Every morning the sky is painted pink. Every autumn the leaves fall. Somewhere there is weeping, somewhere there is laughter. A child is born — an old man leaves his body in silence. Pain and joy, dawn and sunset, beginning and end — all this happens simultaneously, right now.
What if your consciousness were broad enough to encompass all of this at once — not as a series of events to be resisted or held onto, but as a single movement of One Reality? This is the One Taste.
What is the "One Taste"
One Taste is a term with several names. Ekarasa (Skt. ekarasa) is formed from the roots eka — "one, unified" — and rasa — "taste, juice, essence." The root ras in Vedic Sanskrit means "to feel, to taste, to experience." In the system of Indian aesthetics, as described in Bharata's "Natyashastra," rasa is the very essence of experience, its nectarine quintessence, unattainable by the analytical mind.
Somarasya (Skt. somarasya) — from soma, the moon and nectar of immortality, the subtle mind — and rasya, "nectar-like." Literally: the amrita of the non-dual state, the nectar whose taste is one for all existence. Samarasa (Skt. samarasa) — "even taste," "equanimous taste" — is a term from the Nath traditions and Kashmiri Shaivism.
All three names point to the same thing. "Somarasya means seeing everything as one Brahman. One Taste, Advaita, non-duality — they are the same thing," says Swami Vishnudevananda Giri.
In the Laya-yoga tradition, One Taste is the third of the three great pillars of contemplative practice. The first is pure vision, shuddha-drishti (Skt. śuddha-dṛṣṭi): perceiving everything as a manifestation of the divine dimension. The second is Divine Pride, Aham Brahma Asmi (Skt. ahaṃ brahmāsmi): remembering "I am Brahman." The third is somarasya: an equanimous experience of all dualities as the play of the single Source. Gradually, by practicing contemplation, the practitioner moves from pure vision to Divine Pride — and from there to equanimity.
Signs of the State
In the "Songs of the Awakened," somarasya is described through its signs:
"When the inner has mixed with the outer, and nothing remains 'inside' or 'outside' — that is called somarasya, the One Taste. When samadhi is attained in a calm posture and lasts after meditation — that is somarasya. When past and future have merged into a single present moment, and then even that disappears, dissolving into the inconceivable — that is somarasya. When dreamless sleep and wakefulness have become as if one continuous consciousness — it is a sign that somarasya has been attained. When pure and impure, good and evil, life and death, samsara and nirvana, subject and object have united in the Pure Mind, like infinite space — that is somarasya."
"The state of One Taste means that a yogi can combine paradoxical, seemingly incompatible things in their consciousness," says Swami Vishnudevananda Giri. "Joy and sorrow, pleasure and suffering — all this is seen as part of something global, vast, and whole. If consciousness is narrow, it cannot see the interconnection between joy and sorrow. It clings to one side of Being — and inevitably finds itself in contradiction with reality, in battle with it. This contradiction vanishes only when the One Taste is found."
This is not indifference to life. It is a fullness in which every "taste" is preserved but no longer holds one in bondage.
Practice: How to Enter
The key here: One Taste is accepted first as a view, not as a guide to behavior.
Some inexperienced practitioners, hearing that "all is one," begin to behave as if there were no difference between right and wrong in life. This is not One Taste — it is ignorance masked by philosophy.
The great Zen master Dogen spoke of this differently: "Although we know that we should not discriminate, nonetheless we tend to the flowers in the monastery and pull out the weeds." Flowers are grown — not because the gardener is in duality, but because they have accepted this principle in the relative dimension as a conscious lila (Skt. līlā), a play. At the level of behavior — discrimination. At the level of view — unity. It is in this gap that the practice lives.
The Five Levels of Consciousness
The path to One Taste is a path of expanding consciousness. In the Laya-yoga tradition, it is described through five levels.
Consciousness at the point of ignorance is the ordinary state of a person living in dense duality. There is "I" and "you," "good" and "bad," past and future. This is dvaita (Skt. dvaita). Consciousness at the point of contemplation, frequently distracted, is the beginning of self-liberation: the practitioner already knows of the non-dual nature of reality, but the mind still pulls in different directions. Then comes unwavering, steady presence — the consciousness of a master of contemplation, even and without strong fluctuations. Beyond that is self-surrender and transcendence, the consciousness of a saint, in which the ego dissolves into the Absolute.
And the fifth. One Taste. Self-recognition. There is no longer an ego to dissolve into the Absolute. There is only the Absolute. "The state of One Taste corresponds to the very highest position of consciousness — self-recognition," says Swami Vishnudevananda Giri.
The Four Pillars
"Why does One Taste arise? Because your consciousness becomes extraordinarily wide and deep — through self-inquiry, self-surrender, contemplation, and self-recognition."
Self-inquiry (Skt. ātma-vicāra) — the continuous turning of attention toward the one who perceives. The question "Who am I?" cuts through all dualities at the root. Self-surrender (Skt. ātma-nivedana) — letting go of control, trusting the movement of life as the movement of the Absolute. Not passivity — but the highest activity turned inward. Contemplation — maintaining an open presence without the effort of grasping or pushing away. Self-recognition (Skt. pratyabhijñā) — the direct recognition of one's nature as Brahman. Not "I have achieved self-realization," but "I remembered what I have always been."
"One Taste increases as your jnana-yoga deepens and contemplation is nurtured. And then you slowly transition into the realm of One Taste," says the Guru.
How it Happens in Practice
In every meditation, every pranayama, every bhajan — let the practice be directed not toward achieving a special state, but toward recognizing what is already present. Not "I need to obtain something," but "let me see what already is."
At the stage of One Taste, pranayama becomes meditation. Meditation gains the power to move prana. Nada-yoga (Skt. nāda-yoga) generates light. Contemplation manifests in the body, and the body becomes immersed in contemplation. Service becomes concentration, and concentration becomes a means of self-surrender. One method flows into another, and in this flowing, a single foundation is discovered. "Only one who has unfolded the One Taste of all methods realizes non-duality," the tradition teaches.
Fruits of the Practice
"The practice of One Taste tempers the view so that you become completely invulnerable to unfavorable things," says the Guru.
When duality dissolves in contemplation, unfavorable events cease to have power over consciousness — not because the practitioner doesn't notice them, but because their mind is no longer a field in which they leave scars. The practice reduces the number of obstacles and increases vital force. Dualities merge into a single whole.
The deeper the contemplation, the closer to God. Everything is seen as whole, non-contradictory, and harmonious.
Basavanna (11th–12th c.), the Shaivite mystic poet from Karnataka, expressed this with extreme simplicity:
"The pot is God. The winnowing fan is God. The stone is God. The comb is God. The bowstring is also God. The vessel is God. There is only one God — our Lord of the Meeting Rivers."
This is somarasya.
One Taste — Right Now
The universe is inherently non-dual. There is nothing truly "bad" or "good" in our limited understanding. It is inherently pure, perfect, and divine. The universe is Brahman.
"Sarvam Eva Brahman" — "Everything is Brahman." A view that comes alive in contemplation — and sooner or later turns into direct perception.
When gentle words and insulting words are perceived equanimously — as peaceful and wrathful forms of a single blessing. When victory and defeat become a dance, a play of energy emanating from the single Supreme Source. When every person is seen as a deity, all their actions as lila (Skt. līlā), and their words as mantras sounding within the mandala (Skt. maṇḍala) of samsara — that is somarasya.
The practice of One Taste is in every moment. In every breath. In every look at the sky, at another person's face, at a leaf falling from a tree. It is in the willingness not to divide reality into the acceptable and the unacceptable — but to encompass everything as a sacred space in which a single Presence plays.
Abide in this.
