Shows
Light on Yoga and Meditation#24 – What are Mantras?Mantras are far more than simple relaxation words—they are powerful sound vibrations and universal psychic forces accessible to anyone willing to study and practice them. Derived from Sanskrit roots meaning "mind" (man) and "liberation/protection" (tra), mantras serve to liberate energy, expand awareness, heal, and enlighten the mind while accessing our limitless creative potential.Beyond Words: The Science of SoundUnlike ordinary words, mantras consist of letters and syllables combined through complex esoteric mathematical systems passed down through millennia. These combinations create specific sound vibrations that induce elevated states of consciousness. Mantras work similarly to...2025-06-0126 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#23 – Yoga Day Sydney 2025 Interview - Dr Swami Shankardev and Janie LarmourWelcome to this episode of Big Shakti’s podcast, an interview with Dr Swami Shankardev by Janie Larmour, the organizer of Yoga Day Sydney, which will be held at Sydney Boys' High on Sunday, June 22nd, 2025.Get 20% off your ticket price using the coupon code BIGSHAKTI20.https://www.tickettailor.com/events/yogaday/1413531Janie states - "Swami Shankardev is this year’s featured teacher and headline speaker. He is a medical doctor, yoga acharya, psychotherapist, and all-around wisdom ninja.In his keynote, “The Principles of Yoga Therapy for Mental Wellness—Ancient Wisdom for Moder...2025-05-0116 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#22 – Beyond Suffering - Eastern Wisdom Traditions as Maps to Mental WellnessIlluminating the Inner Landscape: Eastern Wisdom for Mental TransformationAre you struggling with feelings of being trapped in cycles of mental and emotional suffering without understanding why? Do you sense there's untapped potential within you, yet can't seem to access it? This illuminating lecture may hold the key to your transformation.In this podcast episode, we discuss how ancient Indian philosophical systems—Sāmkhya, Vedānta, Yoga, and Tantra—serve as powerful maps of consciousness, maps of wholeness, that can revolutionize your approach to mental health and personal growth.The ep...2025-03-3119 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#21 - Understanding Mental health Through Samkhya PhilosophyWelcome to this episode of Big Shakti’s podcast. I'm Dr. Swami Shankardev. Over my nearly 50 years as a medical doctor and yoga therapist, I've discovered that true healing requires us to look beyond symptoms to understand the deeper architecture of our minds and consciousness. In this podcast episode, I'll introduce you to an ancient map of consciousness called Samkhya that has revolutionized how I practice medicine and help people heal.This episode offers a glimpse into the framework we'll be exploring in depth through our upcoming workshop series at Big Shakti. Starting in March 2025, we'll be hos...2025-03-0128 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#20 - Evoking Emotions in Yoga NidraThe practice of Yoga Nidra unfolds in stages:1. The first stage consists of moving awareness from part to part of the physical body, called body rotation. 2. The next stage is usually based on breath awareness, which involves using our awareness to observe the breath, which is a subtler part of us. 3. Then, we move to an even subtler level with meditations on sensations, feelings, and emotions, which begin to work directly with the mind. We are asked to feel warm, cold, heavy, light, pleasant, and unpleasant feelings.4. The last stage is often a form of visualization. 2025-02-0109 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#19 – How Stress Wrecks Your Brain and What to Do About ItThis podcast episode is divided into two parts.The first is about how chronic, unresolved stress wrecks your brain.The second is about how yoga and meditation repair the damage of chronic stress. We describe the four stages of repair, moving from basic repair of the damage to stabilizing normal function, then building a stronger neural architecture, and finally, the phase of mastery in which you optimize brain function.Stress is an unavoidable part of life. While acute, short-term stress helps you cope with challenging situations, chronic, long-term, unresolved stress is different. Long-term stress doesn’t just dep...2025-01-0128 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#18 - Core Strength, Calm Mind – Grounding, Alignment, PulsationThis episode is the talk from our Core Strength Clam Mind Guided Meditation Series, which is now also available in our Life Force Meditations Series.The Life Force Meditation Series has bundled three of our programs, Prana, Core Strength, and Chakras, into one mega program, which is divided into three phases. The first phase covers all you need to know about prana to generate and store prana.This talk introduces phase two of this mega program. Phase 2 focuses on developing core strength through grounding, alignment, and pulsation practices. These are the keys to self-regulation and...2024-11-3019 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#17 - Activate Your Third Eye of Intuition for Spiritual AwakeningThis podcast episode focuses on the third eye of intuition, ajna chakra. We have compiled two talks by Jayne and myself. The first is the introduction to the Awakening The Third Eye of Intuition Course. The second is from the Light on the Chakras and Kundalinī Course held in 2022 and 2023. Welcome to the Awaken Your Third Eye of Intuition course.The purpose of this course is to support you in activating and awakening ājnā chakra, your third eye, also called the divine eye. It is the eye that can see into your...2024-10-3126 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#16 - Prana and Spiritual Growth - Deepening Your Connection to Life EnergyThis episode is the talk from our Prana and Pranic Healing Guided Meditation Series, which is now also available in our Life Force Meditations Series. This series has bundled together three of our programs, Prana, Core Strength, and Chakras, into one mega program. The first phase of this mega program, the Life Force Series, enables you to gain an authentic experience of prana and the ability to generate and store prana. In the second phase of the Life Force Series, you learn how to use your prana to create physical and emotional resilience to handle da...2024-09-3025 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#15 - Meditation Success Path: from Self-Awareness to Self-MasteryFollowing our episode on self-awareness, self-regulation, and self-mastery, episode 13 of our podcast series, quite a lot of people have written to us asking us which meditation practice they should start with and how to use all the various meditations we have on the website. Which meditations are particularly suited to cultivating self-awareness, which is for self-regulation, and is there a path that can be followed to support successful meditation? These are great questions because we need to understand what techniques are available and how to apply them properly.We discussWhat is success in meditation?Should...2024-08-3126 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#14 - From Narcissism to Self-Awareness - The Role of Shadow in Spiritual EvolutionThe following two talks by Jayne on the Shadow were taken from the Light in the Chakras and Kundalinī Course that we ran in 2022. They are taken from Classes 3 and 5. Understanding what the shadow is and being able to deal with upwellings from the shadow is extremely important in the more advanced practices of the yoga-tantra tradition. This is because they aim to purify the unconscious. The way they do this is via yoga-tantra rituals in which various mantras and symbols are used to invoke the higher spiritual archetypes from within the psyche. Once the p...2024-07-3127 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#13 – Self-awareness, Self-Regulation, Self-MasteryHere are the main points of this podcastSelf-awareness is the core principle in yoga and meditation. It reflects consciousness and helps us transcend life’s problems by anchoring us in the self.Consciousness is our center. The body and mind are composed of energy, which can be gross, subtle, or causal. Cultivating self-awareness allows us to experience these various forms of energy more deeply.Advanced yogis refine their consciousness to perceive causal energy, the highest form of spiritual energy, through deep self-awareness.Self-regulation involves adjusting our body, mind, and reactions to achieve greater self-control and stability, building on...2024-07-0123 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#12 - Become Heart Present and Practice Selfless ServiceThis episode is based on a talk given by Dr. Swami Shankardev to Yogic Studies students in February 2005 on the keys to heart presence and selfless service.This talk arose in response to a student who was struggling to practice service, an aspect of Karma Yoga. In the talk, Swami Shankardev discusses the following:1. Selfless service is an important path to managing the ego and bringing it into a relationship with the highest Self.2. How true service illuminates the mind, enabling us to connect to a higher, more conscious state of being.2024-04-0124 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#11 - Life purpose, chakras, and self-realizationThis podcast episode is from an interview with my good friend Ron Ehrlich in 2019 for his podcast Unstress. For many years, Ron was my holistic dentist. However, he has recently found a new life purpose and has retired to focus on health education. You can find out more about Ron and the wonderful work he is doing at his website, Unstress Online: https://www.unstressonline.com.In this episode, we discuss the vital importance of self-awareness, self-knowledge and how that is the key to Finding Life Purpose. Ron asked me to talk about the admonitions of the gr...2024-02-2954 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#10 - Ajapa Japa - Healing the Mind Stage 1In today’s episode, we are providing you with the Introductory lesson from Healing the Mind – Ajapa Japa Stage 1 Course. It is also available as a video on Big Shakti’s YouTube channel. Ajapa Japa is a wonderful and extremely powerful form of meditation that combines many forms of meditation, including relaxation, mindfulness, breath, prana, life force, and a mantra to heal the body and mind and activate and awaken the chakras and kundalini. It calms an overactive mind, balances emotions, and creates physical and mental resilience, as well as awakening consciousness. Ajapa Japa is the mo...2023-11-0114 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#9 - What is Ajapa JapaIf you only ever study one yoga meditation technique over your lifetime, you would be wise to choose Ajapa Japa. Ajapa Japa combines many forms of meditation into one powerful practice that heals and transforms your mind.Ajapa Japa is a potent guided yoga and meditation technique that you can use to improve every part of your life: physical, mental, and spiritual. The practice circulates the light of awareness through the body and mind. The result is that you become more Alive, Aligned, and Enlightened.Yoga TantraAjapa Japa is the foundation meditation u...2023-09-3032 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#8 - Tantra explainedThis episode is taken from a series of lectures given by Dr Swami Shankardev to a yoga group in 2005. It focuses on tantra. He briefly describes the difference between yoga and tantra and how tantra fits into the profound philosophical systems of India. Out of the myriad systems that arose over the millennia, 6 systems, called the shad darshana, became the most famous. The six systems are Gautama’s Nyāya, Kanāda’s Vaisheshika, Kapila’s Sāmkhya, Patanjali’s yoga sutras, Jaimini’s Pūrva Mīmāmsā, and Bādarāyana’s Uttara Mīmāmsā, which is also...2023-09-0114 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#7 - Introduction to Yoga and TantraThis episode is taken from Big Shakti’s Light on the Chakras and Kundalinī training master class series. This masterclass is taught once every two years and is conducted over nine months.In this episode, which comes out of Lesson 1, we discuss the concepts of yoga, meditation, tantra, and yoga-tantra.The Sanskrit word yoga means connection or union. The English word meditation also means the connection of the meditator (the consciousness of the meditator with the object of meditation via the act of practicing meditation.Yoga and meditation are, therefore, synonyms. One is San...2023-08-0119 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#6 - Jayne's intuitive dream therapy - interview with Swami ShankardevThis episode is available on YouTube https://youtu.be/ORs0rDsqZBQIn this episode of Big Shakti’s podcast, I interview Jayne Stevenson, my life partner and co-creator of Big Shakti. We have been together in this life for 22 wonderful years. We talk about Jayne’s counseling and psychotherapy practice and how she combines spirituality and creativity, the role of intuitive healing, and dreams. While Carl Jung described creativity as a primal instinct, Jayne has developed a way of spiritualizing creativity to bring it to a higher level of expression through the methods taught by Big S...2023-06-3034 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#5 - Dr Swami Shankardev's medical, yoga therapy, psychotherapy practice - interview with Ron EhrlichThis podcast episode is from an interview with my good friend Ron Ehrlich in 2022 for his podcast Unstress. For many years Ron was also my holistic dentist. However, he has recently retired to focus more on health education. You can find out more about Ron and the wonderful work he is doing at his website Unstress Online https://www.unstressonline.com.In this podcast, we discuss my approach to mind-body medicine and how I incorporate meditation and Eastern and Western methods of mind-body medicine and psychotherapy into my medical and yoga therapy practice.We discuss...2023-06-0136 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#4 - The Importance of Self-awarenessA video of this podcast episode is on Big Shakti's youtube channel https://youtu.be/UMQ7yQ2v4RkThis podcast episode is taken from Big Shakti’s Light on the Chakras and Kundalinī training master class series. This masterclass is taught once every two years and is conducted over nine months. It consists of 20 lessons, and you receive one lesson every two weeks, and after two lessons, there is a live class where you get some extra theory, practice a meditation on the chakras and kundalinī, the serpent power coiled in the base chakra, and have an o...2023-05-0115 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#3 - What is Yoga Nidra Meditation?This podcast episode is all about Yoga Nidra, a wonderful relaxation meditation technique developed by the great yoga adept Swami Satyananda Saraswati of the Bihar School of Yoga in India. Yoga Nidra, as a meditation technique, enables you to remain awake and alert as you venture into the deep sleep state. Instead of becoming unconscious, you experience an exalted state of consciousness and a deep, blissful connection to the highest Self. We describe Yoga Nidra:How it enables you to systematically relax each part of your physical body and move your awareness to your subt...2023-04-0127 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#2 - Relaxation MeditationIn this podcast, you will hear the first track of the 3 Easy Steps to Deep Relaxation Meditation MP3 series.We intend to use these first few podcasts to provide some background information on yoga and meditation. Once we have covered the basics, then we can take a deep dive into the more amazing and wonderful aspects of Indian philosophy and its esoteric traditions.Probably the most basic and fundamental aspect of yoga and meditation is relaxation. Though it is a foundation practice, that does not mean it is easy. In fact, it is a lot mo...2023-03-0122 minLight on Yoga and Meditation#1 - What are Yoga and Meditation?Today's podcast episode describes what yoga and meditation are, how meditation is both a technique and a state of being, and how meditation is a process of self-discovery that unfolds in stages. The stages of meditation are described in detail, including the stage of relaxation and introversion, the stage of concentration, the true meditative state, and the state of absorption into cosmic consciousness culminating in self-realization. The benefits of meditation are also described, as well as the types of meditation that Big Shakti offers to support you in moving through the various stages. 📩 Subsc...2023-02-0132 min