Vedic Threads

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.

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.

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.