Yoga Beyond Belief: Insights to Awaken and Deepen Your Practice

line is each one of us must decide what is right and appropriate for ourselves. We all depend on and learn from each other and from our teachers. Education is the foundation of living, but unquestioning obedience to, and worship of, teachers—long a tradition in India—supports authoritarianism, exploitation, and coercion. We must question our teachers, ourselves, and our beliefs. It has been said, “Don’t believe what you think.” Thought is fallible and belief is often blind. The word
belief
itself is spelled with
lie
in the middle.
    Once in discussion, a wise yogi showed me how holding enlightenment as a goal was a misconception. We were having a lively and profound discussion in which he was leading me into a trap that would free me from this idea. I was questioning him about the nature of enlightenment and obviously I was holding onto the idea of a
final
enlightenment. I kept phrasing my questions with “When you get enlightened …” or “After you’re enlightened …” My friend kept pushing me and replying, “Yes, WHEN? … when you get enlightened? Then? Then what?” I struggled with his questions and kept replying in a way that framed enlightenment as an attainment or final goal to reach, after which one would be totally clear and wise. He retorted to my replies until finally he got me to see and realize something and I exclaimed, “Ah ha, you ‘get there,’ you get enlightened, and think you’ve arrived, so then you can go back to sleep!” Right in chorus with me, he said, “Then you can go back to sleep!” There was a pregnant silence and then he added that there is no final destination. Thinking one has arrived is darkness once again. He went on to explain furtherhow he saw enlightenment as enlightened living, constantly reawakening and always being alert, questioning, and watchful.
    Enlightenment also implies light—light itself. Light comes in many forms—insight, awareness, illumination of the dark corners of our consciousness, illumination of the darkness of our fears and neuroses. Light dispels darkness. Light is also the beauty of nature, both inner and outer. Light can take us on transformational journeys deep inside our own consciousness, revealing countless and immeasurable mysteries and visions of multi-hued, jeweled inner worlds. Light permeates the universe. Even matter is another form of light. All that we see as manifest creation—planets, stars, the sun—are, in a sense, just a part of the smoldering, cooling light energy in the universe. Light illumines our paths and worlds, yet itself remains one of the greatest mysteries.
    Enlightenment is the discovery of the sublime, the mystical, and the mysterious. It is seeing connection and separation; it is merging into the interconnectedness of all things.
Interconnectedness
is a good term because it implies both oneness and separation. At deep levels of perception there is neither up nor down, left nor right, neither the experiencer nor the experience. Enlightenment explores and resides at the indefinable edge where life and death meet. It wanders in the mystery of the Divine, beyond the mind of man. But we must also be very careful because enlightenment can become the ultimate driving desire, the cosmic carrot on the end of a stick, pulling us into a life of struggle toward unattainable goals of perfection, purity, and perpetual bliss. Like all things, seasons and cycles come and go. We may have timeless moments of enlightenment, deep insight, revelation, and realization. We may merge into that which is beyond us, into the source that sustains us. Then we must come back down the ladder of consciousness into the daily moments of living. The time of the light, the time of vision and perception, later becomes a distant guiding vision. That light itself lives only in its own moment. When we rely too heavily on past insights and realizations, we may lose the light of perception that lives in the presentmoment. The enlightenment of today can become the ignorance of tomorrow, if one isn’t vigilant.
    Part of enlightenment involves lightening up a bit. This does not imply that we should not take things seriously, but that we should see the humor in life and in ourselves. Lightening up also points to the importance of ridding ourselves of some of the mental and psychological baggage we have accumulated. To let go we must also let go of the fear of standing alone—of being without supports or crutches. To move beyond our hopes