lost ways of 

knowing podcast

A Circle Yoga Shala Production

The “Lost Ways of Knowing” podcast teaches a basic history of the Indian traditions that feature centrally in modern yoga, focusing on the value of awakening or being liberated from ignorance. The ultimate aim is to establish a working definition of “Yoga as awakening” and initiate a dialogue about awakening as the systematic overcoming of self-deception, which leads to deeper intimacy with what is real.

S5E2 Realness
Season 5 Stela Balaban Season 5 Stela Balaban

S5E2 Realness

Having established that what is most meaningful to us is that which is experienced as the most real, this episode delves into ways of imagining the specifics of realness itself. Drawing again on the work of Dr. John Vervaeke, we discover that realness is experienced along four dimensions. The real is purposeful, coherent, significant, and it grounds our sense of what matters. In the absence of these four things, humans begin to sense that they are in the grip of illusion, and the yoga traditions have much to say about the prevalence of illusion in our lives. The discussion ends with a few thought experiments geared toward demonstrating that we prefer reality to illusion.

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S5E1 Essence & Meaning
Season 5 Stela Balaban Season 5 Stela Balaban

S5E1 Essence & Meaning

This episode investigates the idea that human beings manifest an essential nature defined by the ancient Yoga tradition. We suggest that the modern world has mistaken this nature and that we have been educated incorrectly as a result. This in turn has made it much more difficult to experience meaning, which we need in the same way we need things like food and water, breath, and love. We trace the plausibility of these ideas from both Eastern and Western sources: from ancient models of the soul in the Taittiriya Upanishad, which identifies our essential essence as bliss (Ananda), to the work of Dr. John Vervaeke of the University of Toronto’s Cognitive Psychology department. What if loss of meaning means loss of contact with our essence?

Edited transcript available here.

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S5 Introduction
Season 5 Stela Balaban Season 5 Stela Balaban

S5 Introduction

Season 5 continues our conversation about Yoga and the centrality of Awakening in its many manifestations. We look specifically at why things like self transcendence and awakening are necessary for humans, and how these things are intimately tied to our need for Meaning in life. We initiate an inquiry into the nature of liberation itself in order to speak about what kind of “thing” it is, rather than define it specifically as if it were a fact for instance. And lastly, we are hoping to steer these various themes in the direction of Wisdom, which is central to the project of awakening. Along the way, we’re enlisting the help of not only traditional sources from the Yoga tradition like the Bhagavad Gita, The Vedas, Upanishads and the Tantras, but also cognitive and social psychology.

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S4E3 Summary
Season 4 - Modernity Stela Balaban Season 4 - Modernity Stela Balaban

S4E3 Summary

Yoga is a discipline that has a complex and accurate understanding of all the things we need to do in order to determine what is real so we can determine what we care about, the nature of our relations and therefore help us determine what we should do.

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S4E1 Vivekananda
Season 4 - Modernity Stela Balaban Season 4 - Modernity Stela Balaban

S4E1 Vivekananda

This episode focuses on Swami Vivekananda, a key figure who brought Yoga to the West. His political and spiritual leanings show a strong influence from British colonialism, including: Western (Greek) notions of rationality and more universalist interpretations of Christian doctrine. His legacy left us a polarization between systems of yoga oriented by his definition of raja (“royal”, superior), and those oriented toward the more gross-physical (in his estimation) concerns of the Hatha Yogins. We see this value system at work today when, for instance, “gym yoga” is disparaged as “unspiritual”, or we hear “it’s not about the asana.” We should be careful with such ideas...

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S3E4 Subtle Body & Reversal
Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban

S3E4 Subtle Body & Reversal

This episode elucidates the final stage of the Siddha’s alchemical endeavors, which is known as reversal, or “ulta sadhana”. In reversal, the breath, mind, and seed of the human being are coagulated into a stable substance and directed into the subtle body to be transformed into the nectar of immortality. We look closely at the nature of this process and the specifics of the subtle body itself, which is found to be lunar in its nature: an ebb and flow of spirit and essence, coming into and passing out of being like the waxing and waning moon in its journey across the night sky.

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S3E3 Immobilization
Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban

S3E3 Immobilization

This episode focuses on the period that follows preparation and purification, which for Siddha based practices is known as immobilization. It turns out that the subtle sexual essences humans produce are also homologs of breath and mind. Breath, Mind, and Seed tend to evaporate and disperse quickly and must be caught and held in one place in order for the transformational process to proceed. The classic techniques of asana, pranayama, bandha, mudra etc are discussed as the means that drive this process.

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S3E2 Preparation & Purification
Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban

S3E2 Preparation & Purification

This episode focuses on the period of preparation and purification that must precede the generation of the divine body and the emergence of its powers of transformation. We look closely at how preparation and purification are themselves patterned on the Vedic sacrifice, and specifically how the metaphors used to describe the process are those of fertility and gestation.

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S3E1 Tantra, Hatha, Alchemy
Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban Season 3 - Secrecy Stela Balaban

S3E1 Tantra, Hatha, Alchemy

This episode is the first in a series that delves into what is known as “Siddha” yoga, which is a combination of indigenous Hindu Alchemy, Tantra, and Hatha Yoga. We discuss each of these areas as key sources for the ideological framework, the aims, and techniques of Modern practice. The images that emerge are those of mystical eroticism, in which all aspects of the universe are in an alchemical process of generating a subtle essence whose symbolic representation is that of divine and human sexual fluids. Via interaction with this sexual essence, the Siddha based traditions aim at the creation of an immortal body with the power to transform reality at any level.

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S2E3 Heresy
Season 2 - Synthesis & Heresy Stela Balaban Season 2 - Synthesis & Heresy Stela Balaban

S2E3 Heresy

This episode focuses on the life of the Buddha and the impact of his teaching in the Indian philosophical sphere. We tell a basic story of his life and journey to enlightenment, and detail the essence of his realization as the teaching of no-self (anatman), which represents a radical shift away from the atman based traditions that preceded him. We look at his concept of the Madhya-marga (“the middle way”), expressed in the four noble truths, and the eightfold path.

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  • A must listen for any yoga teacher!

    “The synthesis of information in these podcasts is a real gift! Matt takes so much information and shares it in such a concise and relevant way for today’s yoga practitioner. I really feel if you’re a yoga teacher or serious practitioner you must give this a listen! Can’t wait for more.”

    Jayme

  • Amazing!

    “I need to listen a second time with a paper and pen! So much amazing information I feel like could easily be in a university type setting that would cost thousands. Thank you for making this available. I’m excited to listen to more!”

    Rachel