Today is the Indian festival of Shivaratri, a day dedicated to Lord Shiva, one of the major masculine deities of Hinduism. He goes by many names, including Nataraj, Lord of the Dance, and Yogaraj, Lord of Yoga, so we're having a special class tonight in honor of this great yogic god. He's a wild mystic who dances the Universe into destruction, creation, and transformation, and he's also a deep contemplative, meditating atop Mount Kailash in the Himalayas.

But, wait a minute! I'm a Jew! I'm a Christian! I'm an Agnostic! I'm a Goddess Worshipper! I think religion is utter rubbish! Why should I do a yoga practice focused on some Hindu deity who has no bearing on my life? Or, who am I to call upon this deity when it's not part of my upbringing or spiritual background?

Me, personally? I'm an equal-opportunity deist. I think we resonate with various spiritual expressions, because those are the ways we find our path into yoga. I'm not talking yoga as asana practice - I'm talking the Maha Yoga, the Great Yoga of Union. A spot where, from my limited understanding, we merge completely with that divine power which pervades everything.

Call that divine power Shiva. Call it Kali. Call it Adonai. Call it Buddha. Call it Jesus. Call it Allah. Call it Cybele. Call it Gaia. Call it the Great Spirit. Call it Quantum Physics. Call it Love. Call it the Universe. No matter.

I'm currently reading The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, one of India's greatest saints, who lived in the 1800s. In it, he tells a story directly applicable to these concerns.

A man goes out into the forest and sees a most wondrous red creature in a tree. He runs back and tells all his friends, "I saw this amazing red creature in the large tree at the edge of the forest! You should see it!"

One of the friends runs to the edge of the forest to the large tree and sees a wondrous creature, but it's green, not red. He comes back and tells the friends, "I saw an amazing creature, but you're wrong. It's green, not red at all."

Another friend goes out, and when he returns, he says, "Hah! You're both wrong! The beautiful creature is blue! Are you blind?!"

One by one, all the friends return having seen a brown, pink, polka-dotted, and no-color creature in the tree. Finally, they all go together, sure they're going to prove one another wrong.

When they arrive, they see a man sitting under the tree, and he says to them, "Actually, you're all right. You've seen a chameleon. Sometimes, it's blue. Sometimes, red. Sometimes, orange. Sometimes, it's no color at all."

So it goes with "God." This doesn't mean that God is a great goddess to me, but really, once you work through that, she's Yahweh. No, it means that it doesn't matter how I approach divinity versus how you do. What matters is the approach leads us to communion with the divine and, hopefully, a chance to emanate radiant, divine love into the world.

So, if you're in a yoga class or out at a Starbucks and you hear someone talk about their bhakti-like devotion to the Physics of Light, or Kali, or Shiva, or Jesus, take a moment and open your eyes, because the chameleon just turned pink.