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PODCAST

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish

Nishanth Selvalingam

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

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All Episodes

128:26

Stories of Kāpālikas & Aghoris in Sanskrit Literature

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/10/05

Somewhat of a sequel to our discussions Where do Kāpālikas Come From? | Tantra as a Dravidian Tradition & Are We Aghoris? | Kapālikās & Tāntrikas of the Deccan & South India, in this talk we explore the often antagonistic and comedic characterization of Kāpālikas or early Śaiva Tantriks in Sanskrit literature and drama, to supplement the historical descriptions we encountered last time. Jai Mahākāla! Hit Me Up x Support the show Lectures happen live every Monday at 7pm PST a...

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130:43

Why Do Aghoris Drink Alcohol & Eat Meat? | Bliss...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/09/19

Last week we did something very exciting in out Left Hand Path Rituals & Worship of the Consort class where we shared mantras and instructions for rituals that are typically hard to find because of the censure around vāmācāra (the so-called "left hand path") but to properly explain the theology, soteriology and purpose of these rituals we plunged into this fascinating discussion about the Kāpālika Vrāta, and the spiritual benefit of societal disdain/misunderstanding which is as current to...

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224:16

How To Get Occult Powers from Gaṇeśa

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/09/17

Every Gaṇeśa Chathurthi (the fourth day of the waxing moon in the month of bhadrapada) we celebrate Gaṇeśa by giving a special talk. In the past few years we've discussed The Tāntrik Gaṇeśa (2024), Who is Gaṇeśa? (2025) and also How To Worship Gaṇeśa (2025) approaching the topic from a few different angles. But this year I wanted to do something more ambitious and direct, something we've never done before. And as such, we gave one of my favorite talks of all time discussing a teaching that I ...

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174:31

Where do Kāpālikas Come From? | Tantra as a Dravidian...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/09/09

On Kali Jayanti/Krishna Janmāshtamī last week, we were especially inspired and we gave a talk called What Form of Kali Do I Worship? | Ādyā Kālī vs. Kṛṣṇa and still buzzing from that, we plunged right into Are We Aghoris? | Kapālikās & Tāntrikas of the Deccan & South India where we looked at some historical Sanskrit literature to contextualize just what tradition we're part a of and just what it is we're doing here, especially given all the ambiguity around the internet's conception o...

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191:22

Are We Aghoris? | Kapālikās & Tāntrikas of the Deccan...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/09/08

On Kali Jayanti, we gave one of my favorite talks ever called What Form of Kali Do I Worship? | Ādyā Kālī vs. Kṛṣṇaand buzzing from the inspiration of that one, we rolled into into our Friday morning satsangh with this wonderful introduction to literary depictions of early śaivas (i.e Kāpālikas) in some classical Sanskrit and non Sanskrit historical sources to establish ourselves in a historical context that is often missed when discussing Tantra & Aghoris & whatnot. I hope you enjoy ...

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239:03

What Form of Kali Do I Worship? | Ādyā Kālī vs. Kṛṣṇa

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/09/05

Every time Krishna Janmāshtamī/ Kali Jayanti (the 8th day waning moon of the holy month of Shiva, śrāvana) I find that I am especially inspired. It is no insignificant thing that Kālī & Krishna share the same "birthday"! Last year, we gave a talk on the subject called Krishna = Kali and I still think it's one of the best talks we've given, like, ever. Last night, similarly inspired, we went even further into the issue by asking: what is my Ishta, chosen ideal actually? What does our linea...

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147:54

Who Should You Learn Tantra From?

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/29

By now it's probably quite obvious that our spiritual community is like the Protestant church you grew up in. Although all of our content on the internet is listed as "adult-content", often I have overestimated the maturity of our audience because I am only just now starting to understand how deep seated our preconceptions can be regarding hierarchies of power and institutions of authority, what to say about these things in the spiritual world. The thing is: we tend to always look outside our...

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107:51

The Journey of Tantra So Far

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/28

Because it was the close of the eclipse portal with the lunar eclipse on śrāvana pūrnimā (pisces full moon) tonight, we were all in a reflective and contemplative mood and so in this talk, we discuss some of the tensions, paradoxes and contradictions inherent in the transmission of Tantra throughout the ages with the early sadhus in the Vedic era to the Śaiva Siddhantins to Ramakrishna to Vivekananda and to us in the modern context, before plunging into some practices from the Kāmakalā-Vilāsa...

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199:29

Why Do Hindus Worship Snakes? | The Tantra of Tiamat,...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/18

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...

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127:47

Can You Learn Tantra From Just Books | & Am I A...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/14

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 Frida...

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82:43

How To Practice Tantra & Guru Yoga Responsibly

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/14

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 tal...

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89:08

Hypertrophy of Reason, Ruma Poudell | Brown &...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/08

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 fri...

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180:38

Is Our Community Safe? | Public Forum & Open Discussion

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/08

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 ...

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111:26

Mania, Feminism & Tantra in American Culture | My...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/08/08

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 atte...

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188:45

Dream Initiation | & Are We A Legitimate Tāntrik...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/07/17

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 intuiti...

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88:55

How To Be Blissful, Powerful, Beautiful & Abundant |...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/07/17

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 Mahade...

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50:14

Different Ways To Use Khaḍgamālā Stotram

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/07/11

We ended our last conversation (What Is The Śrī Cakra? | Yoginī Hṛdāya, Verses 1-18) with an invitation to start chanting regularly the Devī Khaḍgamālā which you can learn more about here: A Simple Way To Worship The Srī Yantra | Khaḍgamālā Stotram if this text is new to you. It is perhaps the best introduction to the practice of Śrī Vidyā because until we understand the names of all the deities (emanations of the one deity, Tripurā), we will likely not be able to map them on to the cakra, wh...

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166:44

Getting Started With Śrī Vidyā: The Path of Beauty,...

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/07/10

Since we recently took up a concerted study of a rather high level text in the non-dual śākta tradition, the Yoginī Hṛdāya (the last 3 chapters of a much larger work in the Śrī Vidyā tradition, Vāmakeśvarīmatatantra in 8 chapters) at our weekly Thursday evening text study, I thought I'd share this little voice recording from the other night after our Kālāshtamī pūjā where we offer a brief run through of the first of three chapters of this text with some loose commentary. I'll drop the videos ...

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170:09

Who Can Practice Tantra? | An Apology

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/07/10

Tantra has often been considered a closed tradition because its texts and the teachings transmitted in them on maṇḍala/cakra (geometric diagrams representing the retinue of deities as emanations of the central deity/ a philosophical presentation of the Absolute nature of reality), mantra (a sacred sound formula which is synonymous with the Deity/Absolute Reality as a vibrational pattern) and pūjā (ritual procedures detailing the employment of mantras to contact and assimilate the energies of ...

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47:45

re: Dīkshā, Tāntrik Initiation

For the Love of Yoga with Nish the Fish ·

2026/07/10

Because we are all of us different, naturally, we want different things out of life and out of spirituality and we so all come to it with different expectations and values and backgrounds. Often, this means we're going to have different (and equally valid) ideas about “Tantra”, “Guru” & most importantly “Dīkshā”, spiritual initiation. In Indic spiritual traditions, we tend to value texts (śāstra) to substantiate our claims and this is especially true of Tantra which is in a large part a...

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