In this talk, Ishan Shivanand emphasizes that true spiritual practice must involve befriending one’s own body, biology, and mind rather than attempting to reject or fight them. He argues that meditation cannot be forced against an uncooperative physiology; instead, one should flow with the mind and align the body’s energy to support meditation. Drawing from his work with his guru Babaji, Shivanand describes a set of sadhanas called the “Nectar of Life” (Amrit), designed to optimize the endocrine system, activate the pineal gland, and regularize the body clock. He shares anecdotal observations and informal medical research indicating that practitioners experience improved sleep quality, heightened morning energy without stimulants, and more vivid dreams, all of which facilitate deeper meditative states. The core message is that by treating the body as a friend and using the Nectar of Life practices, seekers can remove physiological barriers and unlock greater spiritual depth.
Chapters
And one thing that I have learned is that your body is your friend. Your biology is your friend. And a person cannot say that I will reject my body, my biology, and my mind, and I will become spiritual. Because you can't meditate against the mind. You can try, you can try, anybody can try meditating. A person can try to force the mind into meditation, and trust me, it never works. What a person needs to do is, a person needs to flow with the mind, a person needs to friend his psychology, his mind, his cognition, and his body. And if a person can do that, then the mind and the body become the strongest tool in the path of Satna, in the path of the search of your own soul. And that is why when a person wishes to meditate or wishes to go deeper, he must understand the basics of his own body. He must understand to awaken and channelize the flow of energy of his own body in such a manner that the body helps in meditation rather than inhibits. And that is why when I was working with Babaji, I developed these set of sadhanas which will help a person. The first is nature of life. Nectar of Life, basically it started when I was in Lucknow and there were so many aunties around me and they said that, "Bhaiya, when we are meditating—" Bhaiya means brother, and they said, "When we are meditating—" and I used to live in the ashram, and they told me that when we are meditating, we feel pain in the knees, we feel something in the stomach, we are constipated, and we can't focus on meditation, and most definitely you cannot. If your biology is not perfect, then of course it will hinder. You can't go within. Even your sleep, it gets affected. And a person who's not relaxed biologically cannot relax when he's doing sadhana. So I worked a lot with my guru to find out a way to help these people who really want to find the divinity, but the first barrier, their own endocrine system, their own endocrinology is not helping them. And it is then that I developed this Nectar of Life. And why I say Nectar of Life? Because in India, Nectar of Life is called Amrit. And the Amrit can come from within. And where the Amrit comes from? It comes from your own endocrine system. It comes from your own hormonal secreting gland. Through this sadhana, the first thing that I saw was that a person's biology changed, his biochemistry, it started to change. And we did a lot of medical research on these people who were doing the sadhana. Their pineal was more active, their body clock became perfect. And the beauty was, the best thing that came out of these Shivirs was that the people started to get the best sleep, the best rest, of their life. In the morning they would wake up fresh, they would feel energetic without coffee, I tell you, without tea, they would feel very, very energetic. And in the night when the time came to sleep, they just fell asleep and beautiful dreams, beautiful sleep, because the body, it was helping them. And when they wanted to do the sadhana, the body helped. So this nectar of life, I believe it is one of the most powerful tools. A person should utilize because this befriends you with your body.
