Are we more than the sights and sounds of our culture? The ancient philosophy of yoga tells us yes; there is an eternal, ever-present reality within us that transcends the limits that society imposes on us. Art has always been a celebration, and thus a verification of that eternal reality. The highest art is timeless, universal, and not restricted to the culture that created it.
Music is the first art. Everything—all that is manifest—proceeds from sound. The ancient seers, the rishis, gave this teaching and modern physics has verified it.
Yoga is a portable art form, free from costly equipment and supplies. All it requires is a sense of adventure and a willingness to explore the vastness of the Self.
Our culture has become saturated with the desire to acquire skills, power, and material things. Unfortunately, the arts have become commodified, but the Self cannot be commodified. You cannot hold onto it nor can you buy or sell it. It exists in every being and is available at any time.
In the practices of yoga our resistance to the natural state o bliss and our attachment to the world of forms and senses is made apparent. When we feel limitation in the body or the mind, it is an opportunity to concentrate on our true nature, which is love itself, beyond limitation.
The art of life is life as art. Yoga means joining together what we do with who we are: Love itself.
What is realized in the enlightened state is the oneness of being.
Art does not imitate life, but rather expresses the common essence, which runs through all of life.
Excerpt from The Art of Yoga, by Sharon Gannon and David Life
