By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Yoga is all about freedom, but not the type of freedom honored by Juneteenth. Not economic freedom, not educational freedom, not social equity, as important as it is. Yoga is not about political freedom.

It is about spiritual freedom – the continuing experience of your own inner vastness, living in the ease of  knowing and being the timeless Beingness that you are.

This exalted goal is not merely a possibility. It is a promise. The yogic promise is quite scientific — if you follow specific procedures, like any scientist in a lab, you will reliably get the results that yogis before you have gotten.

If you do with Muktananda did, you will attain his state. If you do what Nityananda did, you will attain the state that he lived in. If you do what I did and what I do, you will live in a state of fullness and Beingness – which is an inward expansion compared to how you feel in yourself now.

Yet yoga’s promise is dumbed down for the average person. The media promotes yoga merely for physical benefits, as well as improvements to your mental health, and these are very important.

If everyone driving down the street in front of our building had been to a yoga class this week, our town would be a model community. If everyone in the world was doing yoga, it truly would be a safer, kinder world. Yet, this is still a dumbed-down yoga.

For most people, yoga is about freedom from pain, freedom from aging, freedom from their crazy-busy mind, and…