Light of the Spirit Podcast

Podcast: What is Aparigraha? (The Yoga Term for Non-Possessiveness) – Satsang With Swami Nirmalananda Giri Watch the podcast here: Or listen to the podcast here: If you do not see the player above, click here to listen to What is Aparigraha? (The Yoga Term for Non-Possessiveness) – Satsang With Swami Nirmalananda Giri . The podcast is 14:20 minutes long. The post Podcast: What is Aparigraha? appea...

Today, we share both an audio podcast and a video podcast made from a recent Zoom Satsang with Swami Nirmalananda (Abbot George Burke). In this podcast, Swami Nirmalananda answers the question, “Can you talk about how Jesus is the Savior, knowing that our liberation is our personal responsibility?” First, he talks about what a Savior is, and what they do. And he speaks about our own personal respo...

In our effort to continue to make OCOY.org a true “practical resource for the spiritual student,” we have added more valuable content which we hope you will explore, with our new articles, new videos, new books in our free eLibrary, and in our monthly Zoom satsangs, starting with a new Podcast from a recent satsang. Satsang Podcast Podcast of Satsang Excerpt: Great Yogis I have Known Here is a dir...

Swami Sivananda composed many songs in English to convey his teachings, the most famous being the Song of Ities listing such virtues as Simplicity, Purity and Charity. Others were advice and inspiration for spiritual endeavor. This Song of Admonition is the best known. Below is a transcript of the song. This podcast is 10:25 minutes long. If you do not see the podcast player above (it won’t show i...

In today’s podcast, our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George, “Could you tell us the difference between Satan and Mara, and how we should respond to outer and inner negativity and evil?” Abbot George discusses: How both Satan and Mara are aspects of the cosmic force to get us to stop our spiritual quest. How resistance to negativity and evil make us stronger by developing our will towards spi...

In today’s podcast Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George, “What is Satan?” Though this is a topic some people find fascinating, it is one that we should not dwell on, for Abbot George says “talking about negativity can bring the mind into the orbit of negativity.” On the other hand, talking about spiritual topics has a positive influence on the mind. But it is good to have a basic understanding of ev...

In today’s podcast our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George “What is Maya?” Abbot George’s answer covers various aspects of Maya: Maya as the hypnotic power of creation. It is mistaking the Unreal for the Real. It is caused by our instinctive reactions to sense perceptions. He explains the common simile of mistaking a rope for a snake. He stresses that the Shakti of creation is real, it is ou...

Recently our friend Jonathan Mahoney visited us, and he had a number of questions for Abbot George during that time, which we recorded and will share in the coming months as podcasts. His first question was “what is Mahashakti?” In his answer, Abbot George discusses the “Great Power” (the meaning of Mahashakti) as the entire range of relative existence, composed of vibrating energy. There is nothi...

  In this podcast Abbot George continues his discussion concerning how Lucifer could stand to be in the presence of Jesus, and how the status of master yogis is often hidden . He begins by giving his own experiences with spiritual figures in India, and continues with what he had heard of others. In one of his many trips to India, Abbot George saw the great vedantic teacher and head of the famous K...

Recently our friend Jonathan Mahoney asked Abbot George Burke how Lucifer could tempt Jesus if evil spirits cannot stand high spiritual vibrations. In this first of two podcasts Abbot George answers this question, showing how the status of master yogis is often hidden, giving examples from the lives of Swami Sivananda of Rishikesh, Ananadamayi Ma and others. This podcast is just over 22 minutes lo...

In today’s podcast, Abbot George Burke talks about how diet affects consciousness, and the importance of a pure diet for the yogi. Abbot George shares these stories: The unusual experiment in diet that Abbot George conducted before teaching a yoga seminar. The positive effect that taking up a vegetarian diet had for exam students. The negative effect that occurred from using just a small amount of...

We have updated this podcast to include a YouTube video version of the podcast at the bottom of this page. We hope you enjoy it. Click here to listen to Swami Sivananda’s Humor if you do not see the player above. The podcast length is 16:06 minutes. Swami Sivananda’s joyful sense of humor are evident in this podcast. This includes the following incidents: Sivananda’s riddle and the over-serious st...

One of Yogananda’s early disciples was named Brahmacharini Radhalila. She was a person with a very strong personality. And she frequently would say, during the last years of her life, “One day I am going to write a book called The Real Yogananda.”  She was living at the SRF headquarters, and everyone would panic at the thought of what she might write, because she was the type of person she was, an...

“Am I more sensible, or less sensible, as a result of this practice and this experience?” In this 4th podcast on Spiritual Experiences and Abilities, Abbot George delineates the very real and very extreme dangers of imbalancing experiences that fake yoga can produce, contrasting this with his observation of the cardinal qualities of real yogis he met. If you do not see the player above, listen to...

“Have I learned anything? Has this spiritual experience changed my awareness, my meditation?” In the third part of the podcast series on Spiritual Experience and Abilities, Abbot George contrasts the effect of real spiritual experience with examples of people who were deluded by visions and dreams – like the American he met in India who “realized” that he was the king of India, and that his child...

The state of perfected beings like Buddha, Krishna, and Jesus is far greater than most people’s concept of God. Abbot George tells the story of Catholic stigmatist and visionary Therese Neumann’s response to Christian who were overwhelmed with Christ’s miracles, as an example of how we are satisfied with so little in our aspirations. And how much is required to really trod the path to God, as show...

“What should the beginner yogi know about spiritual experience and abilities?” Abbot George draws on a lifetime of study and personal experience and observation to present a many-facted answer to this important question. Since the “yoga boom” of the 1960’s and even earlier, Western seekers have been regaled with and fascinated by all that glitters in fake yoga — a circus of thrills, chills, and su...

Below is an edited transcript of the podcast. We strongly recommend you listen to the podcast to understand the correct pronunciation of the Soham mantra. The podcast is just under 7 minutes long. If you do not see the player above, listen to How to Meditate Using the Soham Mantra here. The practice of Soham Yoga is very simple. Making ourselves aware of our breathing, when we inhale we mentally i...

Darshan: Literally “sight” or “seeing;” vision, literal and metaphysical. Darshan is the seeing of a holy being as well as the blessing received by seeing such a one. Satsanga: Literally: “company with Truth.” Association with godly-minded persons. The company of saints and devotees. Asatsanga: the company of the unholy and the worldly–in the form of people who have no interest in spiritual life,...

In today’s podcast our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George about the Bhagavad Gita, its story and its value for the spiritual seeker. Abbot George discusses Vyasa, the pivotal figure in early Hinduism, and the author of many works, including the epic Mahabharata, from which the Bhagavad Gita is taken. He tell the story of the events leading up to the Mahabharata war, and how Krishna became A...

In today’s podcast our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George about the Bhagavad Gita, its story and its value for the spiritual seeker. Abbot George discusses Vyasa, the pivotal figure in early Hinduism, and the author of many works, including the epic Mahabharata, from which the Bhagavad Gita is taken. He tell the story of the events leading up to the Mahabharata war, and how Krishna became A...

In today’s podcast our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George about Jesus’ role as guardian of the Earth. Listen and you will discover: How Lucifer fell and how it affected the earth. Who were Adam and Eve and where was Paradise. Who were the “Matrikas.” What was the special mystery of the Crucifixion. The Buddhist master who had two Saviors. And much more. Two books are...

In today’s podcast our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George about Jesus’ role as guardian of the Earth. Listen and you will discover: How Lucifer fell and how it affected the earth. Who were Adam and Eve and where was Paradise. Who were the “Matrikas.” What was the special mystery of the Crucifixion. The Buddhist master who had two Saviors. And much more. Two books are...

In today’s podcast, Abbot George is asked a question about Moksha. He then talks about arguments regarding levels of consciousness: are there seven levels of consciousness, or five levels, or fourteen levels? Then he discusses the seven levels of consciousness or lokas (worlds or main divisions) in which the whole range of evolutionary relative existence (rungs on the evolutionary ladder) is...

If you do not see the player for “How to Become an Angel” above, listen to the podcast here. Today our friend Jonathan Mahoney asks Abbot George, “How does a human being evolve into an angel in this lifetime? How do they ‘get out of the game’”? In this podcast Abbot George talks about the ideas of the processes of evolution in Christian and Hindu cosmologies. He then discusses the two...