“Perform your duty with equipoise, oh Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called Yoga.”—Bhagavad Gita. 

  Often I pin a ‘yoga’ tag to a post before hitting the publish button. Though to be completely honest I’ve never taken a formal yoga class in my life. 

  I tag yoga because, as the Bhagavad Gita advocates, it is so much more than the stretching and mindfulness interludes in our busy day it has become. Rather than a mere recharging break in the day from our persistent pursuit of success in one form or another, it was originally a holistic way of life dedicated to balance and integrity and oneness with the Flow of Life. 

  When you are one with the Flow of Life, as I appear to be in the above photo, engaged with all your faculties and potentials, there is no concern for ‘success’ or ‘failure,’ for you have already ‘succeeded’ beyond most people’s ability to imagine. 

  Yoga is Zen and the Buddhistic void into the bargain, all wrapped into one. It is mistakenly called ‘atonement’ by Christians, but falls short of the promised ‘at-one-ment’ because the supposed reconnection is to a God that is ‘out there’ or ‘up there,’ transcendent, and in no way one, or immanent, with our very selves. 

  Unfortunately for the genuine Western seekers of today, this disconnect between our symbol of the absolute, of the great mystery of Life, namely God, was inserted at the very foundation of our mythic and belief system over a thousand years ago now. It has become a giant hurdle to overcome, this awakening to the fact that there is no separation between us and God, Nature, and indeed all Life, and that we are in fact one with all Life.

But it can be overcome if we stick to it, whether by learning, yoga, Zen, an awareness of the Void, or perhaps all of the above.  

Aummmm…..

  There, time to roll up my metaphorical yoga mat and get on with the day.

  With equanimity.