Show Notes
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✦ Practice Online Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join ✦ OmSom App (free) Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community Search OmSom in the App Store ✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Already 200 Hr trained? This is our Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto ✦ 200 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka ✦ 300 Hr Yoga Teacher Training Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training ✦ 50 Hr Online Yin Yoga Teacher Training Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto ✦ Practice in Person Classes, workshops & community events in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class
IN THIS EPISODE Most of us were taught somewhere along the way that wanting is the problem. Renounce desire, want less, be more content. Tantra says the opposite.
The texts say the universe itself begins with a wanting. Icchā Śakti, the first of the three powers, the divine impulse to manifest. Without icchā, nothing comes into being. The work isn't to silence wanting. It's to recognise the wanting itself as the divine moving through you.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN
✦ What icchā śakti is: the first stirring in Śiva's stillness, consciousness desiring to know itself as another ✦ The three powers of the Trika system: icchā (the wanting), jñāna (knowing what is wanted), kriyā (bringing it into form) ✦ Where this sits: above the Sāṃkhya map rather than inside it, Kashmir Śaivism building layers on top of Puruṣa and Prakṛti ✦ Not an ego desire: not the casual craving for hot chips, but the impulse moving through you ✦ The same three powers that create the universe create your morning: the wanting to rise, the knowing of what you'll do, the body actually rising ✦ Why you don't have to know what you want yet: icchā comes first, jñāna comes second ✦ Paige on prajñāparādha: the crime against wisdom, and what it costs to suppress the body's natural urges
TEXTUAL REFERENCES ✦ Pratyabhijñāhṛdayam, opening sūtra: consciousness, free and self-luminous, is the cause of the manifestation of the world ✦ Mālinīvijayottaratantra: icchā śakti as the first stirring, the moment of self-awareness within luminous consciousness ✦ Bhagavad Gītā 7.11: "I am the strength of the strong, free from passion and attachment, and in beings I am desire that does not conflict with dharma" ✦ Yoga Sūtra 4.7: the yogi's karma is neither black nor white, and for others it is of three kinds (sañcita, prārabdha, kriyamāṇa) ✦ Swami Rama, paraphrased: in our tradition we accept Patañjali's yoga as a preliminary step toward the deeper practices ✦ The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield: the first insight, following the coincidences
TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE ✦ On the mat, notice the small desires: to move or to be still, to do more or to do less. Then ask where that desire is coming from ✦ Eat slowly, and wait for the first burp. It's often just a small passing of air, so you'll only catch it if you're listening ✦ Stop overriding the body's natural urges. Hunger, thirst, tears, the need for the toilet. This is where listening begins ✦ When someone arrives in your mind for no reason, call them ✦ Ask: what does life want to experience through me? Where is that pull taking me? ✦ Discern between the two. Is this the will of the ego, or the will of the divine?
SHARE & CONNECT
Website: https://omsomyoga.com OmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App Store Instagram: @omsomyoga
If this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it.
We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we’d love to connect with you.
HARI OM
More from Om Som Yoga + Ayurveda Podcast
PRACTICE WITH US✦ Practice Online — Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join✦ OmSom App (free) — Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community. Search OmSom in the App Store✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training — Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto✦ 200 Hr YTT — Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka✦ 300 Hr YTT — Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training✦ 50 Hr Yin YTT — Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto✦ Practice in Person — Classes, workshops & community in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class IN THIS EPISODEWhat's the fastest way to steady a restless mind? Most would say discipline. Patañjali offers a shortcut in his very first chapter: īśvara-praṇidhānād vā — "or, by devotion." The mind doesn't need to be forced; it takes the shape of whatever it dwells upon. Week three of THE PATHS OF YOGA is BHAKTI YOGA, the path of devotion — where love itself is the vehicle, and emotion, the most unruly force in human life, becomes the most direct road home. We open with Hanumān breaking open Sītā's priceless pearls one by one — "if Rāma is not inside it, it has no value to me" — and what the court saw when he tore open his own chest. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN✦ Bhakti from the root bhaj — "to share, to partake, to belong to": not worship at something distant, but participation in the beloved ✦ The mind becomes what it loves — worry is just devotion pointed at fear ✦ Aparā and parā bhakti: love with a face as the practice; lover, loving and beloved dissolving into one as the fruit ✦ Why Patañjali makes devotion a valid technique — and YS 1.39's quiet generosity: meditate on whatever you love ✦ The nine limbs of bhakti: hearing, chanting, remembering, serving, worshipping, bowing, servitude, friendship, self-offering ✦ The democratic path: no qualification, no Sanskrit — a leaf, a flower, water, offered with love, is enough ✦ Paige's doṣa medicine TEXTUAL REFERENCES✦ Nārada Bhakti Sūtra 1–2: "bhakti is of the nature of supreme love directed toward this" ✦ Bhagavad Gītā 9.26: a leaf, a flower, a fruit, water — offered with devotion, accepted ✦ Bhagavad Gītā 12.2: those whose minds have entered the beloved are the most established in yoga ✦ Yoga Sūtra 1.23 & 1.39: by devotion to Īśvara; by meditation on whatever is dearly desired ✦ Bhāgavata Purāṇa 7.5.23: Prahlāda's nine limbs ✦ The Hanumān pearl-necklace story, Rāmāyaṇa devotional tradition TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE✦ Open practice by dedicating it to something you love — and notice how the quality of attention changes ✦ Japa with feeling: the mantra practised not as technique but as address — someone is being spoken to ✦ Take one of the nine limbs as your whole practice this week: just hearing, or just remembering ✦ Offer the first portion of one meal a day ✦ Notice what your mind already worships — what it returns to when no one is directing it — and choose deliberately ✦ Leave us a comment: if the mind becomes what it loves, what is your mind becoming? SHARE & CONNECTWebsite: https://omsom.yogaOmSom App (free): search OmSom in the App StoreInstagram: @omsomyogaIf this episode landed, the best way to support the show is to share it with one person who might need it. We run a yoga studio in Berwick, Victoria, offering classes, workshops, and Yoga Teacher Training programs. Wherever you are on your journey, we'd love to connect with you.HARI OM
PRACTICE WITH US
PRACTICE WITH US ✦ Practice Online - Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join ✦ OmSom App (free) - Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community. Search OmSom in the App Store ✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training - Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto ✦ 200 Hr YTT - Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka ✦ 300 Hr YTT - Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training ✦ 50 Hr Yin YTT - Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto ✦ Practice in Person - Classes, workshops & community in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class
PRACTICE WITH US ✦ Practice Online — Sadhana Sangha: 5 practices per month, asana workshops, subtle body techniques & Yoga Sūtra translation https://practice.omsom.yoga/365-sadhana-sandha/join ✦ OmSom App (free) — Yoga philosophy, Sanskrit study & our online community. Search OmSom in the App Store ✦ 100 Hr Yoga Teacher Training — Asana Sadhana Dharma bridging course https://practice.omsom.yoga/asana-sadhana-dharma-oto ✦ 200 Hr YTT — Sri Lanka Immersion 2027 https://omsom.yoga/200-hour-yoga-teacher-training-sri-lanka ✦ 300 Hr YTT — Online & India Immersion 2026/2027 https://omsom.yoga/300-hour-advanced-hatha-yoga-training ✦ 50 Hr Yin YTT — Online https://practice.omsom.yoga/yin-yoga-and-prana-vayus-oto ✦ Practice in Person — Classes, workshops & community in Berwick, Victoria https://omsom.yoga/book-a-class