Yoga Is a Remembering: A Love Letter Beyond the Wellness Industry

There was a time when yoga, for me, was just movement. Healing, yes—but only the beginning. I didn’t yet know that nestled beneath each pose was a lineage of poetry and prayer, of philosophy and myth, of mystery whispered from teacher to student in the hush of centuries.

It wasn’t until I stepped into the heart of yoga through teacher training that I glimpsed its true vastness. What had once been shapes on a mat began to shimmer with meaning. I saw that yoga is not something we do—it is something we live. It is a way of seeing, of listening, of being in sacred conversation with all of life.

A Pathway to the Real

Yoga is difficult to define because it does not exist in a single form. It is not only body, not only breath. It is the path we walk toward what is most real.

Yoga connects us: to the breath in our lungs, to the pulse of the Earth, to the soul of another. It offers a direct experience of oneness—not as a belief, but as a knowing felt in the bones. Unlike dogma that asks for allegiance, yoga invites exploration.

Try it, it says.

Live it.

See what truth arises in your own being.

The Heart of Intention

At its heart, yoga invites us into wholeness.

From a non-dual lens, there is no good or bad, no holy or profane—only consciousness, unfolding. We are taught, especially in the West, to measure ourselves against impossible ideals, to seek redemption through perfection. Yoga whispers a different truth: You are already divine. There is nothing to fix. Only something to remember.

This remembering—this radical acceptance—reshapes our nervous system, our self-image, our relationships. It roots us in love, compassion, and grace. Not as abstract ideas, but as living forces moving through us.

Where Wellness Falls Short

In our current moment, “wellness” is something sold. It is a lifestyle branded for the privileged. Ice baths, supplements, beauty serums. It’s not that these are wrong—but they are not it.

Yoga doesn’t require any of these add-ons. It is a complete, embodied system that touches every part of who we are—physical, emotional, energetic, spiritual. It asks not for money, but for presence. Not for performance, but for devotion.

When yoga is flattened into exercise, when it's divorced from its philosophical and cultural roots, we lose the mystery. We lose the soul of the practice. It becomes just another thing to consume, another tool for self-optimisation.

A Tradition, Not a Trend

Yoga is a gift. A sacred offering from India, given with enormous generosity. To strip it of context—to commodify it—is not just appropriation. It is a loss for all of us.

Because when yoga becomes just movement, we forget what it was meant to do: awaken. We forget its call to collective liberation. We forget its power to teach us how to love more deeply, live more truthfully, and act with greater courage.

When the wellness industry tells us we must be younger, thinner, better—we can pause. We can return. We can remember that ahimsa is non-harming, including the harm of self-rejection. That aparigraha is non-grasping, including the need to grasp at an improved version of ourselves. And that satya—truth—is the beauty of being exactly who we are.

Reclaiming the Sacred

What is lost when yoga becomes hollow? The sacred. The resonance. The magic.

But we can bring it back. Yoga teachers and studios can resist the tide. They can become sanctuaries for soul—not just spaces for stretching. They can teach from the root: philosophy, myth, mantra, reverence. They can create communities that remember we are not separate, but woven into a vast, shimmering web of being.

Yoga, after all, means to yoke—to unite. Not in isolation, but in communion. Our communities can become places of remembering. Places of truth. Places where we move and breathe and chant and cry and act—not for the individual alone, but for the collective good.

An Invitation to Practitioners

For those walking this path, let the question be simple:

What brings me here?

Am I chasing a feeling, or answering a call?

Let yoga be more than a moment of peace in a chaotic world. Let it be the thread that weaves your life into something sacred. Let it teach you how to love in the face of pain, how to act when the world is hurting, how to stay connected when everything invites disconnection.

Because yoga is not just something that happens on a mat.

It is how we live.

How we serve.

How we remember what is sacred in ourselves, in our lives and each other.