Hari-kirtana das

If you're in the DMV, I hope you'll join me this Saturday for a double-header at and River Yoga, my friend Machelle Lee's beautifully-renovated new studio in the adorable little town of Brunswick, Maryland.

In Experiential Philosophy, we’ll tackle the question, “How can I transform yoga’s theoretical teachings into knowledge I can apply in my life?”

To do that, we’ll explore six essential teachings from the yoga wisdom tradition and learn how to apply each one in our personal, professional, social, and family lives. You’ll gain practical insights and tools to integrate this wisdom into your daily tasks and interactions—moving from knowledge to experience, one small step at a time.

Next, I'll guide you through my signature Cosmic Flow workshop.

The Cosmic Flow practice consists of an extended centering meditation that will guide you to your own unique inner space and establish the theme of the practice, a seamless transition into a flowing asana sequence, and a long guided savasana that will induce a state of deep relaxation and elevated awareness.

Designed for stress-reduction, clarity of thought, physical rejuvenation, and spiritual illumination, this workshop will leave you feeling as ethereal and brilliant as a ray of light.

Sign up for either or both.

Link is in the comments. Hope to see you there!

If you're in the DMV, I hope you'll join me and the rest of the DC Supersonic Kirtan collective this Saturday.

Chanting... prasadam (sacred food)... what could be better?!?!

I can 100% guarantee that you'll leave feeling even better than when you walked through the door!

This year, in addition to my longer courses and in-person events, I’m offering six engaging wisdom workshops designed to deepen your understanding of key concepts in yoga philosophy.

These 90-minute sessions are perfect for yoga teachers looking to enrich their classes or dedicated practitioners ready to dive deeper into their personal practice.

I'm also offering one workshop that's specifically designed for yoga teachers, offering guidance on how to develop and sell impactful workshops of your own.

Interactive and fun, each workshop provides practical insights you can immediately apply to your life, offering a transformative learning experience. Plus, they’re registered with Yoga Alliance for 1.5 continuing education credits.

Can’t make the live session? No problem! You’ll receive a recording to watch anytime, as often as you’d like. Join me and explore the timeless wisdom of yoga in a way that’s both accessible and impactful.

Winter is nature’s way of telling us to be still. Rain slows down as it crystallizes into snow, water turns to ice and stops moving altogether. And for the last few weeks, I’ve been following Mother Nature’s example and taking a step back from my outward-facing activities.

Last year was very busy and exciting: my book came out and I kept up a steady schedule of workshops, courses, teacher trainings, and personal mentoring. So I took most of December to rest, reflect, and prepare for the year ahead.

Taking log walks, catching up on my ongoing pile of books, appreciating art, trying new recipes, puzzling through puzzles, appreciating the tenacity of our winter garden, splurging at our favorite Vegan Chinese place, and just generally relaxing is a big change from my usually high-energy program. It’s all been very nourishing.

And even though it’s still cold outside, inside, I’m feeling very energized about what I’ll have to share with you in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, if yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind, then now is a great time to slow down and go a little deeper into your meditation practice—because Winter is the season of stillness.

How does the stillness of Winter inspire you in your spiritual practice? Let me know in the comments.

Today is Gita Jayanti, marking the day that Krishna spoke the Bhagavad-gita to Arjuna on the battlefield of Kurukshetra about 5,000 years ago.

Since then, generations of seekers from all walks of life have looked to the Gita's 700 verses for practical knowledge and spiritual wisdom.

What makes the Bhagavad Gita special among spiritual wisdom texts is that it fully embraces both the request for revelation that lies at the heart of religion and the quest for knowledge that lies at the heart of science.

The fruit of this integration of religion and science is called “transcendental knowledge”, a kind of knowledge that situates all that’s accessible to the intellect within the context of a truth that lies beyond the reach of the intellect.

The sublime dialogue of the Bhagavad Gita is also one of the most challenging conversations in the history of spiritual literature, especially for Western Readers.

This is because the conceptual foundation of the Gita's worldview is radically different from those of a modern worldview and that of most traditional religions, many of the references it contains are specific to the Vedic culture in which the Gita appears and therefore unfamiliar to a Western audience, and the only way to fully appreciate the Gita’s teachings is to try to live them rather than just read or think about them.

I wrote Journey Into the Bhagavad Gita as a guide for exploring spirituality beyond conventional boundaries in the hope that it will make it easy for you to enter the Gita's world and explore its teachings with confidence and enthusiasm.

Click the Link in my bio to get a free sample chapter. (https://hari-kirtana.com/books/)

Autumn comes late to Washington, DC. And lying on the warm earth, gazing up at the splendor of autumn, I’m reminded of the poetic line, 'The trees are about to show us how lovely it is to let things go.'

In Ayurveda, the practice of grounding—connecting our bodies directly to the earth—restores balance, calms the mind, and renews the spirit. The earth rising to support us, the cool breath of fall, and the dance of golden leaves above work together to soothe anxious hearts and strengthen our resolve not to be swept away by the winds of change .

The rustling leaves and vast sky above speak of change and renewal, a quiet assurance that even as seasons change, beauty and serenity are always within reach.

'To everything there is a season, and a time for every purpose under heaven.'

The world moves with its own grace. Even in moments when uncertainty stirs our hearts, the world around us persists in beauty and calm. Taking a moment to pause, to simply gaze up and let nature hold its quiet sermon, can root us in peace and remind us of the constancy and wonder that surrounds us.

What’s helping you to stay grounded and see the world's beauty in this season of change and uncertainty?

I live in Washington D.C. Our motto is "taxation without representation" because we don't have voting members of Congress even though more people live here than in Vermont or Wyoming. But we get to vote in Presidential elections. Our District is worth 3 votes in the Electoral College. Those votes always go to the Democratic Party's candidate; D.C. is a solid blue voting block, which is why Republicans are dead set against granting D.C. statehood.

And which is why you could say that my vote doesn't matter: the Electoral votes are a foregone conclusion.

But performing one's duty without attachment to the results is what bhakti-yoga philosophy calls for, and, as a citizen of the U.S.A., I have a civic duty to participate in elections, so I voted.

I can't honestly say that I'm 100% detached from the outcome, though. In fact, I have strong feelings about which candidate is morally, temperamentally, and intellectually qualified to hold the highest office in our country . . . and which one isn't.

Besides that, our environment has a profound impact on our consciousness. Therefore, supporting candidates who champion policies that approximate, if not directly align with, my understanding of spiritual values is a pragmatic way for an engaged yogi to participate in creating a compassionate social environment that’s favorable to truthfulness, simplicity, equanimity, inclusivity, and the elevation of consciousness.

Yoga, especially bhakti-yoga, has a broad social agenda aimed at the cultural re-spiritualization of human society for the sake of uniting people from all walks of life in peace, friendship, and prosperity.

I hope my vote does something to push us in the direction of this objective.

What about you? What's motivating you to cast your vote in this election? Let me know in the comments.

Yoga encourages us to transcend the dualities of political division but it doesn’t endorse an attitude of non-judgement as a justification for not participating in politics.

Detachment means equanimity regardless of the outcome of our actions, not abstaining from action.

Non-judgement has its place, but traditional yoga wisdom texts rarely cite it as a sign of wisdom. Instead, yoga philosophy encourages sound judgment and provides objective reference points to guide us in its application.

This principle supports using our power of discernment to distinguish between social conditions that are conducive for the spiritual upliftment of society and conditions that are detrimental.

The most basic favorable condition is the freedom to express one’s faith—privately and publicly—in whatever form of Divinity one feels drawn to. Yoga philosophy, especially devotional yoga philosophy, doesn’t just support the separation of church and state; it requires it.

In America, “separation between church and state” refers to the principle of government neutrality on religious matters that's enshrined in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

However, a concerted effort is underway, led by a well-organized group of wealthy and powerful people, to dismantle these protections under the banner of White Christian Nationalism, a political movement dedicated to transforming America’s representative democracy into a “Christian” theocracy.

White Christian Nationalism's political agenda is antithetical to the values of yoga and a serious threat that makes political neutrality indefensible; yogis have a responsibility to stand up for the values of yoga.

So while I aspire to rise above the dualities of politics to a place of equanimity through the cultivation of detachment, I’m also doing my part to defend society from authoritarian religious extremism.

And I hope you will, too: if you haven't already done so, please vote.

We usually think of death as . . . something we don’t want to think about.

In the great epic, the Mahābhārata, the demigod Yamarāja asked a wise king, “What is the most amazing thing within this world?” The king replied, “Hundreds and thousands of living beings meet death at every moment, but a foolish person, even after seeing friends and relatives pass away, nonetheless lives as if they won’t die and does not prepare for death. This is the most amazing thing in this world.”

For most of us, the idea of death inspires fear. And fear of death is the fifth obstacle to the experience of yoga (Yoga-sutra II.3).

One way to overcome this obstacle is by re-thinking the way we think about it.

And the best way to start is to look at what the yoga wisdom tradition has to say.

The Bhagavad-gītā presents death as the departure of the eternal spirit soul from the temporary material body, not as the cessation of our existence or the dissipation of individual consciousness into the totality of matter.

If we accept the proposition that we are imperishable spiritual beings experiencing life through the medium of ephemeral material bodies, then we can reframe any reflexive anxiety we have about death as a symptom of illusion: a misidentification of the body as the self and a corresponding forgetfulness of our true spiritual identity.

And when we re-frame death as an unnatural phenomenon arising from a combination of spiritual amnesia and material misidentification, we can flip the script: instead of thinking about death as a dark cloud to be pushed out of our minds so we can focus on enjoying life, we can think about death as a source of motivation to live a purposeful life that moves us in the direction of real freedom.

Do you have any thoughts about how you can reframe death as a source of motivation and inspiration rather than as a source of apprehension and lamentation? If so, I’d love to hear them!

Here's a FREE offering for all you yoga teachers out there...⁠
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As a yoga teacher, you know that guiding students through physical postures is only part of the experience. The real challenge often comes when trying to integrate yoga philosophy into your classes in a way that feels natural, relatable, and impactful. ⁠
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I’ve seen this time and time again—teachers want to share deeper teachings, but the fear of sounding too academic or disconnected holds them back. I get it, because I’ve been there myself.⁠
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That’s exactly why I created a free e-book to help. Inside, I outline a five-part structure that I use to make meaningful connections between the ancient wisdom of yoga and everyday life. ⁠
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This simple approach lets you smoothly transition from casual conversations with your class to sharing a bite-sized nugget of authentic philosophy—something students can apply on and off the mat—all in under five minutes.⁠
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Here's the link to receive your free guide:

https://hari-kirtana.com/dharma-talk/