Unity vs. Uniformity, America Awakens Its Muladhara

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America…”

When we talk about the United States we are talking about a collective political body defined by its constitution, officially birthed into being from its Declaration of Independence on July 4th 1776 to the ratification of its Constition by 1790.

Since we’re talking about the collective body of a country and not an individual person, we can understand that its birthing timeline takes more than 9 months! Its growth and development also work on a longer timeline…

The U.S. constitution is the living, breathing, backbone of this country by which we grow and assemble all our limbs. It is our collective spine. Like an actual backbone, it was not written to be totally fixed. It was written to breathe, twist and bend, to evolve with the needs of its people.

As an American-born yoga teacher who works a lot with the spine, strengthening it, lengthening it, and visualizing its subtle energy currents, I’d like to point this out:

America is not separate from yoga. Yoga is happening here and now.

The intense political, psychological, emotional, and physical turmoil we are witnessing in the USA right now is a crisis of our collective Kundalini rising. 

America is having a spiritual emergency at the level of its root chakra, the Muladhara. From a spiritual perspective, we’re actually beginning to wake up! 

On July 4th, 2025, we’ll be just 249 years into this collective American body. It is still a young body and it is going through a challenging threshold. Maybe it’s actually going through puberty. For some, it feels like the American dream has turned into the American nightmare. For some, perhaps it was always a nightmare. For many, the country feels like its falling apart at the seams — socially, politically, and economically. 

As yoga teaches us: falling apart happens. Just like a tree shedding its leaves or a snake shedding its skin, destruction and death are part of the natural cycle of renewal. The sooner we embrace this, the less anxiety we operate with, and the more we can appreciate the fullness of being alive.

The process of coming undone is beautifully integrated in Hindu cosmology by the image of The Lord of Yoga, Shiva, as the Cosmic Dancer, Nataraja, where Dissolution is part of his dance of Creation and Preservation. Together, these are part of the 5 Cosmic Acts that are ongoing all the time, and throughout all time: Creation, Preservation, Dissolution, Concealment, and Revelation (aka Grace).

Spinal Integrity: Kundalini Rising towards a More Perfect Union

In our collective dream of the USA, as defined by our spine the constitution, we are aiming for Union, Tranquility, Welfare, and Liberty for all. This aligns with Yoga: Unity, Peace, Health, Wellbeing, and Liberation for all.

From a non-dual perspective, what’s happening in America is not separate from yoga. Yoga is happening here and now.

America’s current struggle with its own identity is real and uncomfortable and frightening; but it’s also an invitation to get into alignment with our core aspirations, to find integrity in our spine.

In yoga philosophy, Kundalini is the sacred energetic potential that rises through the central subtle energy channel of the spine, from the root to the crown, to bring our awareness to supreme realization and unification. It is the journey of attaining Union. When awakened, Kundalini confronts all the obstacles to its ascent and integration at the different levels of the chakras, or energy centers associated with different physical and metaphysical functions. In a collective sense, we are witnessing the USA right now grappling with all obstacles to its foundational identity, to its Muladhara. 

The Muladhara chakra is the first chakra at the root of the spine. It represents stability, grounding, and our connection to the Earth. This chakra is associated with survival, safety, and our fundamental needs, the sense of integral belonging. Hidden fears, insecurities, and unresolved traumas at this level of our collective body are coming to the surface big time.

The Elephant in the Room, the Muladhara and Unresolved Trauma

Yoga starts with acknowledging where we’re starting from. We can’t begin by pretending we’ve already arrived where we’re going. Even if we can intellectualize that we’re already divine, we have a lot of purification needed to really embody that!

First, we have to look at, and integrate, our shadows.

What needs to be readily acknowledged, like an elephant in the room (Jai Ganesha!), is the fact that the U.S. constitution was itself established amidst a violently divisive background. The project of Union in the USA has always been intertwined with division. Our foundation starkly contrasts with its own noble intentions. The founding fathers of the United States claimed their power in this country by massacring indigenous peoples and stealing their land, robbing, raping, and murdering the people who had lived here contentedly for thousands of years before the British and Europeans arrived.

Theft, massacre, deceit, slavery; America began as a greedy colonialist agenda. The British settlers who created the American government did so on the premise of belonging for some and exclusion for others, while proclaiming freedom for all. So if America is going to live up to its aspirations of being a “more perfect union…”, we must heal the wounds in its very foundation and the hypocrisy in its declarations.

The Hypocrisy of Illegalizing Immigration

Today, Americans have been living here for less than 300 years. We’re relatively new here, and we’re already trying to criminalize more new people showing up. The mindset that was used to justify British and European ancestors claiming the land in this country is now being used against new people seeking refuge in this country. America’s white ancestors came here violently seeking a better life. Immigrants, refugees, come here today, maybe not perfectly but certainly more peacefully, seeking a better life; yet they are being punished for their same desires and less bloody behavior. How can any American in good conscience tell an immigrant and refugee in America that they don’t belong in America? America was built by immigrants. The words are synonymous. To persecute immigration today is to punish the dreams of our ancestors.

When we punish the dreams of our ancestors we punish ourselves because we are their dreams!

This hypocrisy stems from deep-seated fear. It is the fear of our own shadows. It is the fear of retaliation for violence of our ancestors. It is the fear of not belonging, the fear of not being able to survive according to our own self-determination, the fear of not having enough, the fear of being at another’s mercy, but mostly, I think: it is the fear of not being connected to the land!

The majority of British and European descendants in the USA have yet to really connect to the land we grew up on with deep meaning and purpose because to do so would require us to face guilt and feel the grief and mourning that it holds.

And yet, this grieving is required!

Honoring the history of our indigenous peoples, their relationship to the land, their stories and knowledge systems is essential to our collective healing. It is the way by which we can actually begin to connect with the land and find integrity in our foundation. Connecting with the land, the Earth, our real root chakra, is the only way to dissolve the fear and upheaval that is driving our ignorance today.

False Refuge in Sameness, Real Safety comes from Diversity

At the heart of America’s identity crisis is also a kind of collective seeking of refuge in sameness. 

There is a subconscious obsession with conformity in this country that comes from a fear of losing control. If we can just make everything look, think, and act the same, we think, we’ll be safe. 

If living in New York City for so many years has taught me anything it’s this: unity is not about uniformity. Real unity is about embracing diversity, celebrating differences, and learning to live together in community.

When we focus on the sameness of appearances, we repress the realness underneath. This leads to all sorts of crazy backlash because it leads to alienation of our true selves. We create monsters by excluding each other. We try to make things look “safe”, like schools and grocery stores, and then they turn out to become sites of mass shootings. 

Real safety is not in how we learn to make each conform. It’s in how we learn to let each other differ.

Learning from India: Unity vs. Uniformity

I recently returned from six months in India and had to drive from Florida to Georgia to visit the Indian consulate there since we don’t have one in Florida and I want to get back to India.

In so doing, it was remarkable to notice the sameness from one state to another. It wasn’t the nature that I saw repeating, it was the human development superimposed on the landscape: the same stores, the same corporate chains, the same cookie-cutter developments lining the roads. No matter where I was, it all felt eerily familiar and predictable.

America has been homogenized, and its regional flavors and cultures have been replaced by corporate-driven uniformity. This push for sameness has robbed us all of the richness that comes from authentic diversity. It reflects our deep insecurities.

In contrast, when you think of the cultural richness of India, the power of its depth and flavor lies in its regional diversity. Each state has unique traditions, distinct languages, art forms, foods, and fashions. Regional differences are celebrated in India because they are understood as natural and necessary to the uniqueness of their stories rooted in place and time. This diversity brings a tremendous joy and and richness to daily life. It is not an artificial diversity for the sake of tourism, but one rooted in a real connection with and reverance for Nature. People are closer to nature with and the full spectrum of the ecosystem, from plants to animals to the divine. Humans are not the center of the universe.

That being said, it’s worth noting that this regional diversity is being threatened today even in India by globalizing multinationals, from fast food to fast fashion. Many international companies are trying to sink their teeth into India’s booming middle class and they’re using their marketing claws to manipulate public opinions and drive false demand. It’s a question of multinationals trying to uproot thousands of years of civilization to sell bullshit homogeneity. The multinationals will never win, even if I had to walk all the way to the remote corner of the 3rd floor of the Chennai airport just to find an Indian restaurant at the airport in India!!!

Connection not Conformity: Embodiment and Relocalization

Anyway, coming back to the USA, America’s fear-driven obsession with uniformity isn’t just political, it’s psychological. 

We’ve lived too long in our heads, trying to control the world from the top down, forgetting that life is meant to be felt from all directions. We live in social designs that prioritize efficiency over authenticity. We are taught and trained to be disconnected from our bodies (unless we’re using them in servatile, performative and productive ways), our natural intelligence (unless, again, we’re using our brains as servants to capitalist aims), and the natural world (unless we’re using it as our background or field of domination in whatever form).

As a healing mind-body-breath practice, Yoga offers us ways to reconnect with the natural value of our bodies, minds, and presence — to connect with ourselves, each other, and the natural world. Yoga is about learning to trust the natural wisdom of our bodies and relocalize within our communities. 

Embodiment is the antidote to the constant drive for control. It reminds us that true unity comes from connection, not conformity.

If America is to heal and grow stronger through this chaos it must embrace re-localization, a return to the local, to the community, to the environment that provides and shares the Earth, Water, Fire, Air, and Space we life by.

We need to build connections through shared authenticity and embrace the diversity that makes each of us unique. The real richness of life comes from these differences.

True unity doesn’t come from control. 

It doesn’t happen by forcing people to fit into boxes. It comes from embracing vulnerability, setting healthy boundaries, and allowing people the space to be their authentic selves. We need to get back in touch with our bodies and trust the natural intelligence that has always been there. 

Yoga can help us rediscover the wisdom within, reminding us that authenticity comes from living in balance with the world, not trying to control it.

Yoga can help us trust our natural place in the cosmos.

The Path Forward: Compassion and a New Dream

The need for control can be brought down by compassion. Compassion for ourselves, for others, and for the world around us. Compassion is the recognition of each other’s suffering and the motivation to alleviate that suffering.  

Instead of fearing what’s different, we must learn to celebrate it. True security doesn’t come from building walls; it comes from trusting ourselves and each other, which comes from loving and feeling loved by the land.

The new dream for America is about healing the wounds in the very foundation of this country. 

It’s about bringing integrity back to our spine, and ourselves into alignment with our aspirations.

This begins with amplifying our indigenous voices and visions, honoring the native knowledge systems that have long existed here before the British and the Europeans arrived, and that have still survived despite so much trauma through generations. Indigenous wisdom can teach us about interconnectedness, balance, and living in harmony with the Earth. These values have been disregarded in the rush toward material comfort. 

Material comfort has come at the cost of deep psychological and emotional distress.

Instead of continuing down the path of overproduction, over-perfectionism, and the constant need to be the best, the new dream calls for a return to simplicity, slow living, and sustainability.

We need to get uncomfortable to find real comfort and safety.

We must learn to pause and meditate. 

The goal is not to be more rich or powerful. The goal is to be more connected: to the earth, to ourselves, to each other.

Indigenous knowledge reminds us of our place in the natural world, teaching us that we are not above it, but part of it. By embracing this wisdom, we can start to relocalize our lives and rediscover the beauty in what we already have. Celebrating diversity doesn’t just mean tolerating differences; it means living them, celebrating them, embracing what makes each of us unique while recognizing that we are all woven into the same fabric.

Happy birthday USA, may we find integrity in our spine.

Xo

Sandi

Image Credit: US Constitution from the U.S. National Archives and Records Administration courtesy Wikipedia (Public Domain)

This post was written in dialogue with ChatGPT (AI)