If you are practicing yoga, you are most probably on a spiritual path, whether you are aware of it or not. Yoga means “union”, and the true idea of yoga is to unite with your Higher Self, with the Divine. Even if you do yoga “only” a few times a week as a physical exercise and to relax, it brings you into a space of feeling fulfilled and joyful simply from within yourself. This is the first step towards inner mastery and towards a knowing that reaches deeper than any thought: the knowing of oneness.
One current in all beings
My spiritual teacher Sathya Sai Baba says it is the same current that flows through all beings: life-force energy and love. It is present in every person, just as the same electric current lights up different bulbs. The only difference is the strength, the wattage so to speak, with which it shines in each bulb.
I love this image because it explains so much at once. It says that the difference between people does not lie in their essence, but only in how freely this essence can flow. And it also says that spiritual paths such as yoga, meditation or prayer do not create anything new in you. They remove the obstacles so that the current, which is there anyway, can flow more strongly. Each spiritual path simply uses a different language for this.
One ocean, many waves
In a discourse I love very much, Sai Baba describes oneness with another image: countless waves arise from the vast ocean. They appear to differ from one another in form, and yet they are nothing other than the ocean itself. In every wave, the nature and qualities of the ocean are fully present.
He understands the religions and spiritual traditions in the same way. When rain falls from the sky, it is the same pure water everywhere, and yet it takes on the colour and taste of the place where it lands. In this way, prophets and teachers at different times and in different places have passed on the same message in the language of their time and their people. The paths differ, the goal is one. Love, compassion, truthfulness, sacrifice and integrity are the shared values of all great traditions.
One detail from this discourse touches me especially: even the Indian greeting Namaskar, in which the palms are placed together, carries this message. The many fingers unite into one gesture, the many bowing to the One in the person before you.
You will not find peace on the outside
Something very practical follows from this view. If the same current flows in everyone, then the peace we are all seeking is not to be found somewhere out there, not in circumstances, possessions or the approval of others. Sai Baba puts it like this:
“Where there is Love, there is Peace. Where there is Peace, there is Truth. Where there is Truth, there is Bliss. Where there is Bliss, there is God.” (Sathya Sai Baba, Sathya Sai Speaks, Volume 24, Chapter 29)
The chain begins with love. This is why the simplest spiritual practice is also the deepest: cultivating love in thought, word and action, and letting hatred go. “Love is God, God is Love” is perhaps my teacher’s best-known sentence, and it is not a theory but a practice for every single day.
Living oneness in everyday life
What changes when you go through your day with this view? You meet a difficult person and remember: the same current flows in them as in me, perhaps just covered over right now. You do not have to approve of their behaviour, and still something changes in your encounter, because inwardly you are no longer speaking with a stranger.
And the same applies within yourself. The moments in which you feel small, separate or not enough are, from this view, not a truth about your essence but obstacles in the flow, and obstacles can be released. I also describe how to strengthen the connection to this deeper level in you in my article on caring for yourself with the 5 koshas.
If you would like to read the full discourse: it was given on 25 December 1991 and is published in “Sathya Sai Speaks”, Volume 24, Chapter 29.
If this view touches you
Perhaps while reading you sense a longing for this connectedness, and at the same time inner obstacles stand in your way, old patterns, thoughts or feelings that cover the flow. This is exactly what I work on in my sessions. If you like, let us meet.
Book a free Clarity Call: https://tidycal.com/sandragross/claritycall-en
