Category: Soul journey

Growing Up Godless

I grew up outside of organized religion. In a small Midwestern town, this was unheard of. I knew no one else like me; all my friends dutifully went to church every Sunday. My parents didn’t want to impose any one set of religious beliefs on me, so they basically left the door open. They told me that God might exist or might not; it was not provable, all based on belief—the agnostic’s view. So I was left with a question mark and a feeling of “differentness” among my peers. I can remember feeling very uncomfortable whenever the topic of church or God came up at school, fearful that I would be “found out.”

When I was about 9 years old, my parents took me to a Unitarian church service in a nearby town, after which I commented, “I’m glad that’s over!” Clearly I wasn’t longing to go to church as much as I was longing not to be different. When I reached college age, all my new friends were rejecting their religious upbringing, and I found myself ahead of the game since I didn’t have a religion to reject. But still I was searching for something, as were so many others of my generation. The meaning of life perhaps, or the secrets of the cosmos. At any rate, I gradually began to look for answers in diverse spiritual books and teachers, not really wanting a guru or one answer, but rather a tapestry of truths that resonated with me.

My search for meaning was partially driven by a deep-seated fear of eternity/infinity, which I had carried within me since childhood, possibly because I had no superimposed God image to block the fear. The void, or an endless universe in which “the world went on forever and ever,” was very real to me. Eternal life and eternal death seemed equally frightening. Still, in spite of this, I was a happy child for the most part, nurtured and supported both by my parents’ unconditional love and by the natural world outside our rural home. It was only at night that my fears about the infinite universe arose.

These night fears continued throughout adulthood, even after I came to believe in Spirit, or a greater sacred presence in the universe. After many years of spiritual exploration and growth, it was in an individual session with Panache Desai that I had my first tangible experience of infinity as an expanse that was both peaceful and comforting (see previous blog post “Infinity). Months later, during Panache’s webcast series “Mother, Father, God,” I faced my long-ago religionless past. As he instructed listeners to embrace the image of God they had grown up with, until it disappeared and became one with them, I felt disconnected, alone, different, stuck in my Godless childhood. But when he said, “The Divine in essence is formless and nameless and is in fact love,” I suddenly realized that I was already at “disappeared,” and God/Spirit had always been a part of my life, as love. I felt old fears dissolving as I also realized that I had never really been alone. God, or the Divine, was always there, at my very core.

Looking back, I see how what seemed my greatest challenge as a child was in fact my greatest blessing. What I experienced then, through my parents, through nature, and within my own heart, was Divine love in its purest form, undiluted by human concepts of an external God. Now, in my present life, as I continue to have extraordinary experiences of Spirit and infinity, I am so very grateful for my parents’ openhearted love and wisdom which allowed me to follow my own path when it came to matters of the spirit.

“Look in your heart for God, for truth, for the answer. Feel that heart space—that is where you and infinity can meet, because your heart is not limited, but ever expansive.”—Panache Desai

 

It Had to Be You

A major realization for me in recent months is that no one else could have been me, and my life could have been no other way. Everything has brought me to where I stand and who I am today: a unique human be-ing and a member of a global family upon this Earth. Each of us alive at this time on the planet came here for a specific reason—we chose to be present at a Great Shift in human consciousness and to play our part. And that part is not to try to copy or pattern ourselves after someone else, some courageous or visionary person whom we might admire. We came here to be ourselves, our extraordinary, unrepeatable selves. Therein lies the miracle.

Just like snowflakes, no two of us are alike, and together we form a whole that embodies the light of each single individual. Through living fully in self-love and a deep sense of oneness with all beings, we shine radiance throughout the universe. Each of our lives is a work of art, co-created with Spirit and infused with infinite expansive energy and possibility. Together, individual by individual, we are helping to birth a new way of being on Planet Earth, one centered in love and compassion. It is through loving and embracing our own inner soul-self that this universal love grows and expands.

In truth, we can’t be anyone else but ourselves. We are different in gender, sexual identity, age, race, ethnicity, physical appearance, cultural heritage, etc., and it doesn’t work to copy someone else’s idea of who you are or should be. We were created differently for a reason; no one else can be or do what we came here to be and do. It may be a line from an old romantic love song, but it also applies in this case: “It had to be you.” Without you, the world would have been different, just as George discovers in the classic film It’s a Wonderful Life. Every word you or I speak, every action you or I take or don’t take, ripples out from our lives to affect everyone we know, and by continuing vibration, everyone they know as well. The world is a web of vibrational interconnections, and the wonder of that is that by living our lives fully and lovingly, we help to create an entire planet of love and lightness of being. This is what the Great Shift means. Be your true self, and the world shifts into its true self.

 

Second Chances

During my individual session with Panache Desai in July (see blog post “Rainbow Child”), he played music by Deva Premal and Miten that really helped me flow with my inner journey. One song that had particular meaning for me was “Second Chance.” Because I was integrating all parts of my life—the young, outspoken radical lesbian-feminist as well as the older, softer, eclectically-spiritual woman—I found the idea of a second chance extremely appealing. It was a second chance to be fully human, standing in the infinite expansiveness of who I am and loving every bit of it.

It occurs to me now as I think of it that this is where we all are headed during this time of planetary transformation—toward the realization that we are everyone and everything, as well as our unique individual selves. Oneness means that there is no “other.” And this is our “second chance” on Planet Earth to understand that cosmic truth. Legend has it that ancient Atlantis came to an untimely end because the people failed to uphold the higher spiritual laws of oneness. We are at a similar choice point now. That second chance is fully here in our lives every moment of every day, in every breath that we take. Are you looking at your neighbor and seeing your own reflection? Are you looking in the mirror and loving yourself? Is your heart embracing all that you see as part of you? That is unity consciousness. That is why we all incarnated at this time: to look in one another’s eyes and love all that we see, similarities and differences.

Global peace, universal compassion, and loving-kindness are not just pipe dreams articulated by a few Buddhists, shamans, and latter-day flower children. Every human being has the opportunity to live out the potential of this magnificent blue planet full of infinite variations in consciousness. And those moments of living awareness of oneness are available to all of us. The media likes to report violence and catastrophe, entrapping us in fear. Don’t allow yourself to live in that place. Yes, terrible, painful events occur, but other more hopeful realities exist too; they just aren’t reported in the mainstream.

Ultimately, it is love that will energetically shift everything: people reaching out and caring for one another in spite of the dominant social matrix based on separation. And that caring is occurring now, more and more, all around the globe. Individuals of different races, ethnicities, ages, and sexual identities are finding common ground and choosing kindness instead of fear. The new generations are of such mixed heritage and cultural background that they often don’t identify with any one thread but instead embrace it all. Many think in terms of both/and instead of either/or—straight, gay; feminine, masculine; spiritual, political; thinking, feeling—they sense an inclusive world beyond polarity. Look into their eyes and see the future. They are living I AM consciousness, oneness that encompasses all. When we finally realize with every fiber of our beings that we each embody all parts of humanity, prejudice and hatred will cease to exist, and love will be the planet’s guiding force.

 

Rainbow Child

In my last blog post, I wrote about reliving my physical birth during a meditation in Panache Desai’s “Awakening Your Authentic Soul Signature” at Omega. My other “birth” that week occurred during an individual breakthrough session, separate from the rest of the program. At least I thought it was separate, but with Panache, all separation has a tendency to dissolve. This was my second breakthrough session with him (see previous blog post “Infinity” for a description of my first session in Costa Rica). I felt that I still had some blocks that I wanted help with releasing. Well, my mind’s idea of why I was there didn’t align with Panache’s perception of why I was there.

First, I should say that Panache sees people energetically. He sees their infinite potential and sees where there are blocks to that potential. And he pulls no punches in telling you what he sees. After a few minutes of addressing the issue I presented to him, he said, “When are you going to come out to yourself?” My background, which he knows, is that I have been out in the world as a lesbian for many years (35) and have been with my partner for 29 years. I came out within the feminist movement of the 1970s and have marched in the streets for women’s and gay rights in the years since then. So I wasn’t buying this comment from him; I thought, “What does he know about being a lesbian? He’s a straight man.” Still, I remembered that he had more than once said that lesbians and gay men are some of the most courageous people on the planet because they are living their truth. So, my resistance gradually faded, and our hour together became a mutually expansive dialogue and an extraordinary emotional inner journey for me. His perception was that I had come out to the world, but part of me had not integrated it on an emotional level (this is what he saw energetically).

And damn if he wasn’t right. Looking back, I realized that my decision to come out in the 1970s had been a political one (deliberately choosing equal relationships without male/female roles). I chose with my head, and only partially my heart. In the course of the hour, I moved through memories of coming out (the disapproval and hatred as well as the acceptance and love) and also came face to face with my own judgments about bisexuality and heterosexuality (betrayal of your sisters), which I had formed at that time in my life. I thought I had moved to a more accepting, inclusive mindset, but surprisingly, I had old opinions stuck inside me. Through tears, laughter, and vibrational transformation (I was shaking all over), I released old judgments and separations and stepped into my own soul signature truth: “I am all of the labels, and I am none of the labels. I am a whole energy-being of light. I am divine consciousness expressing itself as a lesbian.” And Panache was right there, experiencing it with me (crying too). He was instigator and participant (getting in touch with his “inner lesbian”), as well as trusted friend. A completely integrated rainbow lesbian birth after all these years—who knew?!

The other part of the story is that I decided to share my breakthrough experience in the larger group of more than 60 people, and other individuals also spoke of separations/fears/judgments about sexual identity and roles that they carried within them. It became an ongoing part of our evolution during the week. On the last morning of the program, Panache had us all, as one soul family (himself included), repeat out loud together, over and over: “I am a lesbian. I am gay. I am bisexual. I am straight.” Very powerful and very healing. Our soul selves are indeed all of those labels and none of them—that’s oneness. Some of us have come into this life to stand in the truth of being lesbian, gay, bisexual, or transgender—identities that expand the wider experience of what it means to be human on Planet Earth. Sometimes that’s terribly challenging or frightening. Other times, as we all evolve into a greater love, it feels like the greatest blessing in the world.

“That which you’ve gone through in your life has served to bring you into the fullness of who you are here to be for yourself, for your friends, for your families, and for an entire planet.”—Panache Desai

Birth Day

“Welcome Home!” a friend emailed me after I returned from a week’s retreat with Panache Desai at Omega in Rhinebeck, New York, last month. Little did she know how appropriate those words were. In the deepest possible sense, I came home to my self over the course of the two programs (“Receiving Boundless Abundance” and “Awakening Your Authentic Soul Signature”). The weekend Abundance program laid intense groundwork for the second Soul Signature one, and it was during those latter five days that I experienced not one, but two “births,” one taking place on my actual birthday. Along with so many others who were present, I stepped into being more myself (the soul self that I came to this planet to be) than I had ever been in my life.

Panache’s gatherings, more accurately called vibrational transformations, always pack a punch, but this one was off the charts (see previous blog post “The Silence Within” for a description of the avatar presence that Panache embodies which shifts those around him). Most of it was so experiential as to be almost beyond language, but I want to at least try to share one particular morning’s meditation journey in which I relived my birth at the very same clock time that I had been born. Throughout the meditation, Panache played a CD of mantras designed to help us move through any emotional blocks that were keeping us from living our full unlimited potential. We were encouraged to access any past fear- or survival-based experiences so that we could feel them through to completion (and thus free up the flow of life energy within us). He walked quietly among us, speaking occasionally, touching occasionally.

After a short time of not really feeling anything, suddenly I was catapulted into my own traumatic birth experience, in which both my mother and I almost died. She was hemorrhaging, and I broke her tailbone as I came through the birth canal. Reliving it, I experienced the neck and head pain associated with pushing to be born. Survival for me was linked to straining, struggle. My default mode has always been trying, never surrender. Completely letting go has been difficult for me because I always try to do it. As I emotionally felt the source of this within my own birth, something in me finally relaxed and surrendered to the experience of being born, on a physical and energetic level. My whole body began to vibrate, internally and externally, and my root chakra (linked to survival) was pulsing so strongly that it felt like energy was radiating out a foot or more from my lower abdomen. Simultaneously, I felt pressure and tingling at my crown chakra on the top of my head. It was if my energetic life support system was being blasted wide open for the first time since my birth.

The experience was powerfully liberating, and I cried tears of both release and gratitude. In the process of letting go completely and flowing with my rebirth, I also began to feel as if I were being gently touched by Spirit at different points all over my body, particularly my hands, which seemed as if they were being held by strong reassuring spirit hands. I truly felt surrounded by a deeply loving eternal energy, unlike anything I had ever experienced. I was completely beyond the mind and within my heart/soul, trusting the infinite universe that held me. It was amazing. Afterward, in the hours and days that followed, I felt lighter, quite literally—filled with light and spaciousness. Welcome home, indeed!