Self Meditated

Pain and suffering are not the same thing. Understanding the difference between them might be the single most useful distinction on this entire path.

This episode moves through what suffering actually is, where it lives, and how the great traditions propose meeting it - starting with Patanjali's precise five-part map of affliction (the kleshas), through the Buddha's First and Second Noble Truths and the concept of secondary suffering, into Tantra's radical alternative of meeting difficulty directly rather than transcending it, and finally into Advaita Vedanta, where suffering is shown to require a sufferer - and where the...

Yoga begins when pranayama becomes consistent.

This episode is personal testimony first, education second. It traces pranayama from its earliest roots in the Vedas and Upanishads, through the Bhagavad Gita, Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, and the Hatha Yoga tradition, into the tantric understanding of prana as Shakti itself - the dynamic, creative energy of consciousness. Along the way: what prana actually is, why "pranayama" doesn't mean what most people think it means, what the nadis are and why the first few months of practice are really about cleansing them, and where this practice ultimately leads within the framework...

In this episode of the Self Meditated podcast , Nicky sits down with his friend and fellow yoga teacher Gianni to explore the three Gunas - Sattva, Rajas and Tamas - and how they influence our thoughts, behaviour, energy and experience of daily life.

Together, they unpack this foundational concept from Sāṃkhya and yoga philosophy and discuss how developing awareness of the Gunas can help us recognise our habitual patterns, make more conscious choices and cultivate greater harmony in everyday life.

"Do We Have Free Will?"

Did you actually choose the last thing you ate? Or did a system you didn't design produce the outcome — and hand you the feeling of having chosen it a fraction of a second later?

This episode takes one of philosophy's oldest questions and moves through it briskly: hard determinism, compatibilism, libertarian free will, and Sam Harris's case for free will as illusion — enough of each to orient you, not enough to bog you down. From there it moves into what karma actually means as a theory of cause and effect, a br...

"What Is the Mind? What Are Thoughts? What Is Meditation?"

What is your mind, actually? Not what it contains - the thing itself. Where does it begin, where does it end, and is it even the same thing as your brain?

This episode takes one of the most familiar and least examined parts of your entire existence and looks at it from four genuinely different angles: what modern neuroscience says, and where it runs out; what the Samkhya-Yoga tradition's precise fourfold map of the mind reveals; what Buddhism's teaching of no-self adds that the other...

The waking, dreaming, and deep sleep states and the fourth that underlies them all

Every night, without exception, you disappear completely and come back. What actually happens in between?

This episode takes the most ordinary thing you do every single day and turns it into one of the most precise philosophical investigations available to a human being. Drawing on the Mandukya Upanishad - the shortest of the principal Upanishads at just twelve verses, and one of the most rigorously argued texts in the entire Vedantic tradition - Nicky walks through the teaching of Avastha Traya...

Episode 1 and 2 gave us the map of Indian philosophy. Now - what do you actually do with it?

This is the final episode in The Ground Tone, and the one where philosophy finally lands in the body.

Across the first two episodes, Nicky built the full philosophical architecture - the six schools of Indian philosophy, the difference between dualist and non-dual thought, and the depths of Advaita Vedanta. This episode answers the practical question every serious student eventually asks: how do the actual practices - yoga, meditation, chanting, ritual, service - relate to all of...

The witness is not the destination. It's the doorway - and Advaita Vedanta shows you what's on the other side.

This episode is the philosophical heart of the 3 part series, and the most personal.

Picking up from Part 1, Nicky goes deep into the distinction that changed everything in her own practice: the difference between dualist and non-dual philosophy. Not as an abstract debate, but as a live question with real consequences for how you experience your life, your mind, and your sense of self.

Using a simple but precise analogy drawn from classical...

The Ground Tone — Part 1 of 3

You've may have heard the Vedic teachings. But do you know where they come from and what they actually mean?

This episode is the map that changes everything.

In yoga studios, on social media, in wellness spaces - fragments of some of the most sophisticated philosophical thought in human history float around without context, without lineage, and often without their original meaning intact. This episode gives you that context. Not to replace your practice, but to deepen it completely.

Nicky introduces the Sad-darshana (the six classical sc...