‘The closest of dear friends, she makes one feel, yet an aura of remoteness was ever around her – the paradoxical isolation of omnipresence.’ Paramahansa Yogananda on Anandamayi Ma in ‘Autobiography of a Yogi’.

When we connect to Stillness, the underlying one reality of existence, we connect to the depth of our being, where love, compassion, peace and joy permeate our every cell. These qualities can be felt or experienced by us and by those around us.

When we connect to stillness, separation is no longer perceived. There is no I or you or they or that. Everything just is and that pure sense of existence, without name, without form, is you. You are one consciousness, existing in isolation and containing absolutely everything. This is the paradox.

‘As god is omnipresent in the cosmos but is undisturbed by its variety. So man, who as a soul is individualised spirit, must learn to participate in this cosmic drama with a perfectly poised and equilibrated mind’. Paramahansa Yogananda.

‘The closest of dear friends, she makes one feel.’ Here, Yogananda refers to Anandamayi Ma’s participation in the cosmic drama.

‘Yet an aura of remoteness was ever around her.’ Here, he recognises the isolation in which she dwells, undisturbed, with a perfectly poised and equilibrated mind.

Through Yogic practices, we connect to Stillness time and time again, simply resting there. By doing so, we learn to be a participant in the cosmic drama. We inhabit our role lightly, with non-attachment, undisturbed by success or failure, recognising ourselves as something beyond this relative and limited existence.

The image is a colourful version of a page from the book ‘Be Here Now’ by Ram Dass talking about the paradoxical nature of existence and the limitations of the ego.

Image by emptybutfull.