Episode 99: Chandogya Upanishad Chapter 8: Indra and Vairochana Apprentice with Prajapati

Prajapati once said: ‘The Self is free from sin, free from old age, free from death, free from sorrow, and free from hunger and thirst. It is the cause of desire for Truth and for commitment to Truth. This Self has to be sought for and thoroughly known. The person who has sought for and known the Self attains all worlds and all desires’.

Both the gods and the demons came to know from people what Prajāpati had said. They said, ‘We shall search for that Self, by knowing which we can attain all the worlds and whatever things we desire.’ With this object in view, Indra among the gods and Virocana among the demons went to Prajāpati, carrying fuel in their hands.

Chandogya Upanishad

What happens when the king of the gods and the king of the demons meet up at the hermitage of Prajāpati, the Great-Grandfather? This fascinating story is the grand finale of our journey through Chandogya Upanishad. Fasten your seatbelt for takeoff!

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 98: The Vedic View of Gambling

I make a resolve that I will not go gaming.

So my friends depart and leave me behind.

But as soon as the brown nuts are rattled and thrown,

to meet them I run, like an amorous girl.

Rig Veda, Dyuta Sukta, tr. HH Wilson

Gambling is a hot topic in Colorado, with two bills coming before the State Senate to limit internet gaming, yet compulsive gambling is an age-old problem.

  • What are the symptoms of Gambling Disorder?

  • What is the Vedic view of gambling?

  • How did gambling contribute to a world-ending cataclysm?

  • How can Ayurveda help with recovery from Gambling Disorder?

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 97: Palantir, Epstein and the Dark Enlightenment

Trump’s Gaza fantasy fuses necropolitics with venture capital. Flatten a place, declare it “free,” and auction it to the highest bidder. This is the Network State in its most ghoulish incarnation: a tech-fascist casino built atop genocide and displacement.

Gil Duran in Tech Policy Press

What is Palantir? Why is it dangerous? Who is Peter Theil, Palantir’s billionaire co-founder?

Learn about:

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 96: Stages of Grief

Out of the fullness of thy heart invite sorrow, and the joy thereof shall be in abundance. Sorrow shall bring forth love eternal, sorrow shall unfold the weaving of Life, sorrow shall give the strength of loneliness, sorrow shall open the closed doors of thy heart, sorrow shall conquer the spaces of eternity.

J Krishnamurti

Whether you are experiencing grief yourself or wanting to know how to support a friend or a client who is dealing with grief, this talk will help to guide you. Learn about the original Kubler Ross Stages of Grief as well as a newer and expanded model as you hear Alakananda Ma’s unique reflections on love and loss.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 95: Chandogya Upanishad Chapter 8: The Space in the Heart

Om. This body is the city of brahman, Within it is an abode in the shape of a lotus, the heart, and within that there is a small space. One must search within this space and earnestly desire to know what is there.

Chandogya Upanishad 8, 1

Explore the ultimate mysticism in this section of Chandogya Upanishad, as Alakananda Ma unfolds the teachings on the nature of the Self and the space in the heart.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 94: What is Panchakarma?

What is panchakarma? Learn about:

  •      Ayurveda—more than wellness

  •     Pacification and purification

  •   What is pacification?

  •    What is purification?

  •    If you book an abhyanga or shirodhara at a spa, is it panchakarma?

  •    If an Ayurvedic practitioner tells you to get an abhyanga or shirodhara, is it panchakarma?

  •     Purvakarma and panchakarma

  • How panchakarma works

  • How we can help you meet your health goals

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 93: Unmasking the Board of peace

“The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink”

George Orwell Nineteen Eighty-Four

  • Is the Board of Peace a properly-constituted Board?

  • Does it have the right to oversee the United Nations?

  • What are the ways it violates the UN charter?

  • Who does it benefit?

  • Does it even exist as an entity?

Join Alakananda Ma as she examines the human rights implications of Trump’s Board of Peace and the ways it may affect all of us.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 92: Bringing on Armageddon

This past week, members of the military reported being told by commanders that Trump was “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth.”

Let’s look together at what the beliefs are that underpin statements such as this. We’ll uncover

  • End times beliefs

  • Christian Zionism

  • Dispensationalism

  • What is meant by Armageddon

  • What is the Armageddon lobby

  • How these beliefs impact politics

  • A positive vision we can offer as a counterbalance

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 91: Chandogya Upanishad Chapter 7

True, I have learnt much, but I know only the word meaning. I do not know the Self. Sir, I have heard from great persons like you that only those who know the Self are able to overcome sorrow. I am suffering from sorrow. Please take me across the ocean of sorrow.’ Sanatkumāra then said to Nārada, ‘Everything you have learnt so far is just words’.

Chandogya Upanishad

Narada Muni was the Renaissance Man of his age. He knew all that was to be known. Yet he is well aware that all his knowledge is nothing but words. What happens when he comes, in all innocence, to the great sage Sanatkumāra?

Layer upon layer, Sanakumāra leads Narada to the ultimate truth. Follow Narada Muni on this greatest of all journeys.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 90: Ayurveda for Arthritis

Learn about rheumatoid arthritis, gout and osteoarthritis.

  • How does Ayurveda see arthritis?

  • How does the Ayurvedic approach contrast with that of Western Medicine?

    How can Ayurveda help you with your arthritis?

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 89: Spiritual Guidance in the Age of Aquarius

How has the spiritual teacher expressed during the last two thousand years? What is the new face of the spiritual guide in the emerging paradigm?

  • How has spiritual guidance evolved down the ages?

  • How can you recognize a sadguru?

  • What about false gurus?

  • How will spiritual guidance look in the age of liberty, equality and fraternity

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 88: The Epstein Files: From Horror to Hope

“Some of the key stories the Epstein files reveal are areas that have been my specialist interest for years. The Kremlin. Silicon Valley. MAGA and the European far right. Israeli intelligence. And there, slap bang in the middle of it is a man who I’d never wanted to pay any attention to, Jeffrey Epstein. Not only are they all connected. Epstein connects them.”

Carole Cadwalladr

  •  What are some of the key understandings we glean from the files?

  • What does the Four Ages paradigm teach us about exploitation and abuse of women and children?

  • How can we, the people, bring hope out of horror? 

Action item—how you can help.

After I recorded the podcast I listened to an interview with investigative reporter Julie K Brown, whose reporting back in 2018 led to Epstein’s arrest. Brown is poring through the Epstein files and finding new information about how prosecutors failed to bring Epstein to justice for so many years.  She is documenting what she finds in her substack newsletter, The Epstein Files by Julie K. Brown. The justice system failed Epstein’s victims.

She says, “Epstein was still preying on young girls in 2018. That means he was doing this a decade after he was sent to jail in 2008 as part of the sweetheart deal he was given by Florida federal prosecutors.” (from her substack).

She asks us to call our electeds daily to say that this issue can’t be pushed aside. We need all the files. We need the names of co-conspirators. Everyone involved needs to be brought to justice; those who committed the crimes and those who knew and kept the secret, such as the doctors who performed the abortions.

An easier way to read/search the Epstein Files https://jmail.world/taxonomy .

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 87: Honouring Time: Rituals for Life

“One purpose of creative ritual was to experience the connection to “the other” as well as a deeper connection to oneself. That’s why ancient people would say: that ritual made me more aware of how I’m connected to life, to the earth, to the spirits, to the song of creation, and made me more aware of who I am inside, at the level of my own being. What we’ve lost is partly the sense that we are each connected to the whole thing, that each human soul is secretly connected to the living soul of the world.” -Michael Meade

We have created a secular world where time is money and money is time. Yet not all times are equal. Learn how to find connection with life by creating rituals to honour:

  • Sacred moments of each day

  • Special times of year

  • Life cycle events

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 86: Creating a Healing Space

"Within you, there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself." - Hermann Hesse

For thirty years, Alandi Ashram’s Healing Room has been a place of peace and healing, bringing comfort and upliftment to those who attend the clinic. Learn how to create your own healing sanctuary just as Alakananda Ma and Sadananda created the Healing Room.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 85: Chandogya Upanishad Part 2

That which is the subtle essence is the Self of the whole world. It is the True, it is the Self. Thou art That, Svetaketu.

Let’s continue our exploration of Chandogya Upanishad as we hear about Śvetaketu’s science experiments, simple yet profound ways his father brings him to experience the nature of the Self.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 84: Ayurveda for Memory

Thanks to your wholesome remedies, O God,

May I attain the span of a hundred winters!

Drive far away from us all hatreds and troubles

Scatter to the four winds every sort of sickness

Rudra, Rig Veda II 33, from Raimondo Pannikar,  The Vedic Experience

  • What are common causes of memory loss?

  • When should you be concerned about memory changes?

  • What simple lifestyle changes will help your memory?

  • What home remedies are good for memory?

  • How can Ayurveda help preserve your memory?

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 83: January 14th, a transformational day

“January 14th is the day of transfer of the sun and is of great importance. Whatever is our state today, to change that and accept the opposite—the best, the highest state, means a transfer, and this day is meant for that.” Upasani Maharaj

Learn the deep mystical teachings around January 14th, Makara Sankranti, and how to make the most of this cosmic opportunity.

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 82: Endings and Beginnings

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make an end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.

TS Eliot, Little Gidding, Four Quartets

Start your New Year with this beautiful reflection as Alakananda Ma weaves together her father’s wartime biography, Katha Upanishad, the teachings of the Bal Shem Tov, Mary Queen of Scots, TS Eliot and Rumi.

Die before you die; resurrection now!

Happy New Year! If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 81: Every Child is the Prince of Peace

“Once you get to be 74, and your potential remaining years are just in the teens, children and young people seem even more important, for you are handing the world over to them. You are exiting the stage and they are entering. They need a chance to play their part; to be the Prince or Princess of Peace in their own way.

In 1959, when I myself was just a little child, bearing the future of the world in my small hands, the nations of the world chose to declare that children have certain inalienable rights.

Whereas the child, by reason of his physical and mental immaturity, needs special safeguards and care, including appropriate legal protection, before as well as after birth…”

  • What are the ten key points in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child?

  • Who is responsible for upholdng them? (Hint—YOU!)

  • How can you fulfill your responsibility to this Declaration?

  • What are the hard questions you need to ask yourself?

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.

Episode 80: Making Peace with our Aspirations

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation. When I found I couldn't change the nation, I began to focus on my town. I couldn't change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.

Rabbi Yisrael Salanter

Enlightenment in the Age of the Compassionate Mother.  As our focus changes from perfection to wholeness, how do our aspirations and view of enlightenment develop?

Ma talks about:

  • What attainment is not

  • How to avoid spiritual materialism

  • Why we should not give up

  • What are the tools for humble awakening

  • What is the Little Way

  • How to practice Abandonment to Divine Providence

If you enjoyed this episode, be sure to leave us a 5 star review, and share it with a friend. For more enlightening discussions and practical wisdom on Ayurveda and spirituality, subscribe and join our facebook group, Alandi Ayurveda. To allow us to continue sharing valuable content, consider donating to Alandi Ashram. Until next time, may you walk the path of Ayurveda with grace and embrace the light of spiritual wisdom in your journey.