Abiding

by Erin Johannesen, M.A., M.D.

(A rendering of 13th teaching, “Knowing the Field” from The Bhagavad –Gita as translated by Barbara Stoler Miller)

One who sees the most, one who has a farthest view, is not the one standing high upon a mountain, but rather is one standing ‘equal’ among all beings, animate and inanimate. For any individual or thing alive with motion – and everything is in motion – is born from the union of field and knower that together sustain and are themselves sustaining. Such union is our seeing ourselves through and beyond ourselves. Even when we abide in a body, with all its imperfections, that body is infinite and free from its own nature just as self is also infinite and inherently free from its own nature. Nothing binds infinity. Both distant and near, such sustaining is present even in its own absence. Through practice, through choosing again and again this action of our nondual nature, our teacher of continuing equanimity arises. And an unwavering singularity enters into being that is Being now embodied.

Note: This short essay is inspired by reading beautiful, translated Sanskrit texts. The author wishes credit for this piece to rest with these texts and translator(s).