Yoga Is Already Accomplished

Hi Folks,

As some of you know, in August, I started a Zoom inquiry group centered around my last book, This Extraordinary Moment. I’ve enjoyed it so much that I’m thinking of convening another one, again focused on exploring the material in that same book. Provided there’s enough interest, the group would likely start up mid-November and run for 12 weeks as before. The weekly meetings would happen 10-11:30 am Pacific time on Tuesdays (I record each session should anyone have to miss any of the live meetings). Drop me a note at: john@johnastin.com if you’re potentially interested.

Best,
John

Yoga Is Already Accomplished

The word “yoga” means to yoke together the soul with the supreme reality, with God. Whether it's doing asanas, or meditation or pranayama practices, the primary point of the yoga is union.  For many years, I engaged in such yogic practices because I had this sense that I wasn't in that exalted state of union. And so, I worked quite diligently to control my attention, quiet my mind and so on, things I believed were necessary in order to discover the longed-for union.

But along the way, I learned about another way of approaching the goal of yogic union and that is to simply recognize that the yoking together or union has already been accomplished. Union is already the very nature of life.  The ocean and the waves it creates is a simple yet powerful metaphor that points to the already present union of this.  

We think of ourselves to be these individuated, autonomous creatures, living in a vast world. And as these isolated, autonomous beings, we imagine that we’ve somehow been separated out of from the whole and that in order to be returned to that, in order to be reunited with the ocean, these little waves we imagine ourselves to be have to do something.

Now, when we look out at the ocean, we see what we call waves, right? We can point to the wave, its shape, the way it rises up out of the sea, the way it moves toward the shore. We can describe its qualities, whether it’s small or large, powerful or gentle and so on. In so many ways, the wave appears to be something identifiable. It seems to have an identity apart from the sea, an identity that distinguishes it from other waves. But does it?

How is it that we’ve even defined a wave as being a wave? How are we able to distinguish the wave from the ocean when there is absolutely no dividing line anywhere to be found? Since we can’t actually say where the wave begins, how can we say what it is, where it is or that it even is?

While we can’t ultimately know the mechanics of this, we could say that consciousness (or simply the intelligence of life) effectively draws a line around something and in so doing, defines the limits of that phenomenon.

For example, consciousness looks out at an ocean and creates an imaginary line that seems to separate what it’s now labeling as “a wave” from that which it emerged out of, i.e., the sea. But the line is really arbitrary, isn’t it? I mean, where does the form we call wave actually begin? We describe that beginning as the trough of the wave but again, where does the trough actually start? The reality is that the ocean has no actual boundaries. There areno gaps separating one wave from the next, even though it can be perceived that way. The ocean is a seamless whole. And in that sense, there really are no autonomously existing waves, even if there seem to be.

When consciousness draws these imaginary lines in the sea, we believe these waves have autonomous existence. That's what calling them waves implies. To single out a given wave from its context is to define what the limits of that wave are, what it is, and what it is not. In other words, we’re essentially saying that the phenomena we’ve identified as the wave is that and is not the entirety of the sea.

In much the same way that we distinguish waves from the sea, in order to identify any apparent object, say in the visual field, consciousness draws a line around a presumed object to set it apart from the rest of the visual field. But, just as I can look out at the ocean and perceive it as either a single body of water or as a bunch of separate, autonomously existing waves that are in relationship with one another, so too with the visual field. I can see it as a single display of light or as innumerable visual objects, separated somehow from one another.

Just as we can look out at a single body of water and perceive that singular, undivided whole as a bunch of separate waves, our default is to imagine ourselves as distinct from the whole of life. We imagine that we’ve somehow been plucked out of the whole and are now trying to figure out how to return ourselves to and reunite with that whole.

But we've never been removed from the whole! The wave has never been plucked out of the sea for all the watery waves that we see the ocean giving rise to are its expression. They are absolutely inseparable from, and none other than the sea. The waves are the sea’s activity. And so, from that vantage, it would make no sense for the wave to make effort, even mild effort, to return to the sea because it is already the sea, already that singular reality it’s seeking to reunite itself with. This is precisely our situation as seekers.

The wholeness, the oneness, the indivisibility of life—whatever name we might give this singular reality that is beyond all names is already what's here. All of this that we behold and name and describe and define, including ourselves as being separate from the whole, all of this is the activity of the whole, all of it life’s magical display.

The vast, boundless, infinite ocean, is being all things, doing all things, shining as all things, expressing as all things, including of course us. And so, as these phenomenal waves we seem to be, we can just completely relax any effort to realize the inseparability of life because that inseparability is already the case, already what we are.

Feel that, the union that is already here, this inseparable, indivisible whole that appears as what we think of as the myriad separate parts and pieces, including “us.” When the watery wave moves, it is the sea that is moving right? It is the power and force of the sea itself that is the underpinning, the energy, the fuel, that gives rise to each seemingly separate wave.

So it is with us; we are being done, being moved and lived by this incomprehensible energy, the whole we call life that is being all things.

Recognize this right now, that there is no findable division between what we think of as “our” individual life and the whole of life. After all, where is the line separating the phenomenal waves that we are from the ocean of life? Such dividing lines cannot be found any more than we can find a line separating the ocean wave from its source.

There is nowhere to go to find this indivisibility for it pervades everything that appears. There’s nothing to engage in or do for this fundamental wholeness to be the wholeness that it is. The wholeness is simply what’s here, isn't it? It's here, before we even take one step to recognize that it's here! And if there's a step that we take to recognize and see it, well it is the wholeness that is taking that step to realize itself.

Life is everything. If there's a recognition, an insight. Well, it is life that is having that recognition. I mean, just for a moment, ask yourself, what is recognizing this moment? What is seeing this moment, what is knowing this moment? While there’s no way to ultimately describe that, we could say that what's seeing this moment is the moment itself. Life gazing upon itself, exploring itself, reveling in itself. There’s really no separation between what's seeing and whatever is being seen. One ocean of life, dancing as both the wave we call the perceiver and the waves we call, the perceived.

So, just relax. You are already this wholeness. The yoking together of the soul and God has already been accomplished for the wave that you are has never, ever left the Sea.