For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Nishanth Selvalingam
  • 4.8 (67)
  • Alternative Health
  • Updated Weekly

The world of Yoga is wide and varied. In this podcast, yogi Nish the Fish shares the deeper dimensions of Yoga, Vedanta and Tantra, asking the big questions: why do we practice? What is meditation? What is the purpose of a human life? What is Beauty? What is Death? Nishanth Selvalingam studied various South Asian philosophies with his Shaivite grandfather in an ashram in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and moved to Los Angeles to study philosophy, teach yoga and play guitar in a rock band. Join him and special guests as they explore Yoga, in all its splendours. For more episodes and instruction, and to support this humble offering of the heart, visit me on Patreon: patreon.com/yogawithnish

  1. 6d ago

    Why Do Hindus Worship Snakes? | The Tantra of Tiamat, Apophis & Kundalinī

    On the auspicious occasion of Nāga Pañcamī, the sacred day for worshipping dragons, I was inspired to give a slightly more dynamic and comparative talk this time compared to our talk last year (Snakes, Dragons & Nāgas in Tantra) which focused more on the āvatāras of the nāgas (Patañjalī, Abhinavagupta etc.). In this second talk on the subject, we explored the concept of the Dragon (a more literal reading of Nāga) as a personification of wildness and primordial chaos, tracking the idea in the Campbellian Hero's Journey (to make an exciting claim about merging the princess, a symbol for the lost anima with the dragon, which also symbolizes both the shadow and the anima, to use Jungian terms) with comparisons to Tiamat from Mesopotamian myth, Apep or Apopohis/Typhon in the Ancient Egyptian tradition and of course tracing it into its corollaries in the Vedic/Hindu world with reference to Indra's battle with Vrtta, the earliest "dragon" to appear in the tradition. I make an exciting claim comparing Patañjali, the Serpent (whose name literally means "fallen offering", or rather, "fallen angel) to Lucifer in the Garden of Eden and an even more exciting claim about why we should not try to slay the dragon, but rather learn from Her and even become Her. Here are some of the mantras we referenced in the class: अनंतं वासुकीं शेषं पद्मनाभं च कंबलम् शंखपालं धृतराष्ट्रं च तक्षकं कालियं तथा एतानि नव नामानि नागानाम् च महात्मन: सायंकाले पठेन्नित्यं प्रात:काले विशेषत: तस्य विषभयं नास्ति सर्वत्र विजयी भवेत् anaṃtaṃ vāsukīṃ śeṣaṃ padmanābhaṃ ca kaṃbalam śaṃkhapālaṃ dhṛtarāṣṭraṃ ca takṣakaṃ kāliyaṃ tathā etāni nava nāmāni nāgānām ca mahātmanah: sāyaṃkāle paṭhennityaṃ prātakāle viśeṣatah: tasya viṣabhayaṃ nāsti sarvatra vijayī bhavet “Ananta, Vāsukī, Śesha, Padmanābha and Kambala Śankhapāla, Drstarāshtra and Takshaka and Kāliya: These are the 9 great Serepents: I bow to them all! If (this mantra) is recited always, especially in the morning and in the evening, all poisons and fear will be destroyed and one becomes victorious everywhere!” If you can, feed some snakes today with hard boiled eggs and milk! That is to say: leave out a bowl of milk and a hard boiled egg under a tree somewhere! And here is a mantra for invoking and worshipping Patañjali: योगेन चित्तस्य पदेन वाचां । मलं शरीरस्य च वैद्यकेन ॥ योऽपाकरोत्तमं प्रवरं मुनीनां । पतञ्जलिं प्राञ्जलिरानतोऽस्मि ॥ आबहु पुरुषाकारं। शङ्खचक्रासि धारिणं॥ सहस्र शीरसं श्वेतं। प्रनमामि पतञ्जलिम्॥ yogena cittasya padena vācāṁ । malaṁ śarīrasya ca vaidyakena ॥ yo’pākarottamaṁ pravaraṁ munīnāṁ । patañjaliṁ prāñjalirānato’smi ॥ ābahu puruṣākāraṁ śaṅkha cakrāsi dhāriṇaṁ sahasra śīrasaṁ śvetaṁ pranamāmi patañjalim  Yoga, for the mind  Grammar, for the speech,  Medicine for the impurities of the body,  I bow to that great sage Patañjali who has given all these!  Pure spirit incarnate in form, Holding the conch, discuss and sword  I bow to Patanjali, that thousand headed white (cobra)! 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

    Why Do Hindus Worship Snakes? | The Tantra of Tiamat, Apophis & Kundalinī

  2. Aug 14

    Can You Learn Tantra From Just Books | & Am I A Tāntrik Guru?

    A nuanced and radical question in then singularity that is the modern experience of Tantrik transmission and education on the internet in post-modernist late-state capitalism! This lecture is part of a series on not only how to interact with spirituality as a whole but particularly with regards to how to interface with our community.  PS: Here's a playlist of all our community guidelines+ safety 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

    Can You Learn Tantra From Just Books | & Am I A Tāntrik Guru?

  3. Aug 14

    How To Practice Tantra & Guru Yoga Responsibly

    We gave this talk in the lobby of a hotel in Seattle, discussing a few traditional safe guards around approaching Tantra and finding teachers/lineages/institutions that suit your predispositions. These three-fold safeguard (sat tarka, guru, āgama) becomes especially important when approach Kaula or Vama (i.e "left hand") type traditions and so in many ways, these ideas are foundational not only to spirituality as a whole but certainly to interacting with our community. Inadvertently, this talk ended up becoming guide of like a sort of "community guidelines" for us! Jai Mā! Here's a playlist of all our community guidelines+ safety 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

    How To Practice Tantra & Guru Yoga Responsibly

  4. Aug 8

    Hypertrophy of Reason, Ruma Poudell | Brown & Neurodivergent Voices Against Neocolonialism

    A lot of the recent controversy had to do with an event that happened in Seattle where one of our friends left the retreat and many felt that I was wrong for letting her walk off into the night as she did. Anyway, since then, many actors with various motives have used said friend and spoken for her as part of their virtue signaling, misguided activism & gofundme grifts. All is fair in love and war so no love lost but I thought it was rather special to be able to finally hear from said friend and see what she thinks and has to say about all this. She also just dropped a poetry book chronicling her journey and her insights and I think its wonderfully written and an important piece of revolutionary literature, a singularity even in our understanding of care, mental "illness", institutionalism & Tāntrik communities. You can pick up the book here and check out Ruma's stuff here.   This feels like the best book launch marketing campaign ever tbh, we might inadvertent marketing genuises... Maybe one day they'll study us in a college business program or at the very least an abnormal Khan academy psychology course.. Anyway, this recording is from our discussion immediately following my statement re: recent allegations which you can watch here 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

    Hypertrophy of Reason, Ruma Poudell | Brown & Neurodivergent Voices Against Neocolonialism

  5. Aug 8

    Mania, Feminism & Tantra in American Culture | My Statement Re: Allegations

    Gang, let’s get back to work.  Last night, I started lecturing again, and in light of recent events, I thought it would be good to address:  1. White knights and neocolonialism 2. The projection of disempowering narratives into marginalized groups especially women in the name of “protecting them from themselves”  3. The weaponizing of those narratives of disempowerment for a consumer capitalism obsession with internet controversy at the expense of truth for the currency of attention and acclaim  4. The Reagan-esque virtue signaling and explicit hypocrisy  5. Ineffectual fear based anger driven activism.  Live weekly classes are back: Monday 7pm PST, Thursday 7pm PST & Friday 11am PST here.  Jai Mā! Satyam Eva Jayate, truth alone triumphs.  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

    Mania, Feminism & Tantra in American Culture | My Statement Re: Allegations

  6. Aug 8

    Is Our Community Safe? | Public Forum & Open Discussion

    Okay wow. What a week. There’s so much value in our coming together to discuss grievances, clear up misunderstandings, ask questions & clarify our roles and relationships to one another, especially in the wake of the out of control narratives on the internet that has me guilty of everything and anything including human sacrifice. For this, the public forum/open discussion style satsangh we did last week is ideal. So we did another one tonight, as we had planned last week. Although we’ve decided Jvalamukhī (albeit coming from an ultimately good, if not a tad misaligned, place) as moderator is not the way forward, we still value the role of a neutral 3rd party moderation team to facilitate our forum discussions. To that end, I’m so grateful that Vera Devī was moderating this discussion! We met at the regular zoom link at our Monday night satsangh hashed it out for a few hours together and here's the complete recording.  Satyam Eva Jayate, the truth alone triumphs. Jai Mā! 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

    Is Our Community Safe? | Public Forum & Open Discussion

  7. Jul 17

    Dream Initiation | & Are We A Legitimate Tāntrik Lineage?

    We gave this talk on a special occasion: the amāvasyā (the new moon) that opens the gupta navarātrī period (the 9 nights of the summer goddess festival) and so to celebrate, we reflect upon dīkshā, spiritual initiation & the systems of accountability to ensure the credibility of Tāntrik lineages so that we can better contextualize our place as a community in the midst of all of that.  Mainly, I want to revisit the validity of intrapersonal mystical experiences like dreams and intuitions as reliable metric for religious authenticity even beyond texts and institutions and to substantiate this claim, we consider 4 important cases:  1. Vasugupta & the Śiva Sutra 2. Maheśvarānanda & the Mahartha Mañjarī,  3. Rāni Rasmani & the Dakshineshwar Temple,  4. Swami Ashokananda's "śaktopaya dīkshā" (to borrow Swami Turiyananda's phrase here) from Swami Vivekananda in meditation & dream experience  Here is a playlist of talks on our guru-paramparā & thoughts on lineage. And here are some videos on our mission, ideals, manifesto etc.  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

    Dream Initiation | & Are We A Legitimate Tāntrik Lineage?

  8. Jul 17

    How To Be Blissful, Powerful, Beautiful & Abundant | Śrī Vidyā 101 & Saundarya Laharī, Verses 1-4

    To celebrate the Gupta Navarātrī (Summer Goddess Festival) this year, we got together in Portland and decided to take up a new text, the Saundarya Laharī, an exceedingly beautiful Śrī Vidyā primary source & primer attributed to Ādi Śankarācarya to study alongside the Yoginī Hṛdāya which we started studying together last week.  In this first of many talks on the Saundarya Laharī (follow along with this lecture series here), after a little introduction & discussion featuring Mahadevaji (which you can watch here), I jump in to introduce some foundational & preliminary ideas about Tāntrik Goddess worship starting with the Aṣṭarasā (अष्टरसा) (the “8 flavors of consciousness”) model and the Aṣṭamātṛkās (the 8 fierce yoginīs that correspond to the 8 sets of the Sanskrit alphabet) to which these rasas are often mapped.  Here are some citations & resources: From Bhārati’s classical source: शृङ्गारहास्यकरुणरौद्रवीरभयानकाः । बीभत्साद्भुतसंज्ञौ चेत्यष्टौ नाटये रसाः स्मृताः śṛṅgārahāsyakaruṇaraudravīrabhayānakāḥ | bībhatsādbhutasaṃjñau cetyaṣṭau nāṭaye rasāḥ smṛtāḥ ||  Śṛṅgāra (erotic love) Hāsya (comedy) Karuṇa (compassion/grief) Bhayānaka (terror) Bībhatsa (disgust) Vīra (heroic) Adbhuta (amazement) Raudra (anger) And the bonus +1 from Abhinava: Śānta (quiescent/transcendent/spritiual) note: Aṣṭarasā (8 flavors) is the classical list; Abhinava adds the 9th to make “navarasa” (9 flavors). The source for these is Abhinava Bhārati, Abhinava’s commentary on the Nātya Śāshtra of Bharati but also for the “9th”, see Abhinava’s Dhvanyaloka Locana, his commentary on Anandavardhana’s “dhvani” idea (what makes poetry poetic) Here are the 8 sets (mātrikā-Varga/Mātrika Kula) of Sanskrit letters: स्वर (vowels) अ (a), आ (ā), इ (i), ई (ī), उ (u), ऊ (ū), ऋ (ṛ), ॠ (ṝ), ऌ (ḷ), ॡ (ḹ), ए (e), ऐ (ai), ओ (o), औ (au), अं (aṃ), अः (aḥ) कण्ठ्य (gutturals) क (ka), ख (kha), ग (ga), घ (gha), ङ (ṅa). तालव्य (palatals) च (ca), छ (cha), ज (ja), झ (jha), ञ (ña). मूर्धन्य (retroflex) ट (ṭa), ठ (ṭha), ड (ḍa), ढ (ḍha), ण (ṇa). दन्त्य (dentals) त (ta), थ (tha), द (da), ध (dha), न (na). ओष्ठ्य (labials) प (pa), फ (pha), ब (ba), भ (bha), म (ma). अन्तस्थ (semivowels/liquids) य (ya), र (ra), ल (la), व (va) ऊष्मन् (sibilants + aspirant) श (śa), ष (ṣa), स (sa), ह (ha). In the next class, we’ll look at another set of 8 (the 8 shadows/pāśās) to complete our understanding of today's material!  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

    How To Be Blissful, Powerful, Beautiful & Abundant | Śrī Vidyā 101 & Saundarya Laharī, Verses 1-4
See All (411)

4.8
out of 5
67 Ratings

About

The world of Yoga is wide and varied. In this podcast, yogi Nish the Fish shares the deeper dimensions of Yoga, Vedanta and Tantra, asking the big questions: why do we practice? What is meditation? What is the purpose of a human life? What is Beauty? What is Death? Nishanth Selvalingam studied various South Asian philosophies with his Shaivite grandfather in an ashram in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and moved to Los Angeles to study philosophy, teach yoga and play guitar in a rock band. Join him and special guests as they explore Yoga, in all its splendours. For more episodes and instruction, and to support this humble offering of the heart, visit me on Patreon: patreon.com/yogawithnish

Information

You Might Also Like