Light on Life: The Yoga Journey to Wholeness, Inner Peace, and Ultimate Freedom

in divinity, but a divinity that is not divorced from practical reality. It is
simply that the divine foot lives in Oneness. The planetary foot can
handle diversity, the complexity of seeming contradiction.
Yoga means, as in its English derivative, to yoke, to join, to har­
ness, to unite, to bring together. It means elevating the body's intelli­
gence to the level of the mind and then yoking both to unite with the
soul. The body is the planet earth in all its diversity. Soul is the spirit,
heaven above. Yoga as an instrument joins these, the Many into One.
Ethics is the glue that binds earth to Heaven. One cannot serve
two masters. The only way a human being can reconcile the paradox
of the demands of earth and soul is through the observation of ethical
principles.
Before going into specific details about yama and niyama, it should
be said that whereas morals are flexible and culturally determined ac­
cording to time and place, ethics arise out of the human need to respect
the unity of our unique origin and the divine fusion of our ultimate
end. At the same time, they make it possible to live convivially in a
world in which difference describes reality. Consequently, when ethics
and social comity break down, conflict enters most rel;;ttionships,
whether in marriage, in families, or between tribes, nations, ideologies,
or cultures. We think that love should obviate the need for ethics, but
while it certainly helps, in any negotiation of human needs there will
always be a need for ethics. The yogic perspective of underlying unity,
of original sameness, supports this logic. From the perspective of un­
derlying similarity, at every level of evolution, it is cooperation, not
conflict, that incarnates the higher truth and that serves the Absolute.
Ethics are a human endeavor and, as in sport, the more sports­
manlike we are, the more we raise the level of the game and bring it
closer to our highest aspirations. Cheats always lose. They are un­
masked because they are transparently dishonest, deceive themselves,
and fail in their human duty. The attempt to live ethically brings us
closer to our fellow man and to God above. There are no shortcuts,