The Yogi’s Day: Awakening Beyond Matter

Let’s look at a very strange paradox. We are told that we should be “wide awake” and “on the ball” if we want to succeed in life. We are taught to be alert to every opportunity and every threat. But the ancient wisdom suggests that most of us are actually sleepwalking. We are awake to the shadows, but we are totally unconscious of the light that is casting them.

The pursuit of happiness is the great American – and indeed, global – hobby. But notice how stressful it is to be happy. You have to keep it up! You have to maintain the conditions that make you feel good. Peace, however, is a different animal altogether. Peace is what remains when you stop struggling. When I am at peace, I can see the suffering of others not as a threat to my own comfort, but as a call to action. Peace is the silent facilitator.

The Emptiness within the Engine

Why is it so hard to stay peaceful? It’s because we have this nagging feeling that we are incomplete. We have an acute sense of “lacking.” We feel that the universe is “out there” and we are “in here,” and we have to go out and grab bits of the world to fill our internal void. We want food, sleep, friends, and love – and there’s nothing wrong with that – but we think these things will “make” us whole.

The world, you see, isn’t designed to support your peace. It’s designed for trade, commerce, and competition. If everyone were peaceful and self-sufficient, the advertising industry would collapse overnight. Greed and envy are the fuel for the material engine. Those who have the least peace are usually the ones who make sure no one else has any either.

But look at your own experience of sleep. In deep sleep, you are self-sufficient. You don’t need anything. You don’t even need a “you.” There is only one being present – the pure awareness that is experiencing bliss. Sleep is the ultimate abandonment of effort. You just wait, and the peace of the universe swallows you up.

Reversing the Light

The challenge is to re-create that conscious “no-thing-ness” while we are walking around. We are currently materialists. We see ourselves as a collection of parts – a body, a mind, a set of senses. And because we see ourselves as “composed,” we are terrified of “decomposing.” We see the world as a place of constant falling apart.

But there is another dimension. Call it the spiritual world, if you like. In that dimension, nothing is “composed.” There are no parts. It is a seamless whole. And because it isn’t made of parts, it can never fall apart. It is eternal. Now, your physical eyes and your analytical mind can’t see this world because they are designed to see “parts.” They are like a ruler trying to measure the sky.

To see the spirit, we have to refine our instruments. This refinement is what we mean by the “discipline of union.” It’s a way of cleaning the lens of our perception.

The Four Instruments of the Spirit

Think of yourself as having four primary “muscles” that can be used for this refinement:

• The Muscle of Reason: We use our intellect to realize that the “I” we think we are is just a collection

of memories and labels.

• The Muscle of Love: We use our emotions to feel the connection between ourselves and everything

else.

• The Muscle of Will: We use our internal focus to quiet the chatter of the mind.

The Muscle of Action: We use our hands to work in the world as if we were a channel for the universe, rather than a separate ego seeking a reward.

When you use these muscles, you begin a journey. But it’s a journey toward the “subtler” layers of your own being. You move from the gross world of matter to the subtle world of thought, and finally to the inward layer of pure awareness.

The Peace that Stays

You can find a bit of peace by listening to a beautiful symphony or spending time with your family. Those are wonderful things. You can find peace by being a “good person” and following the rules of moral conduct. But even that peace is fragile. If the music stops, or the family argues, or the rules change, your peace is gone.

The only peace that is stable is the one that is rooted in your own true nature – what we might call “God-realization” or “Self-realization.” It is the discovery that you aren’t the wave; you are the ocean. The wave can be smashed against the rocks, but the ocean is always there, deep and silent.

This is the peace that “passes understanding.” It doesn’t make sense to the logical mind, because the logical mind only understands things that are “composed.” But when you reach the end of this inward journey, you don’t just “have” peace. You become peace. And once you have become it, there is nothing in this world of composition and decomposition that can ever take it away from you.

The Map of Inward Peace

To help you visualize this journey for your reading, consider the structure of your own layers:

The Surface: Where composition and decomposition (birth and death) happen.

• The Medium: Where the four paths (Reason, Love, Will, Work) operate to refine the lens.

The Center: The non-composed, stable ground of eternal peace.