YOGA OF THIS THING

When referring to the Brahman, some of us use the expression "This," or "Whatever this is," which brings to mind Gerald Heard's term "This thing."

In his book My Guru and His Disciple, Christopher Isherwood talks about his friend, the author and lecturer Gerald Heard.  Heard, leading up to his association with Vedanta, referred to what he called "this thing," which he spent three two-hour meditation sessions per day trying to contact.  Heard's natural fastidiousness, as Isherwood put it, prevented him from calling it "God," for to say that he was looking for God would have sounded pretentious. 

Leaving aside its existence or non-existence, "this thing," according to Isherwood, was quite the opposite to his, Isherwood's, "God."  True, "this thing" was by definition everywhere, and therefore also up in the sky, where traditionally such phenomena were believed to exist, but it was first to be looked for inside oneself.  It wasn't to be thought of as a Boss to be obeyed but as a nature to be known.  It was an extension of a person's own nature, with which one could become consciously united. 

The word "yoga" in Sanskrit is related to the word "yoke" in English, meaning union, that is, in this instance, union with the eternal omnipresent nature, or Nature, of which everyone and everything is a part.  This was mysticism in so many words and ultimately what Heard's "this thing" was all about.