Yoga is the highest union, the highest that can ever be. Union with what, you may ask? Union with what we have always desired, without realizing. Imagine that you were standing under an exquisite, starry sky, but you didn’t know. You can’t see it. It is invisible because an ugly, thick ceiling blocks your view.
In its true essence, meditation is the process by which you can reach the substratum of your mind. The hotbed of your often troubled existence; your samskaras.
We have picked many of our ideas and concepts, perceptions and worldviews from our environment. From our families and our cultures. These are our samskaras, our impressions we have collected and are still collecting in our current lifetimes. Many of our other ideas and conceptions arise from our old samskaras, whose origins we are unaware of.
Renovating your mind is not a matter of thinking positive thoughts alone because your samskaras have an emotional stake in the game. That is why positive thinking never works, at least not in the long term. Our current world focuses too much on positive thinking; neurolinguistic programming and affirmations and what not. The thing is that positive thinking alone, in isolation will do nothing much.
As we remodel the cognitive occupants of our mind, we realize some were incorrect and faulty. Out of alignment with the real, true ones. Now, replacing them is not a simple matter of pushing bad ones out to bring in the good ones. Our bad, hurtful concepts of life have an emotional stake in our psyche-minds too.