You can never really conjure up the state of yoga. It is impossible to engineer or will your way to the state of union. The great union happens in the way we fall in love. It is a moment outside of our control, beyond our capacity to guide. In practice then, we must remain humble and open ourselves to the possibility of grace where our temporal self and eternal self merge. One of my Zen teachers, Roshi Joan Sutherland, once said that enlightenment is an accident and the best we can do is make ourselves accident prone.
Each day when you come to the mat, quiet your thoughts, have patience, and make yourself available. When you loosen your grip, something else can enter. It is like the deer slipping into the meadow at dusk or being visited in a dream by an ally or protector—the figure of a horse, your loving grandmother, or your third grade teacher from long ago. Opening yourself to unconditional love may feel scary. Do I dare let myself go? Can I come to trust something outside myself? When you let your guard down, when you cease feeling obligated to make everyone else feel happy and satisfied, you receive support from the ancient ones. In the Christian ethos, it is to be providentially guided by the mercy of a loving God.
The yoga of falling in love is to permit yourself to be loved and cared for by another who carries the love inside them. It happens through osmosis. You need only make yourself more permeable and day by day, drop by drop, allow yourself to become fully saturated in the loving presence of another.
Photo: Tonia Kraakman / Unsplash
