Yoga is slowly gathering attention within the Western mind. When I say Western mind, I mean the thinking, rational, logical part of our consciousness that tends to subjugate and divide our reality into defined and understandable parts. It is a critical part of our being and useful to navigate our seemingly complex world. Perhaps we abide in this dimension too often. Perhaps we don't check in with it enough. Regardless of what is happening, it is an observation that can easily be made when we look at the different lenses we can look through when we see our world. The observation being that yes, we do have or use something we might call a 'Western mind'. We might call it different things, but the act of engaging to call it anything is proof of its existence. It is the part of us that constantly scans the world to see if there is anything useful or categorically imperative that we act upon. This mind will accept what upholds its current belief system, and it will try to reconcile any differences that it sees in the world. If our Western mind cannot make logical sense of it, it will reject what is disharmonious to the current belief system, for this challenge represents a challenge to our survival as a species. It is the mind of action, and it behaves according to its nature. (Interesting to see how symbolic this inner reality really is when we look at how the Western world has grown historically, and what the Western world represents.)
What is the nature of this 'Western mind', and how does it pertain to yoga, or rather - the physics of yoga?
These could be observations that are useful to make, for it might help us to understand ourselves better. It is interesting to connect this so-called Western mind to what we might also know of as the left hemisphere of the brain, which controls the right side of the body and is responsible for the logic and analysis necessary to engage in science and mathematics. So it is this side of us that can work out the physics of the Universe.
But what about the other side? To continue on with our symbolism, let's call it the Eastern mind. Some know it as the right brain, which controls the left side of our body and the creative, intuitive, artistic faculties of our being. While we might call the 'Western mind' an external mind, the mind of action or doing; this Eastern side of our consciousness might appear as the mind of internalization, or simply the mind of being. Operating from this dimension of our mind, we tend to be more in touch with feeling and emotion than logic and reason. Of course, we are using both to be living human beings, but we tend to favor one more than the other. This creates internal imbalances in our system, for it is quite unnatural to be overly logical with no emotion, and vice versa. It would appear that everything in nature has succeeded in being balanced for many, many years in order to reach the state of perfection that nature really represents. Just look around.
I am really fascinated by all of this, especially when we start to bring yoga into the picture. The yogis understood these dimensions of our being and called them different things. Being practical and very connected to their environment, these stewards of the Earth just called them the Sun and Moon energies. Simple and sensical. I love the yogis for their efforts towards making everything as simple as possible, because it is my belief that a yogi is one who realizes their connection to all things. And if we really are all connected to all things, then that would make things pretty damn simple, don't you think?! I believe it to be true, that we are all One, although I consistently have moments of separating myself from the whole and experiencing what might look like me struggling against life. This is why I continue in full devotion with the yogic practices spoken of and embodied by so many masters before me, for yoga methodology is the means through which we actually experience are One-ness.
Which brings us perfectly to the whole reason for this post. See, it is not enough to just intellectualize this supreme unity. It is not enough for the Western mind to logic its way into yoga. It doesn't work like that, because there is a whole other part of us asking to be included. When we use logic without feeling, we are missing half of the equation, which ultimately becomes either all or nothing. It's symbolic to taking your girlfriend out for dinner, when you ask her where she wants to go she says she doesn't know. That is the nature of the Moon energy, the Eastern right brain CANNOT calculate, and therefore cannot make a reasonable decision. It just cannot; nature hasn't wired it to do so. It requires the left brain to do the work of doing, while it provides the input in the form of feeling. Then the male in this equation (left brain) gets frustrated and the female goes "fine, go without me!" which is silly because neither can really go anywhere without the other! How many times has this happened in our own minds? We try to logic our way out of a situation, 'overdoing' it, and then suddenly we collapse in frustration.
The physics of yoga is all about this. It has to do with the joining of these energies, which is all yoga means anyways. Yoga just means union. From the root word 'yuj' which means to yolk, yoga practices allow us to yolk together our right and left brain hemispheres. When they are actually in balance, when the signals coming into the nervous system from 'out there' are balanced with the signals going out of the nervous from 'in here', we become ultimate expressive and creative geniuses of life. We enter into the flow of nature, a balanced and equanimous poise that is characterized by grace, natural joy, and selfless service to all that surrounds us, for it is in this state that we are actually experiencing that we are One with life.
Yoga is one way that allows to practically enter into this flow. It is a way that I endorse, practice, and teach... for it is a way that I've been led to in my efforts to find balance amidst the chaos of life. And the deeper I go in its exploration, the more apparent it becomes that perhaps yoga is just a loosely coined word that we have struggled to truly adopt in the Western world. True adoption might mean that we stop trying to define it, that we stop pretending that it is something we need to DO, and we just BE it.
I envision a time when this is the case. I see the Western world coming around to accepting Eastern philosophy. I see that our own masculine energy is start to balance and embrace our feminine energy, internally. That the practices of connecting to oneself and to harmonize our internal energies is as natural as getting up and brushing the teeth. I see that it is coming, because our Western minds are starting to actually buy into the whole idea of it and the male and female within us (remember - we all came from the essence of a male, a sperm, and the essence of a female, an egg) are entering into the ultimate union in this embodied existence. With this marriage, the most perfect conception occurs. Our being will become pregnant by faith. And we are giving birth to the Truth.
You are the yoga.
Thank you so much for reading.