Claim OwnershipFor the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish
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© 2026 For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish
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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
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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 theory and practice, in a much deeper way. By Ma's grace, this talk turned out to be all at once a good introduction for absolute beginners, a helpful review for intermediate practitioners/students and a subtle, direct path teaching on the higher dimens...
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 how Indian spirituality is inclusive to all spiritual dispositions. i.e: you don't have to believe in "God" to make spiritual progress! In that talk, we also pointed out how the atheistic position is important for theists too since we must first...
After our second day of talks at the Atlanta retreat, I was feeling particularly charged and inspired and so I insisted on hosting the Monday night zoom satsangh and this is the discussion we happened to have! In this talk, I first sketch out some foundational metaphysical principles of pūjā, Tāntrik ritual worship which is at the heart of the tradition. Then, I compare various schools of thought within the wider tradition to make a case, like Abhinava Gupta and Ramakrishna, that the broade...
From our opening talk at the December 2025 Vedanta Society of Atlanta retreat, which I felt was especially inspired and rather foundational for almost everything we discuss here in this corner of the internet. May it be an offering to the lineage and to you, God incarnate! |You can watch all the videos from the retreat here. 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/7028...
Spiritual life is unbelievably simple. It is essentially all about single-pointed, sincere, intense love for God, by whatever name you want to call Her! It's about obsessions and absorption, about losing yourself in love for that which is most love-able, Love Itself. It's all about just choosing one Ideal and like a moth into flame, plunging recklessly into it! It should be fun! It should always be fun. It's the most fun! But, part of the fun is that we tend to make things very complica...
These past few weeks, we've been discussing some slightly more esoteric ideas including the ethos and strategy around Vāmācāra, the often misunderstood and misrepresented "left-hand path" of Tantra. Since it's the Gregorian new year, and since we're just about to roll out some Vāmācāra stuff in both practice and theory, in the light of Śrī Ramakrishna I thought it'd be good to start with this discussion from the Kāmakalā Vilāsa, an important Sri Vidya text in which we learn the bīja mantra ...
Recently, we've been having some fascinating discussions around Sārada Devī = Jaggadhātri = Ṣoḍaśī in order to understand the deep mystery of the pūjā that Śrī Rāmakrsna performed to Her on the Phalahārinī Kālī Pūjā new moon! Because the worship of the woman's body is considered to be the culminating practice in the Kaula mārga (as per its characterization in Abhinavagupta's Chapter 29 from Tantrāloka), we reflected a little bit on the Kaula (I.e left hand path) elements in Thakur and Holy ...
When we don't have honest and open discussions, with close scriptural and lineage citation when it comes to the more esoteric dimensions of our tradition and heritage as śaivas, it allows for so much superstition! Now, many are under the impression that Vāmāchāra is nothing more than hedonism masquerading as spiritual practice! What Vāmāchāra is or isn't is surely not up to any one lineage to define but at the very least we can say: it is surely a lot more than just offering transgressive ite...
In this exceedingly beautiful discussion we did last week as an offering to Holy Mother for Her Jayanti, he say a few things about how Tāntrik meditation and practice works in general (with reference to some of its unique, aesthetically rich features) and then based on this understanding, we translate and unpack the dhyāna-mantra, meditation/visualization mantra of Holy Mother Sārada Devī and in so doing, we explore many very esoteric Tāntrik concepts encoded in the verses of this hymn! The m...
One of the distinctive features of Kālī pūjā is animal sacrifice. But you know, this is only practice for a much greater sacrifice: the killing of the paśu, that is, one's own sense of limited self. Notice how Sri Ramakrishna used the same sword that is reserved for the goat sacrifice to offer Mā Kālī his own head (the best form of Nara Bali, human sacrifice) and also how later in his sādhana, he used a subtle, internal sword to cut even his beloved Kālī in half, to discover Her formle...
On the 8th day of the waning moon in the Vedic calendar month of Mrgaśirsha, we celebrate the birth anniversary of Holy Mother Sārada Devī. This an exceedingly auspicious a day for our lineage especially if not also for all worshippers of the Divine Mother everywhere in every lineage. It is a special day for everyone, actually, because today, we celebrate the "avatarahood" of the Divine Mother Herself! In 2023, we gave the talk The Tantra of Holy Mother Sarada Devi exploring Holy Mother's c...
I'm just so thrilled about all the new Kālī content we've been putting out this past month, in the days leading up to Śyåma Kālī Pūjā, and the weeks after: First, in How To Get Possesed By Kālī we carefully explained what it is to be a paśu or anu, a discreet unit of consciousness (i.e an embodied soul or jīva) and then carefully pointed out why the ānavopaya is so suited for most of us, despite our pretense at high-flying non-dual philosophies! The ānavopaya assumes duality, individuality ...
We gave this talk around the time of the Śyāmā Kālī Pūjā last month and now here is the recording as a present to celebrate this Scorpio New Moon! May it be an offering to each of you who are each living incarnations of the Goddess we worship! You'll find all our classes on Kālī pūjā guiding you in a step by step, mantra by mantra ritual here. Jai Mā! 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:...
After we performed our Śyāmā Kālī Pūjā this year (which you can watch here), we took up a short, concise but I think quite concentrated discussion on how image worship, the danger of superimposing our projections unto Kālī & the check and balance of taking seriously what Her saints have had to say about Her through their own mystical experiences throughout history. Most importantly, we point to the two "extreme" ends of the spectrum when it comes to Kālī devotees and we propose a sort of ...
Before we plunged into the fervor of Śyāma Kālī Pūjā, we paused to reflect on an important question that Sandhyā Devī astutely asked one morning which was more or less along the lines of "how can we verify the truth claims of the tradition"? "how do we stay sane, grounded & reasonable while practicing a somewhat radical form of Tantra?" "how do we know that our spiritual experiences are legitimate and not a function of delusion or egoic thinking?" (I paraphrase). Essentially, befor...
Some time ago on the 11th of September, we gave this talk on the very heart of our tradition and practice. September 11th in 1893 was the day Swami Vivekananda opened his transmission to the West (and the the world at large) at the Parliament of World Religions so for us it is a very sacred day when we commemorate the "turning of the wheel of dharma" yet again! Strangely, I haven't uploaded this talk until now. It felt fitting to do so since as I type this, we are in the midst of the v...
One of my favorite lectures of all time. We inquire into some "scary" themes in spiritual life like the potential difference between my will and God's will, as it is understood across various traditions with an emphasis on the life-affirming, immanence-oriented and desire-positive view of the Goddess traditions. We make a few remarks about why vampires as such a good metaphor for Tantrik spirituality and point out how the theme of vampirism appears in our tradition in the form Dākinīs and Yog...
The best way to start is to just start. Here's everything you need and more. 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/U8...
In this conversation about the mechanism of image-worship and the subtler (and more radical) aspects of the Tāntrik worship tradition, we carefully explain what it is to be a paśu or anu, a discreet unit of consciousness (i.e an embodied soul or jīva) and then carefully point out why the ānavopaya is so suited for most of us, despite our pretense at high-flying non-dual philosophies! The ānavopaya assumes duality, individuality and the separate, external existence of God that can be in...
One of the most important ideas in Tantra (and often one of the most misunderstood and most difficult to discuss) is Kuṇḍalinī! What exactly is this "serpent power", as Arthur Avalonji once called it? Specifically in this talk, we relate Kuṇḍalinī to Kālī to show her centrality in the Kaula tradition of Tantra! Finally, based on this reflection, we discuss the quintessential Kaula ritual, the "Ādi Yāga" which features in Chapter 29 of Abhinava Gupta's Tantrāloka. You'll find all of our ...
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I found you a few months ago on YouTube. your discourses are very eye opening, and I love your bubbly, bright, positive demeanor! I was sad to find out today that your youtube got terminated:( I had to scramble to find this podcast Channel. much love! can't wait to join a zoom meeting soon!