For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Latest Episodes:

Life as Yoga | The Tantrik Approach to Spirituality Sep 07, 2023

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We have an exciting series of lectures ahead of us: How To Practice Kashmir Shaivism
We've been discussing the theory of Kaula Trika non-duality for some time now, which is, in and of itself, a type of practice. However, it's time now to discuss practice proper!
In this lecture, I'm going to
1. make a case for why so-called "worldliness" is itself a very noble kind of spiritual practice, echoing Chapter I of the Bhagavad Gita (vishadayoga).
2. Discuss a graded approach to spiritual life (progressive renunciation, i,e anādara-virakta) that allows for a life-affirming, enjoyment-positive approach, contrasted against Patañjali and Gorakshanāth's systems of more ascetic yoga in the light of Sri Ramakrishna.
And finally,
3. quote from Tantraloka and some other sources within the tradition to see what masters like Abinava Gupta themselves had to say about practice!
If we have a little time in the end, I want to discuss with you a very interesting (albeit somewhat dangerous) practice: enjoyment itself as yoga!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

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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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

Ābhāsa Vāda | The Doctrine of Reflection in Kashmir Shaivism Aug 23, 2023

Show notes

In this lecture, we are going to discuss the Abhāsa-Vada (Reflection Model) of Kaula Trika Tantra: how is it that the one Unchanging Absolute, śiva, manifests playfully as this dazzling display of phenomena called the world without
(a) losing pristine transcendent nature
(b) while actually literally and really manifesting as everyone and everything?
This sounds like a flat out contradiction. What's more, tonight I'm going to show how Kaula Trika Śaivism gives us a worldview that is neither Realism nor Idealism (as we carefully introduced last week), but something that is better and more satisfying than both! Naturally, to demonstrate this, we'll compare Trika to Ramanuja's parinama-vada (real transformation model) and Shankara's vivārta-vada (illusory appearance model).
Then, at the very end of the lecture, I'm going to offer the mantra OM Namah Shivāyah and Mā willing, explain its esoteric significance in light of what was discussed. This understanding is intended to empower your practice and allow you to experience everyone and everything as nothing but God!
Now, this discussion is extremely philosophically subtle. As Abinava Gupta himself says in Tantrāloka II.28:
Durvijñeyā hi sāvasthā kimapyetad anuttaram
"It is very difficult to understand this state and hence it is called the Absolute (anuttara)"
Nevertheless, let me offer one reason why it is very important to understand this idea:
In Indian philosophy, to know is to become (brahma veda brahmaiva bhavati). A darśana, or philosophical view, is about realization and experience. The words that describe that realization are secondary and yet because the words carry with them the power of the realization, they can act as a doorway through which one realizes for themselves the state to which they point. That's probably why Abinava Gupta uses the term āvastha here in the quote, to mean "state".
So ideally, by the end of tonight's lecture, you won't leave with merely understanding but with realization.
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

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The God Solution | A Critique of Materialism and a Defense of Theism Aug 17, 2023

Show notes

We gave this lecture on the full moon celebrating the Guru, guru-pūrnimā the day when we honor our teachers and our lineage.
You are all of you my guru, my teacher.
And it is at your feet that I offer all of these words, like so many meagre flowers.
You have all taught me and are continuing to teach me and will go on teaching me so much!
I am eternally indebted to each and every one of you.
A hundred thousand pranams at your feet! What could I possibly say to you now or offer you that can express my gratitude and devotion?
To celebrate the occasion, I intended to give a lecture on the major schools of Indian philosophy in overview: cārvāka (materialist hedonism), dvaita Vedanta (dualistic theism), vishishtadvaita (qualified non-dualism), kevalādvaita (pure non-dualism), paramadvaya (Shaiva non-duality), acintya bhedabheda (Caitanya's devotional Vaishnavism) etc. I wanted to tell some stories of the great gurus of India: Ramanuja, Nimbarka, Madhava, Vallabha, Shankara, Abinava Gupta etc. But alas, we only really managed to discuss Rāmānuja's very sophisticated form of Theism: Qualified Monism, the in-between ground straddling Duality and non-Duality.
Most of the lecture though turned out to be, as per our inspiration that evening determined, a sustained critique on materialism and a defense of theism (that is, the existence of God).
As such, I thought I'd call the lecture "The God Solution" which is of course a subtle dig at the title "The God Delusion"!
00:00:00 The Indian Spiritual Heritage: A Thaali Meal
00:07:00 Material Reductionism: "God is Unreal, Matter and Energy is Real"
00:11:30 Why Did Indian Spiritual Masters Respond to Material Reductionism?
00:16:40 Critique of Material Reductionism #1: 2 Axiological Issues
00:23:40 Critique of Material Reductionism #2: 3 Epistemological Issues
0:30:06 An Aside on Consciousness: What Is First Person Subjectivity?
00:36:55 An Aside on Mystical Experience, i.e Verifying Spiritual Claims
00:38:20 Critique of Material Reductionism #3: Metaphysical Issues
00:42:20 The God Solution
00:49:50 Epistemological and Metaphysical Issues With Dualistic Theistic Religion (And Some Responses)
01:06:10 An Aside on Skeptical Theism (And Why It's Problematic)

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The Message of Spiritual India | Happy Independence Day! Aug 15, 2023

Show notes

Prior to the British occupation of India, there was no such word as "Hinduism". There was really only a very diverse range of spiritual attitudes all coexisting alongside one another in a spirit of not only tolerance, but celebration.
Notice the tremendous resilience India has demonstrated through her 5000 year old (by conservative Western estimates) civilization. The fundamental truths she articulated in the Upanishads at the very dawn of human civilization continue to be chanted by millions of Hindus all over the world. Many of these Hindus are illiterate and yet you will find them throouhgly educated and cultured, immersed as they are in India's epics the Rāmāyana, the Mahābhārata and the Purānas. These spiritual ideas remain ever strong and ever vital and ever able to inspire even after all those shocks and blows and instabilities that India has faced in the last ~5000 or so years. Not only has she brushed off these things as minor inconveniences in the steady march of her civilization, but she regards no one as an enemy; she has deep love for every nation and its ideals and above all, she is willing to share freely and unstintingly of her cultural wealth with anyone and everyone who sincerely comes seeking it. All of this was perhaps best demonstrated by the late 18th century phenomena of Sri Ramakrishna Paramahamsa, a priest of Kālī in the Dakshineshwar temple who demonstrated in light of his own spiritual experiences that all religions were true. He had such a spiritual appetite that in the course of his life, he practiced all the sādhanas of Hinduism at the time (Shakta Tantra, Vaishnavism, Vedanta etc.) as well as Islam and Christianity. As a result of this, he felt that God, being infinite can be reached and enjoyed in infinite numbers of ways and as such, cannot be confined to any one religion.
On September 11th, 1893, at the Parliament of World Religions in Chicago, Swami Vivekananda, the foremost disciple of the aforementioned Sri Ramakrishna, spoke before an American audience on the ideals of India. Above all, he stressed the primacy of the spiritual question, the innate divinity of the soul and the harmony of all religions as so many valid attempts to grasp the One Ineffable Truth. I think that all the developments in the American and European New Age which its emphasis on syncretism and its renewed faith in spiritual verities can be traced back to that one speech in 1893 where Swami Vivekananada declared in a voice full of power:
"my sisters and brother of America!"
".....I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions of all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered into our bosom the purest remnants of the Israelites, who came to Southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to a religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation"
May all of these words be a "a vindication, a declaration to the world of the wonderful doctrine peached in the Gita":
ये यथा मां प्रपद्यन्ते तांस्तथैव भजाम्यहम् |
मम वर्त्मानुवर्तन्ते मनुष्या: पार्थ सर्वश: || 11||
ye yathā māṁ prapadyante tāns tathaiva bhajāmyaham
mama vartmānuvartante manuṣhyāḥ pārtha sarvaśhaḥ
Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; everyone is struggling through paths which in the end all lead to Me (the One Non-Dual Truth).
Jai Bhārata Vāshya-ji Ki Jai!

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God's Face Is Your Face! | The 5 Faces of Lord Śiva in Kashmir Shaivism Jul 28, 2023

Show notes

Is there anything quite so joyful as thinking in terms of eternity and infinity? Perhaps that’s why coming together every Monday night for our 7pm PST Satsangh remains ever fresh and ever blissful even after all of these years together. There is just such a sweetness to holding these profound and refined conceptions of the Absolute. By holding and contemplating vast concepts, you taste the vastness of our own being to which those concepts can only point!
Tonight’s lecture will explore “The 5 faces of Lord Śiva”, that is, the subtlest and most refined concept of “God” (Pure. Non Dual Awareness) articulated by the Kaula Trika Tantra tradition. I want to ask;
What does God want? If this is God’s play (līla) then what is the nature of the game? How can we take spiritual life seriously without taking ourselves too seriously?
We’ll continue our study of the 36 tattvas by considering the very highest to make the claim that God's face is Your face, God's dance is Your dance!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lecture.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

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What Does Enlightenment Feel Like? Jul 24, 2023

Show notes

Sri Ramakrishna, like the Buddha before him, often held that what the Absolute Reality, Brahman is cannot be described. It is "ucchishta", meaning, undefiled by the tongue. As such, it is beyond the Vedas, the Puranas, the Tantra or any sacred book. Further, because the ultimate Reality is "one without a second", that is, non-dual, It cannot be compared to any other thing, It being all there is.
What does ghee taste like?
Well, Sri Ramakrishna would say, it "tastes like ghee!".
In saying this though, the Master points out that there is a "rasa", a taste or a qualia, a subjective experience that comes with being absorbed in that Absolute Brahman. And he often compares that feeling to the feeling of a fish let loose into the ocean or the feeling of a bird soaring high in the sky.
In this video, we take up Sri Ramakrishna's descriptions of what it feels like to be absorbed in Brahman, compare them to Chandogya Upanishad 7.23.1 (yo vai bhūma tat sukam, nalpa sukham asti = there is no joy in the limited, only the vast is joyful) and then come up with a few analogs from our day to day lives to give you a taste of what enlightenment feels like.
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lecture.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

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What is a Mantra? Jul 15, 2023

Show notes

Today I feel quite inspired to talk about mantra and Deity yoga: what is a deity and in what way is a mantra connected to a deity? How does one properly chant a mantra? What should we visualize? (featuring a brief excursus on yantra, sacred geometry!) and why would we even want to do a mantra practice? etc.
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lecture.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM
00:03:45 Discussion starts: The Non-Dual View
00:05:54 What is a Deity in the Non-Dual View?
00:09:30 What Bootsy Collins said to me
00:11:50 What is Consciousness? (A Direct Path Teaching)
00:22:40 Jungian Archetypes and Gods and Goddesses
00:26:30 What Does A Deity Look Like? (Mantra, Yantra, Murti)
00:49:33 Practice

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Rogue Gurus and Fallen Yogis | How To Practice Guru-Yoga Jun 27, 2023

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Guru-Yoga is the central practice of the Tantrik tradition. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in any genuine mystical tradition, the role of a living teacher is highly emphasized: in Christian mysticism, its the spiritual perception/director/elder; in Sufism its the Affendi; in Jainism, Buddhism and Hinduism its the Guru. My guru likes to say: the human Guru is a matchmaker who marries you to God, who alone is the Guru, and Who, in Truth is what You are at the essence of your Being.
Yes, the Guru is certainly IN you AS you but long before you can benefit from inner direction, you'll need a human teacher to mirror for you, model for you and instruct you in spiritual life.
Like with all things in life, we need teachers.
But what qualifies a person to become a spiritual teacher?
Some time ago, we had a talk where we explored Swami Vivekananda's criterion for a genuine teacher that appears in the Bhakti Yoga book. And long before that, on Guru Purnima some years ago, we offered a lecture on Guru Yoga in general where we explored a few Tantras like the Kula-Arnava Tantra to get a sense for what guruhood really is according to the Tantrik tradition
Since Guru Purnima is coming up yet again, I thought it'd be nice to revisit that discussion, especially since last week we had such an extension discussion on the importance of shāstra, scriptures and also since we're currently discussing the Nārada Bhakti Sutra in which we find this profound set of verses:
भवतु न चयदा याद ू व शा र णम्।१२-१.१२
अ यथा पा त यश कया । १३ - १.१३
"Until one is unshakeably enlightened, one should follow the scriptures." (12) "Otherwise, there is a fear of fall (from spiritual life)." (13)
What does it mean to "fall"? In this talk, I make the case that "falling" for both a practitioner and a more importantly, a practitioner who teaches others is non-adherence to or general disrespect/irreverence for the tradition's scriptures. Remember, this conversation is the follow up to last week's discussion on the importance of scripture (which features a very clear definition of what we mean by "scripture")
This is one lecture in a series on the Nārada Bhakti Sutra which you can follow along with here
These classes meet live every Friday evening at 6pm PST via this zoom link: 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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

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What is Scripture? | Nārada Bhakti Sutra Jun 21, 2023

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Every spiritual and religious tradition in the world has some sort of scripture. One very interesting thing about South Asian spirituality (Hinduism, Jainism, Buddhism and others) is that there is no one authoritative scripture but rather a vast commentarial tradition of scripture that features a peer-reviewed and corroborated account of mystical experiences and the subtlest, most refined truths of spiritual life that are gleaned from them.
More importantly, the central claim of the South Asian scriptural tradition is a very scientific one: anyone anywhere if they follow the injunctions of any of these scriptures can verify for themselves, through direct experience, the truths claimed by the scriptures. As such, for many of these scriptures, dogmatic belief (though it can be in some cases nourishing for a certain type of person) is discouraged or at the very least, must be transcended.
So what really are the scriptures? In this lecture, I make a comprehensive defense of śāstra (scripture) and advocate for their importance in spiritual life. This is one lecture in a series on the Nārada Bhakti Sutra which you can follow along with here:
https://www.patreon.com/posts/narada-bhakti-80688555?utm_medium=clipboard_copy&utm_source=copyLink&utm_campaign=postshare_creator&utm_content=join_link
These classes meet live every Friday evening at 6pm PST via this zoom link:
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM
OM Tat Sat

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How To Attain God | Kashmir Shaivism Jun 16, 2023

Show notes

What is "God" and what does it mean to "attain" That?
In this lecture, we discuss discuss "The Absolute" on a few different levels from a philosophical perspective but more importantly, we offer a few practice methods for "attaining", that is "recognizing, integrating and acting/thinking/feeling according to" that Absolute Truth.
This lecture is part of a series on Kashmir Shaivism which you can watch here https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLfGGe32PDNMb9bvgn4Vfn1mtrfF7JPZQn
In this installment, we hint at the metaphysical explanation behind the Shiva līla (God's play) idea which is central to this tradition by explaining the 5 powers of God with an emphasis on Vimarśa or ānanda-śakti!
At the end of the lecture we read a beautiful poem by Shankara that Swami Vivekananda sings to M. towards the end of the Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna.
And I'd like to share with you what is for me one of the most moving moments in the Gospel, the final scene where M. smiles and Narendra talks about the ultimate in spiritual life, in one concise sentence. And then I'd like to share the final line of the Gospel and its significance which changed my life and I pray, will change yours too!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lecture.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

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