Dear Blessed and Amazing Self Mary,

Namaste!

One day while cutting my fruits with a sharp knife, I accidentally cut my left index finger for the first time. I always handle my knife carefully. So, I took it that the cut happened to teach me some big lessons and here they are:

The natural state of our skin is to be together seamlessly. A cut means that the skin is separating into 2 parts. This is an unnatural state. It causes suffering as the skin is weakened by the cut. So the skin tries to come together slowly to become whole again.

I noticed that when my skin around the cut was beginning to join together, the healing began, and my suffering ended. I felt that I was in my natural state again.

So, the 3 Lessons My Cut Finger Taught Me about Yoga were:

1. Feeling one with all is our natural state. We all come from the same consciousness, the universal energy. Even science declares that energy can become matter and matter can become energy. i.e. matter and energy are inter-convertible.

But seeing the matter in different forms, we misunderstand that we all are separate. This sense of separation is an unnatural state, just like the parting of the skin on my finger.

2. The unnatural state of separation is not a joyous state. It brings suffering to all and it weakens us, just like the pain caused by my cut finger. Because of this separation, we accuse, “He cheated me”, “She hurt me”, “They disrespect me” and so on.

3. Yoga is the path to bring about union, because the word “Yoga” or “YogaH” as it is called, literally means “union”. Thus the Yoga-journey is the journey of healing back to feel one with everything in this universe. It brings TRUE happiness in life. This is REAL YogaH (Yoga), NOT fitness exercises done in the name of Yoga.

NOTE: In "YogaH", the "H" is pronounced as "hu" in the word "hut".

I hope you are on a Yoga-journey in some way, whether it is through breath, poses, introspection, food, or incorporating certain values.

If you need help with starting your Yoga-journey , let us talk. Please hit “reply” to this email.

Infinite Love,

Shanthi