When Fullness is Taken From Fullness,

“All this is full. All that is full.

From fullness, fullness comes.

When fullness is taken from fullness,

Fullness still remains.”

– The Isha Upanishad, The Upanishads, by Eknath Easwaran. (Nilgiri Press; Second edition (February 12, 2019)

Peace is within every single one of our hearts. It is a fullness, a depth, a flow of silence, a force that each of us can potentially find within, no matter what is happening outside of us.

This was my experience in the last five weeks in retreat in New South Wales, Australia, at the Clairvision retreat center. I have touched the depth of Peace inside of myself many times over the last 22 years of intensive practice, but in this last phase I really came into contact with this force as a constant flow inside. So full. I knew it to be eternal.

Yet still, the world seemed eerily empty, when I was traveling back home on several buses, planes, cars and of course the airports and stations.

After sitting in deep fullness of Being in spaces filled with spiritual light and presence, the trains, buses, stations, airports, planes and of course, the online digital experience, all seemed the opposite of fullness. Empty and devoid of that heart-ness, that love which I felt as a tactile reality during the intensives.

And still, even traveling through that external void, I remembered, not just with my head but with my heart, “Fullness still remains”.

Let me take a small diversion here to share that when in silence for days and meditating for many hours each day one of my greatest pleasures is reading. This is because if I find the right texts, the spaces behind those words can take me into states of great inner knowing and wisdom. For the same reason, it is always important to select the texts carefully.

Reading The Upanishads this time was truly divine. Contemplating the high spaces of consciousness that our fellow humans might have experienced when chanting these precious words just took me into a deeper silent sense of awe.

Remember too, that these are all translations into English. The original texts were shared in a language close to Sanskrit. I cannot read Sanskrit but even so, the translations still touched my core.

The way that I relate to this teaching about fullness at this point in my life, is that this fullness is inside of each us, always. It is a state of Being. The world seems empty in contrast because it is outside of us, and we are most often looking in the wrong place.

I can feel it now, a flowing deep sense of warmth in my heart. Love and silence that brings so much presence to my Being.

In The Upanishads, these ancient texts spoken from teacher to disciple thousands of years ago in India, they are talking specifically about the states of Self, one-ness, non-duality. For me, the experiences of Being on the way to that level of “is-ness” have been part of the teaching.

Not to get too technical but the Self as they have spoken of it in The Upanishads is beyond the states of Peace that I refer to. It was later called “samadi” in the Indian tradition. What I touched upon contemplating the imagery was a fullness of Being, potentially on the way to that level of Self awareness referred to in the ancient texts.

In the practice of Inner Space Techniques, as an IST practitioner working with clients, I am so happy to be able to support people to find this fullness of Being inside of themselves. IST is a meditation-based pathway to find this sense of Peace within in a way that is very real through working with a practitioner or learning in a course run by the Clairvision School of meditation.

There are so many things in the way of us potentially finding this inner Peace, yet it is the birthright of every human being. And it has been for a very very long time.

“You are what your deep, driving desire is.

As your desire is, so is your will.

As your will is, so is your deed.

As your deed is, so is your destiny.”

[Brihadaranyaka IV.4.5] The Upanishads, by Eknath Easwaran.

Most of us still do not fully know our deepest driving desire, or the way that it can work against us when it is unknown. Finding this core aspect of ourselves can indeed change our destiny, or at least our lives. It is a pathway to go from being driven by those unconscious forces, to being the driver in your own life.

We are looking for Peace, outside of ourselves instead of inside. And it is our conflicted driving desires that take us away from ourselves, and away from Peace, now as it was thousands of years ago.

It blows my mind that in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, (perhaps created as far back as 1500 BC or even 2000 BC according to historians) there are haunting expositions of the states of mind that sages explored in Ancient India so long ago, asking questions and probing reality in ways that can still speak to us today.

On that recent retreat in Australia, I dipped into a few of the texts from the Indian Tradition for the first time, seriously looking to see what I could learn and know.

The Upanishads spoke to me, as I resonated with many of its teachings, including the poetic metaphors used to describe states of Being and Self.

Something that inspired me throughout the meditation, was words quoted by Eknath Easwaran from the Katha Upanishad warning that “the ascent to the summit of consciousness is not for the timid”.

“Sharp like a razor’s edge, the sages say, is the path to Reality, difficult to traverse.”

Which is why even as far back as 3700 years ago, or beyond the emphasis of the teachings was that you need a teacher or a guide who knows where they are going. IST is one initial set of tools that many of us have used to start our path towards Self realization.

This journey of Self realization takes so much will power, that in Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, the emphasis is on ardent, one-pointed, self transcending passion or tapas so that all wantings are consolidated into the one overriding desire for Self-realization.

In this modern world, where there are so many potential distractions, things to pull us one way and another, where we can no longer sit in a forest for 12 years, how does this work?

This is a real question that I am asking myself, and I think applies to all modern spiritual seekers of any dimension. How do we turn ourselves in a sincere and genuine way towards this kind of real transformation?

This is what I am here to help others with too, to facilitate that you can go inside to that place of Peace, to find what is in the way of your deep knowing of yourself, and what is your deep driving desire.

If this speaks to you, and you would like to know more about working with me using IST, please contact me here or email me on info@samanthakeen.com. If you know someone that would be inspired to work in this way, please forward this article to them

I have space for a handful of people to go deep in the coming month, and I am looking forward to doing this fully.

With much love

Samantha

* credit to Image by Pixabay.