June 1, 2026

Dear reader,

It is here: the month of June. The month of Gurumayi’s birthday, of Birthday Bliss. Let’s launch it officially, shall we? Let’s launch it in the way we know best, by gathering together in our very own digital Sadhana Circle.

I imagine that many of you, like me, have been thinking about how you’d like to celebrate Gurumayi’s birthday month. On the Siddha Yoga path, we always approach this time of year with great anticipation. In fact, it was because Siddha Yogis would express such apparent joy at the onset of June that Gurumayi gave this month the name Birthday Bliss. Beginning on June 1, people would wish Gurumayi a happy birthday. They would give gifts to her whenever they came forward for darshan. Their smiles would stretch from ear to ear; their laughter would ring through the halls of the Ashram. Their khushi aur anand, their happiness, their joy; their madhurya aur apnapan, their sweetness and affection; their dayaluta aur utsaha, their kindness and enthusiasm—all of it was on full display. Therefore, Gurumayi said, “Since you are sharing so much of your bliss with me, let’s call this month Birthday Bliss.”

When I reflect on all that I have learned from Gurumayi, how my destiny has been shaped and enhanced, bliss feels like the only possible response. Gratitude is the inevitable outcome. I am confident in the choices I have made in my life—and believe that my decisions have, for the most part, been sound, well-reasoned, and beneficial—because I have had Gurumayi’s teachings as my guide.

One of the teachings—or, rather, set of teachings—that has been so transformative for me is the sadguna vaibhava, the virtues from Gurumayi that are featured on the Siddha Yoga path website throughout June. For each day of this month, Gurumayi has selected a distinct virtue for us to study, practice, and above all, experience. Gurumayi first imparted the sadguna in 2013, explaining at the time that each one was a birthday gift from her to us. They were, and are, the most amazing gifts. I consider them to be daily prasad.

In Sanskrit, the term sadguna is a compound of the constituent words sat and guna. Sat is a descriptor of the universal Self, and it refers to that which is true, real, good, beautiful, and eternal. Guna means “quality,” “attribute,” or “virtue.” Gurumayi has taught that these virtues are intrinsic to us, that we can find them within ourselves as well as in the people and the world around us. In fact, during a satsang held via live video stream on her birthday in 2017, Gurumayi explained that when she selected the sadguna vaibhava for the Siddha Yoga path website, she was thinking of the Siddha Yogis who had demonstrated these virtues to her throughout her life. Her choice was inspired by their nobleness of action and behavior. “The sadguna vaibhava are all about you,” Gurumayi said. “So if you haven’t discovered them yet—within you, around you—please do.”

Gurumayi has also spoken about the benefit of these teachings being sutra-like—they are at once concise (literally one word long!) and richly prismatic in their meaning. Each virtue can be explored from innumerable angles. From a language standpoint alone, we have many options. The word in English will often have multiple denotations and connotations. If we speak languages other than English, additional flavors of the virtue will come into play when we contemplate the word for it in those languages. Then there’s the matter of how we experience the virtue. This too is a language unto itself, each of us speaking a slightly different tongue. How I experience patience in my life will be different from how you do. The associations you make with generosity will be different from mine.

Even with all this potential variation—and perhaps, in part, because of it—the impact of cultivating the virtues collectively is tremendous. Let’s visualize that for a moment. What would it look like if everyone in the world made it a point to practice a given day’s virtue? How would that affect the interactions that take place between people, between communities, between entire countries and cultures? How would that change the very texture of life—for us and for everyone?

It’s an inspiring picture, right? And an aspirational one. We do not have control over what everyone in the world does. Luckily, though, we do have agency over what we do, the effort that we as Siddha Yogis choose to make. That carries its own power—a power that is unfathomably great.

The main thrust of our effort, as Gurumayi has said, is to discover the virtues. To find them. To unearth them. Gurumayi teaches that these virtues already reside within us. It is a truth that makes me wonder: Was there ever a time when the light of these virtues was wholly intact and perceptible to us, when it was not obscured by layers of learned behaviors, of misunderstanding wrought by suffering and the highs and lows of day-to-day life? We might have to go back to when we were in the womb. I like to imagine, sometimes, that our unformed selves were suspended in light—and we could not interpret this light, we could not yet discern any of its derivative forms, since neither our brains nor our senses were fully developed. All we had was that undiluted light, that time outside of time, that state of total trust. We were ensconced in it, enveloped in it; it was all-encompassing, the power of that trust.

Esoteric as such musings may be, I find them reassuring. It is heartening to know that somewhere inside of me, this state still exists—perfect in its luminosity and pristine like the finest gold. Through Gurumayi’s teachings, I can remove the film that keeps this light from shining through, the metaphorical grime concealing the gold. I can uncover that original state once more. And I can bring it to the foreground of my awareness. I can make it integral to who I am, fundamental to how I move through life.

I am also motivated by the fact that I will be joined in this effort by all of you, my fellow Siddha Yogis and new seekers. Not just that, but we’ll be making our collective efforts at this time, during the month of bliss, the month of our beloved Guru’s birthday. As many of us have experienced firsthand, there’s a special energy to celebration times on the Siddha Yoga path. The power of our sadhana is enhanced. The fruits of that sadhana are multiplied, exponentially so. So when it comes to the sadguna vaibhava—yes, our work with them ought to continue beyond June, and there’s an added boost to focusing on them in this particular moment. Our expression of the virtues—the good deeds we do in the world—can have even greater effect. The seeds of bliss we plant now hold unique potentiality; they might just blossom in delightfully unexpected ways.

I mentioned before that the sadguna vaibhava have been featured on the Siddha Yoga path website every June for the last thirteen years. Gurumayi’s guidance has been for each day’s virtue to remain the same from year to year. The exception is the virtue for Gurumayi’s birthday, June 24. Gurumayi gives us a new virtue every year on June 24—and this, to me, is wonderfully characteristic of how Gurumayi teaches. Even when it comes to something as classic, as iconic, as the sadguna vaibhava, Gurumayi will find a way to make it new, to keep it fresh, to bring in some element of surprise. This “surprise element,” moreover, always serves a purpose. It stops us in our tracks. It prompts us to rethink what we may have accepted as true or right, to consider that maybe we don’t yet know everything there is to know about a given topic or teaching.

Refreshing Our Intention, Reassessing Our Approach

On that note, Gurumayi has asked me to share with you that this year, in 2026, she would like us to revisit and reevaluate our approach to studying the sadguna vaibhava. She wants us to check in with ourselves—to make sure that we are on the right track when it comes to understanding and cultivating the virtues.

As Siddha Yogis, we have learned to do such check-ins when engaging in abhyasa, in a prolonged period of study or practice. And—I understand that this year, Gurumayi is asking us to make even more of a conscious effort, more of a concerted effort, to do so. We can be more targeted in our self-inquiry. We can ask ourselves more critical questions and stretch our capacity to hold in balance multiple perspectives. After all, real growth tends to occur when we encounter some friction in ourselves—when our tried-and-true methods of doing things square up against new and even dissonant ideas.

Where to start, then, if not at the beginning? Again and again Gurumayi has taught us the importance of understanding the intention behind anything we do in sadhana—and then returning to that intention to make sure our actions still align with it. As I wrote recently, sadhana is a process of continual learning, unlearning, and relearning. It is a matter of ongoing calibration and recalibration, of checking our understanding and checking it once more. When we fail to maintain an awareness of what we are doing and why we are doing it—when we stop noticing and responding to our inner state—stagnancy can set in. Progress can be stalled, and our thinking can atrophy. So we want to do everything we can to prevent this, to remain attentive and responsive to what’s happening with ourselves. We always want to remember that within us exists a veritable powerhouse, the source from which all the virtues arise and to which they return.

Gurumayi has given the analogy of how people—often from centuries, even millennia ago—would hide their wealth deep beneath the earth. They did it for safekeeping. However, as time passed, as civilizations rose and fell, they never returned for that wealth. Sometimes the remnants of that treasure would be discovered years and lifetimes later, if someone happened to dig up that patch of earth, but by then the damage had been done. The wealth had long been lost.

If we are not careful, a similar thing can happen in sadhana, including with the virtues. We can forget the knowledge we have gained. We can lose sight of how to retrieve it. For this reason, it is essential that we keep revisiting what we have learned. And if you are new to the Siddha Yoga path, or if this is the first you are hearing about the virtues, then you can make a note for yourself—a reminder to revisit your intention for cultivating the virtues after you have practiced them for some time.

So, what is that intention? Let’s ask this of ourselves. Why do we cultivate the virtues? When you consider this question, what comes up for you? Is your answer different now than it might have been a year ago, or five years ago, or ten years ago? Why might your answer be different? Why is it the same? What has changed? What has continued to hold true?

In her talk Intention and Blessing, which Gurumayi gave on her birthday in 2002, Gurumayi taught what intention is on the Siddha Yoga path. It is useful to return to that definition now, as we refresh our intention for cultivating the virtues. Drawing upon the Sanskrit word for “intention,” sankalpa, Gurumayi explained that forming an intention requires a focusing or a coalescing of our thoughts, hopes, and best wishes. It is, as Gurumayi said, about extracting the essence of our thoughts—and then crystallizing that essence into something to behold, something that is worthy of manifesting in our lives.

The world is what we make of it. Our life is what we make of it. So what intention do we want to set? What vision do we want to make manifest? We all know how entrenched the forces of negativity are in this world. We can see the hold that vices like greed and arrogance have over the individual and collective psyche. Yet Gurumayi has taught that the virtues are equally potent—that by expressing the virtues in our lives, we can cast a real and enduring light into the seeming darkness.

Think about it. Really inquire within yourself. When someone is unkind to you, what happens inside of you? What runs through your mind? How is your mood affected? Your outlook? Do you ever generalize the behavior of that person to humanity more broadly? In other words, maybe it’s not just that one person who seems mean. Maybe you interpret their rudeness in that moment as a comment on the world writ large, as an indication that the world really might be a cold and unfriendly place.

But the opposite can be true too, right? What do you experience when someone gives you a genuine smile? When you have a moment of connection with them, and they laugh sweetly with you? Is it just that person who seems nice, or does their sweetness also soften your impression of the world? Might you view their goodness, their kindness, as a sign of how wonderful people can be?

The choice is ours when it comes to the kind of world we wish to create. For my part, I believe that the picture we have just painted—of a world inflected with the best that humanity has on offer—illustrates exactly why we want to cultivate the virtues. We do it to bring forth light. To usher in goodness. To spread happiness. To engender knowledge. To promote fellow feeling. To encourage mutual understanding. To sprinkle in a little more wonderment. To realize, over and again, how the things that unite us—the things that we share in common—are more powerful a force than we might have ever imagined.

“Too Much” of the Virtues

I stated earlier that Gurumayi is asking us to revisit and reassess our approach to cultivating the virtues. One aspect of this is what we have just done—reminding ourselves of the reason why we cultivate the virtues. Another aspect is taking an honest look at how our efforts to cultivate the sadguna line up with that intention. Are we achieving what we set out to do? Or have we gone off course?

It is easier than we might think to misconstrue the Guru’s words. We can misinterpret what a given virtue looks like in practice, and in the attempt to cultivate that virtue, we can wind up acting in ways that contradict it. This is perhaps most likely to happen when we overdo the virtue—when we seem to acquire “too much” of that virtue, or when we do too much in the name of the virtue. To be clear, there is no actual measure of what constitutes too much of a given virtue. No one—neither the scientists nor the yogis—has quantified this. But we can get a sense of when we might be taking our practice of the virtue a little too far, based on our feelings around it, the input we receive from others, and the actual outcomes of our actions.

Consider, for example, the virtue of abundance. What happens when something becomes too abundant in our lives? Do we continue to hold it in high esteem, to accord it the same value we did when it felt more elusive?

What about too much balance? Can that start to look like rigidity? Or too much discipline? When does that morph into unnecessary self-sacrifice?

In explaining this concept to me—of there being such a thing as “too much” of a virtue—Gurumayi said, “There’s a difference between preserving the sanctity of the Guru’s teachings and becoming sanctimonious.” We want to take care that our efforts in sadhana do not lead to self-absorption. We do not want to create in our minds a hierarchy of virtuous behaviors or people—such that we end up alienating those who fail to live up to our highly specific ideals of what it means to be, say, generous or courageous or humble.

I have learned, from being on the Siddha Yoga path, that the Guru’s teachings are always meant to unite, to nurture and reinforce our connectedness. What this means, ultimately—and as the scriptures of India tell us—is that we experience the unity of our individual self with the supreme Self. That in turn leads us to recognize this same Self existing in everyone and everything.

So if our attempts to practice the Guru’s teachings are prompting us to create division, it is worth inquiring if we are really practicing the Guru’s teachings at all. It is a signal to look back on our journey with the sadguna and identify where, exactly, we may have deviated from our original path. It is imperative to make note of when and how we may have done “too much” in the name of the virtues.

And once we have made these notes—once we have assessed our own actions and understandings—we can share our learnings with others. All throughout this year, and especially in relation to the “Meditations” I have written on the Guru’s words, you have been superbly responsive to the teachings and essays on the Siddha Yoga path website. You have shared your thoughts, your contemplations, your experiences in sadhana. I urge you to do the same this month, with the sadguna vaibhava. It’s powerful to share—and you’ve got that power.

Underneath each day’s virtue, you can share not only your insights about what the virtue is and how you practice it, but also what you understand “too much” of the virtue to look like. You can share how you might have taken things too far in your eagerness to embody that virtue. You can write about the ways you are learning to check in with yourself so that you are staying true to your intentions. Your openness in this regard is invaluable; you never know who will resonate with what you have shared, and how your understanding and experience will support them in their sadhana. I can’t say it enough: there is untold power in sharing.

In the spirit of refreshing our intentions and revisiting our approach to the virtues, I also encourage you to acknowledge the ways in which you have cultivated each virtue as intended. And yes, this applies even and especially to those virtues that you might not wholly identify with. Gurumayi has said that we can all find some sliver, some threadlike evidence of these virtues’ existence within us. Even if we’ve been feeling despair for a long time, we must have had a few moments when we experienced joyfulness bubbling up from within. Even if we have struggled with discipline, we must have some basic structures in place for ourselves, perhaps just to get through the day.

To stay the course in sadhana, we must both unlearn the behaviors that lead us astray and reaffirm the choices that keep us moving forward (no matter how small or negligible those choices may seem). It is no coincidence that Gurumayi has given us a virtue to focus on each day of Birthday Bliss. Cultivating the sadguna is a day-to-day endeavor—maybe even a moment-to-moment one. It is the accumulation of these decisions and actions, these continual adjustments and readjustments, that allows us to create a world in which the virtues triumph.

Before I go, there’s one more thing I want to say. I spoke earlier about how the virtues, the sadguna vaibhava, are Gurumayi’s birthday gifts to us. When we study, practice, assimilate, and implement the virtues, we are expressing our understanding of the value of the Guru’s prasad. We are doing something more than just putting these gifts on the figurative shelf. We are fashioning something useful, something beautiful, with them. We are seeing to it that the bounty of the sadguna proliferates.

Gurumayi has shared with me that on many occasions, when she has given someone a plant as prasad, that person will come back later and offer to her the fruits and flowers that the plant has produced. The concept here is similar. Gurumayi’s wish is for us all to “make this world a better paradise.” When we cultivate the sadguna vaibhava this June, we are not just receiving gifts from Gurumayi. Each day, we are giving her a birthday gift of our own.

Jai Gurumayi!

Sincerely,

Eesha Sardesai