Everything has Changed and Nothing has Changed

Today I will teach my first yoga class since the birth of my son, Liam, on August 27^th. Earlier today, I realized that this first class back will be the same as the last class I taught the day before Liam’s birth—Yin Yoga at Evolution. That realization—picking up right where I left off—makes the following post feel particularly appropriate.

One of my earliest experiences with yoga was practicing with a Jivamukti Yoga CD. Recently, I have been reminded of something the teacher, David Life, says at the end of the practice on this CD. He says,” Everything has changed and nothing has changed.” As a new mother, this message resonates deeply with me. Clearly, everything has changed, but also I have the sense that nothing has changed—that this too has somehow always been a part of me, that something within me remains unchanged, that motherhood is simply (or not so simply) a new manifestation or blossoming of my true self, which has always been and was meant to be.

We all have this unchanging place within us—this true self, this still point in the center of a whirling vortex, this spirit, this soul—however you like to think about it. It is the place that is most uniquely you and which most connects you with all beings in the universe. It is the place I connect with when I place my hand on my son’s chest, over his heart, and tell him he is perfect just the way he is and that everything he needs is already right there inside of him and has been since the day he was born.

As I’ve thought more about this idea of everything changing and nothing changing, I realize it represents for me a synthesis of many key yogic ideas. In the ever-changing landscape of sensory information, bodily sensations, thoughts, and feelings, it is the journey back to the true self—the discovery of the jewel in the lotus—that is our yogic journey. It is the journey through the sage Patanjali’s eight limbs—from the yamas and the niyamas to the asanas, pranayama, sensory withdrawal, concentration, meditation, and bliss. It is the wisdom in the word Namaste—that there is a place in each of us where the entire universe dwells, and when I am in that place in me and you are in that place in you, we are one.