Sound of silence

Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence

In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never shared
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence

"Fools," said I, "you do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence

And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said "The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sound of silence

Yoga

Dear Emma,

During work today out of the blue, one of my colleague jabber on purpose of meditation, etc which lead him to question me on what is yoga. He defines yoga as "something we do to feed our spiritual self". I told him based on my understand and my own instructor words "Yoga means union of body, mind and spirit" which he ended up dismissing, stating yoga comes from the word "yoking". Since I ain't adept in Sanskrit and know going into a debate with this colleague typically will go no where, I decided to shut my mouth once he dismissed my definition of yoga. Truth be told, I understand that his definition is true, yoga does feed our spirit but what I disliked is how he "defined" yoga and asked me "Isn't that the purpose of yoga, you practice yoga right?" before dismissing my opinion of yoga and reinforcing his point on "yoga = food for spirit".

So being the kiasu I am, here is the definition of yoga from the web:

"Yoga are the physical, mental, and spiritual practices or disciplines that aim to transform body and mind.  The term yoga is derived from the literal meaning of "yoking together" a span of horses or oxen, but came to be applied to the "yoking" of mind and body. - Wikipedia"

Remind myself have faith in those that have practice and taught yoga for years and have some confidence in what I seen/experience/practice...

I actually debate a bit on should I post such a petty dispute since we all human have different definition on different things. However I decided to post this anyway since I did learn something out of this, which is the real Sanskrit meaning of yoga, which is yoking. I also wanted to post upon my reflection upon why I study yoga. Even if yoga means spiritual food, union of body and mind, etc, I practice yoga because I enjoy it and that alone is sufficient...