There are many things in our life that are necessary, but there is something that is truly fundamental and is not so common in our society: wisdom. For example, if you go to university to become a doctor or a lawyer, or even a teacher, nobody teaches you how to become a wise human being. It is quite amazing isn’t it!? You get a lot of information about many useful and important things, but nothing about wisdom!
Of course the word wisdom can have many different meanings, but the way I am using it here is not about something extraordinary, something that only a person with a long beard in the top of a Himalayan mountain can have, but a more everyday wisdom, the wisdom of taking our time to experience, to notice and to be; the wisdom that makes us aware that there is a world around, and that this world is part of us and that we are part of the world, that all is connected, that all is one.
We need to learn to stop, and to discover this sense of unity that exists between myself and everything else.
And it is this connection, really, what creates the colors in life. Without connection, there are no colors, and everything becomes grey.
If we don’t connect to other human beings, to other creatures, to the natural world, to life as a whole, our life becomes grey. And when this happens, then entertainment becomes a multimillion-euro business. Why? Because we become dependent on entertainment for the colors of our life.
If we become disconnected from what is truly valuable, and instead we connect to the more superficial aspects of life, our life will become grey, and because colors are what we all want, entertainment becomes a fundamental need.
The problem is not about ‘having fun’, but about the need, the addiction, the dependence on entertainment that is created in many people for the colors of their life.
With connection our life becomes colorful, independent of the circumstances of my life.
This is because when I talk of colors, I don’t mean something that should happen at a later time, under a particular circumstance, or when something special happens, but I mean something that should happen now, in this moment, in the very little moments of our everyday life: when we are drinking our coffee, walking on the street, washing the dishes, changing our clothes, talking to our family, taking out the trash; we need to strive for color in our life.
And color means connection.
This connection is not necessarily about being with people. Not everybody is meant to be surrounded by people; this has to do more with our own nature or with circumstances, but connection is something that happens in the ‘heart’: we notice people, we notice trees, we notice nature, we notice that there is a world around, and is really this connection what brings the colors onto our life.
One of the definitions for yoga is connection, and this is why to me, yoga does not happen only in the yoga mat. Yoga is not about a particular class that happens at a particular time and place. That particular class can be used as a reminder, but the true yoga is the yoga that we take with us.
Connection, yoga, wisdom – needs to happen now, whenever this now happens to be.
It can only happen now.
