Full Moon Darshan

Yesterday was the full moon. This monthly event is a particularly precious opportunity for me to connect with my essence.

It is difficult to describe in words the deep feelings of recognition and remembrance that the sight of the full moon triggers in me.

What always amazes me and touches me deep in my soul is the experience that it is not only me who is looking at the moon, but She too lets her gaze rest on me and bathes me in an uninterrupted stream of infinite love, tenderness and beauty.

Everything in me opens to this light. I drop all defenses and let it permeate my whole being.

For me it is like having Darshan of the Goddess.

Darshan is a Sanskrit word.

Have you ever been to an Indian temple? The innermost chamber is the Sanctum Sanctorum, where the Deity resides. The Deity or “Devata” is represented in the form of a statue, the so-called “Murti”. The doors to that sacred inner space are opened at certain times so that one can have a glimpse of the Deity, but also be touched by the Divine gaze. So “to have Darshan” is not only to see, but also to be seen.

This innermost chamber actually represents our own innermost Self.

Just as the Sanctum Sanctorum is the heart of the temple where the Divinity resides, so also in our heart is this most sacred place, the dwelling place of the Divine.

So it is not at all a question of worshipping something outside ourselves. It is rather to realise that everything is within us.

WE OURSELVES ARE ALL THAT IS.

Ideally, through our practice, this truth is revealed, and worshipper, prayer and Divinity merge into a single unity. Nothing else remains.

In the Upanishads

it says “Devam Bhutava Devam Yajeta” – In Oneness with the Divine we pray to the Divine.

In the same way, the full moon makes me realise again and again that her indescribably beautiful, soothing, nourishing, overflowing radiance is nothing other than a representation of my own soul.

Yesterday I experienced another blessed day where I stayed present with my attention in the heart space, just feeling into my own being, realizing that it is the same uninterrupted stream of consciousness that showers over me in the form of moonlight. Love, Beauty and limitless expansion are inherent to it and emerge naturally when the worrying voice of the mind finally remains silent.

This is nothing other than the often quoted unity of Shiva and Shakti. Consciousness and movement in union. Swakriya. Lover and Beloved in eternal embrace.