On a recent Sunday morning I awoke to the sound of my wife’s voice shouting my name, followed by “Call nine-one-one! Call nine-one-one!” The garage on the property just beyond our backyard fence was ablaze. The 9-1-1 operator told me that fire engines were already on...
In this talk, Swami Sarvapriyananda (senior monk of the Ramakrishna Order, and spiritual director of the Vedanta Center of New York) shares the teachings of the great Jnana Yogi Swami Vivekananda on the true nature of the Self. The talk is based on the Vijnana Vedanta...
Many have argued whether the inner life or the outer life is our home; the reflective saying that the outer world is but an illusion while the pragmatic say that all the meditation you can muster won’t feed you. Each has its lineage. Socrates said, “The unexamined...
We may look a little different, speak different languages, have different nationalities, but these are all different parts we play. Essentially, we are all one. As an analogy, consider the sea. All the waters came from the sea, isn't it so? From the sea, the water...
This time of year, I hear a lot of nostalgic tales—both happy and bitter—of families at Passover seders and in churches on Easter Sunday. My own memories include none of those things. I remember the joy of a prolonged school break, the hopeful spirit of early baseball...
The Bhagavad Gita is a foundational Yoga text. Integral Yoga Master Teacher Swami Asokananda, E-RYT 500 will explore "Lessons from the Bhagavad Gita" with participants from May 3 - 5, 2024 during this weekend immersion into this sacred text. The program takes place in...
Rev. Jaganath, Integral Yoga Minister and Raja Yoga master teacher, has spent a lifetime delving into the deepest layers of meaning in Patanjali’s words within the Yoga Sutras. Our series continues with the 31st and 32nd sutras of Chapter 1 in which Patanjali further...
In this talk, Swami Satchidananda uses practical, experiential language to describe the different dimensions of human life, emphasizing the importance of developing all aspects of our being in an integrated way—Integral Yoga, a complete Yoga. Each person is a mixture...
None of what you experience – thoughts, feelings, sensations, perceptions – is what you essentially are. You are the silent, aware presence that knows them. In this brief exploration, you are invited to investigate the one element of experience that is completely...
In this episode of the Integral Yoga Podcast, host Avi Gordon (director of the Integral Yoga Teachers Association) discusses with Amma Kidd the significance of collective prayer, the transformative influence of a Guru, surrendering to God's will, and the...
I know it sounds hard, but we must remember that when we go through, or see, suffering it is not the Immortal Self that suffers. Who is the sufferer then? It is the mind that goes through all the changes—the little ego, guided by vasanas, wrong thinking, and...
For more than 2,000 years, the Thirukkural has stood as one of the crown jewels of Tamil literature—a concise yet profound spiritual guide composed of 1,330 couplets, each offering deep insight into virtue, ethical living, love, and the art of creating a harmonious...
The Fourfold Sadhana of Jnana Yoga consists of viveka, vairagya, shadshampat or sixfold virtues and mumukshutva or strong yearning for liberation. Viveka dawns in one who, through the grace of God, has done virtuous actions in their previous births as offerings unto...
David Godman (his family’s actual surname!) read a book in 1974 about the great sage and jnani, Sri Ramana Maharshi, and two years later traveled to his ashram in India. Since then, he has lived almost continuously in Tiruvannamalai, the town where Sri Ramana spent...
In Switzerland I co-led a Zen retreat with Sensei Franziska Schneider at the most gorgeous retreat center I’ve been to (and I’ve been to several in Switzerland), two-thirds of the way up a tall mountain which she negotiated in her ancient Volvo through one hairpin...
When an epic spans more than 100,000 verses, outdistancing Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey tenfold, its retelling is no small task. The Mahabharata, composed over 5,000 years ago and attributed to the sage Vyasa, is the longest poem in recorded history. It is at once...