Pṛthivī Sūkta — Hymn to the Earth (Atharva Veda)
The foundational text of eco-yoga: 63 verses of the Atharva Veda addressed directly to Earth as living, conscious Mother. "I am the son of Earth, Eart…
Kashmir Shaivism — the 36 tattvas
Trika Shaivism's 36-tattva architecture, in unbroken lineage and brief touches on Chinese alchemy and physics, a note on the four-thousand-year westwa…
The Science of Prāṇāyāma — Swami Sivananda Saraswati
Swami Sivananda Saraswati's systematic manual on prāṇāyāma — the eight traditional kumbhakas (Sūrya Bhedana, Ujjāyī, Sītkārī, Śītalī, …
I Am Still Here — Yoga, Sovereignty, and the Undoing of Coercive Control
Coercive control captures the inner narrator; yoga was designed, from the beginning, to restore it. The reclaiming of a single breath that belongs to …
Ramana Maharshi — The Yoga of Self-Enquiry
Ramana Maharshi’s direct path: the question ‘Who am I?’ not as philosophy but as a redirection of attention. His teachings on happiness, mind, s…
The Earth Is My Mother — Reverence for the Five Elements, and the Protection of the Small
Mātā bhūmiḥ putro ahaṃ pṛthivyāḥ — the Earth is my mother, and I am her child. To protect her body and to protect the child, the mother,…
Yoga Vāsiṣṭha — Advaita Vedānta and Liberation
An introduction to the Yoga Vāsiṣṭha — the vast Sanskrit dialogue between sage Vāsiṣṭha and Rāma on the nature of mind, the illusory worl…
A Glimpse of Sri Kailash — Journey from Badrinath by Paramahamsa Satyananda Saraswati
A first-person pilgrimage account from May 1979 — Swami Satyananda's walk from Badrinath across Mana Pass into Tibet, the circumambulation of Kailas…
Saṃskāra as Algorithm — The Bound Code Running in All Conscious Systems
A child in a kitchen in Pondicherry watches her grandmother grind ginger. The grandmother does not look at her hands. She is reading a letter on the c…
The Science of Breath — Yogi Ramacharaka (William Walker Atkinson, 1904)
A Chicago lawyer, writing under the name Yogi Ramacharaka, laid down in 1904 the first plain-English manual of prāṇāyāma — the breath-disciplin…
Kāya Kalpa — The Siddhar Science of Body Transmutation
In the temple town of Palani in Tamil Nadu, on a hill above the Vaiyai River, there is a small black-stone deity of Murugan that the priests will tell…
A Word Walked Home — The Romani Tongue and Its Sanskrit Kinship
Count to ten in Romani and you are counting in a cousin of Sanskrit. A people treated as strangers everywhere carried, the whole time, the unbroken ev…
Kāla Bhairava, the Black Dog, and the Child at the Gate — The Guardian of the Eternal City
Before you may meet Śiva at Kāśī, you must first seek the permission of the one who guards the gate — Kāla Bhairava, the Kotwāl of Vārāṇas…
Matri Books for the community
You are wholeheartedly invited into my world of writing. Yoga in simple language for all ages and genders. Enjoy reading THE SPINE, MYST MEGHA MYTH Trilogy (also available as one…
The Six Enemies of the Mind — Ariṣaḍvarga, and the Two Small Words They Grow From
Arjuna asks: by what force is a man driven to harm even against his will? Kṛṣṇa answers — it is desire, it is anger; know this to be the enemy…
The Five Prāṇas — The Breath in the Body Is the Breath of the World
Six seekers came to the sage Pippalāda, and one asked the question everything rests on: what powers hold this body together? The answer was the fivef…
Aparigraha — Enough, Held Well
A boy at the door of Death is offered everything, and refuses. Not because wealth is bad — because he has noticed the substitution. A person is not …
Shivambu Shastra — The Water of Śiva: An Ancient Practice
Śivāmbu — the water of Śiva — is the traditional name for amaroli, the tantric practice the Ḍāmara Tantra traces to Śiva himself. A window …
Asteya — The End of Skimming
Ninety minutes, six people, a decision that needed eleven. Nothing was taken in any sense a ledger would record — and nine hours of human life are g…
Siddhas in Malaysia — The Tamil Lineage That Crossed the Bay of Bengal
Climb the 272 steps at Batu Caves on Thaipusam morning, and you meet the Tamil Siddhar tradition still alive on the Malay peninsula — temple, vaidya…
Satya — The End of the Divided Life
A person can be scrupulously honest with everyone they meet and still be living inside a lie. Satya is not a rule about speech — it is a discipline …
Kāmadeva — The Hindu God of Desire, the Flower-Arrowed, the Bodiless
Kāmadeva — the god of desire incinerated by Śiva's third eye and restored as Anañga, the bodiless. His sugarcane bow and five flower arrows, the …