We often see puranas as a collection of stories, Stotras as prayers and mantras as meditative chants. Stotras and mantras are viewed as separate conduits to a higher plane of spirituality. Puranas are often, not always, viewed as disconnected ancient stories yet connected with the essence of Bharatiya culture. We have to look at these three as three integral connectors in the same path of Bhakti yoga, one more subtle than the other. This session explores some examples of how strotras become the connectors between the corpus of puranas and the subtle mantras.

This discussion will explore how the 15th-century mystic-poet Kabir created a radically inclusive spiritual vision that embraces both the sacred and domestic spheres. Unlike the renunciation-focused spirituality of his era, Kabir championed the grihasth (householder) path as fertile ground for spiritual realization.

The first yoga propounded by Lord Shiva was Pashupata, the original name describes the aim of yoga. Pashu meaning: animal and pati: meaning master, it is the yoga in which one becomes aware of the relationship between one’s self and the divine in the form of slave and master. The Pashupati’s are ascetics who live according to very strict principles, first described in the Pashupata Sutras, a treatise of yoga written in the second century BCE by Koundinya. A resurgence of the Pashupati’s took place in the first century CE, in Gujurat, India.

Wednesday, 10:00am ET (New York Time) / 8:30 pm [...]

Thursday, 10:00am ET (New York Time) / 8:30 pm [...]

This session explores navarasa as a lived aesthetic and healing experience through nāda (music), Āyurveda, and the Śaiva – Tantric vision articulated by Abhinavagupta. Emotions are approached not as disturbances to be controlled, but as movements of consciousness that can be refined, balanced, and transformed. Drawing from aesthetics, Śaivism, and Tantra, the session reveals how rasa becomes a bridge between art, inner awareness, and human well being.

This session explores how rasa is present in everyday suffering. In stress, sickness, anxiety, grief, irritation, and emotional fatigue. Instead of pushing these states away, the session invites participants to recognise them as distinct rasas that colour the mind, shape behaviour, and affect the body. Drawing from Āyurveda and rasa theory, the session looks at how emotions move through digestion, sleep, breath, and energy, and how healing often begins with clear seeing. Through simple daily practices such as mindful listening, breath, rhythm, and small lifestyle shifts, participants will learn how rasa can become a practical guide for emotional balance and recovery.

This session brings rasa to life’s deepest threshold, and to the many smaller thresholds within daily life. Endings, losses, separation, ageing, and letting go. Through navarasa, participants will explore how fear and sorrow arise alongside love, devotion, courage, and wonder, each as a lived flavour with its own intelligence. Drawing from the Śaiva Tantric vision, the session reflects on how emotions can be held without denial or collapse, and gradually refined into insight. The movement of rasa toward śānta becomes a way to understand transcendence not as escape, but as steadiness and clarity within change. The session invites participants to see how living with rasa each day can prepare the mind for transition with depth, dignity, and peace.