Welcome to Season 1

So, welcome to this beginning exploration of mythology in the yogic context. In the old tradition, symbol, archetype, story, mythology is used a lot to encode and transmit the teachings in ways that can really resonate with people from all types of background, all walks of life, and in all types of life situation. One of the beautiful things that we find is that these stories, they can speak to us differently each time we encounter them. So here we're exploring initially two stories of Ganesha, a story of Mother Divine, and then we're going to consider a little bit of Ramayana, particularly through the lens of this great character called Hanuman. This will include why, we'll start with Ganesha, and this is kind of a traditional thing to do, and we will look at why Ganesha is worship first, what worship means, how Ganesha got his name.

We'll consider some of the names of Mother Divine, and then the story of Chamundishwari, who's the patron goddess of Mysore where I studied Sanskrit and have spent quite a lot of time in recent years. So it's kind of an aspect of Mother Divine that's, let's say, particularly important in my life as I started to be more engaged with the Divine Mother. And then we will also look at Hanuman, this great hero from Ramayana, and hopefully see how in all these stories, these great heroes, these great characters, they can teach us about what we are working with and encountering in our day-to-day. So the mythological and the fantastic in the Indian yoga tradition and all these stories, hopefully these explorations will situate it in a really practical way that can be relevant to us wherever we find ourselves now. So welcome, I hope you enjoy it.

Thank you.