What has been one of the most attractive parts of the yoga practice for me, especially the more subtle aspects of getting really quiet and still, is the idea of wholeness. I think it's an idea that, no matter how much one considers oneself to be at all spiritual, is quite comprehendible. Wholeness is simply the concept that our natural state, or who we ‘are’ is already complete - we don’t need fixing, saved or to be more.
Thus, part of our job as yoga practitioners is to remove all the layers of conditioning that have led us to believe otherwise. It is no great revelation for me to say that the world sometimes makes us feel incomplete, sometimes crappy, and in fact many (but not all) contemporary ‘wellness’ spaces are literally built off the back of our insecurities and overtly sustain them. Rather than going ‘in’ and feeling our emotions in the body, we are taught to look ‘out’; to mask, to numb, to buy into the next ‘fix’ which promises to make us feel more complete, successful, happy. But yoga (that of meditation, breathing, asana, self enquiry, mantra…) is teaching us to do the exact opposite - it is an inward journey that ultimately reveals how in the end, we’re all interconnected - the difference between ‘us’ and ‘them’ is made up. The practice beautifully alchemises thinking, feeling, doing by asking us to sit with the more uncomfortable parts of the self. Some may ask, lol why would I want to do that? (valid question). Because when we truly sit in stillness, however messy that might be in moment, the layers start to fall away; by observing our thoughts, beliefs, labels we give ourselves (with compassion and kindness, not judgement), it becomes apparent that we are not that any of those things, and with just enough surrender, the ideas, emotions etc. will eventually move through us, in the same way that everything we experience ebbs and flows. What remains throughout is the wholeness that connects us all.