'Many scholars and practitioners translate ‘yoga’ as a manifestation of the verb ‘yuj’ - ‘to unite’ - which turns yoga into something one does, a form of willful activity. In thinking that yoga is the act of uniting one thing with another (breath with movement, body with mind, self with other), we confuse yoga with the doing of yoga. When we use the term in this way (as in ‘I’m going to practice yoga’), we confuse the techniques of the technology of practice with the experience of yoga. In every unfolding moment, in any meeting with any person, even in meeting ourselves, everything is complete. This completeness doesn’t mean that everything is put together in some master plan. It means that everything is interdependent and that yoga is not something we seek outside of ourselves or a willful attempt at union, but the recognition, in the present moment, of the unification of life. The inherent interconnectedness of existence reveals what in philosophical terms we call ‘non-dualism’ - the collapse of separation between subject and object. When we experience relaxed openness and attentive awareness, the world reveals its inherent completeness. When we move through the world, ‘concealed and wrapped in thought,’ there is no direct contact with reality and we know not ‘who or what’ we are. Yoga begins with a gesture of a gentle bow in service of the present moment.'
- Michael Stone, 'The Inner Tradition of Yoga.'
- Michael Stone, 'The Inner Tradition of Yoga.'