The Teaching That Changed Everything

​

The first yogic teaching to bring tears to my eyes as a new seeker went something like this: Once you see with the eyes of true knowledge, you will understand why the true religion is to welcome another human being.

This vision of equality – of our essential oneness and sanctity - pierced beyond intellectual understanding and spoke directly my heart. This is yoga’s ultimate aim: to cultivate this elevated way of seeing ourselves and the world. 

Early yogic texts like the Upanishads recognized a sacred essence within each person, known as the atman. This indwelling, unchanging Self is understood to be a universal source power, linking us to all life. 

Later, nondual Tantric traditions developed a sophisticated and elegant cosmology that expanded this notion. They describe how Shakti— universal, boundless consciousness—steps herself down into manifestation through a process of contraction. This self-organizing, dynamic, creative power limits herself in time, space, and form, eventually crystallizing into the five elements of nature (earth, water, fire, air, space) that constitute all matter, including us.

Here lies Tantra’s radical vision: Each of us is a microcosm of universal consciousness, a miniature version of the vast energy that contains the cosmos. The Self isn't buried deep within—it's alive in every cell, expressing itself as your very existence. 

As the Indian poet-saint Kabir observed, All know that the drop merges into the ocean, but few know that the ocean merges into the drop.

Consider this: if you are made of the same elements as stars and mountains, if your breath is the same air that has moved through countless beings, how separate can you really be?

From this perspective, yoga isn't about becoming anything different than what you already are. It’s the practice of remembering the liberating truth that you are inherently whole. Over time, this outlook transforms how you meet yourself, others, and life itself.  It fosters a natural dignity and respect that arises from the recognition that every being – indeed all things – are expressions of one underlying consciousness.  

The drop doesn't need to find the ocean. It only needs to remember it already is the ocean.

A Simple Practice in Cultivating Equality Consciousness

1. Sit comfortably and close your eyes. 

2. Take three natural breaths, then pause after an exhale. In that stillness before the next breath arises, notice: where does the impulse to breathe come from? You don't decide to breathe—something greater breathes you. This same life force breathes every being on Earth, connecting you to the mother nursing her child in Mumbai, the farmer planting seeds in Iowa, the whale diving in the Pacific. 

3. For a few moments, feel yourself being breathed by the same universal life that moves through all things. 

4. When you open your eyes, carry this recognition: you've just experienced your connection to the infinite.