What's the most useful thing you've got?

From the many things you do in your yoga practice, consider what is most useful to you. By that I mean: What helps you feel less fragmented, more unified as a self AND more connected to others?

Focus on that today. Maybe it is breathing consciously, with or without a formal yogic technique. Maybe it is moving your body, or maybe it is sitting still. Maybe it is voicing your love aloud in words or in song, or maybe it is basking in silence.

Maybe you find it helpful to read or hear the ideas that have been passed along to us about HOW THINGS REALLY ARE (metaphysics) or HOW WE CAN ACT TOWARDS ONE ANOTHER AND OURSELVES (ethics). Yes, we can consider philosophy just another tool in our toolbox of yoga. It may be one you don't care for (I just never seem to use the socket wrench; it's just too dang complicated-looking). Or maybe it's a tool you really find handy for helping you put yourself together and connect yourself to others. (In my case, that would be the allen wrench or the hammer.)

The point is, it's another tool, just like the "physical" practices of hatha yoga. We often categorize it as "theory," separate from what we do on the mat or cushion, which is "practice." But there are many differences and disagreements within yogic, Buddhist, and Western philosophies...and this is because they're all using language to describe something beyond language. They are approximations of HOW THINGS ARE and HOW WE SHOULD ACT. And thus, they're just more tools for us to wield in our efforts to dismantle the walls we've built to avoid seeing that we're irrevocably, joyously, NOT separate from each other.

So whatever it is in your toolbox that works best for you, use it today for some time, however brief. (For me, it is the breath and the nondualism it reveals and reinforces.) If you practice using it daily, you'll remember to pull it out when things are really tough and you need it most, when you and those around you seem to be flying apart.