Show Notes
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 EPISODE Every yantra we've looked at this month ends at the same place: the centre. The dot. The tradition says that dot is not decoration - it's the source. The entire universe, before it becomes anything, condensed to a single point. We close our tantra month with BINDU: the point, the drop, the source of all things - and the claim that awareness can do the same thing, moving from scattered to one point, the gateway that leads us to yoga. We open with Śvetaketu and the banyan seed: break it open, find nothing - and from that nothing, the vast tree stands. Tat tvam asi. That, you are.
WHAT YOU'LL LEARN ✦ What bindu is: "drop, point, dot" - the dot above Aum, the centre of every yantra, the bindī at the brow ✦ The source of all things: nāda (vibration) → bindu (point) → form ✦ Bindu's two registers: the cosmic point of origin, and the haṭha yogi's vital drop that holds soma ✦ Awareness condensed to a single point: dhāraṇā as bindu-making, ekāgratā as attention gathered back to a seed ✦ The tantric completion: when awareness fully condenses, the point opens - what remains is the witness. Bindu is the door; Śiva walks through ✦ The month arrives home: mantra ends in the dot, yantra radiates from it, bindu is the centre all three were pointing to
TEXTUAL REFERENCES ✦ Chāndogya Upaniṣad 6.12–6.13: the banyan seed - the invisible essence from which the vast tree stands, closing in "tat tvam asi" ✦ Yoga Sūtra 3.1–3: dhāraṇā, dhyāna, samādhi - one point, one stream, then the point alone ✦ Nāda Bindu Upaniṣad: bindu as the first station of sound's inward journey after the M of Aum ✦ Haṭha Yoga Pradīpikā ch. 3: the vital drop - gather what is scattered, and raise it ✦ Caraka Saṁhitā, Sūtrasthāna 17: ojas - Āyurveda's own drop, the refined essence of all seven tissues
TRY THIS IN YOUR PRACTICE ✦ A bindu meditation to close the month: gaze at the centre of a yantra, close the eyes, rest in the after-image until even that dissolves - notice what remains watching ✦ Chant Aum and follow the M into the nasal resonance - ride the sound all the way to the dot ✦ In asana, collect to one point: breath at the nostrils, weight in the heels - one posture, one point, one mind ✦ Guard your ojas like a full cup - it leaks through screens, speech, stimulation, late nights ✦ Do one thing at a time as spiritual discipline ✦ Leave us a comment: if your scattered awareness were gathered to a single point tonight, what would be left watching?
SHARE & CONNECT Website: https://omsom.yoga 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 IN THIS EPISODEWhere do you go to worship? Tantra's answer is the most radical in the tradition: nowhere — you're already inside. Week three of our tantra month brings mantra (sound) and yantra (geometry) home to the MAṆḌALA: the sacred circle, tantra's principal temple of worship, and the claim that the true maṇḍala is the body itself. We begin under the floor — with the vāstu-puruṣa, the cosmic being pinned beneath every temple in India. If every temple is secretly a body, every body is secretly a temple: keeping it healthy is keeping the temple clean, and no institution holds the keys. WHAT YOU'LL LEARN✦ What a maṇḍala is: maṇḍa (essence) + la (container) — the container of essence; a yantra is gazed at, a maṇḍala is entered ✦ Maṇḍala as the form of the body: gates for senses, walls for skin, the garbha-gṛha (womb-chamber) at the heart ✦ The cakras as a column of maṇḍalas — each circle with its bīja (week one) and geometry (week two) ✦ Tantra's main temple of worship — and nyāsa, installing the deities limb by limb in the body ✦ The vāstu-puruṣa grid: 64 or 81 padas, the open Brahmasthan at the centre ✦ Keeping the body healthy as keeping the temple clean: śauca, and daily life as pūjā ✦ The travelling temple: every place the body sits becomes consecrated ground ✦ Autonomy back in spirituality: no membership, no gatekeeper — teachers as gardeners, not landlords