Wholeness

This entire past week, I've been teaching around the theme of wholeness. It took some contemplation to find the word that would convey what had inspired the thought and wholeness was as close as I could get. As I mentioned in the previous weeks blog, a member of my extended family passed away at the age of 103 and her funeral was held over the weekend. It was officiated by a rabbi and as he spoke, I sat there thinking that what he was saying was the kind of thing that I would talk about in a yoga class. I realized that although he was coming from the Jewish perspective (and I'm not Jewish) that we were still viewing humanity similarly. He was viewing if from his lens and I through mine, just as we all view the same thing from our own viewpoint, yet I felt connected to what he was saying and connected to the other people in attendance.

So often, particularly in fear-based cultures, institutions and religions, we have an "us versus them" approach; "I'm right, you're wrong"; "me and you". From many of the wisdom traditions, it is said that the root of suffering is the belief in separation. We see ourselves only as individuals and forget that we are all inextricably inter-connected. One of my teachers explained it to me like this:

A vast ocean of consciousness exists throughout the universe that is eternal and whole, sometimes called super-consciousness or ultimate reality. When we come into being, we are given a cup of this consciousness, as though it were scooped out of the vast ocean of ultimate reality. And when we die and are no longer in our body, it returns to back into the vast ocean of all pervasive consciousness. It's a reflection of the word that is often said at the conclusion of a yoga practice, Namaste'. The translation I gravitate toward is:

"The light in me, sees and honors the light in you. And when we are both in that place, we are one". 

What I take that to mean is that although we may think we have nothing in common, we don't even have to like or agree with one another, we at the very heart of it, hold the same element of connection within us. We are all connected at the most fundamental level and in recognizing that, we are no longer separate.

Another aspect of wholeness is our own personal balance between body, mind and spirit. Often we don't realize when we're out of balance until we tip so far to one side that something shows up in either our body such as a physical ache or illness or in our thought process which can manifest as anger, frustration, greed or selfishness. What makes staying in balance is the ever-changing fluctuations of simply being alive. One day we're full of pep, the next day, not so much. How do we know when we're out of balance? If you're curious, try the following:

Sit quietly and take three deep breaths. If it's comfortable, gently close your eyes and ask yourself "what could I being doing more of to keep me in balance? What could I be letting go of?" Sit for a few moments and see what pops up. Once you begin to become more conscious of what helps to support you keeping in balance, honor that and see if it can be part of what you undertake on a regular basis.

We know that when we are in balance, the energy that we send out to others comes from a completely different place then when we find ourselves under-nourished. Since we are all connected parts of the whole, what we say, how we act and what we think affects others. When we are in balance, when we are whole, we recognize our connection to the larger web of all life in a deeper and more profound way.

Namaste'.