Where are you trying to go? How can you get anywhere, if in ultimate reality, you don't exist?
~ completion, harmony, the infinite within the finite ~
The Cosmic Egg is the final card in the journey of the animal spirit deck, and it represents the unfolding of cosmic consciousness. This state emerges after we have tread the path for quite some time, and through self-effort and grace we experience self realization. A sense of contentment and oneness spontaneously arises within us, and the veils of our self-limiting beliefs are lifted. When the essence of the Cosmic Egg has not been activated, we may feel as if we will never "get there," or that we travel alone, disconnected from others. Even if our encounter with this card is brief, appearing as a momentary glimmer or flash of interconnectedness, its potent energy stays with us. The Cosmic Egg is a remedy for the fragmentation of modern life. It's through the power of this card that we are reminded of the cosmic contract written at the beginning -- we hold on to life, and life holds on to us. The journey is complete, but it does not end.
~ the cosmic egg and the seventh chakra ~
The subtle essence of the cosmic egg resides at the crown chakra at the top of the head called sahasrara. One of the aims of yoga and meditation practice is to channel energy from the base of the spine upward toward sahasrara. Each of the six lower chakras plays an important role along this journey, and once the final epicenter of consciousness is activated it is said to radiate the light of a million suns.
Hi friends! :) Welcome to week 35 of our yoga series -- exploring this life through the symbolism of the animal kingdom. Each creature represents a different aspect of our human journey, helping us to better understand and connect to our inner and outer worlds. Every 5 weeks in our yoga classes, we cycle through each of the 5 elements (earth, water, fire, air, space) and their respective animals in this card deck. How can we bring each of the animals within us into balance?
Last week, the vulture circled overhead... following us, hunting us... we can't escape. We learned that the vulture terrifies us so much, not because he's our enemy (he's not), but because he is seeking to devour the dead... and by following us, this means there is something rotting within us that needs to be relieved and recycled. Are we willing to acknowledge the dead parts of ourselves that we must sacrifice to our ally the vulture?
This week, we complete our seventh cycle of the elements with the cosmic egg. This card is associated with the space element, which differs from the other four elements. Space is the container that holds the earth, water, fire, and air. It is the stage upon which the other elements dance. The space element cards point us toward a deep, primordial aspect of ourselves... an underlying current -- a deep calling. Listen. Can you hear it? The silence? Can you sense the stillness? Can you feel her? The ceaseless embrace that we swim in? The cosmic egg is a symbol of remembrance. When we return to our source, even if just a flash of recognition, a brief taste, we remember that we are home no matter where we are.
Have you ever heard "everything is a paradox?"... ask a zen master, ask a physicist... they'll tell you... when viewed with wholeness and clarity, everything in life is a paradox. As we walk down the spiritual path -- the human journey, we'll discover a road flooded with paradox.
The cosmic egg symbolizes completion. It is associated with the seventh chakra -- the crown... the merging of our individuality with the oneness of consciousness. Transcendentalists seek to reach this state as their ultimate goal -- their final destination. However, for the "householder", for the bodhisattva, for the one who wishes to live within the world, to embrace the human experience, to embrace the process, the back and forth... for this one... they seek to have these "transcendent and merging" experiences in order to pervade the light of consciousness, the radiance of pure unfiltered unconditional love, back into this human experience.
The one who seeks transcendence for the purpose of pervasiveness, is recognizing that everything is already complete. That everything is ALWAYS complete. That there is no beginning and end. There is nowhere to go. If you are trying to transcend... where are you trying to go? How can you go somewhere, if in ultimate reality, "location" doesn't exist? YOU don't exist? There is no you to go anywhere? How can you "complete" anything, if in ultimate reality, there is no such thing as "time"?
So, isn't it a cute lil paradox that in the ultimate reality (oneness) that the cosmic egg points to, there is no such concept as "completeness"... so therefore, in THIS human layer of reality, it is true, in an absolute sense, that both everything is always complete AND nothing is ever complete.
However... because in this human layer of reality, "time" and "completeness" is true... because this reality is linear... it is true that there are things to "complete"... there are things to do here in this human life. We are the ouroboros. The snake eating its tail. Life is continually devouring itself and being reborn from itself.
Does this make sense? This week's theme is out there, I know ;) It asks us to expand our mind beyond the 5 senses. It asks us to expand our mind beyond the mind. Also, a paradox isn't really supposed to make sense, that's the point. The main takeaway here is that in the "bigger picture" everything is complete and perfect... so when we have a flash of remembrance; of our source and of this bigger picture, we remember the perfection of all things. And by remembering this perfection, we recognize that everything that is happening in our human experience is perfect. That's a really hard one. Especially when things are horrible and painful and ugly. The cosmic egg asks us to redefine perfection. Perfect does not mean good. Everything is not "good"... but everything is perfect, because it is exactly how it is.
Everything that is happening, is happening for our evolution. When we are clear in mind, we can look back at our lives and understand why painful things and tragedy "needed" to happen. At least for me, I'm like, "well, I don't UNDERSTAND why it happened like that... why couldn't it have happened in a more ~nice~ way?" But regardless, I do see how that experience led me to here. And I personally choose to decide that HERE is exactly where I'm supposed to be. That's me seeing things from the human plane where things are "good and bad". But I can also choose to see things from the absolute, cosmic plane where everything just "is".
If you look at the cycles of nature, or the evolution of the earth... SOOOO many things happened for life and consciousness to end up HERE. With humans and mountains and fruit and indoor plumbing and instagram. Along the way, hella tragedy must've happened, yeah? But something more intelligent than our limited understanding guided everything to this point. Here. Indoor plumbing.
That's what I mean by perfect. Modern physics states: Everything that's ever happened, had to happen exactly as, when, and where it did, in order for the universe to be exactly as it is today.
Perfect is complete not because it is the end, but because it is whole. When we touch the cosmic egg, we remember that we are perfect, not because we have reached an end, but because we are whole... because we are exactly where we are -- as we are.
Ram Dass has this lil thing that's like, when you walk through the forest, and you see all the trees, you don't go "oh that one's tall and that one's thick and that one's dying and that one's twisted" you just silently acknowledge "trees" And the trees are perfect. It's only once you start analyzing the trees that they're suddenly not "perfect" anymore. Because you'll picked them apart with your mind. They're not longer whole, now they're "lacking tallness" or "lacking twisty-ness". And we do this with people. We walk down the street and everyone is perfect until we start labeling. Everything is perfect in our life until we start picking it apart.
Notice how in deep sleep, pure stillness, everything is perfect. There's those few moments sometimes in the morning when I'm waking up when my mind hasn't started doing anything yet where it's just absolute peace and perfection.
And now don't get me wrong, the mind does it's job and labels things so that we can HAVE A HUMAN EXPERIENCE where there's things to do and get and achieve and complete. And that's true. But from the cosmic level, from absolute reality, everything is complete. Everything is perfect.
So, the message of the cosmic egg, is to live in remembrance. Both realities (absolute and human) are true. The art of yoga is the weaving together of these two real realities. Of remembering our true nature as the perfect oneness of all things, and infusing our complicated lives with that quality of simple unconditional perfect love.
Why? Because our highest self (paramatman) seeks to return to its source... and it can only do that by moving through the human karma. And our human self (atman) seeks freedom, and it can only do that by remembering its source.
The space element holds the other four elements as a container. Space is formless, shapeless, without quality or substance. It just holds. That's unconditional love. It just holds. No matter what happens within it, it just holds. It just loves. The yogic deity Shiva symbolizes this container -- this still and silent holding. The stage upon which we dance. That is the cosmic egg. The thing that holds us. We remember that reality, and we are home no matter where we are.
...
We've reached the end, but we're not done! We still have another round, baby! We will see the cosmic egg once more before we end our journey (there's 14 of each of the basic 4 elements, but only 7 space cards). SO... next week, we gotta get grounded after all this cosmic paradox, eh? So let's bring it back to earth with, the buffalo, who leads by example of perfected balance in our day to day lives. He faces challenge head on, but is always grounded below, and connected to spirit above.
til next time ✌︎
dream extreme!
♡ kat
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