Shanti Path

I must say I have found the first weeks of this year to be disorienting, with the disruptive end to a disruptive presidency, a sense of turning a page but with so many acute crises yet to be resolved. I have had a distinct desire to reach back into my memory and my notebooks, to dip into a current that was disrupted, four or five years ago. What was it, and can I still find it, to ride a part of it into now? Can I braid a lost wave into the current current? The desire is strong, but mostly, I am just panting, catching my breath. 

I am particularly grateful for the benevolent support of practice, friendship, teachers near and far. This weekend I joined a group of yogis who have committed to 108 days of 108 chants—for the second time since the pandemic began. That number is auspicious in yogic and buddhist traditions, and this durational practice is done in the name of mutual care — for ourselves and each other, and to share the merit of practice in the world. Saturday began with 108 chants of a peace mantra, a Shanti prayer or Shanti Path: 
 

ॐ पूर्णमदः पूर्णमिदम् पूर्णात् पूर्णमुदच्यते |
पूर्णस्य पूर्णमादाय पूर्णमेवावशिष्यते ||
ॐ शान्तिः शान्तिः शान्तिः || 

Oṃ pūrṇamadaḥ pūrṇamidam pūrṇāt pūrṇamudacyate
pūrṇasya pūrṇamādāya pūrṇamevāvaśiṣyate
oṃ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ śāntiḥ

That is infinite, this is infinite.
From the whole, comes the whole.
The whole remains whole.

Peace, peace, peace.

My inelegant translation of the Shanti Path, from the Ishavasya Upanishad, steers close to the sanskrit. It may help to know this mantra is about consciousness. In its circular way, it points straight to the heart of non-dualism, we are never separate from the source of all.

Satellite image of a braided river in Madagascar.