Embodying The Ongoing Whole Of Creation
written by Swan Michelle
The radiance of wholeness permeates the body
And all directions simultaneously
Wholeness is always here
Already here before your noticing of it
What we call whole is presence
It is permission to exist
-The Radiance Sutras 20
Purnamadah Purnamidam Purnat Purmanudashate Purnasya Purnamadaya Purnameva Vashisyate
Translation:
This is Whole. That is Whole. You cannot take away from the Whole. In taking away from the Whole, what remains will always be Whole. The Whole is Always Whole. The whole is infinite, and forever remains.
Another translation:
What is invisible is visible. Out of the infinite, the finite has come. And from the finite, the infinite is always present, even when covered, and cannot be destroyed. The infinite always remains.
This mantra is known as one of the 5 peace mantras, or “Pancha Shantih’s,” found in the Upanishads at the end of The Vedas, which is one of the oldest known transcribed texts. This mantra is recited when there is a propensity to divide or to destroy, which, according to this mantra, just like energy, cannot be.
“I am nothing like you. I am something like you. I am nothing but you.” The Vijnana Bairava Tantra
It seems quite understandable that we want difficult things to finally end, especially in such a purifying year as 2020. The volume got turned up many notches, yet it still carried an ominous, inconsistent, and concealed nature. The rearranging of many things has been an invitation for us all to see what it is that actually remains, and what was neither stable nor whole.
“When carving stone, the sculptor removes everything that is not the statue…The art of revealing beauty lies in removing what conceals it. So, too, Patanjali in the Yoga Sutras tells us that wholeness exists within us. Our work is to chisel away at everything that is not essence, not Self.” Judith Hanson Lasater
Many things were not visible or known to us in 2020, yet this was always so. A great deal of discernment is being asked of us now. Many plans collapsed and we learned to adapt, with the vitality of faith in our heart, that we have permission to continue on. Here we are. We remain in this ongoing life cycle, asked to become more familiar or at ease in our relationship with the unknown.
Living and being, instead of surviving and craving for the known and forcing unsettling outcomes, hasn’t always made us happy or even always worked. When overwhelming, complex and seemingly incomplete form obstructs and consumes our sight, it narrows our view, and the brain operates in incoherent and distressed conditions.
What if, while doing our part to uphold the whole, we could be ok in the unknown, a place where the effects of divisiveness, pain of the past or fear have no landing place upon us? What an exciting and fresh start each day would be, this terrain of newly charged, fertile creation. What if we craved for the unknown as something inspiring and stabilizing?
“Like a tree, that planted by the water, I shall not be moved.” Homer F. Morris
The Sanskrit word “Purna” can be translated into English as “whole,” “complete,” “full,” or “perfect.” Purna is likened to a full moon’s charge, illuminating the wondrous dark sky. Whether we notice the full moon rising, and beyond any personal will of our own, it rises, resplendently and full on, yet it would be up to us to gaze upon it and recognize this. It reflects to us our awe inspiring potential. We too can rise up with nobility to every occasion in illumination and wisdom, embodying the ongoing Whole of creation.
This strotra reminds us that the perception of a fresh start can only come from the lens of an observer, the indweller of ones unwavering completeness. This wholeness exists within each of us, and within the Universe.
Even if we have decided or believe something is less than, has the right to be judged, is incomplete, imperfect or wrong to us, this strotra states that in the ongoing, infinitesimal Truth, this transience is not so. There is an inexhaustible component and essence to all things in creation that is always Whole and Self sustained, even if invisible to us.
“When time is eternal and all possibilities exist, we experience moving from:
the material to the immaterial
Newtonian time to quantum world
state of separation, duality and locality to unity, wholeness and non-locality
the known to the unknown
limited possibility to unlimited possibility
the universe to the multiverse
from someone to no one to anyone
from something to nothing to anything
somewhere to nowhere to anywhere
sometime to no time to anytime.
When you are whole, you believe in your future, not your past.” Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself -Dr. Joe Dispenza
When the self recognizes the Soul, the body and light fuse into one, the heart is at home in itself. There, wholeness is met, and has always been. We can identify with wholeness, where the Self reveals itself to self, or we can identify with pain, multiplicity and fluctuation and believe it is ongoing. It is our free will and legacy to choose.
Holding onto separation or pain has often been described as a misunderstanding of incompleteness, which comes from the past. Having not healed from that past, thus not transformed it, it feels difficult to access a new version of ourselves, and we keep playing broken past parts out.
The fullest currents of creation lie right here, where the story is happening now, told in a new, electrifying, radiant way. Creation comes from having done the work to embody the teachings, freeing ourselves from the past. Completion in this stotra means we actually learned from what happened before, be it creations or mis-creations.
Transformation means we truly have let go of dulled, worn, incomplete and flawed perceptions and judgements of ourselves and others. Completion doesn’t mean we are done. We are rising and wired to rise again and again, just like the moon.
The idea of a fresh start fills me with hope from what seemed to have been a never ending unveiling of difficult news in 2020. Our survival instincts were in fight, flight and freeze mode and I am certain at many points, and for many reasons, we each became fatigued, confused, strained, or terrified, to say the least. The unknown and infinity itself can seem terrifying,
When we as creators identify with wholeness, it is an immense, powerful field of magnetism, energy, vibrancy, and awareness. It is a space where we experience the super charged, ongoing, life affirming infinity of ongoing creation. It celebrates artistry, purpose, dreams, creativity and expands our coherence, anabolic regeneration, health, mental cognition, vitality and energy field into a broader, hopeful and enlivening vision.
When we keep pain perpetual within us, there is no room in the mind to create nor imagine anything new, let alone implement this into an energetic, exhilarating action that forges an exciting new future.
“Purna” implies that the wholeness of all things is unshaken and inexhaustible. It can’t be taken over, knocked down, divided or moved. For any of you still standing in the mystery, you too have continued to rise, in some way unmoved. We have all continued to rise together, possibly with even more stamina, endurance and the revelation of a far more tenacious flame of spirit than you possibly thought you had.
Making sense of the news, virus, money, division, health, hurricanes, global warming, politics, social unrest, racism, restrictions, the truth, fabrications, and many humans’ actions may have tested you as they tested me. One option may have been to contract, narrow the lens, check out, look for blame, give up, take down others, get violent and get confused. Many things were set up to try to further divide us, temping us to feel weak.
Yet, we rose!
One thing has been far more clear to me than ever, if we are breathing this fragile breath still, we are all in this fierce and tender tapestry together.
For me, even in lock down, remembering interdependence more than independence has brought an extraordinary and exhilarating view of reverence. There is a powerful force that is the ongoing whole of creation in which we are all a part and I am in awe to be a part of it with you.
Rivers of power flowing everywhere
Fields of magnetism relating everywhere
This is your origin. This is your lineage.
The current of creation is right here
Coursing through subtle channels
Animating this very form
Follow the gentle touch of life
Soft as the footprint of an ant
As tiny sensations open to vastness
Power sings as it flows
Electrifies the organs of sensing
Becomes liquid light
Nourishes your entire being
Celebrate the boundary
Where streams join the sea
Where body meets infinity
Radiance Sutras 44
Do not forgot what tried to weaken your spirits, tempted you to forgo your values, regality, fairness, skillful follow through, love, compassion and perseverance, but let that old story go. Remember who did miraculous things for you and had valiant follow through during a very challenging time. I am so grateful for those beings that reach out and keep reflecting the whole to me in the highs or lows of this precious life. Keep turning to what reinforces your ongoing wholeness for you. Perhaps you see that even more clearly than ever before. This is why the story will be new. It won’t be a new year that changes your story. It will be you!
In the embodiment of ongoing infinity, we need less, complain less, blame less, fall for less, waste less, shake less. In some things, we may even care less because what we care about, we care even more for. Whether we know, or not know things or what is to come, or not come. our completeness is unaffected and unmoved by this.
Judgments will continue to reinforce that everything is incomplete and never good enough. It often keeps an old broken story going. Discernment craves a complete picture. If your forget your ongoing whole, timeless nature, our practices, when applied, are tools to help us process and meet the whole full on.
Friends, relatives, neighbors, people who abide
In your village, city, country
Be not concerned with their attitudes
Towards these teachings
Everyone is discovering the intimate Universe in their own way
This nectar is here
Within every breath, every desire, every transition
From waking, to sleeping, and sleeping to waking
Once You have set out on the path of intimacy
With the immortal essence of life
Never turn your back on it, my Shining One
Never turn away
Though every moment be surprising
Revelatory, unrecognizable, and full of wonder
Continue to cherish each breath
Live in gratitude for the ambrosia we imbibe
In each turning, out breath to inbreathe into out
The Radiance Sutras 160
It is satisfying and can be brave to learn, grow and step forward into the unknown. There is never just one person left stranded in the unknown. If it feels unconscious for now or others seem to exemplify not being too wholesome in their actions, ease up, rise up. We are all on a journey of re-membering. It is quite a victory if even for a moment you remembered you are whole in all of this mystery.
See with fresh, new eyes now. Let yourself have a fresh new start. See others having it too. See through the eyes of wisdom; a full panoramic view. Wholeness can’t be destroyed and it will not cease from continuing onward.
Lets rise like a full moon, full ON and beyond the limitations we think are there, together.
Swan Michelle
“My soul is from everywhere, I’m sure of that, and I intend to end up there.” Rumi
“We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half-heard, in the stillness
Between two waves of the sea.” TS Eliot
You who have been seeking, whatever path you are on
A moment will come when
Divine pulsation grabs you
And carries you into the dance
In the midst of ecstatic motion
Your body dissolves into light, leaving only
The soft benediction of the bones
You become the face of fury, yet serene within
Eyes fly open in amazement
Seeing the unseen vastness
The Soul reveals itself to itself
Through movement
Energy infused undulations and gestures
The invisible loves the visible
The Radiance Sutras 54
Teacher Tools:
Further Quotes & Juicy Nuggets:
“If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, your tears will prevent you from seeing the moon and stars.” Icelandic Proverb
“A human being doesn’t want to be contained. They want to be everything.” Sadguru
“If you want a new outcome, you will have to break the habit of being yourself.” Dr Joe Dispenza
“Appearance is not the way things are. We cannot believe in appearance. Even the study of atoms proves this. Search for reality. If you do not, suffering is certain to take place.” Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself -Dr Joe Dispenza
“Matter trying to change matter, or the ego trying to change the ego, time or your body, will take a very long time.” Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself -Joe Dispenza
“Sky of infinity
Your stars shine so brightly
You reflect to me
A timeless truth
Brilliantly
I am infinity
Sun shines so radiantly
You give and give so generously
May I choose to live freely
And offer valiantly
With nobility
Moon up in the sky
Your mystery, yet you do not lie
Soft, supple, full of light
Your power reveals this night
And I ignite
I am infinity
And of nobility
I embody
This divinity.
And I ignite
We are infinity
And of nobility
We embody
This divinity
And we ignite” Lyrics by Swan Michelle
Benediction® by Judith Hanson Lasater
Unexpectedly awakened just before dawn by invisible urgings, I arise in the darkness and open a window shade that shields me from the outside world.
Standing in the cool morning hush, I am now bathed in the soft golden light of the lushness of the full moon.
I have always preferred moon bathing to sunbathing, welcoming the satiny feel of moonlight on my skin like the touch of one I love.
I close my eyes and indulge in this voluptuous pause.
In this morning moment, the moon seems extra close, as if she has drifted down toward me during the night, calling me to feel her palpably cool caress on my skin.
This caress gestures with a wondrous alchemy, coaxing me into a soundless conversation, binding my soul to the moon’s soul in a sudden and perfect promise of wedded bliss.
The moon implores me to open fearlessly.
Yielding, I receive into my deepest Self the simple eternal beauty of her radiant light.
I am struck by her beauty of course, as I have always been devotedly porous to beauty.
Beauty has, since childhood, seeped into me countless times through the permeable boulevard of my senses, and each time that beauty captures me, it unfailingly slakes my thirsting soul.
And so it is now. But there is more.
Tasting this moment clearly, I feel an unexplainable sense of oneness with all life, with all the bearers of eyes that have gazed upon this self-same moon since time began.
I watch as Eve did, as Buddha did, as Shakespeare did, as Mozart did, as wild tigers on the savannah did, as all life has done with wonder and wisdom.
I reflect on the moon as hare and doe and soaring night bird have done during an unimaginable number of past nights since the moment of creation.
I smile, recognizing that I am unassailably kin to all these creatures.
I am safe now, standing on our Mother Earth, held in the wispy arms of the moon’s rays, and hearing the song of her beauty so clearly.
I know with a tangible unshakeable understanding that I am more than just connected to the river of life because I am that river.
I bow my head in humility and wonder.
I leave the cathedral of the moonlight, refreshed, forgiven and forgiving, to welcome with a full heart the unknown of the waiting day.
Book References for January:
The Radiance Sutras Lorin Roche and all translations (mystic poetry of wholeness)
Breaking The Habit of Being Yourself by Dr. Joe Dispenza (science of wholeness)
www.judithhansonlasater.com for books, articles and poetry
Asana: Instead of highlighting one type of asana, offer a complete, well rounded practice with all of the different types of asanas all month. Honor and highlight anatomical body parts as working in reciprocity with the whole body or how 1 peak pose asana relates to all the other asanas you chose in your intelligent and artful sequence.
Respect the boundary of the earth (creation) and standing poses from which to rise from in the foundations of all poses as the highest alignment priority
Language for dharma:
Purna whole, complete, full, perfect, ongoing
Shakti: radiance, electrifying, resplendence, luminous, charged, flame, fertile, creation, pulsation
Viveka discernment , keen observation, wisdom and differentiation in the Great Self and non-self, truth and Universal Truth, transient and permanent
It can be difficult to encase infinity or wholeness into language in a practical sense. Deeply contemplate how to offer grounded understanding of this word. Such things as presence, allness, harmony, space, ether, homeostasis, coherence, synchronized, creative, imaginative, life affirming, unbound, unleashed, adaptive, immune, mobile, healthy, resilient and letting go of old systems, beliefs, ideas and habits that do not support the continuity of a whole and creative infinity.
If you offer the word “perfect” as a translation from Sanskrit to english, reiterate that it is different from the western idea of “perfectionism”.
In life: Appreciate what is here, and still remains, with fresh eyes. What remains is Whole. See this! Work with the attitude of a new, fresh start, not regurgitating a broken past, making pain more real. Work on discernment instead of the judgement of others. Be a creator by getting into and adding to ongoing creation. Lets move forward!
January 2021