Autumn Festival Workshops
Working with The Forefather Fortnight (Pitṛ Pakṣa) and The Nine Nights of the Goddess (Navarātri)
Workshop 1: Working with The Forefather Fortnight (Pitṛ Pakṣa)
This is the recording of the 2024 workshop.
2026 Festival Dates: September 26 – October 10, 2026
- What is the significance of the Forefather Fortnight?
- How do you observe it?
- How do you make the most of it for spiritual/personal growth?
The Forefather Fortnight (Pitṛ Pakṣa) is the prime annual juncture for clearing familial karmic patters and honoring departed ancestors. The ancients were well aware of the propensity for patterns to cycle generation after generation and provided tools for liberating oneself – and one’s family – from these karmic cycles.
This 90-minute workshop shares key concepts, practices, stories and techniques from living wisdom tradition for making the most of the Forefather Fortnight for personal, familial and spiritual evolution.
Workshop 2: Working with The Nine Nights of the Goddess (Navarātri)
This is the recording of the 2024 workshop.
2026 Festival Dates: October 11 – October 19, 2026
- What is the significance of Nine Night Goddess Festival?
- How do you observe it?
- How do you make the most of it for spiritual/personal growth?
Following the Forefather Fortnight, the Nine Nights (Navarātri) autumnal festival is the prime annual juncture for summoning the spiritual power (śakti) of the Great Goddess. Hers is the power tapped by humans and gods alike, for various worldly and other-worldly aims.
This 90-minute workshop shares key concepts, practices, stories and techniques from living wisdom tradition for connecting with the sacred feminine. Learn how to invoke the sacred feminine for personal empowerment and spiritual evolution.
"I first came across Dr. Balkaran through his work with the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies and have since taken a number of courses with him, all of which have been fabulous. Dr. Balkaran has a gift for synthesizing complex information and teaches with a storytelling style that supports comprehension."
Natalie Rousseau
Yoga Educator
"Dr. Balkaran is a teacher who understands the needs and quests of today’s spiritual seekers and practitioners and his School is a unique and a much-awaited opportunity for any interested-minded students to access the complex realm of the Indian philosophy and mythology explained in an approachable and engaging manner."
Aijan Kenenbaeva
Yoga Practitioner and Hinduism Student
"As a graduate student in the blossoming field of Yoga Studies, I cannot express the proper gratitude for Dr. Raj and his method of mystical swagger. He has tremendously assisted my personal understanding of inherently foreign concepts embedded within Indian wisdom and myth."
Dustin Nicholas Holmes
Naropa University, Wisdom Traditions
M.A. Yoga Studies
"I have greatly enjoyed taking Dr. Balkaran’s online classes! His style of presenting content is a rich synthesis of rigorous academic scholarship and his own experiential insights which add depth, humor and clarity to the often misconstrued concepts of Indian mythology."
Srinalini Sankar
French Teacher and Lifelong Student
Meet Your Instructor
Dr. Raj Balkaran is the founder of The Indian Wisdom School and a scholar of Sanskrit literature specializing in the Devī Māhātmya. He holds a doctorate in Religious Studies, serves as a Continuing Studies Tutor at the Oxford Centre for Hindu Studies, and is the author of two academic monographs on this very text — including The Goddess and the King in Indian Myth: Ring Composition, Royal Power, and the Dharmic Double Helix. He is the author of the popular The Stories Behind the Poses — with over 35,000 copies sold — hosts the New Books in Indian Religions podcast, and has been interviewed by the BBC, CBC, and other major media as a public intellectual on Indian wisdom traditions.
Alongside his academic career, Dr. Balkaran was initiated into Indian wisdom traditions by multiple lineal teachers and spent over a decade in apprenticeship with a renowned spiritual master. What he brings to this course is the fruit of over twenty years of daily practice, academic study, recitation, initiation, and spiritual contemplation — the Glories of the Goddess not merely as object of study, but as living wisdom much needed for our modern moment.
