Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

to point. When we point our finger we often say “that.” This word was chosen in this great saying to remind us it is pointing toward something we should not overly describe and limit with words and names. Overly describing,defining, or personifying the sacred leads to division and religious conflict. We are all part of the infinite, the immeasurable, the ineffable.
You are that
.
    The word
Vedanta
also points toward freedom from the limitations of knowledge. Vedanta is one of the ancient yogic philosophical systems. The word
Veda
means knowledge and
anta
means
the end
. Vedanta is the end of the ancient Vedas and is often said to imply the end philosophy or the highest philosophy. The double entendre and hidden message in the word Vedanta is that it also means the
ending of knowledge
, or freedom from the known—that which is beyond the known. A central practice in Vedanta is negation—discovering the actual by removing, or negating, what it is not. For example, if you negate or remove arrogance, humility may come into being. There is a related form of inquiry or meditation approach called
Neti Neti
—not this, not this. Neti Neti aims one toward the realization that the transcendent cannot be contained in an object. We can explain love but love itself remains beyond words. By removing what is not love from our lives, we create more possibility for love to come into being. The greatest things in life are not obtained simply by acquiring knowledge of them.
    As a final example to point out the distinction between context and content, between the accumulation of knowledge and that which is beyond, consider a modern koan. A
koan
is a cosmic riddle pondered to achieve an insight that catalyzes a nonrational flash of understanding and illumination. One of the most famous such koan questions is, “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” In koan style inquiry, one isn’t supposed to circumvent the process by giving the answer. The process of questioning, pondering, and breaking the riddle yields a light of understanding.
    A humorous, modern Zen koan addresses the paradox of contradiction encountered when trying to convey the teachings. In this story a teacher gives a student a question to solve: “How many Zen mastersdoes it take to screw in a light bulb?” After working for weeks on the riddle, the student finally has a flash of seeing. “It takes two,” he says. “One to screw the light bulb in and one
not
to screw it in!” The student saw that the true meaning of Zen lies in the explanations and at the same time is beyond them. Words and descriptions can only be part of the equation, part of the actual. That which lies between the lines cannot be conveyed in words.
    This book raises many questions, perhaps more than it answers. It is often more important to question our answers than to answer our questions. The process of questioning and holding a question within ourselves becomes part of the light on the path of discovery, softening and opening us to new realizations. When we trust ourselves enough to begin to question tradition and authority, we begin the process of direct discovery. It has been said that the highest learning comes in four parts: One part is learned from teachers; another part from fellow students; a third part from self-study and practice; and the final part comes mysteriously, silently, in the due course of time. Inquiry and questioning can free us from the rigid, mechanical life of strict adherence to one belief, and can move us into the joy of continuous learning.
    Once, while walking in the mountains, an old Chinese teacher said to me, “If I teach you, you must stand on my shoulders.” This is a beautiful metaphor. We don’t throw away tradition: we stand on the shoulders of the past to find how we can see a bit farther.



I t usually is not long after one begins study of yoga that a myriad of types of yoga are encountered. A few types are
Hatha, Jnana, Bhakti, Karma, Kundalini, Kriya, Atma, Agni, Buddhi, Parama, Tantra, Laya
, and
Mantra
yogas. These divisions can become quite confusing. The word
yoga
comes from the word
yuj
, which means to yoke, or connect. The English root,
jug
, as in jugular or conjugate, has the same origin. Yoga signifies
union
, to unite or make whole. How has this science of reintegration itself become divided into so many seemingly conflicting parts? In order to understand this we must first look at a few of the major systems.
    Though there are