12/22/2025
Holding the Middle: Yoga, Knowledge, and Discernment
True understanding rarely comes from clinging to one viewpoint. Wisdom begins when we are able to hold two opposing worldviews at the same time, carefully weighing their advantages and limitations, without being carried away by emotion or ideology.
In yoga practice, we experience this directly in the body. We first learn to relate to both sides of the body, right and left, strong and weak, open and resistant. Ignoring one side never leads to steadiness; it only creates compensation and conflict. Only when both sides are acknowledged can we approach the central axis, the symmetry plane where balance arises. We are holding the "stick at both ends".
This principle is most clearly embodied in Tadasana, also called Samasthiti, “Equal Standing.” In this foundational pose, we consciously draw the left and right sides of the body toward the central line. That center represents intelligence, our capacity to discern between polarities such as light and heavy, right and wrong, true and false. When both sides are equally related to the center, intelligence becomes balanced: neither pulled toward one extreme nor distorted by bias.
Patanjali describes this inner work on the path of jñāna (knowledge) through viveka, discernment, the ability to see clearly without reaction.
Rāja Yoga, the middle path, is not a compromise of weakness, but a position of inner strength: the capacity to remain centered while fully seeing.
As Patanjali reminds us, yoga is the stilling of the fluctuations of the mind (Yoga Sutra I.2). From stillness comes clarity. From clarity, right action.
Yoga teaches us, on the mat and in life, that balance is not found by choosing a side too quickly, but by standing in the middle with awareness.
Right action is never born of strong emotion, but of clarity. In clarity, there is no struggle of choice, only the acceptance of the appropriate course of action and its karma, its consequences. Those consequences are life’s feedback. If we discover that we were mistaken, we must remain flexible enough to let go of what is false and move toward what we now recognize as true. This process should never cease.
It is the pulse and the living throb of life.
Wishing you a blessed and Merry Christmas.
