Every Tuesday & Thursday in my Yoga for Anyone Touched By Cancer class we draw a card from The Virtues Project deck. This week I drew Unity:
“Unity is inclusiveness. It brings people together. We see our commonality without devaluing our differences. We experience our connectedness with all people and all life. Unity frees us from the divisiveness of prejudice and heals our fears. We refuse to engage in conflict, seeking peace in all circumstances. Unity comes when we value every person, in our family or in our world. The joy of one is the joy of all. The hurt of one is the hurt of all. The honor of one is the honor of all.”
Our biggest strength is that we are all different – in looks, skills, beliefs, talents, etc. Yoga teaches us that at a deep level we are all also the same, each person is the “reflection of heaven on earth” (Keenan); we are all whole and divine. Rather than focusing on who is right and who is wrong, it is about time that we recognize these differences as fluctuations of the personality, not realities of the soul. The divine spark within you does not care how much you weigh, what color your hair is, or your preference for climate. Your soul only knows that it is whole, here and now.
Rama Jyoti Vernon often says that to avoid or heal conflict, “we must first come to love the other person’s view point as though it was our own.” She is not telling us to understand the other person’s view point, or to change their minds. Nothing will come of arguing endlessly when the person that you are talking to is no longer listening. Instead we need to open our minds and hearts and really listen to what people have to say to us. You might even ask yourself, “in what way can I put myself in his/her position?” When you can love another’s view point as your own, how can you feel anything other than union?
“We know that we are the ones who are divided and we are the ones who must come back together to walk in the Sacred Way.” Ojibway Prayer
