I've decided to take on the Abundance Tribe question of the week and attempt to describe this elusive idea of "wholeness."
As I do, I recognize that it is going to necessarily mean different things to different people, because I think wholeness is more a direction of movement than a destination, though it contains both.
You see, we really are fundamentally whole to begin with. We are Spirit in human form. In fact, I think a part of who we are remains always in Spirit realm, not fully incarnating. As Spirit, we can never be anything other than whole.
But our human expressions get blocked, distorted, confused, fragmented and generally separated from this wholeness according to how we are raised, where we are raised, temperament, and life experiences.
We all get identified with being "broken" in different ways, so our movement back into awareness of our wholeness takes different paths.
It is this pathwork that most people mean when they talk about becoming whole. Really we are becoming aware. We are always whole.
Attributes of Wholeness
So how do you know when you've made it back home to yourself?
Well I think you feel that sense of resting. There is an ease and no longer a restlessness.
When you think of a happy home, what do you think of?
I think that's what wholeness feels like. There is warmth, love, closeness, fulfillment.
Just as importantly, there is a lack of emptiness, alienation, despair, isolation, fear, doubt, shame. Those are all feelings experienced by the fragments of who we are. When we are no longer identified with this fragment or that one, but with all the parts of ourselves united as one, we don't experience these feelings.
That doesn't mean we should suppress or deny these feelings. They are more like signposts along the road. They let us know how close to the destination of wholeness we are at the moment. That feedback is valuable. We don't want to condemn the function of getting feedback, nor the content of the feedback itself. Instead, let's use it.
When we feel those feelings of fragmentation, let that be a reminder to focus our attention on what brings us more warmth, love, closeness, connection, meaning and clarity. Let us move into more action in the direction of what we value most highly.
By doing this we align ourselves more with the identity of our whole selves, and by doing so we get to experience the wholeness that is always there.
So What Is Wholeness Fundamentally?
I think that when it comes down to it, wholeness is simply the truth. We can describe its attributes and how to identify it experimentally, but ultimately we can only define it as the ultimate truth of our being.
What that is is far greater than human language can contain. Language necessarily breaks things into smaller parts than the whole to try to describe the whole to itself.
As the wise Bhatki Yogis have said:
Why be sugar when you can taste sugar instead?
Wholeness is the sugar of our being. Our separate human identity is what allows us to know ourselves through duality. But if we get lost in the act of tasting the sugar and forget that we are the sugar, we start worrying about having access to the sweetness of life and all sorts of problems stem from this.
Who are you?
You are sugar tasting sweetness by becoming something that seems to not be sugar. But it is just a game. You are the sugar, the sweetness, the taster and the act of tasting.
You are forever whole, but you get to play at separation as much as you want. Enjoy!
(All text and images (except the AT logo) are by the author, unless otherwise credited. This is original content, created expressly for HIVE.)