Category: Soul journey

This Moment

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger

Life experiences involving loss, pain, or fear, which we all encounter at one time or another, may throw us off kilter at first. We are often so attached to a particular static version of reality that we cannot accept change of any kind. But if we remain open to the totality of what is before us, we can access a greater wisdom: Life is both fleeting and eternal. We can see this seeming dichotomy with more clarity in times of difficulty or challenge. The tenuousness of life hits us full force. We realize that all we ever really have is this moment, but it contains all of eternity within it. With that awareness, we can appreciate every single second as if it were our first or our last. We can “hold Infinity in the palm of [our] hand, and Eternity in an hour,” as William Blake has so eloquently written.

The uncertain health diagnosis about my eyes that I’ve been living with over the last weeks has placed this wisdom front and center in my life. If I race forward in my mind with what-if scenarios or retreat backward into fear and regret, I have lost the moment that is right in front of me now. No matter what events are transpiring, this moment before me contains all of life. All of it, both extraordinary beauty and acute loss. When I can hold both of those parts within me in a complete embrace of acceptance, I am at peace. If I can witness my life as it unfolds, without judgment or expectation, fully grounded in the present moment, I am free.

It is not always easy, and I am not always calm and centered, but an ongoing practice in stillness and conscious awareness has helped me tremendously. As I sit in silence, breathing slowly and deeply, I open to an expansive awareness that is observing and experiencing the world through me. This awareness at the soul level is completely neutral, peaceful, and unlimited. It is pure spirit, pure love, in the largest sense of those words. Within that space, there is no struggle. Everything is just as it is, in perfectly orchestrated symmetry. Peace of mind, peace of heart and soul.

As I have faced the fragility of my own body and my own life, I have come to an ever-greater appreciation of each moment. I have surrendered again and again to uncertainty and shifting sands. It’s truly a never-ending practice, letting go into not knowing anything, into living each moment fresh and innocent of opinion. Adyashanti calls this “falling into grace.” And grace can be gentle or cutting; it will open your heart in whatever way it can. For with an open heart, we live in gratitude. We live in love, not fear. And that is why we are here on this beautiful blue planet, in this infinite universe.

My journey is not complete, nor will it be complete, ever. I continue to open my heart (and have it opened for me) in gratitude, embracing more with each breath, with every experience. In this moment—the fleeting and eternal now—I am grateful for all the blessings that fill my days: Light and darkness, sadness and joy, silence and sound, movement and rest. The flow of giving and receiving all that life so generously offers us. When I allow myself to stand naked and awestruck, freed of assumptions, before the vast universe, realizing my cells are intermingled with the stardust from distant galaxies, I clearly see and feel the oneness of which we are all a part. A oneness encapsulated in every single grace-filled moment.

 

Surrender the Outcome

Photography © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photography © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
In the last month or so, I’ve been coming face to face with issues related to my physical body–specifically an eye diagnosis and more frequent migraine headaches. Since I am simultaneously participating in a yearlong accelerated program with Panache Desai, I’ve learned to look closely at everything I experience as part of that acceleration: What part of my soul’s journey is now being highlighted? I sometimes ask “Why?” too, but that question can be a distraction if it arises from fear or a sense of unfairness. What’s happening is happening; if I can accept and embrace it, the experience becomes fully integrated into my life.

So what about uncertain health diagnoses or physical pain? That is what is before me now. As humans, we resist this experience. I certainly have. So perhaps that is why it’s accelerating. Until I can fully accept all aspects of my physicality as part of my life experience, I will continue to suffer on some level. My human mind wants perfect health with no pain, so every time I am faced with something short of that mental construct, I resist what I am experiencing. The outcome that I hold tightly to is preventing me from flowing with my actual experience. The more I resist, the stronger the pain or unease.

It’s about surrender again, at a deeper level. I am being guided to release attachment to any outcome whatsoever. Perhaps even to reality itself. I’ve watched my eye diagnosis shape-shift over the past month or so, depending on which doctors I saw and which test they were looking at. Perhaps this particular health scenario is an encapsulated version of all of life. What we view as reality is always changing. Ultimately, everything is a continuously shifting illusion that we create in our minds (individually and collectively) to experience life as it passes before us. More simply: life happens; we then assign meaning to it, spinning the illusion of reality out of thin air. If we assign negative meaning, we are unhappy. If we assign positive meaning, we are pleased. But if we just observe life from a place of spacious awareness, allowing it to be a divinely orchestrated mystery, then we experience inner liberation.

There is a profound freedom in no longer being tied to specific outcomes or ways of seeing the world. In doing so, we are entering the realm of the soul, the god consciousness that lives within. Our souls have no opinions or agenda. They are just witnessing life peacefully, here solely for the experience of it and their own evolution. When I open to my soul’s full emergence, my mind steps into the background and releases the reins of control. I am no longer mentally committed to any particular version of reality; I’m just “along for the ride.” I begin to flow with life.

Not the easiest path to access, especially when facing health issues, as I am. The external world continually pulls me in the opposite direction. Still, when I take time to connect to my own inner peace, I am less tightly tied to outcome. I feel lighter, freer, more open to all possibilities. Many of us are facing crossroads like this in life. I believe that is one reason we are here on this planet at this particular time: to finally let go of the mind’s centuries-long control and allow the soul to be the divining rod of our earthly lives. To release the illusion of certainty and embrace an ever-evolving mystery. May we all find our way home to that very wise, soulful part of ourselves.

 

The Unexpected

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Crises or challenges enter our lives unannounced, sometimes in the midst of great happiness or peaceful contentment. A relative dies, a life partner loses a job, or you yourself receive a frightening health diagnosis. The latter happened to me a few weeks ago, and I am still regaining my equilibrium after the impact of it. In each of these scenarios, we are facing the unknown—life without a loved one, life without income, life without optimal health. In my case, the diagnosis was about my vision (inflammatory eye condition), which was shattering to me because I love the world through my eyes. I celebrate its beauty and wonder, its miracles. I am also a writer and a lifelong avid reader. What would I do if I lost my full range of vision, this deep connection to the world around me?

We take so much for granted in life. Our ability to walk, to hear, to see, to touch and taste—all such incredible blessings. If we lose any one of them, even temporarily or partially, it is shocking. We feel vulnerable, uncertain, fearful. And unfairly robbed of something so integral to human life—seemingly. Yet, so many individuals live without complete access to one or more of these abilities, and they live full rich lives grounded in gratitude. Yes, you may say, but I don’t want to face that kind of challenge. That is the kicker. We want, and expect, life to be a certain way, and we are devastated when it is not. We learn over time—if we are wise, if we are open—to accept “what is” as life unfolds before us, moment to moment, completely outside of our control. Because if we do not, we suffer, and we hang on to our suffering.

Loss is part of each of our lives here on Earth. We don’t escape a lifetime without being touched by some kind of sadness or pain. But extended suffering is optional. We can grieve without holding onto the sorrow tightly and tormenting ourselves with “what ifs.” We can allow the tears to flow through us and cleanse us of our grief. Every emotion we have, if experienced fully, can free us of suffering. If I can let life be whatever it is, my suffering softens and eventually dissolves. If I sit quietly in stillness, I get in touch with the calm peace that resides at my core. I often find this to be true yet learn it anew with each challenge that arises. In this case, my eyesight. The situation continues to be filled with unknowns, and each new doctor’s appointment brings more shifting realities—and more waiting (to see if any change occurs). I find I have to repeatedly dig deep for patience and acceptance. I move forward one step at a time, reminding myself to feel everything and still remain open.

Dear friends and family, and one particularly kind doctor, have also helped me tremendously.* Again and again, the empathy of friends and strangers alike brings me back to some sense of balance and relationship to everything. Because not all of life is loss or fear of loss. Life is also connection. There is so much beauty and love in the world everywhere, visible and invisible. Other people reached out with kindness and caring when I most needed it. Love guides us out of solitary sadness and isolation and shows us our commonality with all of humankind. The sweet tenderness of shared experience, of heartfelt understanding and compassion, makes life worth living. That is why we came into this lifetime—to feel that essential oneness in the midst of our separate life challenges, our fears and our sorrows. We are here to love one another into wholeness—one whole human family, living unpredictable, uncontrollable, but always deeply connected lives.

*My heart’s deepest gratitude especially to Panache, James, and my partner Anne for their love and support.

Let Your Soul Shine

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

The energy of this new year 2016 feels so powerful. I was completely flattened by it in January. And then uplifted to a new level of opening and expansion in February. To me, 2016 feels like the year when the cookie-cutter constraints of our social programming fall away, and we stand fully embodying our soul’s presence in the physical world. We emerge from the shadows of fear and uncertainty and experience the power of our own true essence. Courage and inner vision will carry us forward into a new paradigm of Being on this planet, one in which full-out soul expression is celebrated instead of stifled. Our liberated minds and bodies will support our complete creative unfolding. Now is the time for each of us, in our own special way, to play the music of the spheres for all to hear.

So sing your song, write your book, share your vision, dance your unique soul self into unlimited being. Give yourself over to everything that is longing to be expressed through you. This is your life—claim it. Live it to the farthest edges of possibility. Together, we are shedding old externally imposed self-images and stepping into a new world of infinite expansion at the soul level. The old separations between body, mind, and spirit are dissolving. The deepest truth is that every part of you is sacred and filled with light. The curtain of illusion is falling away, and we see clearly who we are: eternal divine beings in human form. Shining, sparkling, embracing ourselves and one another with love and gratitude.

Faced with the world’s uncertainty and fear, we choose to walk bravely into the unknown, trusting in something greater that is carrying us forward into the flowering of our inner spirit. Let it happen. Don’t hold anything back. This very moment in eternal time is your moment, our moment. It’s why we were created and why we are here on this planet at this particular miraculous time of transformation. Let go completely of everything that has come before. It is a new planet, a new paradigm, and nothing is as it was….because we have changed. We are allowing the powerful energy flowing through us to completely shift our lives.

With each breath we take, we are blessed with a new beginning, a rebirth. May our collective breaths bring us all together in the deeper realization that we have always been one, and separateness and the judgments that accompanied it were just illusions. Within oneness, within the unbroken stream of light that is cosmic consciousness, there is no “other.” There is only love, infinite and unique manifestations of love. May we see that so clearly that we never forget again. May this be the year that we look into one another’s eyes and see stars of infinite magnitude—the reflection of our own shared brilliance.

So let the light of your soul shine. Let your spirit flower. Let nothing stand between you and your inner magnificence. It is the time of sweet awakening, of the full remembrance of who we are. In our hearts and souls, we always knew this day would come….

 

Jump!

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Leap frog. Hopscotch. Jump rope. Relay races. Tree-climbing. Gymnastics. Children’s games are full of jumping, leaping, running, climbing. Stretching to the edge of risk–and laughing all the way. Somehow, as children, we trusted the momentum of the play we engaged in, so that even if we fell, we got right up again and continued on with scraped knees and elbows. For the most part, we weren’t held back by hesitation or fear, but instead were drawn forward by curiosity, wonder, and the urge to explore/experience everything. A good game was an adventure, and nothing else mattered in the timeless magic of childhood.

Somewhere along the way to adulthood, we were introduced to caution, the handmaiden of fear. Many of us became less willing to take risks, to totter wildly at the edge of uncertainty and then jump. Once we became adults, even if we did choose risk or risk chose us, we still held onto a desire for some kind of control in the midst of it. Over time, the Jump impulse atrophied inside of us.

Fear of great loss at any level, physical or emotional, can keep us frozen within our lives. Yet it is in walking through that fear (or jumping into the middle of it) that we find freedom and liberation from the wish to control. The walking or jumping is an act of courage, but it also is an act of complete surrender. When we let go of everything and turn our trust over to something greater, that something greater (call it God, Spirit, Source, whatever) lifts us into the flow of life’s currents, and we are carried to exactly where we were always meant to be.

I recently returned from a weeklong program called “Dynamic Peace” in Santa Barbara, California, which was essentially a deepening into greater soul emergence/evolution in the world. In going, I knew I was taking a leap of faith on multiple levels, especially budget-wise. I broke through many mental constraints in choosing to go, knowing in my heart that I had to keep stretching myself further and further—to jump yet again. To be honest, I couldn’t NOT go. My soul was loudly and insistently whispering in my ear that I had to be there. So I stepped into the flow of life and flew westward to California to embrace risk and expansion into the unknown. As I walked by the Pacific Ocean every day, I could feel its power and deep peace fill me. I knew that it was that very blend of power and peace that would always sustain me in my life, wherever I was. Looking down at the crashing waves from a sandy cliff, I understood that it was not one jump before me but many–a kind of sustained, endless free fall. Let go and let life, the eternal lesson.

You can’t think your way to letting go nor can you force yourself into it. When you stand alone on the edge of a precipice and consciously choose to let go completely, that letting go creates the jump that brings you over the edge into infinite possibility. It is a sweet fusion of action and surrender that creates the dynamic of full engagement with life. And that is exactly where we find ourselves now on this planet that is undergoing a major shift in consciousness. As the world rapidly changes all around us, we are being asked, as fully conscious human souls, to release the past, trust in the present, and act from a place of love and connection with all beings. Our heart-informed actions are the “jumps” that will lead us into more fully integrated and holistic lives. Lives that are intertwined with each other in the most loving expression of oneness yet lived out on our planet.

Ultimately, we are not here on Earth to be cautious or hold back. We are here to live our soul-selves full out and jump with open hearts into an expansive future that is unlike any that has come before. So what are you waiting for? Take a risk. Take a deep breath: Jump! And then jump again….