siddha Dharma. Though she kept getting the visions and vivid dreams around snow-covered mountains, monks, holy rivers, sages, and different kinds of geometrical shapes. All these dreams jolted Yogini Shree occasionally, but she couldn’t understand the slightest hint that it might be the time to search for a Guru and to start her journey inwards. She just passed these dreams as her day-dreaming and imaginations. She kept contemplating but with the lures of samsara calling her, she kept the search at the backseat and went on to finish her college (where she started working from the third year at college for the local kids’ magazine) and then went on to the IT hub city of Bangalore to work as the content writer and later as the digital marketing professional. In the span of a few years of work, she got married.
Her husband, as well as his parents, also loved her dearly. She also had a very well-paying job, was respected in her workplace. Even her husband had a high-paying job and lavished everything he could afford on her. But with all the best resources, she felt cut-off from everyone. She would smile, laugh, party like most of the people do in big cities, she had great friends to pass her time with, but with each passing week (since she was mostly workaholic and would only give herself time on weekends to think and reflect) she knew her inner core felt empty. It was nothing but the dealings of her body with the material world. Her essence meanwhile was frantically searching to unravel her real purpose and almost gasping for breath. Even with all the possessions, she felt discontented and disappointed within. She also felt burdened with the way materialistic life demanded her energies and how it completely drained her out. An intense conflict of sense of purpose in her led to much havoc in her life yet she didn’t share it with anyone so as to refrain them from being pulled into her world of inner conflicts. She continued to wear the mask of a successful woman often contemplating if the cost of this search to go within, connect to her being and realize the purpose of this lifetime was as high as hurting everyone she considered very dear in her life.
She tried traveling to new places in and outside India thinking that this might be the invitation of the explorer that lives in her and saw the luxurious side of life also. But the discontentment with life deepened all the way even more. By then, every luxury, every comfort made her feel suffocated, even though she was surrounded by the dearest people in her life. Though she kept trying to keep people around her happy but the internal conflict and discontentment started reflecting in her day to day life and consequently created an unhappy home environment. Now she couldn’t wait any longer. She thought that it would be better to die if she couldn’t be true to herself and be her true-self in front of the ones she lives with, day in and day out. Rather putting up a false happy face in front of all and deceive them with her presence, it was time to be true to herself and to the people of her life.
The First Realization
During all the intense self-conflict, she encountered face-to-face with her first big and important realization that, ‘until one is fulfilled and content from within, one cannot give much, even if it be true care and love to others.’ This realization forced her to be true to herself and to others in her life. She then went further in her search for her true purpose of her life and to answer the question if it is just to pass her time in awe and wonder of the beauty of this earth and enjoy the pleasures the five senses can give or to take steps to revive the old knowledge traditions of India as she often felt. But the question lingered as to how? The only solution to her question was to pursue metaphysical reality and it was only possible by going deep inside. One important thing to share is that life being very long, it is virtually impossible to share all the incidents of her life and her awakening holistically. Selective experiences have only been shared which are most relevant.
Within the constant conflict inside her and ambiguous world outside, she needed the answer to some questions that had stroke her deep. The questions like, “What is it to be spiritual? Why does she get attracted to the life of Yogis and spiritual beings all around the world? What does it mean to leave everything that the outside world demands and the demands of one’s five senses in order to go inwards and connect to one’s non-dual, true-self.” She also decided that even if she had to wander aimlessly from doors to doors, people to people she has to persevere and complete her journey- the journey to know the truth about the purpose of her existence and If there is any truth to the meaning and purpose of life? The clock ticks for none but itself out numbering her moments with the
every single tick.
Embarked on the Journey Inwards
For the next two years, it was her routine to research and read spiritual books after her work. She was actually searching for a sign, a hint to the way forward or the answer to go inwards. She travelled to myriad places of spiritual importance starting from South India, travelled to ashrams, learnt, practiced and imbibed what they had to teach, did lot of volunteering in there ashrams. The name of Shiva would be on her lips even during off-work conversations with her fellow colleague (she luckily found a Shiva devotee who would love to talk about Lord Shiva all the time at the cost of work timings too). She would occasionally go into a trance-like state during her meditation practices that would leave her in an ecstatic state of being one with lord Shiva. This occasional trance-like state became her fuel to always be connected to Lord Shiva.
Now slowly she was finding it hard to cope up with her office life. It was extreme pain for her as she even tried discussing the possible reasons with her trusted friends and colleagues. But she got no satisfactory reasons as to what caused everything. Her work created huge stress in her and the money she earnt from her work would often be spent in de-stressing herself. The inner conflict drained her out with the growing pressure inside her to know what she should be really doing when the precious time was passing by every single moment. It was during this time period, Ma Yogini Shivagni who was quite a socially amicable being, the life of every social-gathering, during her work-life, (she turned herself into one after her college days), where she naturally donned the responsibility of taking care of people’s happiness in her office, grew aloof…both from her friends and people in general. She didn’t even give her address to any of her friends or colleagues because she wanted to completely spend her time in meditation practices and self-reflection.
She left her regular job and the city of Bangalore after spending eight years in the city. She loved this city. But now it was hard for her to cope up with the demands of the city. She just wanted to be in the mountains. Since her very childhood she just dreamt of being high up in the Himalayas (incidentally she couldn’t travel much to Himalayas during her childhood years even though she grew up at the foothills of the spiritual mountains). This fascination grew by leaps and bounds since few years where she would think of Himalayas every single day. Within first year of her married life, she tried to persuade her husband to leave the regular job and live in the Himalayas. She suggested her husband to live in the state Himachal Pradesh in northern India and start a home-stay and a vegetarian restaurant serving wholesome food to the tourist around. But anyone hardly ever understood her urgency to be in the lap of the Himalayas.
Life as a Wanderer
Ma Yogini Shivagni left her secured, respectable, high-paying job and left the city life. She was never concerned of certainty in life as most people were. She became the wandering one where she never planned where to travel to, where to be. She described that she would remain in a particular place until the next place called her. She would get the clear signs of where to go next. She would spend next two years wandering from temples to temples, ashrams to ashrams and mountains to mountains. In this period, she encountered the grace of few Gurus, she saw myriad colors of the so-called spiritual people living in the ashrams around the country. She lived and volunteered in few of the ashrams hoping that she would get the answer to her spiritual queries that had questioned her day and night. She thought she would be one with her existence by performing the practices recommended by the ashrams she visited. She practiced Hatha Yoga, Kriya Yoga to Bhakti Yoga. She tried everything with all her efforts but rather than satisfying her core, it led to more emptiness inside. She felt sad, grumpy and angry with her inner failures. She was confused as to how could she experience all these utterly negative emotions for days in row when all these energy should have made her feel vibrant. It made her feel more concerned. Often she used to belittle herself by disqualifying herself for not being a humble volunteer.
Somewhere in her own-reflection, she got the epiphany that she should work on her ego because she got stressed as she wanted things to be her way instead of her adapting to the circumstances. She was not scared of hard work or of perseverance but she couldn’t take ambiguity because it was not her answer she was searching for. She further concluded that her search should not be limited to particular ashrams because being stagnant will breed the insects of mental slavery.
All such contemplations made her more insecure from within. She also felt baffled and disappointed. She realized that the spiritual gurus that she met didn’t satisfy her spiritual search when in fact the same Gurus were the light for millions of faces. All of them equally contributed to her spiritual growth. Some of them taught people how to lead a healthy lifestyle by taking up healthy food habits. Some were inspiring people to be close to nature and care for Mother Nature who nurtures us all with no distinction of any discrimination. In addition, they were also imparting the knowledge and inspiring people to imbibe Yoga and meditation practices in their daily lives.
Having been in the proximity of many gurus, a thought provoked her into questioning the role of guru in one’s spiritual life. The question if Guru was needed for spiritual growth or if the person is responsible for their own enlightenment made her pursue solitude. She then retreated to the Himalayan region for some time. Just wandering along the Himalayan trails, meditating and reflecting, and in the process, she felt good and reviving. She even concluded that this might be what she was after. She felt incredibly quiet from within for time being. There were no more questions in her. She felt love for all. She thought she felt complete and this might be the window to the state of enlightenment or enlightenment itself. She started sharing her knowledge and experience with others. She met a few people who were true spiritual seekers. Soon, Yogini Shree established herself as a spiritual master as there were some seekers who started following her. But soon enough, after her experience in the jungles of Assam which is explained somewhere below and after uniting with her true Guru, the illusion of her being enlightened, the false state of completion and imaginative spiritual state shattered like the glass that caused the illusion. Her utopian drama of high spiritual state washed off exactly like the sand gets washed away with the waves. Yogini Shree now was filled with guilt for all her mental drama and for all the sins that she had committed in her life. She lived in this state of guilt and pain for some time. Soon, it became difficult for her to pass even a single moment without extreme pain and burdened state of mind and emotions.
After a few months, Yogini Shree’s true Guru, the Himalayan Maha Siddha, found her. The one she had been unconsciously pursuing. The Maha Siddha accepted her as His sishyaa (the lady disciple) and initiated her. Though her Guru didn’t prescribe any particular way to be for her, he left it on her to choose how she wanted to live her life; whether she wanted to live all by herself or with her chosen one; whether in the society or away from it. She started learning Tantra and Yoga maarg from the Maha Siddha. She went from mountains to mountains in the state of Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand. She secretly practiced Durdhara Yoga in some cave of Himalaya which yielded nothing. The dreams of Samadhi and all those spiritual state were pushed away from her reach.
One day, Her Guru called her in the jungles of Assam. She lived with her Maha Siddha Guru and her Gurumaa for a month. She spent most of those days talking to her beloved Guru in deep jungles. During this time in Assam, she was mostly fasting, with very less food and water intake, practicing the mantra, pranayam and bandhas (locks). It was during this period in the jungles of Assam, that fortunate night, the moon was shining in his full glory. They were in front of a bonfire, with a water stream flowing nearby, Yogini Shree sat uninterruptedly with her Maha Siddha Guru, who then started to tell the story of Goddess Mahakali and Maa Kurukulla to Ma Yogini Shivagni. While listening to the story, Yogini Shree attained the state of trance (in Bhav Samadhi) and then suddenly the Guru touched the forehead of Ma Yogini Shivagni and said to her in His deep voice, “Go inwards”.
Yogini Shree started seeing myriad aspects of her present life and realized that how many mistakes she had committed, how much she has hurt others (in many cases where she thought it was the others that were at fault). She experienced as if a part of her was a judge and another part was under the question of her deeds- good and bad. She started realizing all the mistakes that she committed towards herself and others. Who was responsible for all that? She realized that she herself was responsible for her karma. It became all dark in front of her eyes (while she was in trance) and then lightning started flashing, her body started to vibrate, it became difficult for her to breathe. She felt suffocated. Her body heated up to the point of unbearable temperature……and then suddenly some pictures and scenes flashed in her brain that held no meaning for her. It was like fragmented scenes of an unknown story.
All of a sudden the scenes vanished and she felt fatigued. But after a while, she started to feel stimulating sensations throughout her body. These sensations were beyond just happy feelings in the body….it was growing slowly in each cell of the body. It was like mild electricity running through the entire body. Though electricity gives shock, but these gave bliss (Ananda) to her. These blissful waves seemed to be originating from the brain and then spreading through the entire body. They all bounced back with the same intensity to the brain sending her into the ecstatic state of Ananda. In the midst of all these, her brain function slowed down. She saw that she could perceive the entire world and even stranger was the fact that everyone she perceived seemed to be against her. They were speaking extremely ill, obscene words about her. They wanted to insult her to the core using the worst language any humans can think of. They seemed to be inspired to kill her. But their insulting words and behavior didn’t impact Yogini Shree at the least. Their words or the negativity they intended at her couldn’t reach her. The sensations that she was experiencing were so strong that everything else faded to nothingness. This went on for quite some time but a minute seemed more many hours passing through.
After all the negativities and those illusory people automatically disappeared and a new set of people appeared in front of her. They were the exact opposite of the previous lot. They said, ‘Look at her. She has become a saint. Many people try it for umpteen births, but mostly fail to reach the state like her. They were telling each other that she looked like a Sadhvi (the woman ascetic). Her whole body and her face were resplendent with a divine glow. Look at her….she is now not an ordinary woman. She is full of divinity, courage and strength.’
But these words also didn’t have any impact on her. The entire world that she perceived, those divine personalities showering praises on her folded their hands in front of her, they tried to approach her to touch her feet, offered flowers to her, but it didn’t affect her in the least. Nothing could deter from her inner state, that blissful state that she was experiencing inside her body. The sensations now began to change into myriad different colors. She then started experiencing different colors of these sweet electrical impulses that originated from her brain. The different colors gave her different feelings. Like the obscene insults dissolved before reaching her, these sweet talks of people, who were now offering their respect to her, dissolved. The experience she was going through within was such that she had nothing to do with what was happening outside of her. The truth was only the things that she had been experiencing inside.
Suddenly, she felt that her body was about to disintegrate and die but the sweet sensation didn’t cease to stop. This surprised her to the core because it felt that even if her body died she would still experience bliss. Bliss seemed to be something eternal. Slowly, a circle of light appeared in front of her eyes that originated from the glowing energy of her body. It kept on growing luminous. This globe of light was like infinite waves of light that came together to form one divine circle of light. After a point, when the circle of light was complete, it traveled to the back of Yogini Shree’s head and steadied itself around the back of her head. It sent her into a deeper state of Ananda and for the first time in her life, she felt free of all bonds and boundaries. Yogini Shree experienced the ultimate state of happiness when she reached the state. Right from the region below the navel to her chest area, she felt tingling vibrations that sent a brilliant smile across her face and ecstasy throughout her body. She didn’t have any control over the ecstasy she was experiencing. The area above her cheekbones, below the eyes, heated up. Hot shower like sensations started flowing from the neck area just below the head where the neck enjoins the head, towards the area below the navel through the spine. It was like a hot spring flowing through the spine to the region below the navel and then bouncing back with same sweet intensity through the spine, sending across the sensations through the navel, chest and entire head region. It felt like it reached the head and spread across in an umbrella/ mushroom of light. She could see infinite stars, many universes in this umbrella and many more events that couldn’t be explained. She could see colorful smoke, colorful light waves, and such shapes that she had never seen before. She could witness such grand fireworks at the cosmic level, like Diwali (the Hindu festival of lights celebrated in the months of October/November) of planets, stars, and sun. The experience went on for some time. (The length of time is unknown).
Now, the cosmic scene started fading away, her head cleared up. Everything just vanished. Her head seemed to be completely empty. There was neither light nor darkness. Everything went on in pause mode. As if everything stopped. After she came back to her senses and opened her eyes, she felt utterly light and divine within herself. Her Maha Siddha Guru was sitting in front of her. He said that He was very happy that day to see her free of all Manogranthis or mental entanglements. Now she has reached the state of Yogini. Yogini Shree was filled with indescribable happiness and gratitude hearing her beloved Guru’s words. Such love was flowing through Yogini Shree for her Guru that she held on to her Guru’s feet and tears kept flowing….these tears didn’t carry any negativity. These tears were like the Ganga river flowing from her eyes to the holy land of Haridwar. It made her feel that Hardwara or Haridwara was none but the divine feet of the guru. She just felt fulfilled, content, happy, and quiet. Such love and gratitude were emanating from her being that she felt if there is any heaven then it is in the feet and in the grace of her Guru.
For the first time, she realized that Guru is beyond the body and is the embodiment of Brahm. She felt such impulses that made her want to dissolve at that very moment in her Guru’s feet. And still, that would not be enough to thank her Guru…Then the Maha Siddha graced her head with the touch of His hands and blessed her. It continued for some hours. But even after that hour elapsed, it took several more hours for Yogini Shree’s body and sensations in her body to come to a normal state of being.
After this experience with her Maha Siddha Guru, Yogini Shree got the chance to meet few Himalayan Siddhas and was fortunate enough to get some age-old wisdom from the Siddhas. We are not disclosing the names of the Siddhas here as per their wish not to come under public eyes. Yogini Shree’s Guru gave her some sadhna practises related to Kundalini called as Ushna Vartika Pratibimba Sadhna.
She continued to perform her Sadhna and after the perfection of her sadhana, Yogini Shree realized that her life story and her struggle were not easy. With the grace of her Guru and through the effect of her sadhana when Yogini Shree’s chitta became stable and she started dwelling in the state of ananda, she realized that there are many seekers like her, who are walking the spiritual path, the path to know their own self without any proper guidance and wandered aimlessly like she did once.
But there was nothing she could do but somewhere inside her she thought that she gained much from the grace of her Guru and not all have access to a capable Guru. Yogini Shree felt that right education, imparting right knowledge and sharing her authentic spiritual experience with the world will benefit those true spiritual seekers who were in dire need of guidance.
She then decided to share her learning and experiences to the world through the use of modern day technology. Most of Yogini Shree Shivagni’s time is spent in the feet of her Guru and performing her Sadhna. Therefore she has a team of experts who work tirelessly on transforming the knowledge she received from the Siddhas and from her Maha Siddha Guru, in the formats of audio, video, and graphics and also in books so that it could be shared with all the spiritual seekers of the world.
The whole intention is to introduce you to the timeless authentic wisdom of the Siddhas that will help you all in your journey inwards.