I need a new vocabulary for what I want to talk about.
For exampel talking about HAVING a body makes not sense.
We don't have bodies, we are bodies.
And yet we persist in talking about our bodies as though there was a separation between me and body.

Well, me and my body are going to practice yoga. Off course it's mostly for the benefit of my body althugh I like to say it also benefits me a little bit. Me in that case being ...My mind:-)?

Even if I start calling this ... a mindbody, I would still be up against the challenge of how to talk about the being of it. My mindbody. Again seperating me from my mindbody.

Tricky!

Who is this me?... who apparently has a mindbody;-)

And looking into the question deeper it is even more tricky, because this body that I insist on calling mine, is made up of billions of cells working together and looking even closer we discover that crucial to the survival of this cellorganism is the existence of 10 times the amount of bacteria!
So I depend completely on bacteria for survival and as a matter of fact I am more bacteria than I am cells. so who am I really?!!!

I read somewhere in a yoga-add that "Yoga is moving from dependency to independence".

That sounds so nice and intriguing.
I could be free and independent! On the other side of "my" dependency of bacteria and cells working together to form me? Or maybe we are talking about this me being independent of other me's?

In the light of the above it makes no sense, does it?
Can we ever be truly independent and what does it mean?
Who, after all, is this me, that is independent?

In a yogasense the essence of a practice is insight into ourselves and our worlds.
The insight being, that there is no separate me in the first place. We are all deeply and fundamentally interconnected.
And also the insight into the transient nature of all things. Nothing is permanent. No life is separate from other life and no life is permanent.
We are all inter-dependent.
Like branches on the same tree.

So talking about independency is like if my thumb suddenly proclaimed: "I'm going to head off and find myself. I'll practice yoga and meditate...
I've had enough of this dependency. I want to be free!

I will leave you to think about this for a while.

What will Thumb gain from his/or her (hmm...) struggles?

Will Thumb gain freedom?

Stay tune for more of the drama.

Next week on "Thumb, in search of independence": Feeling stuck, Thumb seeks the help of a professional and lying on the couch, finally feels recognized. Finally someone listens.