Live a Life of Oneness
What does it mean practically to live a life committed to Oneness? Jeremy David Engels, author of The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman, and the Bhagavad Gita, explores this question as an antidote to our current climate of separation.
Jeremy David Engels, PhD, is an award-winning professor of Communication and Ethics at Penn State University as well as a yoga and meditation teacher and co-owner of Yoga Lab Studios in State College, PA. Dr. Engels is author of several books including the book discussed in this program, The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman and the Bhagavad Gita. He considers himself to be an American Transcendentalist and writes that “the best scholarship is poetry, the best communication, yoga”.
SHOW NOTES: Dr. Engels’ website is JeremyDavidEngels.com Instagram: @jeremydavidengels
The book we discussed in this episode is The Ethics of Oneness: Emerson, Whitman and the Bhagavad Gita available on Amazon.
THE YOGA HOUR TEAM COMMENTS: I was very inspired by the conversation today with Jeremy Engels about living a life committed to Oneness as a yoga practice. The look into the history of Oneness practice was enlightening.
Bhagavad Gita: seeing Oneness as the secret truth, how we can see the divine in all beings
Emerson: the founder of American yoga, that is bringing awareness and respect to the teachings of the Gita; seeing Oneness as speaking to the soul; addressing the divine in all beings
Whitman: showing the best of ourselves; celebrating the divine; looking for the face of God in everything.
Dr. Engels ended with a call for a declaration of interdependence - recognizing a world of Oneness.
COMMENTS FROM DR. TRUJILLO: I loved how Dr. Engels described the three great crises of the breath that will require us to recognize and live our interconnectedness: the COVID pandemic, climate change, and racial justice. It was lovely to discuss the beginnings of yoga in America through the work of Emerson. I also found the idea of "communication as yoga" a powerful one that I hope will inspire our listeners.