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Hari-kirtana das

Hari-kirtana is an author, mentor, and yoga teacher who shares his knowledge and experience of how the yoga wisdom tradition can guide us toward meaningful and transformative spiritual experiences.

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Welcome and thanks for becoming a subscriber!

Thank you for becoming a member of my online community. I hope I'll be able to be of service to you as we journey together down the path of transcendental knowledge. Click here to find out about upcoming group study opportunities with me. If you'd like to hear my conversations with a variety of podcast hosts about bhakti-yoga philosophy in theory and practice, the relationship between faith and knowledge, perspectives on cultural appropriation, tips for yoga teachers, and observations on...

9 months ago • 1 min read

Greetings Reader, I'm happy share the news that my new my book, Journey Into the Bhagavad Gita - A Guide to Exploring Timeless Principles of Transcendental Knowledge and Integrating Them Into Your Life, is set for release on May 23, 2024. Here's the cover: When I started on this project, I had no idea how long it would take to finish writing, editing, designing, and publishing this book. To be honest, if I had, I might not have written it. But I didn't and I did and it's done. Whew! Here's an...

4 days ago • 2 min read

Greetings Reader - In a world of 60-second news cycles, wildly competing narratives, and hyperbolic supposition posing as authoritative journalism, distinguishing truth from opinion has become increasingly challenging. Without a compass that can reliably point us in the direction of reasonable belief and away from misguided theories, We can easily get lost in a sea of information - and misinformation - overload. That's where pramāṇa comes in. Pramāṇa, which means “evidence” in Sanskrit, is...

10 days ago • 1 min read

Greetings Reader - Explaining how the physical systems inside our bodies give us the ability to distinguish one thing from another, integrate information, and perform basic functions like watching, listening, and speaking are what scientists call "easy problems." Explaining why and how we have subjective experiences, on the other hand, is what David Chalmers, professor of philosophy and neural science at New York University, dubbed "the hard problem of consciousness." As Meghan O'Gieblyn,...

24 days ago • 2 min read

Greetings Reader - A friend of mine recently asked me a question: "What is the teaching that had the biggest impact on your spiritual life?" My friend is a person. I wouldn't blame you for thinking that I'm stating the obvious: I'm a person, you're a person, everyone we know is a person. But how do we know that our experience of individual personhood is real and not just an illusion? Respected members of the scientific community think this is a reasonable question. And many of those who work...

30 days ago • 2 min read

Greetings Reader - I'm very excited to let you know about the new spring/summer courses and workshops I'm offering this year! Thursday Night Bhakti Satsang - Divine Madness: The Remarkable Teachings of Sri Chaitanya 14 classes - Live via Zoom starting April 4 @ 8:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time. Sri Chaitanya was a 15th century scholar, mystic, social activist and transcendent leader who revolutionized the spiritual culture of India. However, his impact on modern spirituality is largely...

about 1 month ago • 2 min read

Greetings Reader - I’ve given talks about how to give a talk, offered workshops about how to develop a workshop, and taught classes about how to teach a class. Now it’s time to have a conversation about how to have a conversation. I’m so meta. But meta in a yogic way. Yoga has its own meta-ness, as exemplified in the Bhagavad-gita. The Gita is a narration of a conversation. As such, it’s not just a medium for the transmission of transcendental knowledge; it’s also a case study in how to have...

about 2 months ago • 2 min read

Greetings, Reader - For the past five years I’ve had the honor of participating in a local high school’s annual “Yoga Minimester.” It's pretty awesome: the students spend three days learning about yoga and meditation. This year, I had two classes with them: a guided meditation practice and their closing session, which included an introduction to kirtan: call-and-response chanting of Sanskrit mantras. At the beginning of their Minimester, the students heard a bit about the history of yoga and...

2 months ago • 4 min read

Greetings Reader - I hope you'll join me for my new four-part series of classes on Patañjali’s Yoga-sūtras, starting this Sunday, February 18 @ 12:00 pm ET. The Yoga-sūtras are codified instructions on the science of self-realization. Often thought of as a system of yoga for renunciants, Patañjali’s sūtras also contain actionable guidance on how to engage with the world in such a way as to spiritualize our consciousness. The Yoga-sūtras challenge us to find the connection between the relative...

2 months ago • 1 min read

Greetings Reader - Our next Community Conversation is coming up this Wednesday, February 14, @ 12:00 pm ET. This month's topic: the connection between spirituality and social justice. One great feature of our free monthly conversations is that they flow in a natural and spontaneous way. I'm always interested to see which way the conversation will go. I also like to think about the topic beforehand to come up with some jumping off points for our discussion. Here's where I'm at with this topic...

2 months ago • 3 min read

Greetings Reader - The razzmatazzy reverberations of whirligigging slot machines greets you almost the moment you step out of the plane and onto the jetway leading into the terminal; welcome to Las Vegas. I used to fly into the circus atmosphere of Glitter Gulch every year for NAB - the National Association of Broadcasters convention. Once upon a time, in what now seems like a previous life, I worked for video production systems manufacturers. My job was to go to trade shows and demonstrate...

3 months ago • 3 min read
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