The Inseparable Ripple

    I am so fortunate to be sitting out here on a deck overlooking the Gulf Coast. The sun is shining. The air is calm. The water has ripples, after ripples, after ripples approaching the shore.

     There is a metaphor often use in yoga, that we exist in life as a small ripple in the vast ocean of pure consciousness.  We mistake our self to only exist as a ripple when in fact we are also very intimately connected to the whole ocean. We arise out of this ocean with our own individual identity and consciousness and at death we dissolve back into the vastness of this cosmic consciousness. When we exist as a ripple we are ignorant of our being a connected and supported by the ocean. 

     For those who believe in reincarnation, we may re-emerge up from the ocean as another ripple to experience individuality one again.  But one does not have to believe in death and reincarnation to experience re-emergence from dissolution.  We do it every night when we enter deep sleep.  Deep sleep is like our ripple of self-identity disappearing into the deep ocean of pure consciousness.  After waking from deep sleep we are renewed.  In this submerging into pure consciousness we are held with profound serenity and greatly nourished. 

     Meditation is the yoga method of developing awareness and a closer relationship to this deeply peaceful and nourishing state. To be a ripple and to know yourself as the ocean simultaneously is a profound awareness.  This awareness knows that you not only belong to this rich vast source, but that you are inseparable from it.