Feel whole.
Wherever you are,
Allow your eyes to close.
I say allow because I want this practice to be completely effortless.
Force nothing.
Once you've allowed your eyes to close,
Bring your attention to any sensations in your body that are crying out to be noticed.
Attend to them.
Work to soften and relax.
Let go of any tension that exists.
Your practice should be comfortable.
It should be a space to cultivate freedom.
Take a moment now to find freedom in your body.
Bring your awareness to your breath.
Feel yourself breathe.
What is your breath like right in this moment?
Try not to think about it.
Try to simply be with your breath as it moves in and out of your body.
Take a moment now,
Going beyond feeling yourself breathe,
To be your breath.
Feel yourself be yourself breathing.
A very relaxed breath is nearly impossible to detect.
The very focused mind hardly breathes.
As you sit inside your own breath,
Notice what changes for you.
Notice how being your breath affects your body.
Notice how it affects your mind.
As you settle into this space of your breath,
Allow yourself to experience anything that happens inside or outside of you right now.
Notice sounds around you.
Notice feelings,
Physical sensations on your skin.
Notice any tastes in your mouth or lights that you may see behind your eyes.
Be expanded awareness.
Continue to observe your breath in this way.
Resting your mind,
Not forcing it to listen,
But relaxing it completely as you listen to my words.
There is no such thing as a broken you.
You are a complete and whole being.
There is no such thing as incompleteness.
Everything is complete.
When you take a cup and you break it,
You don't have a broken cup.
You have two complete parts of what was once one whole.
If things have happened to you in your life,
It is likely you've occasionally considered yourself to be broken or incomplete.
This is an illusion of the modern world,
The concept of incompleteness.
Everything that has happened to you up until now is part of the complete picture.
Every suffering experience,
Every pleasurable event,
All of these make up the whole.
There is no such thing as incompleteness.
You are complete exactly as you are.
This morning we are going to work with a short mantra.
This is an English translation of a Sanskrit mantra from the Isha Upanishad.
It goes like this.
If completeness is taken away from completeness,
Only completeness remains.
Let's repeat these words together in sync with the breath.
As you inhale,
Repeat the words inside of your mind.
If completeness is taken away from completeness,
As you exhale,
Repeat.
Only completeness remains.
Repeat these words inside of your mind over and over again.
If completeness is taken away from completeness,
Only completeness remains.
As you recite these words inside of your mind,
Maintain a relaxed feeling.
If the body revolts in some way,
If the eyes tense or you feel any pain,
Pause to attend to those areas that are crying out for support.
And then when you're ready,
Bring your attention back to the words.
If the body remains relaxed,
Simply continue to repeat the words again and again.
If completeness is taken away from completeness,
Only completeness remains.
Continue to recite the words as we sit together in silence.
Don't worry about the time.
Let that be my job.
If you haven't already begun,
Begin now.
Rest for a moment inside the rocking,
Rhythmic sensation of your body as it breathes.
Commit this mantra to mind and return to it again and again throughout the day.
Let it be a tool for you to use whenever the false belief about incompleteness rears its head.
No matter what you lose,
You are still a whole version of you.
Everything that goes was meant to leave.
Everything that comes was meant to arrive.
Nothing will stay.
Completeness is not about what you do or do not have.
It is not about what has or has not happened to you.
Completeness is the essence of your being.
It is your soul possession.
It is what creates life.
If completeness is taken away from completeness,
All that remains is complete.
Take a few deep breaths now.
Finishing your exhalation,
Allow your eyes to open as you go about your day.
Namaskar.
