Sometimes people get this look on their face when I tell them I teach yoga. “Oh,” it says, “you’ve abandoned any attempts at actually working at something useful.” It’s not often I have the inclination or the opportunity to regale them with the full force of my, and our, shared passion for what we know yoga truly is. So, after the looks this weekend, I’m ranting.

Too many battles
For years I wondered how we could find a way to heal the world. There are so many causes to take up, so many arguments to be made, so many battles to take sides on. Think of all the “isms”: racism, sexism, and the need for environmentalism, feminism and animal rights activism. Yoga offers a solution to them all. And it does it peacefully.

The problem of Other
The problems come when we can’t see ourselves in that person of a different race, a different gender, or in the earth. It’s nothing new to talk about “the other”, the way we create divisions between “us” and “them”, or me and you, and the deep wounds we cause when we entrench ourselves in these differences. I’ve heard renowned academics, religious leaders, spiritual gurus, animal rights activists and, of course, Oprah, reference the need for the recognition of sameness. Because when we can see the similarities between ourselves and the other, can see ourselves in the other, the false walls fall. Ignorance fades. Violence stops.

Namaste
We start with yoga. With unity. With the knowledge that we are all one, that we share the same source and carry the same light. It’s more than a ritual when we say “Namaste“. It’s “Light in me sees light in you.” Let’s light up the world.