From Completeness to Completeness

Who knew that there could be a long winding journey from completeness to completeness!

We know this journey intimately. It is called human life.

It is a journey as though from one thing called incompleteness to another thing called completeness.

It is a journey as though from one place called source, to another place called destination.

When in truth source is completeness, and destination is completeness, and every step along the way is completeness.

There is only completeness.

There is only completeness and it experiences itself as incompleteness; who knows why!

Perhaps because it can?

Perhaps from wonder and self-amazement?

Perhaps to know itself? to know its infinite possibilities?

It is a divine mystery inviting us to explore its endless depths.

***

From the Ishopanishad (an ancient Indian scriptural text), my most favorite verse, one that sung to my heart and showed me the light:

Om purnamadah purnamidam
Purnat purnam udachyate
Purnasya purnamadaya
Purnameva vashishyate
Om shanti shanti shanti

loosely translated as :

Om
That is wholeness, this is wholeness
Wholeness arises from wholeness
Add wholeness to wholeness
or take wholeness from wholeness
What remains is wholeness
Peace, peace, peace.

or as Buddhism reminds us (I am paraphrasing) :

You are that
in the beginning
in the middle
and in the end.

***

As seekers we tend to forget this, as we imagine that we are trying to complete ourselves by attaining something currently outside us.

The momentous realization is neither an attainment, nor a reaching someplace else, but a recognition that we have always been that completeness, every step of the way.

We are that completeness, irreversibly, undeniably, and regardless of what we appear as.

And yet there can be the experience of seeking, of a journey, culminating in the experience of a recognition.

And from this recognition perhaps another journey can begin, not of seeking, but of self-discovery; of the divine mystery exploring the divine mystery in, through, and as, its infinite expressions.

From fulfillment

What if
you could see
that you are not here
to get anything
from life?

What if
you could know
that you are not here
to get anything
from anyone?

What if
you could trust
that you are not here
to get anything
from this world?

Not because
you should be
so independent
or self-reliant
that you disconnect
from everything
and everyone

but because
that independence
is your reality

What if
you could experience
this life
this world
its people
its situations
without
needing anything
from it
or them?

Wouldn't that
make this life
a real trip?
an exciting adventure?
to be enjoyed
to its fullest?

Not by seeking
to add
things or deeds
or experiences
unto oneself

but by being
present to every
experience
good and bad
as it arises

What freedom
to know
that you,
as you truly are,
could never be
destroyed
or diminished
by anything

What freedom
to live this life
not for fulfillment
but from it?