[Lifestyle meditation teacher Mandy Trapp](https://lifestylemeditation.com
/the-work-room/mandy-trapp/) shares with us the true meaning of yoga.
Yoga means to yoke together, or to bring together, into union all the
dimensions of who we are.
The soulful aspect of ourselves is the one that is just watching it all
happen. And it is the same one that has been watching since the moment we took
the first breath in our life, and it will be the same one that watches as we
take the last breath in our life. And in that last breath in our life, we may
feel the greatest sense of yoga or union.
Patanjali wrote that the practice of yoga is available to us throughout our
entire life if we go through the process. The outermost expression of who we
are in yoga or in union is who we are in relationship to each other. The next
layer is how we relate to ourselves---our inner dialogue. The third layer is
known as _asana_---the seat and position that we sit in all areas in our
lives. It is the many hats we wear, and all the rules that surround those
roles. To get there, to reconnect with ourselves, we need to practice closing
our eyes and withdrawing our senses and to practice the cessation of
comparing.
Yoga is learning who we are in those quieter places and then showing up just
like that as we plug back into the world.