of Jason and the Argonauts. The stories unfolding in our
lives and those around us are perennial stories.
The mythic gods and goddesses are alive and well
within our collective domain. We can see the expression
of Queen Juno in the powerful women of our era—Mar-
garet Thatcher, Golda Meir, Hillary Clinton. The goddess
of nature, Diana, shows her modern face through Jane
Goodall and Julia “Butterfly” Hill. Venus made her most
direct appearance via Marilyn Monroe, while Dionysus,
the god of intoxication and excess, has a tendency to
show up in the stream of people who require stays at the
Betty Ford Clinic.
You are a living story. Become aware of the stories
you tell about yourself and your world. Participate con-
sciously in the writing of the next chapter of your life.
Yoga encourages you to expand your sense of self to
embrace the collective domain of your soul. This is
where the deepest aspirations of humanity find fulfill-
ment through the perennial stories we tell ourselves and
our children.
According to Shankara, the deepest aspect of your
being is beyond time, space, and causality, yet gives rise to
the manifest universe. This is the universaldomain of
spirit in which all distinctions merge in unity. Having no
qualities of its own, this field of pure potentiality manifests
as the infinitely diverse world of forms and phenomena.
The unbounded ocean of being disguises itself in the
sheaths of the causal, subtle, and physical realms.
This nonlocal, unbounded realm is the source and
goal of life. Yoga encourages us to bring our attention to
this universal domain so that we become imbued with
the deep stillness and creativity it represents. Then, even
Yoga Is Union 21