Embodying Wholeness

by Douglas Bonar

Remember when you were a kid and told your parents that you just wanted to

go outside and play for a while longer? “I don’t want to do my homework; I just want to be out with my friends!”  Or, “I just want to run away.”  Well, admission – I still want to run away sometimes!!! And yet something is calling me back.  Back to my higher purpose and responsibility.  Back to my potential.  So, I relax, surrender and allow my offering to flow.  This is a signpost that I’m embodying my wholeness.  I feel the passion rising with each word I now write.  It’s mine to do. I’m feeling blessed.

Do you too feel this energy and engagement growing within you at this time in our history?  I witness this passion in so many of my peers.  We’re here for a purpose.  We don’t just understand the concept of wholeness; we have embodied it.  It is a thirst that needs to be quenched, a hunger that needs to be satisfied.  It is the way I now treat my family members and the homeless.  The way I tend to the land and how I conserve energy.  It’s a deep feeling in my gut and a longing in my soul to be a part of the solution.  This is the inner call to embodiment, a lifestyle of caring and giving because, heck, it’s just the right thing to do.  The playground is still around the corner, and I can visit it later.  For now, it’s back to work.  And, thankfully, it now feels like play! 

I recently posted a video on the Groking Wholeness Youtube channel entitled Understanding, Embodying, and Applying Wholeness: An Introductory Matrix.  Below is a pertinent image I shared leading to the matrix:

The author, Satish Kumar, explains that this “new trinity for our time” - soil, soul and society – is, in essence, one underlying and unifying aspect of the whole, not separate realms of being.  We are concurrently and equally connected to a living Earth in terms of sustainability and regenerativity; each other in terms of equality and social justice; and Source, or cosmic consciousness, as each may know and name it.  As I’ll elaborate in future writings, understanding is vis a vis science, theology, philosophy, indigenous wisdom, and aesthetics.  This emerging understanding of wholeness is in contrast to the illusion of separation upon which our culture is now based and is the superficial, or peripheral cause of the polycrisis facing humanity.  It is, in part, via this emerging understanding of wholeness, that we can effectively co-initiate “the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible,” the title of a book by Charles Eisenstein. I write “in part” as the shift requires more than cognitive understanding. It requires embodiment and then application.  This relationship is depicted in the matrix, seen in the image below.

The understanding aspect of this emerging shift in consciousness will be explored via GrokingWholeness.info in an interactive and collective online forum to be initiated at a later date, and (my intention) to be published as an evolving book online.  No one person can have the answers.  For that matter, nor can any collective as there is no end to understanding the vastness of the universe, within us and surrounding us, and the complexity of wholeness.  The truth continually emerges in response to environmental circumstances and revelation.  They are the mechanisms of evolution.

I focus on embodiment in this writing. I believe that this is the “secret sauce” that ignites us and propels the evolutionary movement forward.  Embodiment is bringing the emerging understanding of wholeness from the head (cognition) into the heart (experiencing and feeling) and into soul (intuiting, presensing and allowing).  This is the mainstay of groking wholeness.  I feel deeply within me the need to write these words.  I left a dinner gathering with friends early this evening as this sheet of paper (actually, computer page) was calling me, imploring me to produce. I feel complete and satiated now beyond external callings and distractions. 

The embodiment of wholeness is the being, or Yin aspect, which is then followed by the doing, or Yang aspect of application.  This Yin aspect answers the existential questions of “Who am I?” and “What am I?”  The Yang aspect answers the questions of “What am I to do?” and “What is my purpose?” Embodiment is internalized as the feeling for the suffering of others and the desecration of the living Earth and its inhabitants.  It is the deep sense of empathy from feeling the connection to the homeless person, the polluted stream and the near-extinct manatee.

An AI (Perplexity) search revealed four aspects of embodiment: Physical embodiment, emotional embodiment, embodied mind, and embodied soul and self.  The last two aspects, which I consider most significant at this moment, are copied and pasted below:

Embodied Mind

The embodied mind integrates insight, mindfulness, and intention with bodily experience. It refers to the interconnectedness of thoughts, imagination, intuition, and mental clarity with the lived body, supporting creativity and conscious choice.

Embodied Soul and Self

At a deeper level, embodiment relates to soulful or existential aspects, accessing meaning, purpose, intuition, and self-trust. This includes connecting to a sense of wholeness, belonging, and expressing the truest version of oneself, not governed by external expectations but by an inner sense of authenticity.

It is this last dimension of embodiment that ignites me into application, or the doing-something-about mode to address personal, relational and global matters, and to help raise humanity to our greater potential for justice and peace. 

Referring to the matrix in the image above, I wrote in red the three gems of Buddhism: Buddha, Dharma and Sangha.  The Buddha is knowing that we are the Buddha – we are one with the Earth (soil), each other and Source (consciousness).  It is recognizing and centering in our most authentic and sacred Self (with a capital S).  The Dharma is the embodiment of this recognition and its subsequent relationship to our personal soul’s expression or purpose within the greater whole.  And the Sangha is our spiritual family, whether it be a church congregation, a yoga group, or a 12-step group.  Sangha is related to society in the matrix.  Again, consulting AI:

Embodiment can directly relate to the Buddhist concept of Dharma. In Buddhism, Dharma refers to the teachings of the Buddha, the nature of reality, and the path of ethical, meditative, and wisdom practices that lead to liberation. To embody the Dharma means to not only intellectually understand these teachings but to live them out fully in one’s being—letting them manifest through body, speech, and mind in daily life.

Embodying the Dharma

• Embodiment of Dharma involves practical application—integrating awareness, ethical conduct, and mindfulness into one’s actions rather than considering the teachings as abstract ideas.

• Buddhist practices like mindfulness of the body, embodied awareness during meditation, and ritual movement (such as prostrations or walking meditation) are means of making Dharma lived and tangible.

• The process aligns with the Buddhist understanding that wisdom is realized through direct experience and presence, not just conceptual insight.

Embodiment as the Path and Goal

• Buddhist tradition holds that Dharma includes not just the words of the Buddha, but the practice and personal realization of those teachings—so embodiment is seen as both the method (practice) and the fruit (realization/enlightenment).

• When embodied, Dharma expresses itself through compassionate action and mindful living, reflecting harmony with the “way things truly are”.

As referenced in sections above, embodiment involves more than yummy feelings and noble intentions.  It also involves skills and practices such as mindfulness, emotional self-regulation, sacred ritual, and peaceful conflict resolution.  I wish to highlight the last practice, peaceful conflict resolution.  To deeply embody our wholeness, our oneness with the all in all, we benefit via atonement – or at-one-ment.  When we harbor and nurture woundedness, it can lead to fear, resentment, anger, shame, and other emotions which increase the sense of separation. We can carry these wounds with us all our lives.  They can be generated via the family of origin, the community, or the wider culture.  We benefit by forgiving ourselves and others, knowing that we are one and connected, while maintaining healthy boundaries, and allowing ourselves to focus on the positive, our Dharma (higher calling), our innate love, and our relationship with the living Earth and its inhabitants. It’s a challenge to center in love when we are challenged with lingering and conflicting emotions.

I still want to run away and play sometimes.  And sometimes I do!  And that’s okay!  But Dharma, embodying my purpose, smiles knowingly and calls me back to my purpose and responsibility to the whole.  I live now in a greater balance.  I have healed, or am healing, the wounds of the past that incessantly seek escape.  I embrace the here and now.  I have grown up, embodying and nurturing my playful child, while concurrently living fully in the lap of wholeness.  I am connected to you, nature and Source.  My gut says “yes!!”

In conclusion, I close my eyes and know the essence of my being – consciousness and love.  I breathe in my oneness with creation and give thanks.  I feel my connection with those around me, near and far, who are suffering.  I allow myself to embrace and embody these feelings of gratitude and compassion for they are the “fire in the belly” that propels my sense of purpose and aligns my soul to the evolutionary impulse. I am now ready for application, to apply this understanding and embodiment in the home, the community and my world.  And so, this offering.  More to follow on the realm of application.