Episodes
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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 it?
Most people treat these as a menu of interchangeable options. This episode makes the case that they're something far more interesting: instruments, each one built for a different part of the same composition. Karma yoga, bhakti, hatha yoga, and tantra are each explored in depth - what they actually are, where they come from, and what they're specifically designed to do - before the episode moves into an extended and deeply personal exploration of Kashmir Shaivism, one of the most elegant and inclusive philosophical traditions Nicky has encountered, and a school she returns to again and again.
The episode closes with the synthesis the whole series has been building toward: how the philosophical schools, the nastika traditions, and the practical instruments all fit together as facets of one whole - and why understanding that whole matters, not as an intellectual exercise, but as the foundation for genuine discernment, a more embodied practice, and a life lived with more grace and less confusion.
In this episode:
Why the practices are instruments, not a menu of interchangeable optionsKarma yoga - action without the ego's ownership of the outcomeBhakti yoga - devotion, the symbology of the deities, and love as the natural expression of non-dual understandingHatha yoga - its tantric roots, and why it's a world away from a modern studio classTantra - the philosophy that refuses to leave anything outKashmir Shaivism - spanda, pratyabhijna, and why Nicky keeps returning to this schoolHow the philosophical schools and the practical instruments form one integrated wholeThe final synthesis of the three-part series - and where it all pointsReferences and further reading:
The Bhagavad Gita - trans. Barbara Stoler Miller or Georg FeuersteinTantra Illuminated - Christopher WallisThe Recognition Sutras (Pratyabhijnahrdayam) - Christopher Wallis translationThe Stanzas on Vibration (Spandakarika) - Mark Dyczkowski translationThe Hatha Yoga Pradipika - trans. Brian Dana AkersI Am That - Nisargadatta MaharajThe Nature of Consciousness - Rupert SpiraAbhinavagupta: An Historical and Philosophical Study - K.C. PandeyThis concludes The Ground Tone series. New episodes exploring individual concepts in greater depth - free will, suffering, the mind, pranayama, and more - continue weekly.
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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 Advaita - a shadow in a dim room mistaken for a figure - the episode shows the fundamental difference between the Samkhya-Yoga approach (developing a stable witness that stands apart from experience) and the Advaitic approach (investigating the very nature of the witness itself, and finding something that was never what you assumed). The difference is not subtle. One is a practice of skilful relationship. The other dissolves the need for a relationship altogether.
From there, the episode moves through the three major sub-schools of Vedanta - Madhvacharya's devotional Dvaita, Ramanuja's elegant Vishishtadvaita, and Shankara's radical Advaita - showing how three great minds reading the same foundational texts arrived at the full spectrum from dualism to complete non-dualism. And it introduces the ocean and wave teaching - one of the most precise and enduring analogies in the entire tradition — to show what non-dual philosophy is actually claiming about the nature of consciousness, experience, and what you are.
The episode closes with the three stages of Vedantic learning - sravana, manana, nididhyasana - and a reframe that changes the purpose of practice entirely: not climbing a ladder toward liberation, but cleaning a lens through which what was always already present becomes more clearly visible.
Intimate, philosophical, and pointing at something you can verify right now.
In this episode:
The personal itch that the witness-based practice couldn't resolveDualist vs non-dual philosophy - what the distinction actually means in daily lifeThe shadow-in-the-room analogy - and why turning on the light changes everythingThe ocean and the wave - consciousness, identity, and what you're actually made ofDvaita, Vishishtadvaita, and Advaita Vedanta - three sub-schools, one foundational textMadhvacharya, Ramanuja, and Adi ShankaracharyaSravana, manana, nididhyasana - the three stages of Vedantic learningAvidya — why the problem isn't lack of experience but a specific misperceptionThe ladder and the lens - what changes when the purpose of practice changesWhat consciousness, happiness, and integration actually look like from a non-dual perspectiveReferences and further reading:
I Am That - Nisargadatta MaharajThe Nature of Consciousness - Rupert SpiraWho Am I? - Ramana Maharshi (short, essential, available free online)The Vivekachudamani - Adi Shankaracharya, trans. Swami MadhavanandaThe Yoga Sutras of Patanjali - Edwin Bryant translationHow to Attain Enlightenment - James SwartzI Am - Jean KleinSelf-Inquiry - Francis LucilleThe Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda - particularly the Jnana Yoga volumeSwami Sarvapriyananda - YouTube, Vedanta Society of New York -
Missing episodes?
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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 schools of Indian philosophy) and explains how six extraordinarily different systems of thought all emerged from the same ancient source: the Vedas. From the atheist dualism of Samkhya to the rigorous logic of Nyaya, from the ritualism of Mimamsa to the exceptional non-dualism of Advaita Vedanta - each school is a different raga played in the same key. Understanding the difference between them is one of the most clarifying things a serious practitioner can do.
The episode also covers the nastika schools - Buddhism, Jainism, and the materialist Carvaka - and why their existence tells us something important about the intellectual honesty of the tradition. Plus: why modern postural yoga is not what Patanjali was describing, where Hinduism fits in the picture, and a compelling introduction to what Vedanta is actually proposing and why it might be the most significant philosophical discovery available to a human being.
RECOMMENDED RESOURCES
The Principal Upanishads — Radhakrishnan (scholarly)The Upanishads — Eknath Easwaran (warmest entry point)Yoga Sutras of Patanjali — Edwin Bryant translationWhat the Buddha Taught — Walpola RahulaTantra Illuminated — Christopher Wallis (for context on the nastika/tantric overlap)This is Part 1 of a three-part series called The Ground Tone.
