Dharma: we are a part of cosmic flow

When my daughter was little, we had a bedtime ritual of reading picture books together. When she was about three or four years old, I introduced her a book called "Tomtem" from Norse mythology. It's the story of a little guardian sprit in a form of gnorm residing in human's home, passed down through generations in the Nordic countries. Every night, Tomtem walks from room to room through the house while the family who lives in the house sleeps, and Tomtem also visits the barn and the animals outside, praying for everyone's safety and health. After finishing his rounds, there's a scene where he gaze out at the forest stretching beyond the snow-covered plains and loses himself in philosophical thoughts: "Where do we come from, and where are we going.....?" My dear daughter in such a young age, too, held onto this very simple, yet unanswerable question for a long time. Eventually, as she entered the world of school--a warld surrounded by invisible wall to shape the organic mind into the mechanical mind– this question was pushed into a distant corner of her mind. It wasn't just my daughter; it disappeared from my mind, too. In exchange, we both are gaining the wisdom needed to survive in the so called real world, then the essential questions that sprout within us fell into a deep slumber.

This very human-a-like question resurfaced in my mind three or for years after I was engaging to deep yoga Sadhana ( bring a practice into everyday life). The catalyst was encountering the book called "Where Are We Come From, and Where Are We Heading?" which is written in Japanese by Hiroshi Motoyama, a teacher who had helped cultivate my spiritual world all this time.

At this stage, I have arrived at the abstract notion that the answer might be found by delving deeply into the physical body. I have reached this point primarily through reading and practicing the "Hatha Pradipika" and "Tattva Bhatta," while observing the subtle changes taking place within my own body through my mind eye. I feel that these ancient Sanskrit scriptures are filled with profound wisdom that brings us closer to the answers when we confront the questions of what it means to be human and, through practicing yoga, who we truly are.

The person who translated the ancient scriptures written in Sanskrit into Japanese in a way that I could understand must have had a deep understanding of ancient world's culture, language, and historical context. I can sense that the translation is not a superficial exchange of words but delivers something more Tham informative words.　We must keep in mind that our ability to access this ancient wisdom is the result of the efforts of those who distilled its essence and recorded it in Sanskrit; the saints and the sahdus who have preserved it across generations; and the teachers who, driven by a deep sense of reverence and a determination to preserve that essence as faithfully as possible, have devoted immense time to deepening their understanding of the original texts and translating them into other languages. The fact that the wisdom of yoga has been passed down uninterrupted from ancient times to the present day seems to represent a flow that extends from our origins into the future. Passing this wisdom on to the next generation serves as a bridge to the future— a never ending story that none of us can accomplish alone. Perhaps no one can truly know where we came from or where we are heading. But I feel strongly that we are creating a part of this vast story.