Nataraja Kallio is a scholar-practitioner of Yoga and Hindu tantra. He is the Chair of the B.A. Yoga Studies program at Naropa University in Boulder, Colorado, and the co-designer of Naropa’s M.A. Yoga Studies program.
In this episode, we discuss Kallio’s upbringing in an American Hindu spiritual community, his travels in India and meetings with his guru, the origins of Hindu tantra (utilizing “the fecund material of our existence”), the spectrum of tantric deities, the transformation of intense emotions to crack the shell of identity, the pros and cons of asceticism, desire, the story of Shankaracharya and the exploration of the flesh, the story of Shiva and the forest ascetics, authentic and inauthentic tantra, neo-tantra and the western obsession with sex, cultural appropriation, epicureanism and sacralization, the ‘tantric’ dimension of all religions, and the treasure of spiritual friendship.
Charis Foundation
Golden Turtle Sound