For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

On the 8th day of the waning moon in the Vedic calendar month of Mrgaśirsha, we celebrate the birth anniversary of Holy Mother Sārada Devī. This an exceedingly auspicious a day for our lineage especially if not also for all worshippers of the Divine Mother everywhere in every lineage. It is a special day for everyone, actually, because today, we celebrate the "avatarahood" of the Divine...

I'm just so thrilled about all the new Kālī content we've been putting out this past month, in the days leading up to Śyåma Kālī Pūjā, and the weeks after: First, in How To Get Possesed By Kālī we carefully explained what it is to be a paśu or anu, a discreet unit of consciousness (i.e an embodied soul or jīva) and then carefully pointed out why the ānavopaya is so suited for most of us,...

We gave this talk around the time of the Śyāmā Kālī Pūjā last month and now here is the recording as a present to celebrate this Scorpio New Moon! May it be an offering to each of you who are each living incarnations of the Goddess we worship!  You'll find all our classes on Kālī pūjā guiding you in a step by step, mantra by mantra ritual here .  Jai Mā! Hit Me Up x Support the show Lectures...

After we performed our Śyāmā Kālī Pūjā this year (which you can watch here ), we took up a short, concise but I think quite concentrated discussion on how image worship, the danger of superimposing our projections unto Kālī & the check and balance of taking seriously what Her saints have had to say about Her through their own mystical experiences throughout history. Most importantly, we point...

Some time ago on the 11th of September, we gave this talk on the very heart of our tradition and practice. September 11th in 1893 was the day Swami Vivekananda opened his transmission to the West (and the the world at large) at the Parliament of World Religions so for us it is a very sacred day when we commemorate the "turning of the wheel of dharma" yet again!  Strangely, I haven't...

Before we plunged into the fervor of Śyāma Kālī Pūjā, we paused to reflect on an important question that Sandhyā Devī astutely asked one morning which was more or less along the lines of "how can we verify the truth claims of the tradition"? "how do we stay sane, grounded & reasonable while practicing a somewhat radical form of Tantra?" "how do we know that our spiritu...

One of my favorite lectures of all time. We inquire into some "scary" themes in spiritual life like the potential difference between my will and God's will, as it is understood across various traditions with an emphasis on the life-affirming, immanence-oriented and desire-positive view of the Goddess traditions. We make a few remarks about why vampires as such a good metaphor for Ta...

The best way to start is to just start. Here's everything you need and more. Hit Me Up x Support the show Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and again at Friday 11am PST  Use this link and I will see you there: https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815 For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at: https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish...

In this conversation about the mechanism of image-worship and the subtler (and more radical) aspects of the Tāntrik worship tradition, we carefully explain what it is to be a paśu or anu, a discreet unit of consciousness (i.e an embodied soul or jīva) and then carefully point out why the ānavopaya is so suited for most of us, despite our pretense at high-flying non-dual philosophies!  The ānavopay...

One of the most important ideas in Tantra (and often one of the most misunderstood and most difficult to discuss) is Kuṇḍalinī! What exactly is this "serpent power", as Arthur Avalonji once called it? Specifically in this talk, we relate Kuṇḍalinī to Kālī to show her centrality in the Kaula tradition of Tantra! Finally, based on this reflection, we discuss the quintessential Kaula ritual...

After we gave our Secrets of the Devī Māhātmyam | Śākta Theology 101 talk at the start of Navarātri (The Autumn Goddess Festival) earlier this year, we then gave this talk where we examined the Devī Māhātmyam (which we only introduced in the previous talk) in much more detail to see exactly what kind of text it is and from that, learn how we may use it in the context of our day-to-day spiritual pr...

As one of the most ancient and important texts of the Tāntrik Goddess (śākta) tradition, the Devī Māhātmyam is of course unspeakably rich in its every dimension! In its esoteric dimension, it is a very complex manual of mantra, ritual and magical application.  As literature, is aesthetically and poetically sublime beyond comparison.  As a narrative, it is astoundingly complex and ingenious in term...

After our discussion on the Three Kinds of Madness | Kālī vs. Laxmī vs Sarasvatī on Laxmī Purnimā earlier this week, we launched into a very beautiful, rich and universally helpful Q&A discussion on difficult emotions and how to transform them into ecstasy! We discuss the importance of setting boundaries and not spiritually bypassing our feelings but we also present that state beyond all bound...

On this very auspicious Laxmī Pūrnimā (Autumn full moon) I want to discuss the topic we’ve been meaning to discuss for sometime now: “Kundalinī emergency” or “spiritual crisis" & how to say safe. First, we distinguish between three different kinds of “lunacy” with an emphasis on the destabilizing, “not so fun” kind that can sometimes induced by intense spiritual practice! I argue that the...

As part of our Navarātri celebrations, we explored some stories from the Devī Māhātmyam and contrasts them to/built up on them with some similar narratives from other Purānic Śakta texts like the Devī Bhāgavatam (i.e the Devī Gitā) to excavate some deeper meaning and significance, from a philosophical and esoteric, sādhana point of view! You'll find all our talks on Navarātri & the Devī M...

Congratulations on completing another 9 (or perhaps 10) nights of intense contemplation, celebration and worship of Mā! What a powerful Navarātri it's been and each time feels like the first time especially if it was, in fact, your first time celebrating! But whether you are a seasoned śākta or just now getting acquainted to the festivals and practices of the tradition, Navarātri and its cent...

It's that time of the year again, gang! You know what's up. Here's the document we were presenting in this talk: it walks you through a Navarātri sādhanā (spiritual practice) that you can do over the course of the 9 nights of the Goddess. Remember that Navarātri happens 4 times a year (and in some traditions, 8 times) and so this sādhanā can be done at least that many times but it i...

A high level talk on some of the subtle and esoteric ideas sketched out by Devī in the opening verses of the Vijñāna Bhairava Tantra. Hit Me Up x Support the show Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and again at Friday 11am PST  Use this link and I will see you there: https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815 For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library...

In the Who Should Worship Kālī? | Dakṣiṇa Kālī vs Smaśāna Kālī talk, we explained the technical term "jagadānanda" which describes the bliss of fullness. We argued that from the Kaula point of view, the goal is not transcendence but fullness; not freedom "from" the world but freedom "as" the world. And we pointed out how Kālī sādhanā is uniquely about embracing this n...

Broadly speaking, there are to archetypical non-dual traditions, two very valid paths to bliss: The Non-Duality of Total Negation (Classical Advaita) & Kālī's Non-Duality of Total Acceptance (i.e Tāntrik Non-Duality or paramadvāya).  Of course there are infinite shades of nuance and variation in between these two extremes. In this talk, we do a comparison of these two extreme models (or r...

After watching What Does Kālī Want From You? | The Yoga of Grief & Fullness , Who Should Worship Kālī? | Dakṣiṇa Kālī vs Smaśāna Kālī and What Do You Need To Start Worshipping Kālī & Practicing Tantra? you might be starting to get the impression that Kālī pūjā and sādhana is (as Sri Ramakrishna himself put it) no joke! As such, to stay safe and to practice in a meaningful, gradual and inte...

The word Tantra essentially refers to a set of texts, or a genre of spiritual literature in which we encounter profound philosophies, intricate visualizations, techniques for meditation involving the phonetic power of language and various other tools for spiritual practice. In short, the tantras (also called the āgamas) present an entire system of spiritual practice designed to lead the aspirant t...

Last week, we had a profound and poignant discussion on the heart of Kālī sādhana in What Does Kālī Want From You? | The Yoga of Grief & Fullness where we explored what Swami Vivekananda called "The Worship of the Terrible"! Notice that the imagery around Mā Kālī doesn't just focus on terror, chaos and death in an amorphous or abstract way; it presents some very concrete motifs...

On the last Monday of śrāvana is an especially sacred day for contemplating the Absolute because it is a culmination four or six weeks of very intense Sādhanā (spiritual practice). As such, as a celebration and consummation, I’d like to discuss something quite poignant: the yoga of grief & fullness. I want to compare some transcendalist schools of Advaita to the Tāntrik approach which emphasiz...

One of the most exalted, refined and mysterious aspects of the Tāntrik non-dual tradition is the veneration of the devītraya , the Three Wisdom Goddesses who are linked to three dynamic expressions of Consciousness: Knower (Parā), Knowing (Parāparā) and Known (Aparā).  More mysterious than this is the idea that Consciousness, the central Goddess (Samvit Devī) expresses Herself simultaneously (akra...