For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

After we gave the two fiery lectures on Why You Need To Realize God Now! | The Urgency of Spiritual Life and also on The 2 Most Important Things In Spiritual Life & 7 Ways To Get Them we are all fired up to make some genuine headway into our spiritual life that we may realize God and enjoy eternal blessedness! But how do we make spiritual progress? In this short talk, we introduce the idea of Puraścarana, the Tantrik ritual par excellence which Lord Shiva calls the "best of all rituals" in verse 3 of Chapter 15 of the Kulārnava Tantra. For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799Lectures 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

After making a few comments about calendars and the power of new beginnings, we make a few points from Swami Vivekananda’s very radical lecture in San Francisco “Is Vedanta The Future Religion” to show how God, books and prophets are not actually essential to religion and if taken too seriously, can all become serious hindrances to genuine religion! Using Swami Vivekananda’s definition of the Vedas (“by Vedas, no books are meant”) as eternally existent spiritual truths that anyone with refined spiritual perception can access, I contest that Hinduism cannot be defined as a four-book religion the way other religions define themselves according to their books but must instead live up to its name of “Sanātana Dharma”, which includes all religions in all places and at all times. Also, we discuss some goals for the upcoming Gregorian calendar year as a spiritual community!For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799Lectures 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

What are the most important things in spiritual life?In Patañjali's Yoga Sutra, we find: अभ्यासवैराग्याअभ्यां तन्निरोध:abhyāsa-vairāgya-ābhyāṁ tan-nirodhaḥ"Through yearning and renunciation, the mind can be stopped (i.e samādhi can be attained)"And in the Bhagavad Gita 6:35, we find: श्रीभगवानुवाच |असंशयं महाबाहो मनो दुर्निग्रहं चलम् |अभ्यासेन तु कौन्तेय वैराग्येण च गृह्यते || 35||śhrī bhagavān uvācha:asanśhayaṁ mahā-bāho mano durnigrahaṁ chalamabhyāsena tu kaunteya vairāgyeṇa cha gṛihyate The Lord said:"Undoubtedly, O mighty armed one, the mind is difficult to control and restless but by practice (I.e intense yearning) and by detachment, it can be controlled, O son of Kunti."And all throughout the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, we find the Master emphatically stressing this point over and over: through yearning and renunciation, God can be attained! Perhaps this point is the very essence of practice, the very heart of spiritual life? Having discussed what yearning and renunciation really mean, let's now talk about how to cultivate these!As such, at our last online gathering of 2024, we discussed the two most important things in spiritual life: yearning for realization of the Infinite + renunciation for the finite and then rattled off a few different ways to cultivate that including but not limited to: Visiting sacred places like temples and nature which are associated to great spiritual masters (yatra)Spending time with spiritual people or at least with spiritual ideas through books and media (sadhu-sangha)Finding a guru and learning under them (parampara)Consistency in spiritual practicePacing so as not to burn out Ample time in solitude to practice and integrate.A moderate, simple and ethical life. (Yama/niyama or acāra) For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799Lectures 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

While every person and every place is invariably God according to our Non-Dual View, certain places and certain people are particularly strong manifestations of God. Everything is the same in type but different in degree. For example, while every part of the cow is indeed a cow, it is really only from the udder that milk flows. As such, the Avatāra is like the udder and the entire Universe the cow. The Avatāra, Divine Incarnation, is a unique nodal point of Reality through which the very highest can be accessed. In short: the avatāra is the strongest manifestation of God in immanence, in nature. But what makes an Avatāra(a Divine Incarnation) and Avatāra?  In Hinduism, the idea of the Incarnation is very ancient. We find it in the Bhagavad Gita (Chapter IV, verse VII) and also in texts like the Bhāgavatam dated between ~1000b.ce to 600bce. The claim is that while various forms of gods and goddesses are each of them emanations or aspects of the One God capital G, the one Divine Reality, the Avatar is a specially concentrated manifestation of that Reality that exists in historicity as an actual person. The gods and goddesses like Kālī, Shiva, Vishnu etc. are all entirely Divine but the Avatāra uniquely is also mortal and like any mortal suffers mortality: birth, old age, sickness, dying etc. Unique to the Avatāra Doctrine is the idea that God can be a person and a person can be God which when you think about it is a startling challenging idea! Swami Vivekananda could never quite accept Sri Ramakrishna as an Avatāra until the latter's dying breath in 1886. Because for any thinking person, this claim is ludicrously challenging! It is one of the deepest mysteries of spiritual life. It takes a special kind of subtle insight, or a special kind of grace to have some semblance of an understanding of this mystery. But it is my conviction that anybody who is sincerely attracted to spirituality will also be attracted to the avatāra because they will feel in them (in their lives and teaching) intuitively the strongest dose of spirituality. But notice how I am using the plural! According to the Hindu view, there is not just one Avatāra. In Christianity, the idea is that there is just one Divine Incarnation who came in the form of Jesus and that's that. But in Hinduism, we understand that to teach a particularly stubborn student, you often have to give the teaching over and over in different ways. Repetition is at the heart of all learning! And so the thing about the Avatāra is that She comes again and again each time teaching the same message in slightly different ways. In this talk, I wanted to tease out some of the similarities in that message between various Avatāras. Also I wanted to continue last week's theme of the emphasis on renunciation and sincerity that we find are at the heart of all genuine spiritual life and also on the warning against affect and pretense in spiritual life. One thing we find about all these avatāras is that they were genuine, simple and willing to give direct answers to sincere questions without any affect or pretense! And because they were free, they did it all for free! From freedom unto freedom a gift of freedom is made!May Support the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

 As we come to the end of another Gregorian calendar year, and as our body-mind rapidly comes yet another step closer to death and disintegration, we ought to reflect: what have we really accomplished in spiritual life thus far? Undoubtedly, a lot. But have we really attained the highest? Have we realized God? Do we feel the ineffably bliss divine flowing uninterruptedly in the chamber of the heart in each and every moment? Have we really attained to truth and truly integrated it into every living moment? Often we will find that however far we've come, there is always still same ways to go. And precious little time for it too! In the past few lectures, since it is, after all, the end of the year, we've tried to focus on the very essentials of spiritual life. "Books, churches, dogmas, rituals are all but secondary details." And what is the very essence? Yearning for infinite + renunciation for the finite! But often, the engine of spiritual life, the driving force, is a sense of urgency! As the Stoics call it: "momento mori"! Remembering that this body will die, and recognizing the invaluable opportunity this body presents for spiritual realization will fire us to be up and doing always in spiritual life! Ultimately, that's what this lecture is: a call to action! May we all be spiritually illumined! May we all plunge into intense (but sensible and gradual) spiritual practice now itself as a reflection of your sincere yearning for Truth! "Arise! Awake! Stop not till the goal is reached!"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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

There are of course innumerable similarities between the life and message of the Buddha and Swami Vivekananda: in a future lecture, I hope to sketch this out in much more detail. I think there is a particularly strong resonance between Swami Vivekananda's various spiritual experiences and realizations (and also his highest ideal of serving God as man) and the Boddhicitta/Boddhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism. One day, I will make a strong case for the Mahayana Buddhist interpretation of Sri Ramakrishna's life and teaching. Of course, in terms of modality, Sri Ramakrishna emphasized a Tantrik, deity-oriented approach which leads us into exciting Vajrayana territory too. A discussion comparing Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya and Dharmakaya to Vaikhari, Madhyama and Pasyanti Vak is of course fore coming. And I have a desire to do a short biography on Milarepaji also, perhaps on his Parinirvana which is the full moon of Bumjur Dawa (by the Tibetan Lunar Calendar) I believe. It will be around Shiva Ratri time!Naturally all these links between Shiva, Swami Vivekananda and the Buddha are particularly pronounced in Varanasi, especially near Sarnath where the Buddha spoke the words that would resound timelessly through eternity! There is a striking resemblance to what he spoke about and what Swami Vivekananda spoke out, a resemblance that is of course more tangibly felt in this place than intellectually cognized. Since I happen to be in Sarnath on Christmas Eve, I thought I'd reflect a little on that in this talk. Jai Jesus Christ! Jai Buddha! Jai Swami Vivekananda Guru Maharajji Ki Jai!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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMAnd if you feel moved to donate to support me and this work, you're welcome to here:https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jaimakaliSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

Before we start walking a path, we should have some idea at least about why we are walking it and about where it leads. In the Buddha's eight-fold system, this is called "samyak drshti", the right view. When we consider the lives of great masters like Swami Vivekananda and Sri Ramakrishna, we are not only fired up by their fervor, intensity and renunciation but we can also learn something about what is to be valued in spiritual life and what is to be aimed for (and perhaps also what is to be avoided). In this lecture, as we come to the end of the year and wrap our 5th circumambulation around the sun together as a community, I thought it would be good to have a cutting conversation about the essentials in spiritual practice! I want to explore Sri Ramakrishna's central practice modality: yearning and sincerity, the sole means by which he was able to attain the direct perception and constant communion of Mā Kālī. As you know, Sri Ramakrishna first had the vision of Kālī and then only did he set out to practice spirituality in a formal way. And then years later, when instructing disciples and devotees, he would constantly return to this theme of yearning (vyakulatā) and sincerity as the principle method for realization, which was of course true in his case. In exploring this idea, we can ask a few questions: 1. Often it is said that Sri Ramakrishna had no formal spiritual practice, only yearning at first and by that alone he attained Kali. But is that really true? I'll challenge this idea a little bit by discussing the two main initiations that Sri Ramakrishna had before he developed his yearning for God-vision. 2. What does it really mean to "see" Kālī? Is this a goal everyone aspires to? Why would this even be a valuable goal to achieve in spiritual life? Here we can explore Sri Ramakrishna's first experience of Kālī as formless Pure Consciousness and then what happened after. 3. Why did Sri Ramakrishna do spiritual practices after the vision of Kālī? What could spiritual practice accomplish after a profound spiritual experience like this? Here I want to make a very important point about integration and maybe we can have a slight digression exploring the "dangers of Bhakti and sentimentalism." Perhaps we can read a litle Swami Vivekananda excerpt on this! 4. What does Sri Ramakrishna have in common with the Christ? Well...lots of things but mainly this one: the emphasis on prayer, yearning and the spontaneous renunciation that follows. May this be an offering at the altar of your spirituality! Jai Mā!For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799Lectures 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

Giving in to our desires (which is to say: following them into externalized action) can sometimes be just as repressive as avoiding them altogether. In either case, the energy of desire is not fully experienced:; it is instead dissipated through repression or expression. One wonders: what would it be like to simply sit with the energy of agitation or inspiration, breathing into it and following it back into its point of origin? In the Vijñāna-Bhairava Tantra, there is a very subtle technique that falls into the category of "Śambhavopaya", the Way of Śīva because it is a practice centered on icchā, the creative desire of Non-Dual Consciousness to bloom outward into expression. The source of all expression is Consciousness and it is back into Consciousness that all expressions dissolve. As such, any urge, inspiration or desire that we experience has its origin point and resting point in Awareness. By experiencing fully the blooming of any icchā, creative outpouring we can "guide it" to a still point and thereby experience enlivened Awareness! We took a first pass at this practice here but because we didn't have as much time as I would have liked to discuss it, we decided to revisit it in this short discussion before we took up a Hatha Yoga practice, which you can watch here.Our Vijñāna-Bhairava Tantra series:https://www.patreon.com/collection/143200Classes meet live every Thursday at 6:30pm PST. You can sign up to attend the zoom meetings here:https://yogaworldheart.com/schedule Also, 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

On this auspicious Mrgaśīrsha Pūrnimā (full moon) to which is ascribed Bhairavi Jayanti, Annapurna Jayanti and also Dattatreya Jayanti, we decide to say a few words about just who Mā Bhairavi might be. She is one of the most mysterious of the mahāvidyās (the ten terrifying forms of Mā). In this video, referring to the meditation mantra below, I make the case that Bhairavi is a euhemerized Tantrik adept! We of course discuss Bhairavi Brāhmani, Sri Ramakrishna's Tantrik guru and we spend the first half of the talk discussing what makes Tantra, Tantra in order to clearly indicate the path upon which we ourselves must trod to become a Bhairavi/Bhairava! उद्यद्भानुसहस्रकान्तिमरुणक्षौमां शिरोमालिकांरक्तालिप्तपयोधरां जपवटीं विद्यामभीतिं वरम् ।हस्ताब्जैदधतीं त्रिनेत्रविलसद्रक्तारविन्दश्रियंदेवीं बद्धहिमांशुरक्तमुकुटां वन्दे समन्दस्मिताम् ॥udyad-bhānu-sahasra-kāntim-aruṇa-kṣaumāṃ śiro-mālikāṃraktā-lipta-payodharāṃ japa-vaṭīṃ vidyām-abhītiṃ varam .hastābjaidadhatīṃ trinetra-vilasad-raktāravinda-śriyaṃdevīṃ baddha-himāṃśu-rakta-mukuṭāṃ vande samandasmitāmRadiant like the splendour of a thousand suns, clad in red garments, garlanded in headsBreasts smeared with blood, holding a rosary and a book, assuring fearlessness and granting boons With her lotus like hands, Her third eye shining with the beauty of blood-red lotus flowers,She is the Goddess who wears a red crown in which is tucked the moon- I worship Her who is smiling gently!For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799Lectures 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

Today we are celebrating the feast day for a very important Marian apparition that occurred on the site of a former Tonantzin temple: The Lady of Guadalupe! This is among my favorite occurrences in Catholic history and it gives us a nice opportunity to talk about Mā beyond any one cultural context (i.e the Universal "Mā" as opposed to the particular). As such, in this class we discuss the distinctions between the sthāna-devatā (deities of the region), grāma-devatā (village deities), kula-devatā (family deities) and Ishta-devatā (ones chosen ideal). These are exceedingly important categories of thought in the Tantrik ritual worship context, the "pūjā world" and these are distinctions I would have done well to discuss sooner in our series. In any case, we will take up the topic in the first of two lectures tonight with a special reference to how the Lady Guadalupe, the patron deity of Mexico, fits into all of this! We'll draw a bit from the material in this lecture on Mā Kālī in Other Cultures. Since I'm back home in Kuala Lumpur, this will give me an opportunity to discuss some unique regional deities also like Pechy-Amman, Muniswaran, Karappan etc.For more detailed instructions for how to perform Kālī pūjā, watch this playlist: https://www.patreon.com/collection/233799Lectures 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.zoom.us/j/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrMSupport the showLectures 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/7028380815For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnishTo get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM