The Integral Knowledge Study Center -- Peacock Pages

The Indian Spirit

To prepare for a long study of Sri Aurobindo’s The Life Divine — commencing on August 2014 — we devoted our Sunday evenings in the spring and summer of 2014 to a review of India’s spiritual tradition from the Vedic age to the present. Along the way, we examined core insights from the Rigveda, Upanishads, Bhagavad Gita, Buddhism, Jainism, the Yoga Sutras, the major schools of Vedanta, the Mahadevi tradition, Tantra, Sri Vidya, the Trika philosophy of Kashmir, and the bhakti tradition.

The goal of these talks was to provide an outline and bring forward salient facts about the themes treated. None of the talks is exhaustive, and the omissions are many. Given only an hour of presentation, one can be sure that a disservice will be delivered to every topic briefly treated. The talks are indicative, not definitive. If they stimulate the listener's interest and lead to more study, then they will serve their real purpose. Downloads from this series are available below.

01 The Rig Veda, 9 March 2014 (52.8MB)

02 Veda: Mantra, Sacrifice, Gods, and Sages, 16 March 2014 (80.7MB)

03 From the Atharva Veda into the Upanishads: Brihadaranyaka and Isha, 23 March 2014 (116.1MB)

04 The Taittiriya Upanishad, 30 March 2014 (81.9MB)

05 The Kena Upanishad and the Katha Upanishad, 6 April 2014 (97.2MB)

06 The Mundaka and Later Upanishads, 13 April 2014 (92.3MB)

07 Bhagavad Gita, Chapters 1-6, 20 April 2014 (117.7MB)

08 Bhagavad Gita, Chapters 7-12, 27 April 2014 (89.2MB)

09 Bhagavad Gita, Chapters 13-18, 4 May 2014 (95.9MB)

10 Samkhya, Jainism, and Early Buddhism, 11 May 2014 (81.3MB)

11 Buddhist Teaching in India, 18 May 2014 (68.8MB)

12 Shankara and the Rise of Advaita Vedanta, 25 May 2014 (65.9MB)

13 Ramanuja: Theistic Vedanta, 1 June 2014 (58.7MB)

14 Patanjali and the Yoga Sutras, 8 June 2014 (58.7MB)

15 The Shakti Tradition, 15 June 2014 (55.7MB)

16 Introducing the Tantra, 22 June 2014 (63.1MB)

17 Kashmir Shaivism, Triadic Tantrism, and Abhinavagupta, 29 June 2014 (58.1MB)

18 From Siddha to Natha to Hatha Yoga, 6 July 2014 (67.2MB)

19 Srividya: The Continuing Tantric Tradition, 13 July 2014 (66MB)

20 The Yoga of Divine Love: Bhakti Yoga, 20 July 2014 (66MB)

21 A Summary of the Indian Spiritual Tradition, 29 July 2014 (85.4MB)

22 The Spiritual Foundations of The Life Divine, 3 August 2014 (47.9MB)

23 Sri Aurobindo’s Sadhana in 1914, 10 August 2014 (43.3MB)