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What does it actually mean to live according to your dharma?

In this episode of the Self Meditated Podcast, we explore one of the most important and often misunderstood concepts in the Indian philosophical tradition. Dharma is frequently reduced to “purpose” or “life path”, but its meaning is far richer: from ṛta, the cosmic order underlying existence, through universal ethics and social responsibility, to the deeply personal idea of svadharma — our own particular way of participating in that order.

We explore the different dimensions of dharma, including Sanātana Dharma, Sādhāraṇa Dharma, Viśeṣa Dharma, Varṇāśrama Dharma and Svadharma, before turning to the Bhagavad Gītā and Krishna's teaching that it is better to live one's own dharma imperfectly than to perfectly live another's.

The episode also looks at dharma through the lenses of Patañjali's Yoga, Buddhism and Advaita Vedānta, and explores how ethics, karma yoga and self-knowledge intersect. Most importantly, we bring the idea back into everyday life: how do we recognise when we're living in alignment, and how might we begin to distinguish our genuine nature from conditioning, expectation and social pressure?

Perhaps dharma isn't a destination to discover, but a continual process of tuning ourselves to what life is asking of us.

As the episode explores: the signal is already playing. The work is to tune in.

KEY TEXTS REFERENCED

* Bhagavad Gita 3.35 — the svadharma verse

* Bhagavad Gita 3.19 — "You have the right to perform your actions but not to the fruits"

* Yoga Sutras of Patanjali 2.30-2.32 — the Yamas and Niyamas

* Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta — the Five Precepts and the Eightfold Path

* Rigveda — the concept of rita as cosmic order

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES

* The Bhagavad Gita — trans. Barbara Stoler Miller or Georg Feuerstein

* The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — Edwin Bryant translation

* Dharma — Swami Dayananda Saraswati (the most precise traditional treatment)

* The Seat of the Soul — Gary Zukav (accessible Western treatment of karma and dharma)

* Man's Search for Meaning — Viktor Frankl (on purpose and meaning as moral orientation)

* What the Buddha Taught — Walpola Rahula

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What Is Consciousness?

There is something more familiar to you than your own face — something present in absolutely every experience you've ever had — and you've probably never once looked directly at it.

This is the most accessible episode in the entire series, built specifically for anyone who's never considered this question before, including listeners who think consciousness is either a complicated neuroscience term or a vague spiritual idea. No prior knowledge assumed. Every term explained as it arrives.

Using simple, everyday examples — a phone, a torch in a dark room, a cinema screen — this episode walks through what consciousness actually is, why it's not the same thing as the mind, why it can never be found as an object no matter how carefully you search for it, and what deep sleep reveals about awareness being present even when the mind has gone completely quiet. It also takes on the most common objection directly: if nothing is experienced outside of awareness, does that mean a tree in an empty forest doesn't exist? And it closes with a simple, direct instruction you can actually try, right there, in the moment of listening.

Simple on the surface. Genuinely profound underneath. Start here if this is all new to you.

In this episode:

• The most basic, undeniable fact of your existence, demonstrated step by step
• Why consciousness is not the same thing as the mind
• The torch analogy — why consciousness illuminates everything but is never itself seen as an object
• What deep sleep reveals about awareness existing prior to the mind
• The tree-in-the-forest objection, addressed honestly
• The cinema screen — the central image of the whole episode
• Consciousness as existence itself: Sat-Chit-Ananda in completely plain language
• The mind as consciousness, localised — explained through a simple sunlight analogy
• A direct, guided moment to investigate this for yourself, live

References and further reading:

• Swami Sarvapriyananda — YouTube, Vedanta Society of New York (the specific video referenced in this episode): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9n6NvDpcwLM
• The Nature of Consciousness — Rupert Spira
• Being Aware of Being Aware — Rupert Spira
• I Am That — Nisargadatta Maharaj
• Who Am I? — Ramana Maharshi

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Nicky and Gianni sit down and talk about Patanjali's 5 afflictions of the mind: the ways in which the mind deludes itself away from realising its true identity. This is a fascinating conversation that delves in the many ways we can work psychologically with ourselves to increase a self-knowledge and how to interact with the world with more ease, peace and love.

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Pain and suffering are not the same thing. Understanding the difference between them might be the single most useful distinction on this entire path.

This episode moves through what suffering actually is, where it lives, and how the great traditions propose meeting it - starting with Patanjali's precise five-part map of affliction (the kleshas), through the Buddha's First and Second Noble Truths and the concept of secondary suffering, into Tantra's radical alternative of meeting difficulty directly rather than transcending it, and finally into Advaita Vedanta, where suffering is shown to require a sufferer - and where the sufferer, examined closely, turns out to be less solid than it appeared.

Along the way: a genuine, careful treatment of grief as something to be honoured rather than fixed, the classical rope-and-snake analogy, the nightmare you wake from without needing to process it, and a closing return to the Mandukya Upanishad's teaching on deep sleep - where suffering is entirely absent, and something remains anyway.

This episode does not promise an end to difficulty. It offers something more honest: a progressively clearer map of where suffering actually lives, and a full toolkit - used together, not as competing alternatives - for working with it.

In this episode:

• The crucial distinction between pain and suffering
• Patanjali's five kleshas: avidya, asmita, raga, dvesha, abhinivesha
• The Buddha's Four Noble Truths and the concept of secondary suffering
• A brief, honest word on grief specifically
• Tantra's radical alternative: meeting difficulty directly
• Modern psychology: the negativity bias, the window of tolerance, and meaning as a buffer
• Advaita Vedanta: why suffering requires a sufferer
• The rope-and-snake and the nightmare — two classical analogies for the same recognition
• A practical path that uses every tradition covered, in the right proportion for where you are

References and further reading:

• Yoga Sutras 2.16 — Heyam duhkham anagatam
• Yoga Sutras 2.3–2.9 — the five kleshas
• Vivekachudamani — Shankara
• Mandukya Upanishad
• Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta — the Four Noble Truths
• Nisargadatta Maharaj — I Am That
• Viktor Frankl — Man's Search for Meaning

This is a sensitive topic. If you're personally struggling, please reach out to a trusted person or a mental health professional — this episode is offered as philosophical and contemplative context, not as a substitute for support.

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Yoga begins when pranayama becomes consistent.

This episode is personal testimony first, education second. It traces pranayama from its earliest roots in the Vedas and Upanishads, through the Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, and the Hatha Yoga tradition, into the tantric understanding of prana as Shakti itself - the dynamic, creative energy of consciousness. Along the way: what prana actually is, why "pranayama" doesn't mean what most people think it means, what the nadis are and why the first few months of practice are really about cleansing them, and where this practice ultimately leads within the framework of Advaita Vedanta.

It also covers what modern science has confirmed - autonomic nervous system regulation, heart rate variability, the nasal cycle and brain hemisphere balance, and CO2 tolerance - briefly, with a dedicated science episode to follow for anyone who wants the full depth.

And it includes something rarely discussed honestly: a personal account of the harder-to-explain effects - heightened intuition, a settled and abundant quality of energy, and a kind of magnetism the tradition calls ojas.

If you've ever treated pranayama as an afterthought tacked onto the end of an asana class, this episode makes the case for why it might actually be where the real practice begins.

In this episode:

• What prana actually is, and what pranayama's name really means
• The five pranas and how each one shapes a different aspect of practice
• Where pranayama comes from - Vedas, Upanishads, the Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali, Hatha Yoga, Tantra
• The nadis, and why the first months of practice are about cleansing them
• What modern science confirms, briefly - with a full science episode to follow
• A personal account of intuition, energy, and ojas
• Why pranayama might be a better starting point than meditation for many people
• Practical guidance: ratios, retentions, and how to actually begin

References and further reading:

• Hatha Yoga Pradipika - Swami Muktibodhananda commentary
• Light on Pranayama - B.K.S. Iyengar
• The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Edwin Bryant translation (sutras 2.49–2.53 and 1.34)
• Oxygen Advantage - Patrick McKeown
• Breath - James Nestor
• The Polyvagal Theory - Stephen Porges
• Prana and Pranayama - Swami Niranjanananda Saraswati (Bihar School)
• Tantra Illuminated - Christopher Wallis

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In this episode of the Self Meditated podcast , Nicky sits down with his friend and fellow yoga teacher Gianni to explore the three Gunas - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas - and how they influence our thoughts, behaviour, energy and experience of daily life.

Together, they unpack this foundational concept from Sāṃkhya and yoga philosophy and discuss how developing awareness of the Gunas can help us recognise our habitual patterns, make more conscious choices and cultivate greater harmony in everyday life.

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"Do We Have Free Will?"

Did you actually choose the last thing you ate? Or did a system you didn't design produce the outcome — and hand you the feeling of having chosen it a fraction of a second later?

This episode takes one of philosophy's oldest questions and moves through it briskly: hard determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will, and Sam Harris's case for free will as illusion — enough of each to orient you, not enough to bog you down. From there it moves into what karma actually means as a theory of cause and effect, a brief but honest account of the Buddhist position, and then spends real time in Advaita Vedanta — not answering the free will question, but showing why the question dissolves once you investigate who's actually asking it.

The episode closes with a genuinely practical formulation: know that you don't have free will, but act as if you do — and what that actually means, held properly, without contradiction.

Warm, direct, and built to leave you with something usable rather than just something to think about.

In this episode:

• The last thing you ate, and whether you actually chose it
• Hard determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will, and Sam Harris's illusionist case — briefly and clearly
• Karma as a real theory of causation: prarabdha, sanchita, and kriyamana
• Buddhism's honest answer — no fixed chooser, but choices still matter
• Advaita Vedanta and the dissolving of the question itself
• Ramana Maharshi's instruction: find out who is asking
• What "know you don't have free will, but act as if you do" actually means
• Why this changes how you relate to people who've hurt you
• The river and the water — the closing image of the whole episode

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR DESCRIPTION -

• Free Will — Sam Harris (short, precise, the best contemporary case for the illusionist position)
• Elbow Room — Daniel Dennett (the best extended defence of compatibilism)
• The Bhagavad Gita — trans. Barbara Stoler Miller (nishkama karma and action without ego-ownership)
• I Am That — Nisargadatta Maharaj (the Advaitic position on doership, expressed in conversation)
• The Nature of Consciousness — Rupert Spira (consciousness and the apparent individual)
• Yoga Vasistha — abridged trans. Swami Venkatesananda (vasanas, sankalpa, and the mind's role in apparent choice)
• What the Buddha Taught — Walpola Rahula (dependent origination and no-self)
• Swami Sarvapriyananda on Free Will — YouTube, Vedanta Society of New York (directly on this topic, exceptional)

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"What Is the Mind? What Are Thoughts? What Is Meditation?"

What is your mind, actually? Not what it contains - the thing itself. Where does it begin, where does it end, and is it even the same thing as your brain?

This episode takes one of the most familiar and least examined parts of your entire existence and looks at it from four genuinely different angles: what modern neuroscience says, and where it runs out; what the Samkhya-Yoga tradition's precise fourfold map of the mind reveals; what Buddhism's teaching of no-self adds that the other frameworks miss; and finally, what Advaita Vedanta says the mind actually is, once you stop assuming it's separate from consciousness altogether.

Each framework earns its own space and its own respect. By the end, the four aren't presented as competing theories to choose between, but as different instruments - each doing something genuinely useful, each building toward the next. You'll come away with a concrete, usable understanding of what a thought actually is, what meditation is doing to your mind at each stage of practice, and a simple, practical distinction - I am anxious versus there is anxiety, and I am aware of it - that you can test in your own experience immediately.

Grounded, clear, and built for genuine practice rather than abstract theory.

In this episode:

• Where neuroscience's account of the mind is strong, and exactly where it runs out
• The hard problem of consciousness, explained simply
• Samkhya's fourfold map of the mind — manas, buddhi, ahamkara, chitta
• What a thought actually is: the vritti, and why citta vritti nirodha doesn't mean stopping thought
• Meditation as understood through Yoga, Buddhism, and Advaita - three different aims, three different methods
• The practical distinction between being anxious and being aware of anxiety
• How the three traditions relate to and build on each other, without collapsing into one
• A guided moment to actually try self-enquiry, live, while listening

RECOMMENDED RESOURCES FOR DESCRIPTION

• The Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — Edwin Bryant translation (the foundational dualist meditation text)
• I Am That — Nisargadatta Maharaj (the most direct account of the Advaita approach to mind)
• The Nature of Consciousness — Rupert Spira (mind and awareness through Advaita)
• Tantra Illuminated — Christopher Wallis (Kashmir Shaivism's account of mind and thought)
• The Mind Illuminated — Culadasa (John Yates) (the most comprehensive contemporary integration of Buddhist meditation and neuroscience)
• What the Buddha Taught — Walpola Rahula (the Buddhist account of mind and no-self)
• Being No One — Thomas Metzinger (rigorous philosophical neuroscience on the self-model — for the philosophically adventurous)
• Swami Sarvapriyananda on the Antahkarana — YouTube, Vedanta Society of New York (exceptional lecture on the Samkhya model of mind)

Hey! I'd love to hear your thoughts, send me a voice note.

The waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states and the fourth that underlies them all

Every night, without exception, you disappear completely and come back. What actually happens in between?

This episode takes the most ordinary thing you do every single day and turns it into one of the most precise philosophical investigations available to a human being. Drawing on the Mandukya Upanishad - the shortest of the principal Upanishads at just twelve verses, and one of the most rigorously argued texts in the entire Vedantic tradition - Nicky walks through the teaching of Avastha Traya: the investigation of waking, dreaming, and deep sleep, and what remains present through all three.

You'll be guided through each state in turn - the world you take to be obviously real, the dream world your own mind constructs and then completely believes, and the deep sleep state where both dissolve entirely and yet something is still there to report on it. From there, the episode introduces turiya, not a fourth state, but the awareness underlying all three, present and unchanged through everything. Along the way: an honest engagement with the sceptic's strongest objections, Gaudapada's radical teaching of ajata vada, and the elegant mapping of the whole teaching onto the sound of AUM.

This episode is intimate rather than academic in tone - less a lecture, more an invitation to look at something you already have direct access to, tonight, in your own bed.

In this episode:

• The three states — waking (jagrat), dreaming (svapna), and deep sleep (sushupti)
• Why the Mandukya Upanishad uses your own nightly experience as its method, not abstract argument
• Gaudapada's Karika and Shankara's commentary - the layered philosophical foundation
• What deep sleep actually reveals about the nature of the self
• Turiya - the fourth, and why it isn't a state at all
• The sceptic's case, addressed directly and without dismissal
• Gaudapada's Ajata Vada - the doctrine of non-origination
• How AUM maps onto the entire teaching, sound by sound
• Why this matters: suffering, the fear of death, and the nature of the present moment

References and further reading:

• The Mandukya Upanishad - trans. Swami Nikhilananda or Swami Gambhirananda (the source text — twelve verses, readable in minutes)
• The Mandukya Upanishad with Gaudapada's Karika - trans. Swami Nikhilananda
• The Mandukya Upanishad and the Agama Shastra - T.M.P. Mahadevan
• Being Aware of Being Aware - Rupert Spira
• The Nature of Consciousness - Rupert Spira
• Swami Sarvapriyananda on the Mandukya Upanishad - YouTube, Vedanta Society of New York
• Who Am I? - Ramana Maharshi
• I Am That - Nisargadatta Maharaj

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Episode 1 and 2 gave us the map of Indian philosophy. Now - what do you actually do with it?

This is the final episode in The Ground Tone, and the one where philosophy finally lands in the body.

Across the first two episodes, Nicky built the full philosophical architecture - the six schools of Indian philosophy, the difference between dualist and non-dual thought, and the depths of Advaita Vedanta. This episode answers the practical question every serious student eventually asks: how do the actual practices - yoga, meditation, chanting, ritual, service - relate to all of it?

Most people treat these as a menu of interchangeable options. This episode makes the case that they're something far more interesting: instruments, each one built for a different part of the same composition. Karma yoga, bhakti, hatha yoga, and tantra are each explored in depth - what they actually are, where they come from, and what they're specifically designed to do - before the episode moves into an extended and deeply personal exploration of Kashmir Shaivism, one of the most elegant and inclusive philosophical traditions Nicky has encountered, and a school she returns to again and again.

The episode closes with the synthesis the whole series has been building toward: how the philosophical schools, the nastika traditions, and the practical instruments all fit together as facets of one whole - and why understanding that whole matters, not as an intellectual exercise, but as the foundation for genuine discernment, a more embodied practice, and a life lived with more grace and less confusion.

In this episode:

• Why the practices are instruments, not a menu of interchangeable options
• Karma yoga - action without the ego's ownership of the outcome
• Bhakti yoga - devotion, the symbology of the deities, and love as the natural expression of non-dual understanding
• Hatha yoga - its tantric roots, and why it's a world away from a modern studio class
• Tantra - the philosophy that refuses to leave anything out
• Kashmir Shaivism - spanda, pratyabhijna, and why Nicky keeps returning to this school
• How the philosophical schools and the practical instruments form one integrated whole
• The final synthesis of the three-part series - and where it all points

References and further reading:

• The Bhagavad Gita - trans. Barbara Stoler Miller or Georg Feuerstein
• Tantra Illuminated - Christopher Wallis
• The Recognition Sutras (Pratyabhijnahrdayam) - Christopher Wallis translation
• The Stanzas on Vibration (Spandakarika) - Mark Dyczkowski translation
• The Hatha Yoga Pradipika - trans. Brian Dana Akers
• I Am That - Nisargadatta Maharaj
• The Nature of Consciousness - Rupert Spira
• Abhinavagupta: An Historical and Philosophical Study - K.C. Pandey

This concludes The Ground Tone series. New episodes exploring individual concepts in greater depth - free will, suffering, the mind, pranayama, and more - continue weekly.