The modern, materialist–individualist culture is a kind of subtle field. It silently teaches us how to see, act, and exist, defining “reality” in materialist and individualistic terms with little view to an alternative. Everything within this psycho-cultural field—objects, institutions, even our own behaviors—inescapably becomes an artefact of this modern condition.

Even yoga in the modern world has become shaped by modernity’s limitations and desires, often merely reproducing the modern condition rather than transcending it. I have loved the many yoga classes I have been to over the years and have gratitude for all my yoga teachers. And yet, within that culture, I can also sense the subtle currents of comparison and performance: the desire to look attractive, to wear the right clothes, to master the perfect pose, to appear experienced or effortlessly serene. None of this is wrong; it’s simply a reflection of the world we live in. But it shows how even yoga, a path designed to lead us beyond the small self, can be pulled back into the gravitational field of modernity’s limitations and reinforce the ego stance rather than transcend it.

Yet there is a great secret at the center of Yoga, that the modern gaze pauses on briefly in order to feel “spiritual,” but ultimately passes over, psychologizes, and makes mundane. Through this secret, yoga can show us a new way to exist- a way that modernity has never been taught, but one that I believe is deeply and universally longed for.

And what is this secret at the heart of Yoga? Yoga, from start to finish—from understanding how to live ethically, to a sweaty yoga pose, to sitting on a meditation mat—is ultimately about an intimate relationship and attraction between a consciousness that is both intimately within you and profoundly beyond you. Far from being about the individual self that we habitually identify with, all aspects of the practice—postures, the moral framework, meditative practices, and their culmination—show us a way of being in which we are touched by something great beyond our egoic individuality. In this, there is a path that allows the transcending of our modern selves.

When talked about as a ‘Greatness that is beyond you’, yoga risks sounding like a religion talking about God. But when talked about as something intimately within you, it risks sounding merely psychological. However, through yogic practice, these two can arise together: simultaneously within and beyond, two and one. This is where the magic happens—an ecstatic way of being not contained within modernity’s understanding. To experience ecstasy in our soul we need to be drawn out of ourselves, pulled out of the cul-de-sac of our ego. And what can do this? The attraction between the small self and the Great. The Secret lies here.

This ‘Greatness’ has been called many different things: Brahma, Purusa, Being. But the risk with using words such as these is that we can think we have understood once we have fit it into a sort of mental framework. Perhaps it is better described as: “that which makes us feel small and at the same time vast.” It is that which makes us feel ecstasy in our being because it pulls us beyond the four walls of our limited self. To approach it humbly is essential. Through humility, we let down our mental barriers and ego, which otherwise keep us separate from a deeper reality. Yoga transforms us not by technique but by cultivating a relationship toward this Greatness that is both within and beyond.

I was at a modern Kiirtan event in Bali. I say modern because it was predominantly young Westerners engaging in a harmonium and tabla accompanied singing of traditional Hindu Bhajans and Kiirtan. I wasn’t sure if many people felt genuine love or adoration for Krishna or Shiva, but I did feel a real collective upliftment and wholesome blissful happiness. The ragas and Sanskrit stirred something in me. I noticed one young woman filming herself singing, no doubt to upload the clip to Instagram after the event. Her face was softly lit in candlelight, a picture of rapture, but at the same time very self-aware, performative—bound to get likes. It was spiritual, it was cool, it was attractive. The irony was stark: wasn’t Kiirtan about singing to God and being transported out of our limited identities in cosmic rapture? And yet,  I may laugh at this and imagine myself above it, but don’t I also hope that people will see me as a very spiritual person? I do. Even here, transformation can occur. We begin yogic practice somewhere in our egoic modern stance, but with surrender and sincerity, and the sense that the whole endeavor is about building this relationship, the Great can touch and transform us over time. Initially, this can manifest as open-heartedness and a feeling of love for humanity and all creation. It can blossom into full-blown cosmic love, as a way of being. Yoga practiced as a relationship between the within and the Great beyond becomes far more satisfying than merely being a healthy expert among other attractive, healthy experts.

There is an inability to be real or authentic in modernity, because our culture has never been taught how to connect to the deeper, non-rational parts of the ground of our being and its continuity with a deeper reality. We often live largely on the surface. Modernity tells the individual to be free, to be authentic, but it doesn’t provide the spiritual grounding or social fabric required to sustain that demand. Instead, we moderns commit ever deeper to individualism or to a facade of ‘uniqueness’ in an effort to construct the appearance of authenticity. I believe that it is really the surrender of the facade of the ego and contact with the Great beyond that ultimately gives authenticity.

Yoga can be a discovery of cosmic love—as a way of being. It transforms not just how we move or meditate, but how we exist. It changes what we are: open and connected, we experience a humble, ecstatic relationship between a unity that is both intimately within us and profoundly beyond us. We bridge the known and unknown, the within and the beyond, and in that bridge, we simply are. Yoga, practiced as a relationship between the Great and the small, draws us out of modernity’s solipsistic consciousness and delivers us into the deeper freedom and authenticity we are universally drawn toward.