I started writing yesterday with the actual intention to get into the theoretical science behind why yoga works, and we ended up exploring a different tangent entirely. The cool thing is that Part 1 works well to outline some concepts that will be useful in today's talk. Let's dive in.
We talk(ed) a lot about how yoga is the union of energies in our body, which leads to heightened states of consciousness. This is possible because we have a higher intelligence coursing through us but it is not always accessible. What is this higher intelligence, this 'greater mind'? The same one that beats our heart, tells us to breathe, transports oxygen into cells, and performs numerous other functions to facilitate life in our bodies. In one second, each cell (of which there are ~50 trillion inside of our skin suit) performs somewhere in the order of 200,000 biochemical functions. Every single second. And these cells are constantly being replaced by new cells, birthed from unspecialized stem cells which have the unique characteristic of becoming any cell in the body. What is organizing this and how is it being organized? Is it possible to tap into this or somehow "see" the Grand Pattern?
I believe it is possible, and I believe we are all doing it, to an extent. Some might be noticing the 'plan' more than others; perhaps due to the descent of grace, some of us are catching glimpses of it. Maybe it is all due to grace, and we are just praying to be attentive when the time comes and we are called to notice this magic. I don't know... but I DO know, that I DON'T know, what is beating my heart. There is a 'greater mind' at work, well beyond the intelligence of my own limited self's mind to understand or comprehend. This much I am certain.
Back to our topic. Physics is our science of explaining the natural world. It actually comes from Ancient Greek and its root means "knowledge of nature". Humans have been trying to interpret the outer reality of our world and cosmos for time immemorable, and they've done a damn good job at it. Distill things into their smallest parts and we might understand them better. Something about particles and stuff. If this thing collides with this thing, then this well occur. If an apple falls from a tree, it will descend according to gravity at the rate of 9.8 meters/ per second, per second, until it collides with the Earth. An object will continue with its pattern of behavior until acted upon by an outer force. What I am describing is really Newtonian physics, systematized by Sir Isaac Newton three centuries ago. We continue to use this type of reasoning today, breaking anything we can observe down to the most fundamental pieces and putting it all back together to see how it works.
This branch of science deals largely with what I would categorize as kinetic energy. To tie it in with the previous post, this is 'Western mind' thinking. In fact, it IS the Western mind in action. "If this happens, then this happens." Logic. Reason. Linearity. Kinetic energy is this, where kinetics is the "study of forces acting on mechanisms". Don't worry, that was taken straight from Google, so it must be true. Regardless, it is useful for our dialogue (everything is true at the level that we accept it into our Western mind's model of reality - more on this later).
Let's summarize a bit and hopefully gather momentum in this conversation. We are talking about a 'small mind' that is not always privy to the incredible intelligence of a 'greater mind' that appears to be breathing life into our bodies, how the physics of yoga pertains to connecting to this higher intelligence, and we have a branch of science known as physics which studies the natural world. This branch of science has one primary school of thought known as Newtonian physics dealing largely with kinetic energy, which is the study of actions and reactions. "For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction." If studied thoroughly and applied accurately, we can apparently trace the entire Universe back to its inception point (scientists call this a "Big Bang") due to the fact that all things are composed of these tiny little particles called atoms and they are constantly colliding and interacting with each other over and over again and creating new dimensions of existence. But all of this had to start somewhere, right? And if we can measure accurately now, and we know the quantity and measurements of everything, we can balance the equation at one end. Hopefully. Maybe.
Or maybe we don't need to. Maybe this is just the Western mind's attempt at defining reality into something that can be digested and accepted into its model of life. Maybe this mystery is what has been driving so many great minds to understand what is really going on in this crazy chaotic dream bubble of existence. And driving some of them mad, I am sure!
Enter the newer branch of physics, known of as quantum physics. Let's put this branch on the right side of the science tree and also make it synonymous with the Eastern mind. We can also see that this is where we split the wave-particle duality of nature. Whereas classical physics (the Newtonian model) dealt with particles, the quantum reality has observed that nature moves in waves. What does that mean for us? The most obvious example of this is the famous Double Slit experiment, showing that particles of light (photons) behave in extraordinary ways dependent on consciousness observing them. This model of viewing reality sees that things only appear as things when we place a measuring device on them. Once the Western mind defines it, it becomes 'it'. But before it is defined, 'it' lies in an undefined state of uncertainty. It exists as a wave, and collapses into a particle the moment it is observed.
How might this pertain to our 'physics of yoga' thought experiment? For one, yoga is the methodology that we submerge ourselves into the ocean of existence, the wave-like nature of life itself that is simply a flow of energy. It is the merge of the two energies into One; yoga means union.
If we are too in our Western mind, we define and label life, crystallizing it into the acceptable paradigm that we want it to be. This prevents it from being what it actually is. And then we experience the back-and-forth pendulum swing of riding highs and lows.... we are affected by what happens to us, without realizing that we are actually the one causing the affect, for it is simply the act of observation that creates the reality we see. Where we place our attention, what we infuse with our consciousness, is the collapse of what was previously a wave of potential energy, being narrowed down into an object with mass, definition, momentum... and kinetic energy. This happens, and now the thing we observed is acting upon other things, ourselves included. We do this over and over in our lives until it creates an amazingly complex web and intricate network of interactions and reactions, and it looks like our life.
If you've made it this far, then you have consistently overcome the kinetic nature of the Western mind and have let go into your natural and vastly powerful state of potential energy. The state of potential energy that, prior to definition, is infinite by nature, for it is undefined. YOU define it. The saying "we are creating our reality" is a literal statement once these concepts are no longer intellectually understood, but actually experienced through the merge of the intellect and the feeling state. We go beyond knowing with the smaller, Western mind, and feel the true knowing of existence itself. We enter into the flow, and this dynamic field of life appears before our eyes as an eternal, ever-shifting miracle, because we can longer expect what occurs based on our previous observations of things. There is no longer a kinetic chain of events we can trace back, nor can we project it forward. The past and the future collapse into the moment as the Western mind and Eastern heart unite and consummate their marriage in the present, giving birth to the Truth. What is the Truth? Nothing and everything. It escapes definition, but it is Here Now. Can you feel it?
Thank you for reading.
