The Fullness of Life

Om
Pūrṇamadah pūrṇamidam
Pūrṇat pūrṇamudāchyate
Pūrṇasya pūrṇamadaya
Pūrṇameva vashishyate
Om shantih shantih shantih

— “Om Pūrṇamadah”, Sanskrit mantra
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Om. That is fullness. This is fullness. From that fullness comes this fullness. Remove this fullness from that fullness, and fullness still remains. Om, peace, peace, peace.

The essence of tantra is present in this beautiful, alliterative Sanskrit mantra. This world is full with Divine Creation, and remembering this fullness is what we are here to do, it is the purpose of life. In the tantric tradition, the Universe is the play of the divine. Everything manifests from the Divine Consciousness, as some aspect of that Divine Consciousness, because Divine Consciousness is infinite and can be anything. Therefore, you, me, and everything else that you can see or imagine, we are Divine Consciousness, but in a contracted state.

This can be easier to understand when put into anthropomorphic terms. In the tantric tradition that I study, Non-dual Shaiva Tantra, we consider the Divine Consciousness to be Śiva. With this framework we would say that Śiva, as the creator, has infinite, limitless potential. He can be a star, a moon, the sun, a tree, a blade of grass, or a human being with unique characteristics, tendencies, talents, and passions. Śiva can literally be anything he wants to be. Just for fun, with the creative energy of his consort Śakti, Śiva playfully tries on all of his limitless possibilities. You can think of it like this; the empty space of the Universe is Śiva’s stage, and everything that’s manifest is part of Śiva’s one man Broadway smash hit.

In this non-dual tradition, Śiva hasn’t made us separate from himself. Instead, Śiva has made us a part of him. We appear to be different and separate from Śiva, but that’s only an illusion. In fact, we are Śiva. But, in order for us to perfectly be ourselves, or for the bird to perfectly be the bird, or the blade of grass to perfectly be the blade of grass, we have to develop an amnesia of sorts - a forgetting that we are anything other than what is most immediate and most tangible to us. Or as Christoper Wallis puts it in his book, Tantra Illuminated, “For in order for Consciousness to manifest itself in one particular form, it must conceal or suppress all other possible forms. In order for God to fully become you, and thereby embrace herself as you, she must temporarily forget everything about herself that is not you”.

The philosophy of tantra teaches us that we are constantly in the play space of remembering and forgetting this. Our spiritual practices are a means of remembering our true nature, as Divine Consciousness itself. Our work is to remember, again and again, that we are so much more than we think we are. This remembering and forgetting we call spanda, or pulsation. It’s a continuously pulsating expansion and contraction - we expand, we remember, we contract, we forget. With practice, the pulsation slows, so that we spend more time remembering and less time forgetting.

When we are in the expanded state we feel full, and complete. We feel our own divinity and the divinity of all that is around us. We see everything for its inherent beauty. It’s an experience of pure and unconditional bliss.

The ultimate aim of spiritual practice, from the tantric viewpoint, is to live in the world in an expanded state. To be fully in life, yet fully aware that we are swimming in a sea of divinity. This moment, right now, exactly as it is is fullness, because fullness is all their really is.