For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Recently, we've been reflecting a lot on Is There Free Will? and also How To Really Worship Kālī | Free Will vs Determinism to explain Sri Ramakrishna's very subtle position on the issue: God alone is the Doer ("not even a leaf moves but by the will of God") and yet there arises in us by God's will the "feeling" of free will which makes our decisions meaningful!...

Last year, on this auspicious occasion of Dhūmāvatī Devī Jayanti (which is the 8th day after the New Moon of Vaiśakh) we gave a series on talks on this very mysterious and often feared phase of Mā's personality ( Who is Mā Dhūmāvatī? & Worshipping Mā Dhūmāvatī ) where we explored Her origin story, Her symbology and Her significance in theory and practice. This year, we decided to go furth...

First, we present a rendition of Swami Vivekananda's profound and stirring song in Sanskrit to Shiva, the Great God along with an English translation by Swami Prabhavananda. I am especially fond of this song! We then make a few comments about why the days of the week are so significant and how to do a daily chanting practice based on the deity that is exalted on each day. Then, after a brief...

In this talk, we develop some the ideas from the Is There Free Will? lecture: if there is no free will, then, what's the point exactly? Isn't spiritual life all about freedom? If freedom is the goal, can such a freedom ever be articulated on the level of the embodied individual if after all, as we claimed last week, there is no freedom in a real sense for the embodied individual since Mo...

After giving two talks establishing God ( Proof for God & What is God in Tantra? ) a in response to various objections from non-theistic traditions like scientific materialism, Buddhism, Sāmkhya & Advaita Vedanta, we are now left with an interesting question: what about the Problem of Evil? The usual response to this dilemma from the theistic position is to assert free-will. God is indeed...

In Verse 104, of the Vijñāna-Bhairava Tantra , we come across a profound teaching: विहाय निजदेहस्थं सर्वत्रास्मीति भावयन्। दृढेन मनसा दृष्ट्या नान्येक्षिण्या सुखी भवेत्॥ १०४॥ vihāya nijadehasthaṁ sarvatrāsmīti bhāvayan | dṛḍhena manasā dṛṣṭyā nānyekṣiṇyā sukhī bhavet || 104 || "By abandoning the sense that the self abides only in one’s own body, and by contemplating with a firm mind that “I a...

When we say this Universe is internal to consciousness, as we do in Non-Dual Philosophy, are we making a solipsistic claim? In this Q&A discussion after our Friday morning discussion on Turning Non-Dual Teachings into Non-Dual Practices | Paramārthasāra, Verse 37 we discuss so many wonderful things! Sri Devi asks beautiful questions about idealism and in response, we show why Advaita, Non-Dual...

Perhaps one of the reasons all the various religions in the world are fighting and killing each other is because they never took the time to clarify to one another what, precisely, they meant by the term "God"?  Often when atheists criticize religion, they only conceive of God along Abrahamic lines, and poorly at that. But the Abrahamic notions of God (while also being more diverse than...

As part our How To Do Tantrik Pūjā , we now start discussing the next moment in our puja-krama, sequence of worship: Gaṇeśa puja ! This a bit like a talk we gave some time back called We'll go over the necessary nyāsa, dhyāna, pūjā and pranāmah mantras in the next class for a more detailed worship but in this talk, I just wanted to say a few things about Pauranic vs Vedic Gaṇeśa and discuss T...

The krishna-ekadaśi (11th day of the waning moon) right before Phalahārinī Pūjā is known as the Apara-ekadaśi and it coincides with Bhadrakālī Jayanti, the celebration of Mā in her "auspicious" form. While the word "Bhadra" (which can be both a noun and an adjective) means something like "auspicious", "noble", "protectress" etc. we have to ask: wha...

I wanted to explore the relationship between spiritual wellbeing and physical health to make the somewhat surprising claim: intense spiritual practice can sometimes compromise health! This is because, in the course of intense sādhana, Kula Kundalinī, our personal Shakti, progressively loosens its hold on the physical body. As such, in this talk I argue for the importance of Hatha Yoga practice to...

This was a fire Questions & Answers discussion!  After our Monday evening talk earlier this week, we explore some of the ecological, economical, political & sociological implications of Kālī sādhana. I make a case for overcoming all guilt and shame in the quest of personal self-expression, especially for women who are so often socialized to feel that their every impulse and desire is moral...

Here is a brief and exultant sketch of Mā Kālī's journey from ancient pre-history into the most esoteric and elite Tantrik circles and into the mainstream Bhakti movement of Bengal and from there into the hearts and homes of people all over the world!  Without all of those who have come before us (and I was only able to mention so few of them in this talk), who have each given their entire li...

Yesterday, on the new moon in the Vedic month of Vaishakh (Jyeshtha by Purnimanta calendar), we celebrated a most auspicious occasion: the Phalaharini Kali Puja. It is an especially significant day for our lineage and so in this short talk, we discuss why.  We tell the story of Sri Ramakrishna's culminating puja which punctuates his 12-year period of intense of spiritual practice! Here is a s...

We recorded this some time back and its not as comprehensive as I would have liked it to be (lineage is such a rich and sprawling conversation, after all) so I never posted it but inspired by the conversations in the Discord this morning, I felt that this reflection would be good to have! There is some debate as to whether Macchanda, the founder of the Kaula lineage (who along with his consort and...

Last year we gave this talk on Mā Bagalā, on the auspicious occasion of her Jayanti: Bagalā and Black Magick in Tantra and this year, we gave two talks to celebrate the same occasion. The first one is: How To Worship Mā Bagalāmukhī where we went over one of the tantras for Her worship (which you can find here . It's a work in progress!) and this is the second one, approaching Mā Bagalā in a s...

In this Q&A discussion right after our Buddha Purnima lecture, we first discuss the art of letting go with Rajeevji. What spiritual practices can I do to help let go of attachment and learn to surrender to the situation? Then we inquire the way spiritual practices can cheer us up and strengthen us with an appeal the the three gunas of Sāmkhya. Then, we compare Tantrik Buddhism to Tantrik Hindu...

Because Buddha Purnima (the full moon celebrating the birth, death and enlightenment of the Shakyamuni Buddha) is so close to Chinnamastā Jayanti, when we celebrate the self-decapitating form of Mā, this year I decided to combine the two themes into one lecture. Having already explained the symbology of Mā Chinnamastā in last year's talk to some extent, this year I want to focus on the theme...

One of my favorit e questions & answers discussions so far! After our God, World and the Self | A Comparative Approach class, we pluge into this wonderful discussion! Carl opens our discussion with a profound inquiry into the true teaching of Buddhism and the value of philosophy in spiritual life. And then we think about wholesome philosophy vs unwholesome philosophical wrangling and what make...

Today, on the auspicious occasion of Swami Lakshman Joo's birth anniversary, we say a few things about why Kashmir and its philosophers are so important in the Non-Dual Tantrik tradition. Here is a playlist of lectures on Abhinava Gupta's Paramārthasāra, which is a wonderful introduction to the metaphysical and theological system of Tantra known as "Kashmir Shaivism" Lectures h...

Perhaps one of our finest discussions so far! We cover quite a lot of ground here:  "If there is a God, I must see him. If I have a soul, I must feel myself as that."  This was Swami Vivekananda's intuition about spirituality: it is about direct, personal experience and not belief! While tangible experience of God is the best proof for God, there are some other proofs offered by our...

Recently we've been giving a series of talks on some foundational Tantrik concepts starting with the concept of the "self". Is there such a thing and if so, what is its nature? We asked What is the Self in Tantra? and then we looked at the The 6 Layers of the Self in Tantra of the virūpāska-pancāśika, a foundational Tantrik model for nested embodiment. Now, we continue the discussio...

Today is the holy day of Bagalāmukhī Jayanti, celebrating one of the fierce forms of Mā! We've been discussing the Mahāvidyās quite a lot over the years ( here's a playlist of talks on them) but we haven't yet looked at the tantras together that prescribe their method of worship. As such, in this class, we look over the Bagalā Tantra from the Bengali compilation, Shaktapramodah (The...

 On the fifth day of the waxing fortnight of the month Vaiśakh, we celebrated one of India's greatest and most celebrated philosopher-mystics of all time, Adi Shankaracharya. While many feel that Advaita Vedanta is juxtaposed to Tantrik philosophy since it features a "Brahman only without Shakti" model. However, there are at least 4 things that make Shankara an out and out Shakta Ta...

In this talk, we discuss the Matangī meditation mantra and present a simple worship of Matangi since the day before yesterday was her Jayanti (birthday). We were all of us recovering from our Atlanta adventure so I didn't get to write to you yesterday and wish you all a happy Akshaya Trititya; you were all in my heart! Akshaya Trititya is such an auspicious day combining so many important eve...