For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

For more videos, guided meditations and instruction and for access to our lecture library, visit me at:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

These lectures happen Live every Monday at 7pm PST. It is open to the public. Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815

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

Today we talk about why we practice spirituality and discuss the 5 main obstacles that might be keeping us from the Enlightenment that we already are!
Enlightenment is not an experience or a particular state. It is not something you can have. It is the simple recognition of what you are, it is the ease of simply being.
 
OM Shantih Shantih Shantih

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

For more videos and instruction, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish 

What is effective and appropriate action with regards to the various political concerns around us? 
What role does spiritual practice play in informing our engagement with the world?
In this lecture, we explore four distinct schools of South Asian philosophy (Samkhya, Buddhism, Advaita Vedanta and Kashmir Shaivism) to show that the spiritual master is beyond all ethics: she is a spontaneous and effortless expression of perfect morality. 
We explore the Three Errors of Social Work before enlightenment and we expound on how service (seva) and activism can be a form of spiritual practice.

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

We look at some key teachings from the philosophical schools of Samkhya and Advaita Vedanta to relax into the profound divinity, the easeful joy that is already here for you. 
There is a big disjunct between knowing spiritual concepts in the mind and actually experiencing them as a lived reality in daily life. We have all attended many lectures and read many books and yet the glow fades away, the remembrance of our true nature dissipates and we return to familiar, stifling patterns of a separate self. 
Today we inquire into how to maintain a stable state of loving awareness in everyday life. What is Spiritual Practice? And how can you start?

For more videos, instruction and episodes, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

What dies when the body dies and what is it that carries on?
The theory of Reincarnation, that is, the movement of the Soul from one body to another, is featured in most South Asian schools of philosophy. 
Today, we attempt to motivate this theory on scientific and philosophical grounds to prove that not only does this theory have a lot of explanatory power when it come to accounting for certain phenomena, but also that this theory has a three-fold practical use: 

1. Reincarnation Theory frees us from a victim narrative, allowing us to take responsibility for our lives which all spiritual paths require
2. Reincarnation Theory affirms us in our spiritual quest: nothing we do in this life is "lost" or "for nothing" when the body dies. 
3. Reincarnation Theory provides a powerful and empowering for learning: all learning is remembering! You are ALREADY enlightened. You are just reminding yourself of what you always were, always will be and are now.

For more episodes, videos and instruction, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

What IS death? What "dies" exactly? Do YOU end when the body ends? Socrates described philosophy as "preparation for death", Nachiketha learned the secret of life in Death's house in the Katha Upanishad, the Shakyamuni Buddha pointed out that as much as we like to pretend otherwise, impermanence is a fact of life. But impermanence of what?
To celebrate today's Pluto Retrograde and the Scorpio Full Moon, we explore the deepest questions of philosophy and find profound answers from Advaita Vedanta (Hindu Non-Duality), answers that not only free us once and for all from the fear of death but also give us tools to meaningfully overcome grief and loss. 

For more videos and instruction, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

We've got to understand what a thing is before we know how to use it meaningfully. We have to ask: what is this world made of? What is real? And what does it mean to be in the world? 
Today, we explore the Hard Problem of Matter and the Hard Problem of Consciousness: why is it that the more we look for "matter" through the lens of material science, the more it runs away from us? How come a Universe composed of mostly dark energy/matter and empty space appears to us the way that it does? 
We explore some central teachings of Hindu Non-Duality or Advaita Vedanta to answer these big questions so we can discover how to live most meaningfully in this world and to realize right here and now that you are IN the world, the world is in YOU; only awareness exists, all other things are mere "appearances" in awareness and YOU are that awareness. YOU are the only thing that is real.

For more episodes, follow me at patreon.com/yogawithnish

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

We are often sold the narrative in New Age circles that we are broken and in need of "healing" which can only happen, of course, after paying lots of money to some self-proclaimed Shaman...
Advaita Vedanta (Non-Duality) adamantly challenges this view by suggesting that you are already enlightened, whole and fulfilled at your very essence. There is nothing missing from you that needs to be added up, so there can be no growing.
There is nothing broken that needs to be fixed, and so there can be no healing. 
The work of spirituality is not healing or growth but merely aligning your perception with the Reality of what you already are: Existence, Consciousness and Bliss itself. 
All it takes is one insight. To cultivate that insight we explore 4 different arguments to prove here and now your true nature beyond the illusory appearance of body-mind-personality that you've identified with up till now. Enjoy!

For more videos and instruction, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

For more videos, episodes and instruction, visit me at: patreon.com/yogawithnish

One of our most advanced guided meditations yet: today, we cultivate Bhakti (devotion). The Way of Devotion engenders a natural, spontaneous and almost effortless kind of spiritual movement away from fear-craving-suffering and towards fearlessness-peace-bliss.
Bhakti, the Path of Love is the Secret Sauce of spiritual life.
It is the Spirit Juice.
It is the practice par excellence for cultivating the necessary dispositions for advanced spiritual life; it is Bhakti that creates in us, effortlessly, the necessary preconditions for a spiritual awakening; it is Bhakti that gently clears the way day after day for us so that we may deepen further and further into peace.

In this meditation, we start with a bit of preamble about the Path of Bhakti in general and then we move into a guided meditation to call up our Istha Devata (Chosen Ideal) to help us begin our life in Bhakti.
May this transform you. 

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

For more videos, lessons and episodes, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish 

Happy New Moon in Cancer! 
Here is a guided meditation for overcoming pain, grief, and the inevitable transiency of Samsara. We use the Witness (Sakshi) technique from the Advaita Vedanta and Samkhya schools of Indian spiritual philosophy. 

Remember: 

All things arise and pass away.
Entire worlds surge up and dissolve
with each breath.
Knowing this, why become attached?
Why be disturbed by
The rising and falling away
Of circumstances?
Take a stand outside the transient
Flux of Nature and Mind.
Take a stand in the Witness.
And be free!

OM Shantih Shantih Shantih 

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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

For videos, instruction and more episodes, visit me at patreon.com/yogawithnish 

Happy Father's Day and Blessed Summer Solstice!
Shiva-Shakti, Yang-Yin, Masculine-Feminine, Fatherhood-Motherhood Consciousness-Energy, Energy-Matter...all of these are two aspects of the same thing, two ways of looking at one principle.
What is the unity beyond this seeming duality? 
Today we explore the Divine Masculine in Christian mysticism, Taoism and Tantra to celebrate Father's Day and welcome in powerful new energy for the coming Solstice. 
Enjoy :)

Here is a householder prayer for all householder-yogis out there:

"I vow  before the Divine to think never of myself, to take nothing for me, to surrender everything to family, society and Dharma. 
I will live simply and nobly.
I will have no vices.
For verily, I will harbour no sense of my own self for it is not "my" will but thy will be done! I will live and die by my Dharma, doing my duty as well as I can at every moment. 
I will not speak harsh words or harm anyone consciously and knowing that no good work is completely good (for there is bad even in good however unintentional), I will purify myself so that I no longer think myself to be the doer of actions. I will offer up all fruits now and always to you, to my family, to society and to Dharma. I will be beyond all karma for I know that works are done through me, ever by me. 
OM peace peace peace."

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:
https://www.patreon.com/yogawithnish

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