For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

This is the story of perhaps one the greatest lovers of God who ever lived, in whom was manifest both Krishna and Radha and the intense love them bound them together! We gave this lecture in San Francisco last year during Gauranga Purnima (Holi), exactly a year now to the day as part of a three part series of Sri Chaitanya's life, philosophy and practice.  This is the first of three! I'm...

Last year on the auspicious occasion of Gauranga Purnima, the full moon celebrating the birthday of Sri Chaitanya (Gauranga), the most ecstatic lover of God who perhaps ever lived next to Sri Ramakrishna, we gave a series of three talks on the life, philosophy and practice of this great devotee. This is the first of three exploring the philosophical foundation for the Vaishnava Bhakti school known...

Tomorrow is a very special day: we are celebrating the full moon commemorating the birthday of one the world's most ecstatic lover's of God, Chaitanya Mahaprabhu who is considered to be an incarnation of Krishna and Radha in one single body.  The celebration of Holi where we pelt each other with bright, colored powders naturally signifies the fervor and celebration of devotion and the ri...

While I was back home at my grandfather's ashram earlier this year I discovered Swami Shivananda Saraswati's beautiful little survey of the 64 nayanar saints of Tamil Shaivism. Since this is my central heritage, I have been a little hesitant to speak on it lest I do it a dis-service! But I was inspired during my visit home to start sharing some Shaiva Dualism (Siddhanta) alongside our mo...

In today's class as part of our Paramārthasāra series , we take a broad sweeping tour of some of the major categories of thought in the non-dual Tantrik world starting with the 5 Kalās which are mentioned in verse 4 (nivritta, Pratishta, vidyā, śānta & śantatīta) in which shine the 36 tattvas (which are mapped out for us in verses 10-23), in which the 118 bhuvanas (realms) have their bein...

In this next installment of our How To Do Tantrik Ritual series , we look at three very important moments in Tantrik ritual worship (namely, bhūta-śuddhi, nyāsa and gandhādi pūjā) that all serve to reinforce the idea of Advaita, non-duality in the context of worship.  Over and over we affirm that the One being worshipped and the One worshipping as well as the very tools and items of the worship th...

On Tibetan New Year, the Friday just after Shiva Ratri, we spent some time practicing non-dual meditation (practice with us here ) using the Nirvana Shatakam as a "guided meditation" tool. We sandwich some postural yoga practice to rest, recover and energize after our physical exertions over the course of the week in between two non-dual meditations, using the 6 verses of the text.  Then...

On the very auspicious day of Shiva Ratri this year, we got together on zoom in the morning to say a few things about the "art of tapasya", that is, the art of austerities in the name of spirituality. If done too excessively, the body and mind are weakened. But if not done at all, the body and mind are similarly weakened! Compassionate and artful tapasya is the doorway to strength and se...

Shiva Ratri is a night of ecstasy and joy. But what is the nature of Lord Shiva's intoxication and how can we get a toke? Happy Shiva Ratri, fam. I love you more than can I say. May all be intoxicated! PS: Here is our playlist on all things Shiva!  Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and again Friday at 6pm PST. Use this link and I will see you there: https://www....

It's that time of the year again! Many might be asking:  1. what is Shiva Ratri?  2. When is Shiva Ratri? And most importantly:  3. What should I do to celebrate/ why would I even want to celebrate Shiva Ratri?  To answer these questions, we plunge into a discussion of the five modes of Tantra: puja, japa, homa, yoga and vrata, making a case for why vrata is so important and for viewing it as...

Next week is Shiva Ratri, which is among the biggest (if not THE biggest) events in our community! This is a night when we really plunge into Shiva with the whole of our being, fasting all day, staying up all night, signing, dancing ecstatically, performing ritual worship and above all, meditating and opening up to the totality of all things! However, "one does not simply walk into Mordor.&qu...

Earlier this year on Swami Vivekananda's birthday we decided to do three back to back lectures focusing on different aspects of the Swami's teaching: the innate divinity of the soul, the oneness of all existence and the harmony of all religions.  We start with the idea of one-ness, Advaita which is so wonderfully expressed in Shankara's song "The Six Stanzas on Nirvana" (w...

This might be the most closely guarded secret teaching in non-dual Tantra! First, we discuss some of the non-dual, "left" leaning traditions within Tantrik Shaivism with an emphasis on the Kaula marga and its profound liturgy and philosophy.  Then, we introduce the "formless Kali who is pure Void", the "point in Shiva which even Shiva cannot objectify" and the 12 Kali...

One of my favorite classes in the series so far! We've been reading from Swami Vivekananda's Bhakti Yoga at our Friday evening Bhakti satsanghs and together exploring some of the most refined concepts at the uppermost reaches of the devotional tradition known as Parā Bhakti, Supreme Love. In this talk, we reconcile the idea that Jñāna Yoga, the Way of Philosophy and Bhakti Yoga, the Way...

This year, Swami Vivekananda's birthday happened to fall on a Monday, a day sacred to Shiva which also happened to MLK day here in the United States! Of course the two figures, Swami Vivekananda and MLK are both quite similar in a few ways. In his talk on loving your enemies, MLK is famous for having said “Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate;...

One of the most secret (and perhaps misunderstood) traditions in Tantra is the Kaula, the path of radical embodiment. "Kaula" which is the adjectival form of the Sanskrit word "kula", means "the body" and as such presents a spiritual approach that divinizes the body, seeing embodiment (along with all the energies thereof like lust and anger and greed) as an opportunit...

Today is a special day for us because it is Raja Maharajji’s (Swami Brahmananda) birthday! He is my guru’s guru’s guru and his energy is of course the foundational spirituality of the Ramakrishna Mission after Ramakrishna-Sarada; it’s an energy that is very palpably felt at our Hollywood Temple which was founded by his disciple, Swami Prabhavanandaji.  Today would be a good day to contemplate his...

Two weeks ago we gave the talk called " how to perform the best Tantrik ritual & overcome superstitions in Tantra " where we referenced Swami Vivekananda saying in the Introductory Chapter of Raja Yoga that mystery-mongering and superstition weakens the mind: everything that is could she be taught openly, and preached in the street in the broad daylight of reason. In that lecture, I...

How do Tantrik rituals work, really? Is it the intercession of spirits and divinities? Or perhaps something far more profound? IIn this talk, I want to make the case that there are no gods or spirits outside Consciousness. The entire Universe and all the powers in it are contained within the Mind, which is an expression of Consciousness, with reference to verses 160 onwards in Abhinava Gupta'...

There is nothing quite so wonderful as hearing great master of Non-Duality talk about God! After all, for far too long The Path of Devotion (Bhakti) has been considered as categorically distinct from The Path of Philosophy (Jñāna).  For instance, the common view is that devotion tends to favor duality while philosophy favors non-duality; devotion prefers to think of God in a personal sense, with f...

This lecture, which follows closely on the heels of How To Become A Bhairavi, A Tantrik Adept and also The Best Tantrik Ritual explores the puraścarana from Chapter 15 of the Kularnava Tantra in much more detail.  We present a few different strategies for practicing puraścarana which in the Tantra Lord Shiva describes as the "supreme ritual" (i.e best of all practices). While this is the...

Some time ago we gave a talk on Divine Madness in Why is Kālī Crazy?   where we looked at the fervor that comes upon the devotee when she is truly in love with God.  Now, in this short talk, we present a portrait of that Divine Madness in the form of Swami Vivekananda specifically with regard to his 1896 letter to "Frankincense", one of my favorites! Lectures happen live every Monday at...

To love is the essence of what it means to be human. Love is the sweetest, most meaningful experience in embodied existence and it is for this love that we do everything. But what does it mean to really love? We have all of us been disappointed in love. This is because we don't know how to truly, really love. We are content with our little loves and little attachments and as such, we are all...

Religion is only for the strong! No weakling can realize God! Some time ago, we gave the lecture called " Do I Have To Be Vegetarian To Practice Spirituality "  based on some of the remarks Swami Vivekananda makes in his Bhakti Yoga book, in chapter 10 called "Methods and Means".  In this chapter, Swamiji takes up the question of ethics and diet in the practice of spirituality....

Those who are very serious about spiritual life will find that from time to time, they get a reaction from doing too many spiritual practices. Usually it's the case that when we clean out the mind with mantra, meditation etc. all sorts of repressed complexes come out to be reviewed, compassionately digested and dissolved.  So it's only natural that as we practice, we can feel like we are...