“The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious.
It is the source of all true art and science.” – Albert Einstein

I’ve always been a bit of a science nerd. Even now, in my mid-50s, I can’t resist dinosaur exhibits (or whole dinosaur museums), lectures on anything from geology to archaeology to linguistics, or books on neuroscience or anatomy or zoology… you get the idea. I love it all.

So, it probably won’t surprise you to learn that I follow the work of an astrophysicist named Adam Frank. Not sure how I came across him and his writing, but his words are a delight to read, and he always has some interesting bits of information, ideas, and great books on offer.

He's also a Buddhist and is associated with the Upaya Zen Center in Santa Fe (founded and led by Roshi Joan Halifax). I love this combination of spirituality and science; to me, it makes perfect sense.

I know not everyone is comfortable talking about spirituality – especially when it comes to matters of science! For starters, there has long been a conflation of spirituality with religion, though the two can be (and often are) entirely different and separate. And there’s been an even greater, longstanding divide between religion and science. If we can think of spirituality in secular (and even scientific) terms, no divide is necessary.

In Yoga, which is not a religion (though it shares roots and many concepts with Hinduism, Buddhism, and other traditions), and which at its heart has mostly to do with the mind and the transcendent, so much of its contemplative nature has been lost, forgotten, and even suppressed here in the west out of confusion, misinformation, and in fear of turning off those who just want to tone their abs (as the west rushed to co-opt Yoga into the fitness industry) or those who hold a fundamentalist religious view and do not wish to be challenged.

But that confusion and suppression can’t last; spirituality is our connection to something greater than ourselves and is simply a part of our human nature. We need it. I think Adam Frank says it best here:

[S]aying you want to pursue a spiritual life doesn’t mean a life of spirits. Instead, it’s a recognition that there are many ways the world speaks to us, and that language is always more than what words or logic or equations or paint or musical notes can corral. There is always that more. There is always that sense of sacredness grounded below and beyond our ability to capture it in words, math, pictures or music even as it shines through our attempts to do so. [1]

“There is always that more.” This, I think, is the simplest way of acknowledging that spirituality is for everyone, regardless of your tradition or lack thereof; the only spirit you need to involve is your own. Whatever that “more” is, you just know it when you feel it. And that may be hard to measure, but it doesn’t mean it’s not as real as the earth beneath our feet or the gravity that binds us to it.

Within various communities and fields, spirituality continues to be defined and re-defined for ever-greater inclusivity, but at its heart is always connection – to a higher power / something greater than ourselves, to our fellow humans, to Nature, to our own inner Self – as well as a sense of purpose and meaning in our lives. [2]

But however it’s defined, what matters most in matters of the spirit and in healing whatever it is that ails us is our experience. Of connection, of Awe, of Nature, of joy, of contemplation… whatever moves your heart and your soul and brings about even a brief moment of Awareness to something much greater than our temporal concerns.

You’re likely familiar with the experience of Awe. That feeling you get when looking up at a deep, dark night sky and seeing the Milky Way, or celebrating music with a crowd, or standing surrounded by a ring of mountains and feeling so small in the best way. The neuroscientist Dacher Keltner and his colleagues have studied the ways we experience Awe and how it affects us; his book is definitely worth a read for a deeper understanding, and a, shall we say, deeply scientific version of spirituality. Our nervous systems respond very favorably to experiences of Awe; our health markers measurably improve the more we incorporate it in our lives. We should encounter Awe as much as possible as it makes us healthier by reinforcing our connection to the greater web of life.

You might think that in Yoga Therapy the importance of spirituality to whole-person wellness would be a foregone conclusion, and for me, it is. Yoga Therapy as a field of work and study creates an intersection between the scientific way of seeing the world and the Yogic way of seeing the world – including self-study, experience, interconnection, and ultimately transcendence. And the spiritual aspect of each person we work with is an integral part of that equation; it looks and sounds different for each individual, and in my view, can’t necessarily be fully studied – but is by no means any less important to our wellbeing, and certainly should not be left out.

Adam Frank again:

The “practice” part of a spiritual practice is all about paying attention.  Most of the time we are lost in thoughts about ourselves.  We deal with day-to-day concerns, get lost in day-dreams, worry about the state of the world, worry about what others think of us.  Add it all up and we are rarely ever here.  We are rarely ever present to the strange tenuous beauty that the Universe keeps presenting to us. In the end, we miss our own lives and the deep, deep connections we have to the world and each other.  To have a spiritual practice is to try to wake up from this distraction and live a fully mature, fully human life. [3]

Even though that was written by a Buddhist astrophysicist, it could not be more apropos to the work of Yoga Therapy. It’s the reason why in our sessions together I'll ask you questions about what brings you joy and connection and how you relate to Nature. And the practices we co-create might very well involve pausing to behold the sunset or the moon or listening to your favorite music in addition to movement, breathwork, and other Yoga practices!

But don’t worry if you’re not a Nature lover, or if you still feel conflicted about the word spirituality; I’ll meet you where you are. We’ll walk down this road together and discover what we discover. And we’ll leave some room for the mysterious to surface, in whatever form it takes.

Let me know when you’d like to begin!

[1] https://www.everymansuniverse.com/p/how-to-live-a-spiritual-life-in-a-scientific-world-part-1

[2] Spirituality in Yoga by Lee Majewski, Singing Dragon 2026, p 31

[3] https://www.everymansuniverse.com/p/the-moon-as-science-and-spiritual-practice

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P.S.: I do not use AI for any writing in my business. Rest assured that all current and future writing on this site and in associated newsletters and other correspondence comes only from the head, heart, and hands of Andrea Porter, and any original content created by other humans that I reference will be given appropriate attribution and citation.