We come to yoga for healing. Some focus on the body, healing injuries or illness, coping with physical conditions and challenges. Others seek solace, comfort, and peace on an emotional level while others have a sense that yoga may help to quiet down some of the noise in the mind. And some have experienced emotional trauma that has left an imprint on the physical body and while yoga can bring health and well being to all circumstances, its ability to heal trauma at every level is what is truly remarkable to me. Emotional trauma has a physical impact and physical trauma leaves behind an emotional wound. Although we never choose trauma, it is through healing trauma that we can awaken fully to the union of mind and body.

An ancient people who lived long ago and far away understood that the mind and body were one and that we will get limited results if we work with them as two separate entities. Studying the most accessible technologies, their own minds and bodies, they did not create the system of yoga but rather understood the laws of nature. They observed, investigated, and experimented with their own minds and bodies. Through natural experiences, closely watching the natural world within and all around their own bodies, they discovered that they could heal themselves when they were sick or injured, depressed or anxious, and that even trauma could be understood and healed.

They emulated and embodied the natural world, standing as trees and mountains, moving as cobras, cows, dogs, and birds, following the movements of the sun and moon, the waters and the winds. They realized that the more they moved in harmony with the natural rhythms, the healthier they were, and the more easily they returned to health when illness and injury occurred. They noticed that nature was evolving and that they were evolving and knew that yoga itself would also evolve because one of the laws of nature is evolution.

Theirs was an oral tradition and so stories were key in transmitting the wisdom from generation to generation. Eventually the stories were written down and became some of the greatest literature ever produced, what we now know as the Vedic and Vedantic literature. These myths and legends are of epic proportions, containing worlds within worlds, describing demonic and divine archetypes. These stories continue to touch and move us today, to provide meaning that is free from religious dogma, and to offer healing power to a world that is now dangerously out of balance.

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