10 A JOURNEY INTO YIN YOGA
Because it’s out of your control whether you shift into dhyana or not, it’s
important to remain detached. Some days it will happen and other days it
won’t. All you can do is keep showing up on your meditation cushion. Just
like practicing a musical instrument, it’s much better to do a little meditation
every day than to do a lot once a week.Limb Eight: Samadhi, or Absolute Oneness
Samadhi is the source of all yoga. It’s difficult to describe in words because
it is a state that exists beyond the realm of labels, ideas, and forms. This
might be why poetry and music were created; they help people experience
a glimpse of samadhi. In samadhi, the sense of I dissolves, and you become
one with all creation. You reunite with the place from which you were born,
and the place you will one day dissolve into, like a tiny drop of rain falling
into an infinite ocean of stillness.
A yogi who has a samadhi experience realizes that our humanity consists
of more than the obvious characteristics. There is more than our skin color,
age, gender, ethnicity, and occupation. In a state of samadhi, we see through
the illusionary veil of separateness and know that we are all one.
All of the other limbs are in preparation for samadhi. Reaching samadhi is
like summiting a mountain top. It is said that when just one person reaches
samadhi, it benefits all humanity. But as incredible as samadhi is, you still must
function within the world. After enlightenment and the big awakening, you
still have to wash laundry, do your taxes, and remember your Social Security
number. You must come down from the mountain and return to the valley.
As you descend, though, you bring the awakening with you. You must bring
love where there is anger, joy where there is sadness, health where there is
disease, forgiveness where there is resentment, peace where there is chaos,
and light where there is darkness.The eight limbs of yoga are meant to serve as a guide. It’s easy to get lost
and allow ourselves to be pulled away from our path, the path that is in
alignment with our greatest potential. The farther that we move away from
this path, the greater our suffering becomes. The closer that we stay to this
path, the happier, healthier, and more peaceful we will be. Patanjali and all
the yogis before him were gracious enough to compile this information into
an easy-to-follow universal system that was powerful thousands of years ago,
is powerful today, and will be powerful for centuries to come.TRADITIONAL PATHS OF YOGA
As mentioned earlier, the eight limbs of yoga from Patanjali were born from
the path of raja yoga. I say path intentionally because that’s what it is. It’s
a path that you can follow, and through dedication and persistence, you
will eventually reach the summit of human experience, which is to become
enlightened. Another word we could use is awakened, as we wake up to our