Kundalini Splendor

O my Beloved,

Your gentle breath upon my chest

awakened me in the night.  

Your warmth embraced

flesh and bone,

heart and soul,

Your breath

breathing me

'til only your breath

remains.

The great swan 

takes flight,

Hamsa dissolves
into Your boundless radiance

where no other can go.

You probably know that the great swan in Hindu/Vedic symbolism is the refined awareness of hamsa, "I Am", the awareness of "I am the Infinite."  A paramahamsa is a one who lives in that awareness all the time, like Yogananda Paramahamsa, Muktananda Paramahamsa, etc.  It's said that the great swan is able to drink the milk alone from a mixture of milk and water, again symbolizing the viveka, the discrimination, to know the Divine that is as mixed with all we experience as milk becomes mixed with water.  The innate power of this highest level of discrimination, viveka, is Shakti, and it is Shakti that empowers the mind to function with that wisdom moment by moment.  It's the power of wisdom, holy Sophia, that allows one to know what the Gospel of Thomas says, quoting Jesus, "the kingdom of God is spread upon the earth and people do not see it."  Shakti is the power of grace that restores our ability to see the Divine in everyone, everything, in all times and all places. Dissolving into the boundless radiance is dissolving into Unity Consciousness, where no "other" can even exist.  Hamsa is the natural, innate mantra of the breath.  Each breath comes in with the sound hummmm and goes out with the sound saaaaa, proclaiming our unbreakable unity with the Infinite. She is the breath of the breath and awakens us from the darkness of ignorance, the sleep of forgetting, and brings the opening of expanded consciousness, the awareness that it is the Divine herself, Shakti, breathing us, creating and sustaining every cell in our body, flesh and bone, heart and soul, dissolving all separation in the unbounded awareness of our union with Her.