Isn’t it interesting that sometimes in spiritual circles, we consider the material realm to be lower, grosser, or somehow less evolved than the subtle dimensions? I know I've fallen into this thought-process at times, particularly when the "mundane" world feels harsh, cruel, or generally gross to me.
Sometimes I forget that in this world, I have the incredible powers of touch, sight, hearing, smell, and taste! I forget what a gift the body really is! Too often I think of these sense-powers as a limitation that I need to bypass in order to sense the subtle realms that feel "more spiritual". There are some religions that teach that the body is fallen, sinful, heavy, full of temptation. It certainly can feel that way sometimes, but then there are other spiritual traditions that embrace the body as being the perfect and whole expression of a perfect and whole divinity. At the bottom of this blog, there's a beautiful sloka from the Isavasyopanishad that reflects this wholeness.
What consistent meditation and study has taught me is that we are blessed to experience the powers of the subtle realms within the material realm, too. The power of imagination, the power of will, the power of awareness. It’s all here! We are not incomplete. We don't need to wait on some future perfection where we unzip our bodies and fly off into the sky. In this very moment we are fully human and fully divine.
We have arriven!
Meditative awareness allows us to unlock this understanding that there is no Great Beyond, that we are creating our future every single moment. That here and now is all there ever really is and that all things, all spirits, all conditions, are fully present in every moment.
Nothing is coming. It’s already all here.
Join me (Carmen) for meditation (and usually some chanting!) every Thursday at 6pm!
Purnamadah - Wholeness Sloka
Isavasyopanishad
"Shunya" is the sense of emptiness we can feel in deep meditation where nothing feels real or meaningful anymore. This sloka reminds us that there is fullness everywhere, and that the absolute cannot be diminished.
oṃ pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidam
pūrṇāt pūrṇamudacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ
That is Whole and this is Whole,
the perfect has come out of the perfect;
having taken the perfect from the perfect,
only the perfect remains.
Let there be Peace, Peace, Peace.