May 2025: Thoughts on God
ys i.23 īśvara-praṇidhānād vā
By giving your life and identity to God you attain the identity of God.
Not “I think god is…”, as in contemplations, proclamations. Or analyzation, debates, etc.
But literally keep your thoughts on God. If it’s a mystery keep your thoughts on the mystery.
No one is an authority on God, and you have a direct line. Having a direct line is the common understanding of every great wisdom tradition.
Yoga is God-realization. Realization is not explaining - and very often explaining is far from realization. Runaway from any one who defines God for you. Fast.
Thoughts on God provokes enlightenment. See, our thoughts are in our own way, unless we elevate the content. And since no one can think what God is, thinking about God is a transcendental practice. Like a koan. The fact that it can’t be answered it is the very thing that derails the ego mind.
Attention is energy, and if we are unskillful with the way we perpetually let our attention wander from every disturbing random thought to every other disturbing random thought, soon all we are are disturbing random thoughts, that just get bigger and bigger and bigger - creating a disturbing, random world. Does this sound familiar? Everything we can see, hear, touch, taste, and smell started as a thought. Our thoughts build worlds.
Thoughts on God expand a presence of God beyond all understanding. If you keep your mind, your thoughts on God, very often - and delightfully, we find that the ego is no longer the master but a powerful servant. Then we can begin to feel the super power of the translucent mind - that non-egoic aspect of mind that reflects the depth of the universe.
Do this:
Ask what God is, throw away every answer.
Repeat the various names of God. Mantra, in other words.
Put your attention on your breath in front of everything else.
Throw away the name God.
Find names of God that feel right.
Call everything God, even evil.
Celebrate those who unabashedly, but not fanatically, love God.
Give God any pronoun you want.
Sit close to the Earth.
See God as the thing you just have to be best friends with, and go for a walk together.
Journal about God.
Don’t define God for anyone.
Does any of this sound familiar? Because this is exactly the content of what the yoga practice is on the mat, whether, you know it implicitly or explicitly. Why do you think yoga works? Even if you employ just smidgen of attention to the above, your peace is largely unshakable.
It’s commonly thought yoga is here to attain something, but that would be incorrect. We already own the keys to the kingdom. The practice is more simple than a child’s riddle. Screaming, but patiently waiting. It’s everywhere. It’s spoken word in a new age pop song. A plot in White Lotus. In everyone’s hearts. Just bring your attention to the highest thing, here, now. Repeat. Don’t quit. Ever.
In Yoga we dwell,
Jeffrey
May 2025