For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Who (or what) is a Guru? Today we talk about the role of a Guru in our spiritual life as the living embodiment of scripture, as an initiator or empowerer of mantras, as a "broadcaster of reality" and as a living example of the full possibilities of a human life.
What qualifies the Guru to be a Guru? And when/how does one find one's Guru in this life? Must the Guru have a body?
All this and more in today's class!
This lecture is from our program "Journey Into Tantra"! It is an 18 part, college-level lecture series in audio and video featuring ~44 hours of content with Q&A + a guided meditation. The idea was to create an interactive learning environment in which these ancient and transformative teachings come to life! I'm very excited to share that with you! You can pick up a copy here!
https://nishthefish.gumroad.com/l/journeyintotantra
A Poem to my Guru:
Better than a hundred ministers who preach
Are the lessons that Silence can teach.
A mountain’s instruction unceasing
Is better than the pastor’s wheezing!
And yet how many among us who yearn
For God’s vision can profitably learn
From the Sphinx-like silence inscrutable?
How many are truly able
To draw from the rock it’s sacred teaching
In a way that is stable and far reaching?
A precious few, I say, a precious few!
And even among them there is need too
Of a living emissary between Spirit and matter
Otherwise we remain enmeshed in the latter!
But whence forth comes the one who can teach like the mountain?
Who is truly fit to serve as God’s fountain?
of unfaltering Grace and Wisdom unstinting
To be a holy jewel, glimmering and glinting?
A previous few, I saw, a previous few!
But this I can guarantee to you:
If you are sincere in your search
And if you practice some,
Then to you this true Teacher will come.
A teacher who is strong and infallibly pure.
Of this my friend, you can be sure!
God is drawn to the devotee
Who is pure at Heart
God years for such a one –
She cannot keep apart!
To the one who has no thought
For pleasure or for money
God is drawn like a bee to honey.
After all, the Guru is God in a mortal frame.
The Guru is God’s first name.
Like lightning flashing in the dark of the storm
The Guru is Silence clothed in form.
The Guru is a tree with roots reaching deep.
The Guru is the Witness in dreamless sleep.
The key to meditation
Is the Guru’s face.
The key to liberation
Is the Guru’s grace.
Oh, my friend, haven’t you heard?
The key to your freedom
Is the Guru’s word.
So he who hath ears, please listen well
To what Nishanth has to tell:
The Guru is God in a mortal frame.
The Guru is God’s first name.

Support the show

One of my favorite things about the Tantrik tradition is how vast it is. On one hand, you have the most refined non-dual philosophy wedded to aesthetically heightened and exceedingly subtle systems of practice for the attainment of the highest liberation in life. And on the other hand, you have midnight ghastly rituals in cremation grounds to hex your enemies, take control of spirits, amass wealth and get people to fall in love with you...
Such range!
And my favorite thing about Tantra?: as Swami Vivekananda so boldly declared before a western audience in 1893, we regard the “highest absolutism as well as the lowest fetishism as both equally valid attempts at grasping the Ineffable.” My favorite thing is how very inclusive and accepting our tradition is to every form of spiritual practice from the so called “lowest” to the “highest”. Everyone is approaching the divine each in their own way according to their own understanding and predispositions. And so every approach is valid as just another way to reach and express the Ineffable Reality which is non other than non-dual Consciousness reposing in Her innate bliss endowed with the ecstatic powers of willing, knowing and doing, joyously projecting Herself outward into manifestation in each and every moment.
As the Tantrik master Prabodha once said: “There is nothing so high that I can conceive that you have not transcended nor is there anything so low that you have not permeated completely!”
So in the name of embracing both highest and lowest, in this lecture, we will be discussing “the dark side of Tantra”. Yep. Cremation ground rituals, spirit possession, fierce blood drinking goddesses etc.
Enjoy!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
Use this link and I will see you there:
https://www.zoom.us/j/7028380815
Our hatha yoga class is Wednesdays at 11am PST and again at Friday 5pm PST via this same link also.
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

Support the show

Today is Chinnamastā Jayanti and last week we had Bagalāmukhī Jayanti.
Since both of these are fierce and very esoteric forms of Kālī, I thought I would take this occasion to discuss some of the "darker" aspects of our Tantrik heritage since both of these deities, as well as many of the other Daśamahāvidyās are associated with magical practices of um, let's say, a less than savory nature according to the views of some more right-leaning practitioners. And Bagalā Devī especially has a strong association to cults that practice black magic with the purpose of binding, stunning and confounding enemies.
What's all that about?
In this talk, I want to make a case for why we should accept those aspects of our tradition but also strongly suggest a more devotional reading of these mantras and these forms of the Goddess. We do this by discussing Bagalāmukhī's dhyāna-ślokas (her meditation mantras), her origin story as per some śakta upa-puranas, the practices associated to her cult of worship and most importantly a story from the life of Sārada Devī where she actually manifested her Bagalā aspect to smite Harish, a devotee who had gone crazy because of his wife's black magic! This lecture is part of a series on the daśamahāvidyās which you can watch here
Later today, Mā willing, I'll upload a lecture called "The Dark Side of Tantra" exploring this idea more fully but here is my first swipe at it!
Jai Mā! Jai Pītāmbara-Devī Ki Jai!
Lectures happen live on zoom every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and Friday at 6pm PST. There's Q&A right after the lectures.
It is free and open to the public. All are welcome!
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
If you'd like to support us, you can do so here:
https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/jaimakali

Support the show

Be forewarned:

This is quite a powerful mantra so one's experience of it can be quite intense, especially after chanting it in such a sustained way like this. As always, it is better to receive it from a qualified guru in the context of Tantrik initiation, dīkshā and of course, it is always recommended that you practice out of simple devotion and sincerity with no desire to "get something out of the practice" besides knowledge, devotion, renunciation and a connection to Mā!
Here's the mantra:
ōṃ aiṃ hrīṃ klīṃ chāmuṇḍāyai vichchē ।
ōṃ glauṃ huṃ klīṃ jūṃ saḥ jvālaya jvālaya jvala jvala prajvala prajvala
aiṃ hrīṃ klīṃ chāmuṇḍāyai vichchē jvala haṃ saṃ laṃ kṣaṃ phaṭ svāhā ॥ 5 ॥
Now you might be familiar with this whole mantra or just a part of it, which is sometimes called the "navarna mantra", the 9-syllable mantra which is very secret and held to be very, very powerful. But you might not be familiar with where this mantra is from! As such, to explain the origins of this much beloved mantra in the Śākta tradition, we reverently go to the Siddha Kuñjika Stotram to explain the context in which this mantra lives. The recitation of the whole Stotram daily is a powerful practice that conveys all the benefits of the daily recitation of the Devī Māhātmyam, the 700 verses devoted to Mā!
Jai Mā!

Support the show

I know the title sounds new agey and off the wall but only because it is. I intend to discuss cremation ground sadhana a little and present three or four reasons for it, focusing on the concept of “spirit traffic”. This is a bit of a pre-Hallowe’en Hallowe’en talk I suppose!
Today will be the last talk of our “summer semester” before we shift gears for the fall!
You’ll recall the project this summer was to cover some foundational concepts in Sadhana and we started with "How To Get Started In Spiritual Life" exploring some basics and then we discussed “right motive” in spiritual life and suggested an attitudinal shift that can make for a long term and sustainable sadhana to prevent burnout in "How To Enjoy Spiritual Life"
In Should Worship One Deity or Many, Chant One Mantra or Many? we looked at the underlying reality behind every mantra and deity-form to make the argument for one-ness and to show a way to work with many different mantras and murtis without losing a sense of that one-ness!
Then of course we had to take up the question of the all-too-necessary living spiritual guide in How To Choose A Guru & What To Do If You Don't Have One
Then we thoroughly analyzed Tantrik subtle anatomy to explain the dynamics of sadhana, spiritual practice.
We explored some basic puja techniques and then we took all of those foundational ideas into the signature lecture of the summer The Secret Worship of Mā Kālī which we gave on Kali Jayanti and which presents a rather complete Sadhana for Mā Kālī.
So now that you have everything you need to begin an intense and productive and complete Sadhana, there’s only one question left to ask: “how do I stay grounded and not go insane?”Sadly “spinning out into madness” is something that happens far too often to sincere spiritual aspirants who go about things in the wrong way. So today, we’ll cover that as a nice closing sentiment for summer semester!
Enjoy!
Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST and Friday 10am PST and again Friday at 6pm 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

Support the show