For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish
Episodes
386 episodes
Mātangī & The Poetry of Impurity | Sattva Maxxing in Vāmācara
We start with a little review of rasa vada, the theory of aesthetic "flavors of Consciousness" that are very much emphasized in our Tāntrik iconography & poetics before presenting Mātangī Devī as a a radical invitation to reclaim those r...
What is a Woman? | & Why God Is A Woman
Isn't interesting that around the same time that the narrative of the quintessential serpentine representation of the divine, dark feminine, chaos embodied, Tiamat's evisceration by Marduk, the male storm God par excellence gained mythological ...
Partying As Spiritual Practice | Sukhopaya, The Path of Bliss
In this bold little talk, I wanted to discuss the ānanda-mīmāmsa section in taittirīyopanishad: are the three different types of bliss different in kind?/ is spiritual bliss different from "worldly" bliss so that I can articulate the poetical, ...
Two Transmission of Tantra | Jñānā vs. Kriyā, Meditation vs. Ritual
In Tantra, you find two separate transmissions that seem to be in tension with one another: one one hand, there are the Jñāna or contemplation oriented traditions (for example, the Vijñāna-Bhairava Tantra or Somānanda's śiva-drshti) that privil...
Kali, Christ & Sticking It To The Man | Who Can Teach Tantra?
After some ecstatic & triumphant kirtan (which you can watch in the
How Meditation Works | Classical Yoga vs Tāntrik Yoga
There are many ways to understand the word "meditation." Given that this is one of the central modalities of spiritual life and given the ever increasing interest in meditation, I felt a definition and discussion around meditation to clarify wh...
Śaiva Teachings in the Devī Māhātmyam
Since it was Chaitra Navarātri last week, as part of our last Friday morning Abhinava Gupta Paramārthasāra class, we explored some key śaiva ideas that appear in the opening teaching of the Devī Māhātmyam. In this talk, we first explain...
How To Start Your Daily Tāntrik Pūjā Practice
This is rather foundational discussion about the role of pūjā (ceremonial worship) in spiritual life in the modern age. As you know, the Tāntrik tradition is above all, when we consider the primary sources, about rituals and ceremonies. Now, th...
Dharma = Being Yourself & Following Your Heart | & Ways To Stay Accountable
In our What Is Our Lineage, Actually? | Tradition vs. Innovation lecture, we started an inquiry into lineage, responsibility and accountability by taking into consideration al...
What Is Our Lineage, Actually? | Tradition vs. Innovation
Towards the end of 2024, we gave a talk called What's Our Lineage?...
Why Is Mantra So Important In Tantra?
A rather foundational and exciting discussion about linguistic mysticism in both its psychological and metaphysical dimensions. We first sketch out the Sanskrit language system and then we make a case for how words sculpt our reality, on a psyc...
What Do We Mean by "Tantra"?
Sanskrit words are multivalent: they mean many different things in many different contexts. And so understanding the context in which a charged word like "God" or "Tantra" is used is very important since almost all of our misunderstandings betw...
Narasimha, Holi & The Essence of Shaivism
Tonight is the eclipse full moon celebrating the birthday of Sri Chaitanya, the Incarnation of Divine Love (premāvatara) and commemorating both the burning of the demoness Holikā (as per the Vaishnava story of Prahlāda, the demon boy who loved ...
Krishna = Kali
Besides the fact that Sri Krishna and Ma Kali share the same bīja mantra and besides the significant historical and cultural overlap between these two traditions in Bengal, there is a certain esoteric "bħāvic" connection between these two deiti...
Offering Meat & Alcohol to Hindu Deities | Vāmācara & Pañca-Makāras, The Left Hand Path of Tantra
We start by explaining the pañca-makāras, the transgressive offerings in the context of Kālī pūjā in the Vāmācāra, the so-called "left-hand path" of Tantra, mainly to point out the "curse" that is on alcohol & meat with reference to King Pa...
Why is Śiva So Weird? | & Śaivism So Unique?
Śiva is often described as "vicitra", strange and wonderful! Having touched upon this idea off Śiva's weirdness a little bit in our Shiva, Paradox Personified lecture, we go in...
Shiva, Paradox Personified
Just a little riffing on the Puranic depictions of Shiva, as per or Shiva Ratri festivities this year! There's something very weird and wonderful (vicitra, in Sanskrit) about our Mahadeva, is there not?
How To Shiva Ratri | Fasting, Vigil & Rituals of Hinduism
I'm a little late on this video (I had meant to get it out before the festivities this year) but hey, maybe this is for next year and if you're particularly hardcore, for next month (since there's a śiva rātri every month the night before the n...
How To Worship the Non-Dual Shiva
Leading up to Śiva Rātri (which is coming up for us this Sunday on February 15th, 2026), I'm releasing a bunch of videos on different aspects of our tradition, as part of the celebration! Having already put out
Which Deity Should I Worship? | & Does It Matter?
In this talk, we ask the question "which deity should I worship?" & "does it even matter?" going off last week’s reflection on
Karma Yoga = Haṭha-Yoga
Recently, we've started giving some classes on the हठप्रदीपिकां haṭha-pradīpikāṁ, the central text on the post-classical tradition in the Nāth sampradāya as part of our weekly Wednesday po...
How To Practice Śākta Tantra | Performing Puraścaraṇa
Since we are in the lineage of Sri Ramakrishna and since you will be interacting with his life and teachings quite a bit in our community, it’s important at this point to say that no one interpretation of Sri Ramakrishna and of his lineage c...
Śrī Rāmakrishna & The Whole Spectrum of Tantra
What does Tantra really look like in practice? Whether its "right" hand path Tantra or the so-called "left" hand path, Tantra is essentially a form of Deity Yoga, that is, an ongoing practice of cultivating a deep, personal, devotiona...
What is Śākta Tantra?
Here is a particularly inspired and lively discussion from our Atlanta retreat in which we sketch out the Sāmkhya, Yoga & Śaiva Siddhānta traditions & thus, prepare the foundations for understanding Non-Dual Śaiva/Śākta tantra, in both ...
Scientific Materialism as a Spiritual Path | Tāntrik Cārvāka
Some years back, we gave a talk called "Can Atheist Be Spiritual?" (alas its gone now since the YouTube ban of 2025!) Anyway, there, I presented some non-theistic traditions like Advaita Vedanta, Buddhism, Jainism and of course, Sāmkhya to show...
