For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Not only was it just Swami Vivekananda’s birthday weekend but also at the time of this lecture it was the anniversary of the composition of Abhinavagupta’s Bhairava Stava, one of my favorite non dual hymns of all time! As such we’ll celebrate by exploring Swamiji’s highest, edgiest most powerful non dual teachings and more importantly his advice on how to live them alongside a running commentary o...

As Buddha had a message for the East, so too did Swami Vivekananda have a message for the West, if not for the whole world. What was that message? While it is of course a very multifaceted, variegated and nuanced message, three core principles stand out; we explore them in the course of this lecture, as part of our Vivekananda Jayanti celebrations earlier this month. These principles are: 1. Relig...

I have quite the treat for you: we’re going to be looking at Swami Vivekananda’s highest teachings from a series of lectures he gave in San Francisco. I thought of calling the talk “Swami Vivekananda in San Francisco”, to reference the series of three talks that Swami Ashokananda gave in 1946 and 1949 at the Old Temple and 1965 in the New Temple on the subject. I wanted to say a little about what...

Last week, we attempted to ask the question "Who is Sarada Devi?" and we ended up with the answer, "who knows?" Svārupam tvadīyam na vindanti devah ! Even the Gods do not know your true nature, Mother! In any case, in that previous lecture (which you can watch here ), we attempted a sketch of the early years of this great life and today, we're going to go in for a second p...

Who knows? Who could ever know?  As Shankara put it in his Kalikāshtakam: "svarūpam tvadīyam na vindanti devah: not even the Gods know your true nature!" With this in mind, humbled and awed, we approach this profound mystery of the Divine Mother of the Universe who is at once inscrutable and yet easy of access to us. She is at once Kali, the Mistress of Maya who confounds the Universe as...

This discussion is a long time coming: Who is Mary of Magdala and what is she to the Christ? Is simply Christ's foremost and most advanced disciple? Is she fallen woman who was redeemed through the Christ as Pope Gregory claimed in the late 6th CE? Or was she much, much more? I want to make the case in this lecture for Mary as being the Shakti of Christ, the power by which the Incarnation and...

Today on Sārada Devī Jayanti, the auspicious emergence of Holy Mother, I'd like to offer this recitation of the four hymns of the Candi at your feet, you who are Mā embodied. Before each hymn is chanted in Sanskrit and translation, we make a few preliminary remarks about the hymn to contextualize it in the wider narrative of the Candi or Devi Māhātmyam.  These hymns are very powerful. They ar...

As you know, a tantra is often divided into four parts: 1. jñāna-pada, the philosophical transmission, 2. Yoga-pada, the section of esoteric practices like meditation and mantra repetition 3. Kriyā-pada, the manual for pūjā or ritualistic worship 4. Cārya-pada, the section on how to live your life in the world as a practitioner! Having discussed the first three parts quite extensively it’s now tim...

God is inscrutable and mysterious for the most part. What then to say of the Incarnation, that is, the appearance of God as a specific person in history?! Perhaps the mystery of the Avatar, the Incarnation of God is one of the deepest mysteries of religion and it is by no means unique to Christianity. Long before the Christ, we find in the Bhagavad Gita the following, which represents the first ar...

Usually when we think of prayer, we picture kneeling by the bedside with hands clasped and being thoroughly disappointed. Usually, we feel prayer as some kind of contrived, forced, inauthentic attempt to connect with a barely articulated idea of "God" and often to be met with silence and a feeling of being kind of silly. Is prayer talking to God? What do you even say in a conversation th...

At last week’s satsangh we had a wonderful conversation about the Tantrik principles in Christianity: guru paramparā (lineage based transmission), dīksha (initiation rituals), mantra japa (repetition of sacred words), pūjā (ritual worship) and vigraha (the immanent and embodied aspect of God). In this lecture, I intend to discuss the relations up between Mother Mary and Mā Kālī not just in matters...

In this lecture, we discuss “Tantrik Christianity”, that is, elements of Tantra like 1. guruparamparā (lineage based transmission),  2. ritual worship (pūjā) 3. emphasis on mantra repetition (japa) 4. profileration of deities/icons 5. emphasis on direct, personal experience of the Divine 6. the Immanence of God etc.  that are also present in Christianity to make the case that Tantra is a spiritual...

In this lecture, we take a comparative look at the Divine Feminine as it is worshipped in the Mesopotamian, Aztec, Spanish, Celtic, Gaelic and Hellenistic cultures to show that Mā Kālī is not confined to any one culture or religion. Though Her worship and veneration is perhaps most articulated and most visibly extant in Hinduism, She is indeed the Primordial Power that was worshipped by all people...

Last month, we celebrated my favorite time of the year, Kālī Pūjā!  The pūjā itself was on Sunday the 12th of November, the new moon night but on the Friday just before I couldn't at all contain my excitement and felt inspired to do a special class on Ramprasad, the great mystic and saint of Mother Kālī.  His story is a truly remarkable tale of the highest devotion, of the most reckless absor...

We start our evening's Q&A with some book recommendations for the study and practice of Tantrik Shaktism, that is, devotion to the Divine Mother. (00:00-07:00) Then we discuss some precautions around the Devī Māhātmyam sādhanā with regards to "fierce grace" with an excursus on the Power of Mantra/the Power of the Written Word. (07:00-16:00) But to soften that, we then talk about...

After two back-to-back Kālī pūjās and a few all nighters, we plunge into a discussion of Mā Kālī's non-dual aspect, to commemorate the Shyama Kali Puja of 2023. My idea was to explore the role of the ferocious iconography around Mā, a few verses of the Candi indicated Her non-dual nature as Pure Consciousness and some similar iconography and motifs from other world spiritual traditions to pre...

Prior to our Hallowe'en lecture on ghosts in the Tantrik world, we recite a few hymns and poems to Mahākāla Bhairava and Mā Bhairavi (Abhinava Gupta's Bhairava Stava and the two Kālī poems by Swami Vivekananda) that feature similar macabre elements to make a point about radical acceptance, non-duality and overcoming fear. Art by Vijayā ( http://www.birthlessdeathless.com/ ) Lectures happ...

Tonight’s lecture is a Hallowe’en special! After all, Śaiva and Śakta Tantra is chock full of ghoulish mortuary iconography: Mā Kālī’s garland of skulls, Lord Śiva’s garland of snakes, their retinue of ghosts, goblins and vampires, their home in the cremation grounds (ghat), fierce fanged dākinī and yoginīs and so much more.  It’s no wonder Hallowe’en is my favorite holiday!  Tonight, to celebrate...

We'll explore how it might be possible for a person to be instantly free here and now, as suddenly and as effortlessly and easily as one "falls from a tree after losing one's footing".  Naturally, this will take us into a discussion on anupaya, the notorious "no path path" of instant liberation and jīvanmukti, the somewhat paradoxical doctrine of being free of the wor...

There are few theories regarding God's grace in Indian philosophy: 1. It is earned through good works (karma) 2. It is earned through devotion (bhakti) 3. It is earned through renunciation (tyāga) 4. It comes as a result of two equally strong samskaras bubbling up at the same time and checking one and another, thus artificially stalling all future karmas from fructifying (karmasāmya) Using so...

We have an exciting series of lectures ahead of us: How To Practice Kashmir Shaivism We've been discussing the theory of Kaula Trika non-duality for some time now, which is, in and of itself, a type of practice. However, it's time now to discuss practice proper! In this lecture, I'm going to 1. make a case for why so-called "worldliness" is itself a very noble kind of spir...

In this lecture, we are going to discuss the Abhāsa-Vada (Reflection Model) of Kaula Trika Tantra: how is it that the one Unchanging Absolute, śiva, manifests playfully as this dazzling display of phenomena called the world without (a) losing pristine transcendent nature (b) while actually literally and really manifesting as everyone and everything? This sounds like a flat out contradiction. What&...

We gave this lecture on the full moon celebrating the Guru, guru-pūrnimā the day when we honor our teachers and our lineage. You are all of you my guru, my teacher. And it is at your feet that I offer all of these words, like so many meagre flowers. You have all taught me and are continuing to teach me and will go on teaching me so much! I am eternally indebted to each and every one of you. A hund...

Prior to the British occupation of India, there was no such word as "Hinduism". There was really only a very diverse range of spiritual attitudes all coexisting alongside one another in a spirit of not only tolerance, but celebration.  Notice the tremendous resilience India has demonstrated through her 5000 year old (by conservative Western estimates) civilization. The fundamental truths...

Is there anything quite so joyful as thinking in terms of eternity and infinity? Perhaps that’s why coming together every Monday night for our 7pm PST Satsangh remains ever fresh and ever blissful even after all of these years together. There is just such a sweetness to holding these profound and refined conceptions of the Absolute. By holding and contemplating vast concepts, you taste the vastnes...