Business Blog

“What lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”        – Henry David Thoreau

         I had dinner with a dear friend of mine last night and the discussion turned, as it often does, to the state of the world.  He mentioned all the various systems that were in flux in the world including but not limited to:  the economic systems, the financial systems, housing markets, retail operations, employment systems, political systems, and the systems we use to manage the environmental crisis.  After listening to him I felt an initial pain of hopelessness in the pit of my stomach.  I wondered, how can we as humans possibly fix all the problems that confront us?    Without ignorance to shield me from the immensity of the challenges that lie ahead, how could I move forward with hope into the future?

         As a yoga teacher, I searched the yoga philosophies for some guiding light, some glimmer of hope;  and it wasn’t hard to find.  Right there at the very core of yoga philosophy was the notion that we as humans are really more than we know ourselves to be.  We are both human and divine.  The divine lives inside of us concealed and hidden.  It is through the practice of yoga that one can reclaim and recognize the fuller experience of what it truly means to be human.

         Ah, that’s it!  We are so much more than we know ourselves to be.  As Thoreau states so eloquently, “what lies before us and what lies behind us are small matters compared to what lies within us.”  And to continue that line of thought, Marianne Williamson as quoted in one of Nelson Mandela’s famous speeches, reminds us “it is not just in some of us, it’s in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give others permission to do the same.” 

         Yoga is a journey to turn inward to explore the unexplored vast regions of the frontier of our own consciousness and in doing so to tap into the ineffable elemental part of ourselves that is already continuous with everything and everyone around us (similar in a way to the difference between working on a local computer and working on a computer hooked up to the Internet).  It is this greater level of connectivity with the grander sense of ourselves that can truly save the world. 

         Personally, I have discovered glimmers of this inner sense of connection to “all that is.”  I know myself on some level to be intricately connected to the trees and sky, to the earth and sea, to the great thinkers of all time like Thoreau, Pierre Teilhardt de Chardin, Gandhi, and others who believed in the greatness contained within human beings and envisioned a more evolved human coming forth into the world.

         What is it that fuels humans in their evolution of consciousness?  Is it the very impulse of the ineffable presence at the center of our being?  Is it the life force, prana with all it’s innate intelligence that continuously calls us to move in new directions.  How do we hear this inner call?  As all the great mystics remind us, we become still and begin to listen.  Ultimately we begin to live in alignment with the currents of Being pulsing through us.  The divine element of ourselves, our own life force – that one continuous energy that moves in us in our own unique way – is there to guide us.

         What can save the world?  Each of us is designed specifically to play our part.  The role we have chosen is encoded within us.  The next phase in our evolutionary journey as humans is to become divinely human beings.  To become conscious of the divine force living in us as us.

         How can we distinguish this voice from all others?  It is the voice that beckons your heart to move toward that which is deeply desired.  Is is the subtle force within that inspires you to dance wildly, to speak authentically, to sing (even if you don’t really know how to sing), to love, to do yoga, to start a new non profit.  It is the voice that recognizes the whole.  It is the voice that is more resonant than the the separate notes of “us” and “them” and instead finds a chord that unites the two and a space large enough for both to coexist.  How can we live in this world of opposites and yet see a oneness underneath it all?

         This is a time of paradox. We are living into the next stage of our own evolutionary destiny.  Confusion is the first sign that we’ve stepped across the threshold.  The confusion where clear-cut answers no longer serve in solving our own questions.  Where we continue to hold opposites – apparently irreconcilable opposites in our mind and hearts.

         How can I serve the world and make a living that meets the needs of my family?  How can I see the underlying divinity in all that is and feel the pain of a world engaged in war, murder, rape, and environmental degradation.  How can I sense all my own personal shortcomings and yet envision that I too, am a manifestation of the one divine energy underlying all of existence?  How can I awaken to live more connected to and in alignment with the deeper inner currents of the divine impulse calling to me?

         This is the greatest mission of our times and what lies before us pales in comparison to what lies within us.