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IN THIS EPISODE

Most of us were taught somewhere along the way that wanting is the problem. Renounce desire, want less, be more content. Tantra says the opposite.

The texts say the universe itself begins with a wanting. Icchā Śakti, the first of the three powers, the divine impulse to manifest. Without icchā, nothing comes into being. The work isn't to silence wanting. It's to recognise the wanting itself as the divine moving through you.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✦ What icchā śakti is: the first stirring in Śiva's stillness, consciousness desiring to know itself as another 

✦ The three powers of the Trika system: icchā (the wanting), jñāna (knowing what is wanted), kriyā (bringing it into form) 

✦ Where this sits: above the Sāṃkhya map rather than inside it, Kashmir Śaivism building layers on top of Puruṣa and Prakṛti 

✦ Not an ego desire: not the casual craving for hot chips, but the impulse moving through you 

✦ The same three powers that create the universe create your morning: the wanting to rise, the knowing of what you'll do, the body actually rising 

✦ Why you don't have to know what you want yet: icchā comes first, jñāna comes second 

✦ Paige on prajñāparādha: the crime against wisdom, and what it costs to suppress the body's natural urges 

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

✦ Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam, opening sūtra: consciousness, free and self-luminous, is the cause of the manifestation of the world 

✦ Mālinīvijayottaratantra: icchā śakti as the first stirring, the moment of self-awareness within luminous consciousness 

✦ Bhagavad Gītā 7.11: "I am the strength of the strong, free from passion and attachment, and in beings I am desire that does not conflict with dharma" 

✦ Yoga Sūtra 4.7: the yogi's karma is neither black nor white, and for others it is of three kinds (sañcita, prārabdha, kriyamāṇa) 

✦ Swami Rama, paraphrased: in our tradition we accept Patañjali's yoga as a preliminary step toward the deeper practices 

✦ The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield: the first insight, following the coincidences

TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE

✦ On the mat, notice the small desires: to move or to be still, to do more or to do less. Then ask where that desire is coming from 

✦ Eat slowly, and wait for the first burp. It's often just a small passing of air, so you'll only catch it if you're listening 

✦ Stop overriding the body's natural urges. Hunger, thirst, tears, the need for the toilet. This is where listening begins 

✦ When someone arrives in your mind for no reason, call them 

✦ Ask: what does life want to experience through me? Where is that pull taking me? 

✦ Discern between the two. Is this the will of the ego, or the will of the divine? 

SHARE & CONNECT

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If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we’d love to connect with you.

HARI OM

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IN THIS EPISODE

We explore Sankalpa, the heart-resolve that sits beneath every action you take. Across the month we have sat with karma (the act), kriyā (the process), and vikalpa (the mental construct). All of them are downstream of Sankalpa: the quiet sentence the heart has decided is true.

In the yoga nidra tradition, this is the seed planted at the deepest stage of relaxation. In daily life, it is the unspoken commitment that quietly shapes everything else. Aaron and Paige explore why Sankalpa is so often the missing piece in modern goal-setting, and what begins to shift when we work from the seed rather than the symptom.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• The difference between a goal (future-facing, external) and a sankalpa (present, internal)
• The etymology of sankalpa (सङ्कल्प), and how it mirrors vikalpa as two words sharing the same root
• The Upaniṣadic chain from desire to resolve to action to destiny, and why the leverage point is the resolve, not the action
• Why yoga nidra plants the sankalpa beneath the layer of doubt, where the seed can actually take
• How to phrase a sankalpa well: short, present-tense, and positive
• Why the most powerful sankalpas are usually recognised rather than invented
• An Āyurvedic lens: how Vāta, Pitta, and Kapha each tend to meet sankalpa differently, and the medicine for each

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

• Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 4.4.5 - the classical chain of desire (kāma), resolve (sankalpa), action (karma), and destiny
• Bhagavad Gītā 6.24 - saṅkalpa-prabhavān kāmān - the desires that arise from sankalpa, and the call to refine rather than merely suppress them
• Bhagavad Gītā 6.4 - sarva-saṅkalpa-sannyāsī yogārūḍhas tadocyate - the maturing of the path through the purification of sankalpa
• Yoga Sūtra of Patañjali 1.32 - eka-tattva-abhyāsaḥ - the resolve to commit to one principle, one return-point
• Yoga Nidra tradition, Swami Satyananda Saraswati (Bihar School of Yoga) - the practice of planting sankalpa at the deepest stage of relaxation and repeating it at the close

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

What is the sentence your life has been quietly repeating? And if you could plant one new sankalpa right now, knowing the body would carry it forward, what would it be?

We would love to hear your reflection. Share it with us, or carry it quietly into your next practice.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

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If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we’d love to connect with you.

HARI OM

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✦ Practice Online

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IN THIS EPISODE

Most of our suffering never actually happens. It happens in the mind, and the body responds to the imagined threat exactly as it would to a real one.

Patañjali named this: vikalpa, knowledge built from words alone, empty of any actual object. The practice of yoga isn't to stop thinking. It's to stop confusing the thinking with the truth.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✦ What vikalpa is: a world built from words, then projected onto what's in front of you

✦ Vikalpa vs. viparyaya: viparyaya sees it wrong (the red lamp looks yellow). Vikalpa doesn't see it at all

✦ Where it sits in the pañca vṛttis: pramāṇa, viparyaya, vikalpa, nidrā, smṛti

✦ How it becomes anxiety: the story replays, and each replay it gets worse

✦ Why you hold onto it: Paige on vikalpa as protection, and why thanking it is how you release it

✦ The Ayurvedic cost: rumination as dissociation. Prāṇa stops flowing, the dhātus lose quality

✦ The story behind the habit: "I can't function without coffee" is pure imagination

✦ Meditation as release: dropping the word and the meaning until only the object remains, and why mantra is the thing rather than pointing to it

✦ The rope and the snake: and the layer underneath, where the rope isn't a rope either

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

✦ Yoga Sūtra 1.6: pramāṇa-viparyaya-vikalpa-nidrā-smṛtayaḥ, the five vṛttis

✦ Yoga Sūtra 1.9: śabda-jñāna-anupātī vastu-śūnyo vikalpaḥ, "knowledge that follows from words alone, empty of an actual object"

✦ Yoga Sūtra 1.42–1.43: savitarka and nirvitarka samādhi

✦ Yoga Vāsiṣṭha: the story of King Lavaṇa and the magician's peacock feather

✦ Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 1.3.28: asato mā sad gamaya, tamaso mā jyotir gamaya

✦ The rope and the snake (rajju-sarpa): the classic Advaita Vedānta analogy, associated with Śaṅkarācārya

TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE

✦ Where in your life are you mistaking the rope for the snake? And when you do, how does it feel in your body?

✦ Label it. This is a story. That alone is the practice

✦ Then seek the truth. Have the uncomfortable conversation. Without pramāṇa, the vikalpa never resolves. It becomes suffering

✦ Ask: what belief do I hold about myself that keeps me acting this way?

✦ Thank it before you release it. This kept me safe. It isn't necessary anymore

✦ If there's a habit that isn't serving you, do it with complete presence. No phone, no distraction. Awareness does the work

✦ Get out of your head. Get into your body. Do your yoga practice, and allow it to liberate you.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store

Instagram: @omsomyoga

If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we’d love to connect with you.

HARI OM

PRACTICE WITH US

✦ Sadhana Sangha - 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques, Yoga Sūtra translation

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IN THIS EPISODE

This July we're walking the path of mokṣa, liberation, and this week we arrive at kriyā: action done with intention. If karma is what plays out unconsciously, kriyā is the conscious, repeatable process that slowly shaves away everything that isn't you, revealing the truth of who you are.

We unpack the three faces of kriyā, the two Yoga Sūtra lines that define Kriyā Yoga, the Ṣaṭ Kriyā cleansing practices of Haṭha Yoga, and Ayurveda's Pañcakarma - five therapeutic actions for purifying the body from the inside out.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✦ Why the syllable -ya turns karma (action) into kriyā (process) both grow from the same root kṛ

✦ The three meanings of kriyā:

1. cleansing techniques like Bhastrikā and Kapālabhāti

2. Patañjali's path of practice

3. the initiation lineage of Babaji → Lahiri Mahāsaya → Paramahaṃsa Yogānanda

✦ Patañjali's definition of Kriyā Yoga - tapas, svādhyāya, īśvara praṇidhāna - and how it can be applied to any practice, any belief, any life

✦ How Kriyā Yoga weakens the five kleśas (avidyā, asmitā, rāga, dveṣa, abhiniveśa) and moves us toward samādhi

✦ Why the Ṣaṭ Kriyā are cleansing pre-practices, not prāṇāyāma - one clears the tubes, the other expands the prāṇa (and why fast breathwork gives you a high then a crash)

✦ Ayurveda's Pañcakarma - the five actions (Vamana, Virecana, Basti, Nasya, Rakta Mokṣa) and how each is prescribed to your dosha imbalance

✦ The real teaching: liberation is a silent process. Let the practice reshape you until people simply notice you've changed.

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

✦ Yoga Sūtra 2.1 — tapaḥ svādhyāya īśvarapraṇidhānāni kriyāyogaḥ — "Discipline, self-study, and surrender to Īśvara constitute Kriyā Yoga."

✦ Yoga Sūtra 2.2 — samādhibhāvanārthaḥ kleśatanūkaraṇārthaśca — "The purpose of Kriyā Yoga is to cultivate samādhi and to weaken the kleśas."

✦ Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā - the Ṣaṭ Kriyā / Ṣaṭ Karma: Dhauti, Basti, Neti, Nauli, Trāṭaka, Kapālabhāti - to purify the body, give lightness, and prepare the practitioner for prāṇāyāma

✦ Gheraṇḍa Saṃhitā - the cleansing actions settle the breath and make subtle practice possible

✦ Autobiography of a Yogi by Paramahaṃsa Yogānanda - source of the Lahiri Mahāsaya story

✦ Ayurveda — Pañcakarma: Vamana (therapeutic emesis · kapha), Virecana (purgation · pitta), Basti (oil enema · vāta/colon), Nasya (nasal therapy · kapha/head), Rakta Mokṣa (bloodletting · pitta)

JOIN THE CONVERSATION

What's your daily kriyā — the small, intentional practice you return to no matter what? Come tell us over on Instagram @omsomyoga, or reply to this week's email. We read every message.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

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If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM

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IN THIS EPISODE

This month the theme turns to Mokṣa: liberation. We begin where the tradition begins, with Karma. Karma means action and the simple, radical truth that everything you do (your breath, your cooking, your driving, your conversations, even your thoughts) is karma. And most of it is learned behaviour, ingrained by repetition, running on autopilot.

Drawing on the Bhagavad Gītā, we explore the moment Arjuna melts down on the battlefield and asks Kṛṣṇa: if wisdom is greater than action, why must I act? Kṛṣṇa's answer reframes everything - freedom is not the absence of action, but action without grasping for its fruit. That shift, from unconscious doing to intentional doing, is where karma becomes Karma Yoga.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✦ Karma means action - from the root kṛ, "to do" or "to make." Your daily actions, words, and even your thoughts are all karma.

✦ Karma vs Karma Yoga - the moment you become conscious of what you're doing, why, and where it's leading, ordinary karma becomes yoga.

✦ The four paths - Jñāna (study), Bhakti (devotion), Rāja (meditation), and Karma (intentional action). You can bring yoga into brushing your teeth, if you intend it.

✦ The three types of karma (the bow and arrow) - Sañcita (the arrows in your quiver: infinite potential actions), Kriyamāṇa (the arrow you're shooting now: present-moment action), and Prārabdha (arrows already loosed: past actions you can't take back, still shaping your experience).

✦ The karmāśaya - the "storehouse" of karma. Seeds accumulate until a big experience arrives and offers you the chance to choose again — and uproot the karma so you don't have to play it out once more.

✦ Cause and effect - "the effect is hidden in the cause." Once you understand the qualities of nature (Sāṃkhya, the guṇas), you can see where an action will take you and take radical responsibility for your choices.

✦ The kleśas - Patañjali roots the reservoir of karma in the five afflictions: avidyā (ignorance), asmitā (ego / the story of "I"), rāga (attachment), dveṣa (aversion), and abhiniveśa (fear of death).

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

✦ Bhagavad Gītā - Arjuna's crisis on the battlefield; "No one can remain even for a moment without performing actions… everyone is helplessly driven to act by the forces of nature"

✦ Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra, Chapter 2 - the karmāśaya (reservoir of karma) is rooted in the kleśas and experienced in seen and unseen births; the five kleśas

✦ Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra - "The yogi's karma is neither black nor white; for others it is of three kinds" - bound by the three guṇas (sattva, rajas, tamas)

✦ Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad - "As is your desire, so is your resolve. As is your resolve, so is your action. As is the action, so is your destiny."

✦ Sāṃkhya philosophy - prakṛti and the guṇas underpinning the teaching on cause and effect.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store

Instagram: @omsomyoga

If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM

PRACTICE WITH US

✦ Sadhana Sangha - 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques, Yoga Sūtra translation

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IN THIS EPISODE

To close out Mantra June, Aaron and Paige sit with what Aaron calls "maybe the most confusing of all the mantras" - the Pūrṇa mantra. At its heart is one quiet, radical idea: wholeness cannot be subtracted from wholeness. Light a thousand lamps from a single flame and the original flame never shrinks. Give your time, your love, your attention and the source remains undiminished.

From there the conversation opens out in every direction: a word-by-word breakdown of the mantra, the non-dual Vedānta teaching of "everything is one" and how yoga holds it alongside Sāṃkhya's duality, a line from the Bhagavad Gītā that took Aaron years to sit with, what Ayurveda says about pūrṇatva through the three subtle essences, and how the whole teaching lands in something as ordinary as how we give our time, energy, and money.

The mantra:

Oṃ Pūrṇamadaḥ Pūrṇamidaṃ

Pūrṇāt Pūrṇamudacyate

Pūrṇasya Pūrṇamādāya

Pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate

Oṃ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ

That is whole. This is whole.

From the whole, the whole arises.

Take the whole from the whole, and the whole alone remains.

WHAT YOU’LL LEARN

• What pūrṇa actually means - fullness, wholeness, completeness; the same word we use for the full moon (pūrṇimā, as in Guru Pūrṇimā).
• The mantra, word by word - adaḥ (that / the unmanifest), idam (this / the manifest world), udacyate (arises), ādāya (having taken), avaśiṣyate (what remains).
• Why this is a non-dual teaching - Vedānta means "beyond knowledge" (veda-anta, the end of knowledge). The moment we label a thing, we separate it from the whole; this mantra points to what can't be labelled.
• How yoga holds two opposite truths at once - Sāṃkhya's non-negotiable duality (Puruṣa and Prakṛti) alongside Vedānta's "everything is one," and why holding both is itself the practice.
• The Gītā connection - Krishna's teaching that all beings rest in the infinite, but the infinite rests only in itself.
• Ayurveda and the three subtle essences - Ojas, Prāṇa and Tejas as the purest forms of the doshas, why they must rise together, and how chasing Tejas alone (study, awakening, psychedelics) burns us dry.
• The mantra as medicine for the mind - not one to meditate on so much as to contemplate; an invocation to create the bhāvana of fullness.
• Relational vs transactional - applying pūrṇa to how we give time, attention, love and money, and why "I give, you take" is a lack mindset the teaching dissolves.

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

• The Pūrṇa Mantra - a śānti (peace) invocation from the Upaniṣads.

• Bhagavad Gītā — "By me, in my unmanifest form, all this universe is pervaded. All beings rest in me, but I do not rest in them."
• Key Sanskrit terms: pūrṇa (fullness), pūrṇatva (the state of fullness), jñāna (knowledge), vedānta (beyond knowledge), sāṃkhya, puruṣa / prakṛti, ojas, prāṇa, tejas, bhāvana, snigdha (oil; also "love"), ahaṃkāra.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store

Instagram: @omsomyoga

If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM

PRACTICE WITH US

✦ Sadhana Sangha - 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques, Yoga Sūtra translation

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IN THIS EPISODE

Mantra June continues. After Praṇava (Auṃ), Gāyatrī, and Mahā Mṛtyuñjaya, we arrive at one of the most beloved and most widely chanted prayers in the tradition - Asato Mā, also known as the Pavamāna Mantra.

Oṃ Asato mā sad gamaya Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya Mṛtyor mā amṛtaṃ gamaya Oṃ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ

Lead me from the unreal to the real. Lead me from darkness to light. Lead me from death to immortality.

We trace this prayer back to a fire ceremony in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, where the ṛṣis prepare a metaphorical offering of the entire cosmos to the fire of awareness. At the peak of the ritual, three sages speak three lines and what makes their prayer so radical is what they don't ask for. No superpower. No riches. No outcome. Only to be led, pointed in the right direction, and left to walk the path themselves.

This one is simple. We let it stay simple.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Why Asato Mā is an invocation, not a request - a prayer for guidance rather than a specific outcome (and how that contrasts with the Gāyatrī)
• The story behind the mantra: the cosmic horse, the metaphorical fire, and the offering of totality to awareness itself
• A clear, line-by-line translation: asat → sat, tamas → jyotir, mṛtyu → amṛta, and the meaning of gamaya
• Why amṛta, the "nectar of immortality", is the nectar of self-knowledge, not a deathless body
• How abhyāsa and vairāgya (practice and surrender) live inside this single prayer
• The Ayurvedic lens: how disease arises from the mind, and how cultivating a sattvic mind becomes the healer through diet, brahmacarya, and pratyāhāra
• The journey through the three guṇas, tamas → rajas → sattva, and why you can't leap straight to stillness
• How to weave the mantra into daily life as bhāvana, an opening to practice or a quiet companion when you feel lost

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

• Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad - source of the Asato Mā / Pavamāna mantra (1.3.28), and of the horse-as-cosmos imagery (1.1.1)
• Pavamāna Sūkta - Ṛg Veda, 9th Maṇḍala (Soma Pavamāna)
• Gāyatrī Mantra & Mahā Mṛtyuñjaya Mantra - earlier Mantra June episodes, referenced for contrast
• Praṇava (Auṃ) - the Mantra June opener
• Concepts drawn on: śraddhā, abhyāsa & vairāgya, Īśvara praṇidhāna, the three guṇas (sattva, rajas, tamas), brahmacarya, pratyāhāra

TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE

Use Asato Mā the way the tradition does, as an opening, not as japa. Before your next practice, chant it three times:

Oṃ Asato mā sad gamaya

Tamaso mā jyotir gamaya

Mṛtyor mā amṛtaṃ gamaya

Oṃ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ Śāntiḥ

Let it be an invocation: I'm doing this practice, I don't fully know where it leads - please, lead me there in time. Notice that the mantra never says "I will go." It says lead me. So this week, where life feels foggy, practise being led: trust the path, trust the tradition, and let "I don't know yet" be enough.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

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If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM

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IN THIS EPISODE

Of all the mantras in the yoga tradition, the Mahā Mṛtyuñjaya is the one people reach for when something goes wrong - when someone is sick, dying, or afraid. But despite its name, it isn't a mantra against death. It's a prayer not to die before you're ready: to ripen fully into life, and to be loosened from the fear of dying the way ripe fruit falls freely from the vine.

We sit with one of the mantras closest to Aaron's heart. They unpack its meaning line by line, tell the story of the sage Mārkaṇḍeya who conquered death itself, and explore why a mantra so wrapped in taboo is actually one of the most nourishing and Ojas-building practices in the tradition.

Content note: this episode discusses death and dying.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

✦ Why this mantra, when everything else falls apart - the difference between asking for eternal life and asking for ripeness and fullness of life.

✦ The cucumber that isn't a cucumber - what the urvāruka fruit really is, and why it drops freely when ripe rather than needing to be cut from the vine.

✦ The story of Mārkaṇḍeya - Shiva's impossible choice, a sixteen-year-old's deepest samādhi, and the moment Yama, the god of death, was defeated.

✦ Śavāsana as a death ritual - how every time you lie down at the end of practice, you're rehearsing the art of letting go of the body.

✦ A line-by-line translation - Rudra the three-eyed one who howls with compassion, and what we're truly asking for when we chant.

✦ The Ojas connection - why the most "feared" mantra in the tradition is also the most nourishing, and how it supports each dosha.

✦ How and when to use it - readiness, chanting for the sick and dying, and weaving it into everyday life.

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

✦ Ṛg Veda - the origin of the mantra, found in a portion dedicated to Rudra and traditionally attributed to the sage Vasiṣṭha.

✦ Mahābhārata - the earliest source of the Mārkaṇḍeya story, told within Yudhiṣṭhira's conversation with the sage himself.

✦ Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa, Bhāgavata Purāṇa, Śiva Purāṇa, Skanda Purāṇa - the same story recurs across all of these texts.

✦ Bhagavad Gītā - Krishna's teaching that one who remembers him at the moment of death attains his state; the root teaching behind the Hare Krishna tradition's practice.

✦ Yoga Sūtras of Patañjali - abhiniveśa, the fear of death, named as a root of suffering.

THE MANTRA

Om Tryambakaṃ Yajāmahe

Sugandhiṃ Puṣṭi-vardhanam

Urvārukam-iva Bandhanān

Mṛtyor Mukṣīya Mā'mṛtāt

We worship the three-eyed one, fragrant, the increaser of nourishment. As the ripe fruit is freed from its binding to the vine, may I be freed from death, but not from immortality.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store

Instagram: @omsomyoga

If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM

PRACTICE WITH US

✦ Sadhana Sangha - 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques, Yoga Sūtra translation

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✦ OmSom App (free) - yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study + online community

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IN THIS EPISODE

If Om is the sound that holds everything together, the Gāyatrī is the prayer that lights up the mind. We explore the mantra the ancient ṛṣis understood as a request for clarity - may our intellect be illuminated. Through the story of Brahmā condensing the three Vedas down into a single syllable, the meaning of each word of the mantra, the goddess Gāyatrī Devī as the light of the morning sun, and how the mantra meets each dosha, this episode is an invitation into one of the most potent practices in the tradition — held with reverence for where it comes from.

WHAT YOU'LL LEARN

• Why the Gāyatrī is a prayer for the buddhi (the discerning intellect) rather than the heart or body, and why the ṛṣis saw a clouded mind as the obstacle to yoga
• The story of Brahmā condensing the three Vedas → three verses → three words (bhūr bhuvaḥ svaḥ) → the single syllable Om, and how this shows the Gāyatrī holds all Vedic knowledge
• The Gāyatrī meter (chhanda): 24 syllables arranged 8–8–8, the same rhythm the Vedas are recited in, compared playfully to the 5-7-5 of a haiku, and why this aids memory and retention
• Gāyatrī Devī - the etymology Gāyantam Trāyate iti Gāyatrī ("she who, when sung, protects"), and the goddess as the feminine light of the morning sun, likened to consciousness itself
• A line-by-line translation of the mantra, including the vyāhṛti (Om Bhūr Bhuvaḥ Svaḥ) as body, mind, and soul / the three worlds, and the difference between Svaḥ and Svāhā (the wife of Agni)
• How the Gāyatrī works within Āyurveda as a heating, solar mantra connected to sādhaka pitta, and how to adapt it for Vāta, Pitta, and Kapha types
• A cautionary teaching story on the potency of the mantra and the importance of teacher-to-student transmission and reverence

TEXTUAL REFERENCES

• Manusmṛti - the source of the story of Brahmā drawing the Gāyatrī from the three Vedas; also the teaching that one who recites the Gāyatrī at both twilights gains the merit of reciting the entire Vedas
• The Vedas - Ṛgveda (tat savitur vareṇyam), Sāmaveda (bhargo devasya dhīmahi), Yajurveda (dhiyo yo naḥ pracodayāt)
• Indu Arora - Mudra: The Sacred Secret - referenced for a series of 24 mudrās that can be practised with the Gāyatrī Mantra (verify exact book title)
• Robert Svoboda - Kundalini (Aghora II) - the story of the student who chanted the mantra without reverence

TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE

Chant the Gāyatrī at sunrise, slowly and with reverence - not rushing toward a number, but letting each of the three lines (8–8–8) land. Notice the mantra as a request, not a demand: may the light of that sun illuminate my mind.

• Vāta - chant aloud, steady and rhythmic, to ground into the body
• Pitta - slow, soft, internal repetition; release your grip on the practice
• Kapha - chant at sunrise to invite warmth and momentum into the day

And take the closing teaching to heart: let this mantra be offered to you at the right time. The right teachings reveal themselves when you're ready.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store

Instagram: @omsomyoga

If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM

PRACTICE WITH US

✦ Sadhana Sangha - 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques, Yoga Sūtra translation

https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join

✦ OmSom App (free) - yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study + online community

Search OmSom in the App Store

✦ 100 Hr Asana Sadhana Dharma

https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto

✦ 200 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Sri Lanka 2026

https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka

✦ 50 Hr Online Yin Yoga Teacher Training

https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto

IN THIS EPISODE

If you had to pick the most important syllable in the entire tradition of yoga (one sound that contains everything) what would it be? In this episode, Aaron and Paige open the June series on mantra and bhakti by exploring Auṃ, the syllable chanted at the beginning and end of every yoga class, painted on every mat, stuck to the back of every car, and yet very rarely understood for what it actually is.

We unpack why Patañjali never calls it Om in the Yoga Sūtra (and what he calls it instead), why the texts describe it as the sound of Īśvara, and why every other mantra in the tradition begins with this sound. We map the three syllables A–U–M to the three states of consciousness, sit with the fourth state  (turīya) that lives in the silence after the M, and then walk through the nine stages of that silence as taught in the Nāda Yoga and Kashmir Śaivite tradition.

What You'll Learn

✦ The meaning of bhakti and why mantra is inseparable from devotion

✦ The difference between a mantra and an affirmation (and why one points to something while the other is the thing itself)

✦ Why Patañjali codifies Om as Praṇava in the Yoga Sūtra and the aesthetic superstition behind the name change

✦ The three syllables of A–U–M and the three states of consciousness they express: jāgrat (waking), svapna (dreaming), suṣupti (deep sleep)

✦ The fourth state, turīya, that arises in the silence after M

✦ The Maṇḍūkya Upaniṣad teaching of the bow, the arrow, the string, and the target, and why the release is the part you can't practice

✦ The nine stages of silence after Om as taught in Nāda Yoga: bindu, ardha candra, nirodhinī, nāda, nādānta, śakti, vyāpinī, samanā, unmanā

✦ How the syllables of A–U–M map to the doṣas - and how to use mantra to work with the mahāguṇas (sattva, rajas, tamas)

✦ The distinction between japa (mantra you repeat) and ajapa (mantra that repeats itself)

✦ Why Om is described as the hum of the universe and how to actually hear it

Textual References

Patañjali's Yoga Sūtra (Samādhi Pāda)

✦ Tasya vācakaḥ praṇavaḥ - "The expression of Īśvara is the syllable Praṇava."

✦ Taj-japas tad-artha-bhāvanam - "Repeat that mantra while contemplating its meaning."

✦ The following sūtra: through this practice, the awareness turns inward and the obstacles to yoga fall away.

Maṇḍūkya Upaniṣad 

✦ All twelve verses of this short Upaniṣad are dedicated to the syllable Auṃ, mapping its sounds to the four states of consciousness. The bow-and-arrow analogy referenced in this episode is drawn from the Upaniṣadic teaching tradition.

Bhagavad Gītā

✦ Kṛṣṇa: "The one who utters the single syllable Om Brahman and remembers me departs from the body and reaches the supreme destination."

Kashmir Śaivism / Nāda Yoga tradition

✦ The nine progressive stages of the silence after Om (some traditions list seven, others twelve).

Ayurveda and the Mind by Dr. David Frawley

✦ Referenced for the application of mantra to the mahāguṇas.

SHARE & CONNECT

Website: https://omsomyoga.com

OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store

Instagram: @omsomyoga

If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.

We operate a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, Australia, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. We'd love to connect with you wherever you are on your journey.

HARI OM