For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Because we gave this talk on May 4th, we start by exploring the relationships between Star Wars, Jospeh Campbell & Ramakrishna's Tāntrik philosophy. We then map this comparative mythology to the Tarot, to deities across the Indo-European world and also, interestingly, Marxism to see how this Ramakrishnan approach is the necessary response to a post-modern, post-truth increasingly relativist world in which many are lapsing into nihilism, atheism or conversely, religious fanaticism. 
Because May 1st is the day the Ramakrishna Math & Mission was founded, we spend some time reflecting on what institutionalization means for Swami Vivekananda's mission of making available to everyone esoteric spiritual knowledge which gains especial nuance and complexity when it comes to Tantra given its emphasis on secrecy, lineage, mantra-dīksha (initiation into the mantra) and the human gurus. 
A lot of this talk is my personal reflection on how our community fits into the very complex socio-political marketplace of ideas that is the modern internet-age. In a somewhat candid fashion, I reflect on my place in the Ramakrishna lineage and how I'm navigating the complexity of teaching this stuff in the face of some backlash and misunderstanding while trying to stay true to my understanding of what Vivekananda & Ramakrishna were all about.

May this be an offering to all rebels, in the Star Wars universe and beyond!
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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

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

Over the years, we've done quite a few lectures on Mā Chinnamastakā, one of the most mysterious and often among the most feared from of Mā with a very complex rasa-profile, at least as far as Her iconography is concerned. In 2024, in Goddess Worship in Tantrik Buddhism | The Buddhist Chinnamastā we looked at a Tibetan Buddhist tantra for Vajrayoginī & compared it to a "Hindu" tantra for Chinnamastakā to demonstrate that the Goddess tradition is the same across sectarian lines!

Then, in 2025 we did How To Decapitate Yourself | Chinnamastā Jayanti a thrilling inquiry in the motif of decapitation that is pretty ubiquitous with Mā in many of Her representations. This lecture was like a hand grenade to destroy all vikalpas, differentiating thought constructs (the head) that obscure the mad joy of non-dual experience (headlessness) to allow the blood (bliss and power) to flow and imbue all aspects of life, now understood correctly in the light on non-duality. Going off the previous year's lecture, we engage a lot of Buddhist void and mind-only philosophers like Nagarjuna and Vasubandha alongside Gaudapada and more extreme non-dual masters like that.

Now, I want to consider the two streams of blood to the left and right and by comparing them to the Idā, moon-channel and Pingalā, sun-channel and by comparing that in turn to the image of Kāmadeva and Rati making love on the horizontal plane, the seat of the rising Kundalinīin the Sushumnā nādi, I think we can say a few exciting things about why its important to still hold your head (maintain rational, grounded, controlled thinking, i.e jñāna) after decapitation, the mad ecstasy of devotion, i.,e bhakti!

Here are all our videos on the Mahāvidyās over the years. 
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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:
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To get in on the discussion and access various spiritual materials, join our Discord here: https://discord.gg/U8zKP8yMrM

We start with a little review of rasa vada, the theory of aesthetic "flavors of Consciousness" that are very much emphasized in our Tāntrik iconography & poetics before presenting Mātangī Devī as a a radical invitation to reclaim those rasas, or "flavors" which are commonly rejected as impure or unspiritual or unwholesome in the name of a deeper, more inclusive & capacious non-dual understanding.

And to discuss the ucchistā approach (the spirituality of impurity/trangression), we need to say more about śānta-bhāva, Abhinavagupta's 9th meta-flavor that imbues all the other flavors (even the "unspiritual" or disturbing ones) with poetic and aesthetic (read also: spiritual) meaning. The discussions around śānta-bhāva which engage Bharata and Anandavardhana, two important aesthetic philosophers that influence Abhinava's Tāntrik exegesis, present a new understanding of "sattva" as that luminosity inherent in consciousness itself and not just a feature of the mind nourished by food purity, yogic disciplines & spiritual practices.

The thesis then is as follows: contemplating Mātangī and the spirituality of impurity is contingent upon an understanding of the meta-flavor of Śānta-bhāva which itself present a sort of meta-sattva that does not negate rajas, agitation or tamas, inertia but rather includes them and exalts them!

As such, I can say that all spirituality (and Vāmacāra is no exception) is about sattva maxing only in this lecture, I want to refine our understanding of just what it is we mean by "sattva", as per the interpretations of Kaula masters like Somananda, Abhinava & others. Also, we indulge in a long digression at the top of the lecture on the nature of bhoga, enjoyment, the Vedic orientation toward bhoga and the age old question of is bhoga mutually exclusive with yoga, spirituality?

Here's a playlist of all our videos on the daśamahavidyās with a Śri Vidyā orientation. 
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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

Isn't interesting that around the same time that the narrative of the quintessential serpentine representation of the divine, dark feminine, chaos embodied, Tiamat's evisceration by Marduk, the male storm God par excellence gained mythological dominance, Hammurabi hammers the "law" into his stone, thus enshrining the role of the conscious, analytic, externally-oriented & physicalist mind as more important or "holier" than the feminine, subconscious, interiorized, symbolic & archetypical mind?

Isn't also interesting that after this mythological narrative gained dominance, and after this major historical event, the religious traditions of the late neolithic era and up the present day have been shifting further and further away from Goddess worship (i.e an immanence-oriented, world embracing, embodied approach to religion) in favor of the more transcendentalist, world hating, body-denying, struggle-oriented "father sky" idea?

In this talk, after we explore some ideas about Sanskrit as a gendered language and the widespread implications of that, and after we make a few claims about shifting our discussions on gender to a more interiorized, psychological place, and certainly after some long digressions on feminist theories of the 19th century (Virginia Woolf, Vivekananda etc.), we turn to one of the most important things we could ever discuss as a śākta (I.e, goddess oriented) community: what is a woman? And more importantly: in what sense is God a woman?

Really, this lecture is just three hours of us unpacking the rishikā, Ariana Grande's mahavākya: God Is A Woman.
Support the show
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

In this bold little talk, I wanted to discuss the ānanda-mīmāmsa section in taittirīyopanishad: are the three different types of bliss different in kind?/ is spiritual bliss different from "worldly" bliss so that I can articulate the poetical, aesthetically oriented practice of Śaiva non-duality called the "sukhopāya, path of pleasure"  as in Vijñāna-Bhairava, verses 68-75! 

I also wanted to discuss the root "bhaj-" in "Bhakti", to discuss congregational spirituality and make some comparatives to the bliss oriented, congregational activity we calling having a good time! 

You'll find all our classes on the Vijñāna-Bhairava Tantra here:
https://www.patreon.com/collection/143200
Support the show
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