For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Gang, let’s get back to work. 

Last night, I started lecturing again, and in light of recent events, I thought it would be good to address: 

1. White knights and neocolonialism

2. The projection of disempowering narratives into marginalized groups especially women in the name of “protecting them from themselves” 

3. The weaponizing of those narratives of disempowerment for a consumer capitalism obsession with internet controversy at the expense of truth for the currency of attention and acclaim 

4. The Reagan-esque virtue signaling and explicit hypocrisy 

5. Ineffectual fear based anger driven activism. 

Live weekly classes are back: Monday 7pm PST, Thursday 7pm PST & Friday 11am PST here. 

Jai Mā! Satyam Eva Jayate, truth alone triumphs. 

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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:
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Okay wow. What a week. There’s so much value in our coming together to discuss grievances, clear up misunderstandings, ask questions & clarify our roles and relationships to one another, especially in the wake of the out of control narratives on the internet that has me guilty of everything and anything including human sacrifice. For this, the public forum/open discussion style satsangh we did last week is ideal. So we did another one tonight, as we had planned last week.

Although we’ve decided Jvalamukhī (albeit coming from an ultimately good, if not a tad misaligned, place) as moderator is not the way forward, we still value the role of a neutral 3rd party moderation team to facilitate our forum discussions. To that end, I’m so grateful that Vera Devī was moderating this discussion!
We met at the regular zoom link at our Monday night satsangh hashed it out for a few hours together and here's the complete recording. 

Satyam Eva Jayate, the truth alone triumphs. Jai Mā!

Hit Me Up x

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:
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For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
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We gave this talk on a special occasion: the amāvasyā (the new moon) that opens the gupta navarātrī period (the 9 nights of the summer goddess festival) and so to celebrate, we reflect upon dīkshā, spiritual initiation & the systems of accountability to ensure the credibility of Tāntrik lineages so that we can better contextualize our place as a community in the midst of all of that. 

Mainly, I want to revisit the validity of intrapersonal mystical experiences like dreams and intuitions as reliable metric for religious authenticity even beyond texts and institutions and to substantiate this claim, we consider 4 important cases: 

1. Vasugupta & the Śiva Sutra

2. Maheśvarānanda & the Mahartha Mañjarī, 

3. Rāni Rasmani & the Dakshineshwar Temple, 

4. Swami Ashokananda's "śaktopaya dīkshā" (to borrow Swami Turiyananda's phrase here) from Swami Vivekananda in meditation & dream experience 

Here is a playlist of talks on our guru-paramparā & thoughts on lineage. And here are some videos on our mission, ideals, manifesto etc. 

Hit Me Up x

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

To celebrate the Gupta Navarātrī (Summer Goddess Festival) this year, we got together in Portland and decided to take up a new text, the Saundarya Laharī, an exceedingly beautiful Śrī Vidyā primary source & primer attributed to Ādi Śankarācarya to study alongside the Yoginī Hṛdāya which we started studying together last week. 

In this first of many talks on the Saundarya Laharī (follow along with this lecture series here), after a little introduction & discussion featuring Mahadevaji (which you can watch here), I jump in to introduce some foundational & preliminary ideas about Tāntrik Goddess worship starting with the Aṣṭarasā (अष्टरसा) (the “8 flavors of consciousness”) model and the Aṣṭamātṛkās (the 8 fierce yoginīs that correspond to the 8 sets of the Sanskrit alphabet) to which these rasas are often mapped. 

Here are some citations & resources:

From Bhārati’s classical source:

शृङ्गारहास्यकरुणरौद्रवीरभयानकाः । बीभत्साद्भुतसंज्ञौ चेत्यष्टौ नाटये रसाः स्मृताः śṛṅgārahāsyakaruṇaraudravīrabhayānakāḥ | bībhatsādbhutasaṃjñau cetyaṣṭau nāṭaye rasāḥ smṛtāḥ || 

Śṛṅgāra (erotic love) Hāsya (comedy) Karuṇa (compassion/grief) Bhayānaka (terror) Bībhatsa (disgust) Vīra (heroic) Adbhuta (amazement) Raudra (anger)

And the bonus +1 from Abhinava: Śānta (quiescent/transcendent/spritiual)

note: Aṣṭarasā (8 flavors) is the classical list; Abhinava adds the 9th to make “navarasa” (9 flavors).

The source for these is Abhinava Bhārati, Abhinava’s commentary on the Nātya Śāshtra of Bharati but also for the “9th”, see Abhinava’s Dhvanyaloka Locana, his commentary on Anandavardhana’s “dhvani” idea (what makes poetry poetic)

Here are the 8 sets (mātrikā-Varga/Mātrika Kula) of Sanskrit letters:

स्वर (vowels)

अ (a), आ (ā), इ (i), ई (ī), उ (u), ऊ (ū), ऋ (ṛ), ॠ (ṝ), ऌ (ḷ), ॡ (ḹ), ए (e), ऐ (ai), ओ (o), औ (au), अं (aṃ), अः (aḥ)

कण्ठ्य (gutturals)

क (ka), ख (kha), ग (ga), घ (gha), ङ (ṅa).

तालव्य (palatals)

च (ca), छ (cha), ज (ja), झ (jha), ञ (ña).

मूर्धन्य (retroflex)

ट (ṭa), ठ (ṭha), ड (ḍa), ढ (ḍha), ण (ṇa).

दन्त्य (dentals)

त (ta), थ (tha), द (da), ध (dha), न (na).

ओष्ठ्य (labials)

प (pa), फ (pha), ब (ba), भ (bha), म (ma).

अन्तस्थ (semivowels/liquids)

य (ya), र (ra), ल (la), व (va)

ऊष्मन् (sibilants + aspirant)

श (śa), ष (ṣa), स (sa), ह (ha).

In the next class, we’ll look at another set of 8 (the 8 shadows/pāśās) to complete our understanding of today's material! 

Hit Me Up x

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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 ended our last conversation (What Is The Śrī Cakra? | Yoginī Hṛdāya, Verses 1-18) with an invitation to start chanting regularly the Devī Khaḍgamālā which you can learn more about here: A Simple Way To Worship The Srī Yantra | Khaḍgamālā Stotram if this text is new to you. It is perhaps the best introduction to the practice of Śrī Vidyā because until we understand the names of all the deities (emanations of the one deity, Tripurā), we will likely not be able to map them on to the cakra, which is just the sort of thing visualization and worship requires. So before we can start performing the daily pūjā or take up any practices, and to supplement our understanding of the philosophical principles of the cakra as the auto-erotic, blissful expansion of the ever-free, self-willed Goddess, we often recommend just chanting this hymn every day until you have it down by memory!

You'll find all our talks on Śrī Vidyā here.

Hit Me Up x

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

Since we recently took up a concerted study of a rather high level text in the non-dual śākta tradition, the Yoginī Hṛdāya (the last 3 chapters of a much larger work in the Śrī Vidyā tradition, Vāmakeśvarīmatatantra in 8 chapters) at our weekly Thursday evening text study, I thought I'd share this little voice recording from the other night after our Kālāshtamī pūjā where we offer a brief run through of the first of three chapters of this text with some loose commentary. I'll drop the videos for this class moving forward in this playlist.

Hit Me Up x

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Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and again at Friday 11am PST 
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Tantra has often been considered a closed tradition because its texts and the teachings transmitted in them on maṇḍala/cakra (geometric diagrams representing the retinue of deities as emanations of the central deity/ a philosophical presentation of the Absolute nature of reality), mantra (a sacred sound formula which is synonymous with the Deity/Absolute Reality as a vibrational pattern) and pūjā (ritual procedures detailing the employment of mantras to contact and assimilate the energies of the maṇḍala)  have been given most often in the strictest secrecy and most reverent ritual settings.

We've often stressed that unless these things are received directly from the mouth of one to whom it was similarly given, even if we were to learn these things ourselves on the internet or from books, they might not work for us with the same power and aliveness compared to if we had received it from a living lineage.

Often, inspired by ideals of accessibility and out of an enthusiasm for this material, I've tended to ignore some of those disclaimers around who should be let in and let out, and I'm starting to understand more now why those disclaimers can be helpful and why in my zeal, my mass distribution of some of the more esoteric material might not always be as compassionate or as helpful as I had hoped.

Still, I can't help but to want to make as accessible as possible to all who are sincerely seeking these ideas and practices that have meant so much to me over the years. Perhaps the most responsible thing to do then is to really emphasize the traditional safeguards and disclaimers which are often presented in the beginning of any primary source in our tradition so that viewers can be maximally discerning about whether or not they want to opt in!

In this talk, as a sort of preamble to our class on the Yoginī Hṛdāya, one of the central texts of the Śrī Vidyā tradition, we take up the first 5 or so verses of the text which, like many texts in the Sanskritic spiritual tradition, carefully explains:
1. adhikari (the intended audience of the transmission, i.e who will benefit from hearing this)
2. prayojana (the goal that the text outlines for study and practice)
3. artha (the contents of the text, in this case as mentioned above cakra, mantra & pūja9)
4. prayojana-artha sambandha (the relationship between the content and the goal)
with an emphasis on the 1st of these 4 things.

We continue this discussion in the next video where we take up a study of the Yoginī Hṛdāya in a serious way, having established some of these disclaimers around adhikari, competency.

We'll drop all our classes on this text and other Śrī Vidyā adjacent material here. 

Hit Me Up x

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

Because we are all of us different, naturally, we want different things out of life and out of spirituality and we so all come to it with different expectations and values and backgrounds. Often, this means we're going to have different (and equally valid) ideas about “Tantra”, “Guru” & most importantly “Dīkshā”, spiritual initiation.

In Indic spiritual traditions, we tend to value texts (śāstra) to substantiate our claims and this is especially true of Tantra which is in a large part a textual transmission (without dispensing with the importance of human to human spiritual transmission, through living lineages, of course.)

And in the name of integrity and transparency, as is the responsibility of all acāryas, śaiva or otherwise, it's important to be accountable to our textual tradition, to cite our sources and innovate within the parameters of tradition.

But the thing is, we might just all be reading different texts and have different ways of interpreting and evaluating the legitimacy of those texts themselves! We should first acknowledge that there are different interpretations of these things and they are all valid even if they differ from one another because our traditions are so vast and diverse. Also, each person is entitled to going about things and understand things in their own way since, again, we are each of us different; what works for one person might not for another.

Now, a lot of the time, people conflate what we're doing with what others might be doing and judge us by standards or values that we might not share. All too often, our detractors feel that we are illegitimate (and again, everyone is entitled to their opinion and this is perfectly alright) but in response we say: just because it doesn't work for you, does not mean it isn't valuable to another or rather; just because it doesn't match your standards of legitimacy, doesn't mean it is inherently illegitimate. Perhaps the Indic traditions are just more diverse and more inclusive than we're willing to allow for?

As such, I want to be clearer about my definitions and understanding of terms like “tantra”, “guru” and most of all, “dīksha” moving forward so that you can better evaluate whether or not this material (and my interpretation and presentation of it) is spiritually nourishing for you!

In that direction, here’s a little excerpt from a conversation I was having in the car re: dīksha, in particular. 

Hit Me Up x

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:
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Earlier this year, on Vivekananda Jayanti, I gave a talk on the early days of the Vedanta movement in America, when a few enthusiastic Americans in New York in 1895 gathered in a one bedroom apartment to hear this strange man from India with strange and exciting new ideas talk for hours on end. This is an especially exciting story if you are participating in yoga in any capacity and even more exciting and inspiring if you are, or are aspiring to be, a teacher of yoga, vedanta, tantra or any other Eastern spiritual tradition that emerged in America since then. Mainly though, this talk shows us that times now are not that different from how they were then. This talk is meant to, in looking back, inspire us to look forward and pick up where Swami Vivekananda left. Let's get to it then... 

Hit Me Up x

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:
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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 gave this talk on Swami Vivekananda's birthday in January of 2026. Today, in 1902, Swamiji kicked his mortal body with great triumph. So I felt it was fitting to post this now, given that it is perhaps one of my most experimental and radical talks! May this be an offering to Swamiji and to this manifest universe, to all animate and inanimate beings, to the sum total of all souls, the one God Swamiji taught us to worship! May we live up to his ideal. 

Jai Mā! Jai Guru! Jai Swamiji! 

Hit Me Up x

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