By Gurudevi Nirmalananda

Yoga says that your need for connection is a spiritual need, not a social need. 

The superficial conversations about the weather and traffic conditions are entertaining, but they don’t fill your need for connection. You make a connection in that shared moment of frustration over the traffic jam or the shared joy during the first snowfall. 

Even if it is only a moment of connection, a whole hour of superficial conversation is worth it. When the connection doesn’t happen, you think that person is a waste of time and you try to avoid them in the future.

Here’s what happens. When you share an experience with someone else, you have an understanding of the other person, while they understand you.  This understanding is a type of validation, making you feel that you are worthwhile as an individual — you are understood and accepted, in your frustration with the traffic or joy of the snow. 

Yet that is still superficial. If you both agree that snow is a big hassle, and there’s all that scraping and shoveling to do now, you have a shared experience, but you don’t yet have a connection. It is only a shared experience.

But if your eyes meet or there is a silent pause, that shared experience turns into connection. In that moment of connection, something happens inside of you. Something opens on the inside. 

Excerpt from Yoga: Inside & Outside, pages 205‒206