If you want to find the secrets of the universe,
think in terms of energy,
frequency and
vibration.
--Nicola Tesla
Yin and yang, male and female,
strong and weak, rigid and tender,
heaven and earth, light and darkness,
thunder and lightning, cold and warmth,
good and evil…
the interplay of opposite principles constitutes the universe.
–Kung Fu Tzu
The universe is alive with constant change and motion, say scientists like Nicola Tesla. There is constant movement between the yin and the yang, say Taoist teachers. The gunas, described in the Yoga Tradition, which are the constant movement between light and darkness, is the reality of our mental and physical worlds.
Everything is moving. Everything is changing and interconnected. One movement is affected by another and another impacts that one movement. It is only the way our human brain perceives reality that makes our physical world “solid,” that makes it look separate from other “things.”
This constant changing doesn’t seem out of control because there is another force that always brings this “chaos” into balance. In the medical world it is called homeostasis. This balance is what we consider healthy in the holistic health world. In the theological world it is called love.
Love balances everything becaus
e it knows the best for the individual and the collective at the same time. This balance, according to Yoga, is called buddhi shakta, the power of discernment. It is cultivated when we learn to bring our mind and body into a state of balance, into a state of stillness and peace. This balanced state is called “sattva.”
I experienced this state after my body, which was out of balance due to cancer, was brought back into balance through chemotherapy. I went from one end of the movement of life within me to the other end of that movement and then eventually back to the calm state of stillness. The chemotherapy brought me back from my movement toward physical death to a movement toward life and wholeness, peace and calm. I learned that I needed to love myself and others and accept my goodness in order to maintain the balance needed for me to maintain my mental and physical life.
Only through the agony of my illness and the treatment to control it, did I find the stillness in myself that I needed to maintain balance/health, in my life. Only through those meditative moments did balance and healing return.
Now, I cherish those moments and always come back to them when I sense the imbalance – my movement from one extreme to the other – return. I recommit myself to life-giving meditation.
I pray to that Divinity within all of us!