“Awakening Wholeness” is a book focused on young leadership driven by compassion for oneself, others, and the Earth. This book encourages youth leadership by emphasizing mindfulness, mental wellness, and holistic living. It promotes young leaders making a positive impact through emotional well-being and mindful living.
When I was a small child, I remember often looking up at the starspangled sky and asking myself the question, “Where exactly is the edge of the universe?” As I struggled with that question, another would pop up:
“Even if we come to the edge of the universe, what is there after that? What comes next?” I still haven’t found the answers. I also remember that around the same age, I would often stare into my own eyes in a mirror in our home in Kashmir and wonder, “Who is this person looking back at me? What exactly is happening?”
To be honest, it was quite scary to grapple with these questions. Nevertheless, the fear did not stop me from going back to the mirror to
stare into my eyes again and again! Many years later, I’m now beginning to understand that life is indeed a mystery. It is both empty and full at the same time. It is nothing and everything all at once.
For me now, the simplest way to represent this is the symbol you see below: the circle on the outside is a zero, referring to emptiness or nothingness, and the infinity sign inside represents all there is. I call it the PUSHU. It is derived from the words “Purna” in the ancient Indian Sanskrit language, meaning wholeness or totality,
and “Shunya,” meaning emptiness.
Here is how I stumbled upon this symbol: My Indie dog, Zorba, has a rubber ring that he chews and plays with. He is not the only one who plays with this ring. I do too, sometimes. One day, as I was playing with this toy (which looks like a circle), I twisted it in the middle, and it became the symbol of infinity!
That was a huge epiphany for me. It struck me that the infinite forms that we see all around us are all made up of the same stuff — emptiness! When you take all that makes up the multiplicity of life, and strip away everything, you are left with nothing, i.e., no thing.
Wisdom is knowing I am nothing, and love is knowing I am everything. Once you realise that the road is the goal and that you are always on the road, not to reach a goal but to enjoy its beauty and its wisdom, life ceases to be a task and becomes natural and simple in itself.
~ Nisargadatta Maharaj
Everyone must have two pockets, with a note in each pocket, so that he can reach into one or the other, depending on the need. “When feeling lowly and depressed, discouraged, or disconsolate, one should reach into the right pocket and there find the words, ‘For my sake, the world was created.’ But when feeling high and mighty, one should reach into the left pocket and find the words, ‘I am but dust and ashes.’
~ Rabbi Simcha Bunim
This is really who we all are. To be this experientially, just pause and be still. Listen to all that is happening “outside” and “inside”. See your thoughts as clouds pass by on the backdrop of a placid sky of awareness.
You realise that you are this mystery. There is a profound and deep sense of peace. That is who we all are. The mind becomes silent. It doesn’t want to do this or do that. It is simply present to what is around in the moment. What might happen if we could live our lives with the remembrance of this perspective? What might happen if we could live a life of freedom from concern?
As the actor Jim Carrey (who famously played the main role in the 1994 film “The Mask”) asks:
“What might happen if I remembered that my soul is not contained within the limits of my body but that my body is contained within the limitlessness of my soul or my awareness?”
