What is religious feeling?
How would you describe that?
The word religion means to relink or bind together.
It is similar to yoke.
It has to do with the feeling of not being separate,
Apart,
Left on your own,
Or abandoned.
So,
It is a feeling of being connected?
Yes.
And because you feel your connection with God and the universe,
You feel held,
Protected,
Taken care of.
You feel safe.
You thereby grow increasingly confident that the universe is inherently good.
It is not evil,
And it is not neutral.
It is absolutely good.
And you can know this even in the face of the most horrific manifestation.
This,
By the way,
Is tremendously soothing.
It is the supreme tranquilizer.
Let me say it like this.
Yoga makes you sensitive.
Being sensitive enables you to feel your essential energy with clarity.
This energy is the creative life force of God flowing through you.
It's what makes you,
You.
Because,
Realize,
You are alive.
You are made of something,
And you did not create yourself.
The more attuned you are to the creative life force in you,
The more you will notice that you are participating in a non-stop,
Non-verbal communion,
Communication with God and the universe all the time.
You are literally connected to the universe with invisible wiring.
You cannot get away from it.
It's how you're built.
This personal communion,
Communication with God and the universe is the source of right action,
Joy,
Fulfillment,
Understanding,
And peace of mind.
Are you saying that God is within us and that yoga is a way of helping us discover that relationship?
Yes,
But it is more accurate to say that you are in God rather than God is in you.
As you become aware of God in you,
You will naturally become aware of God in others.
A religious life,
Then,
Involves nothing more or less than relating to the God in everyone and in following spirit's guidance without hesitation.
In this sense,
There's nothing but one being experiencing itself through everything created.
What percentage of your students do you find respond to what we might call the real teaching of yoga?
How many come for just the physical and how many are looking for the deeper spiritual meaning of yoga?
I think all of them are looking for something real.
There's an impulse in everyone to move towards truth.
They may not know it,
However.
Their only conscious motivation for coming to class may be to get stretched out and relaxed.
And you see your work as helping to awaken that through the yoga?
Yes,
To encourage the experience of stillness because then they will know their truth firsthand and thereby feel good inside about who they are.
This attitude is the real health tonic,
More so than the effects of standing on your head or touching your toes.
So in your classes,
One of your aims,
Perhaps your chief purpose,
Is to give your students a direct experience of that stillness,
Of the wholeness that yoga of that stillness,
Of the wholeness that yoga brings us to?
Yes,
And though it does not seem possible to directly convey the experience,
What I can do is be in that space myself and work to get the conditions as optimal as possible.
There should be quiet.
The room should be beautiful.
The lighting should be just right.
It all helps.
Where does meditation fit into yoga?
Meditation is the heart of yoga and doing the physical yoga makes it easier to meditate.
This was one of my initial motivations for getting involved with the Hatha side of yoga.
I wanted to be comfortable sitting in lotus so I could meditate,
So I did the exercises.
What I learned,
However,
Was that doing the physical yoga is not only preparation for meditation,
It is an extremely interesting meditation in itself.
What,
In your view,
Is meditation?
Meditation is the listening mind,
The listening to infinite mind,
Mind.
And yoga is a way of learning to be in meditation all day long.
In other words,
Listening inwardly with a quiet mind as many moments of the day as you can for the guidance and wisdom of infinite mind,
God.
The way to listen inwardly for guidance from infinite mind is by being attentive to your deepest impulses about what to say or think or do or be.
This,
Again,
Is like a wave seeking guidance from the ocean as though the ocean was something other than itself and then diving deeply into itself in order to feel out the answer.
The wave diving into itself,
However,
Is the same as the wave diving into the ocean.
For the wave is the ocean in specific expression.
The wisdom and guidance that comes from infinite mind then will be experienced by you as your deepest impulses to do or be.
It's a matter of being still enough mentally so they can rise from the ocean's depths,
Your depths,
The depths of being and float into your conscious awareness.
The practice of yoga,
Therefore,
Is the practice of meditation,
Inner listening,
Both in the poses and meditations as well as all day long.
It's a matter of listening inwardly all the time and then daring enough and trusting enough to do as you are prompted to do.
Meditation,
Therefore,
Is many things,
Not merely sitting straight and lotus.
Primarily,
It's a way of coming upon the truth of who you are by experiencing what you are.
You practice not thinking long enough to feel the energy you're made of.
To feel the energy you're made of.
This puts you in touch with the natural joy of being and the actuality of conscious communion with spirit.
You'll find yourself becoming more intuitive effortlessly and then it's a matter of listening on the run,
Of voluntarily allowing yourself to be guided by the infinite as you live your life and do what you do.
For me,
Meditation in action,
That is,
In the midst of daily life,
Always involves the realization that this moment right now is absolutely worthy of my fullest attention.
This means that here is where I'm supposed to be and that this is what I'm supposed to be doing and that you are who I am supposed to be with.
It always feels as though the whole world is right now and that this moment is the only time there is.
As though this room were the stage of the entire universe,
The only stage,
And you and I,
The only people in the universe.
This can happen when you are sitting alone,
Listening to music,
Talking,
Painting,
Writing,
Making love,
Walking in nature,
Anything wherein you experience the joy of being you.
Meditation is a way of opening yourself to the intimations of the universe that flow through you constantly.
It is the means whereby you exchange your previously small definition or sense of self for that of an individualized expression of the infinite.
Meditation helps you realize that you are a spiritual personality essence and that your mind is part of the bigger mind.
In the stillness of your quiet mind,
You'll learn to use your mind in a new and expanded way.
Having a mind is like having a library card.
With your library card,
You have instant access to all knowledge within the library.
Meditation,
Therefore,
Is not something you do for half an hour a day and then forget about.
It becomes your total way of being.
It is constant,
All day long.
