Category: Spiritual

Wake-up Call

For years now, I have been awakened at 3 a.m. by neck pain that often culminates in a migraine headache. Lying down seems to make the pain worse, so I usually get out of bed and sit in the living room. Often, I have taken strong medication to get rid of the pain, not always successfully. Headaches of one kind or another have plagued me since I was a teenager. Tension morphed into migraine in midlife. Having tried every possible traditional and nontraditional remedy, with little success, I had almost resigned myself to always living with chronic pain. It was a never-ending drain on my life energy. That is, until recently.

During a weeklong retreat in Costa Rica with Panache Desai (see recent posts: “The Silence Within” and “Infinity”), I learned how to rid myself of the pain through a deep meditation of “allowing and receiving.” When I returned home, I was initially nervous that I would not be able to repeat the miraculous releases from pain I had experienced on retreat. Admittedly, my apartment is not tropical, nor does it have a view of the Pacific Ocean! Thankfully, I was still able to get rid of the headaches most of the time, partially because of a shift in my own perception: I finally recognized that Spirit, or my Higher Self, wanted me up at 3 a.m. for a reason, and neck pain was an effective way to get me out of bed and into the receptive meditation mode.

As I sat meditating in the predawn hours, breathing deeply and letting go into “allowing and receiving” (and sometimes listening to Panache’s meditation CDs), I found that the pain would slightly abate but not disappear entirely until I had passed the three-hour mark. At that point, I could begin my day, not only pain-free but also filled with a deep joy and love for the world around me. I saw only blessings everywhere I looked. It was just amazing.

Clearly, then, I was supposed to practice allowing and receiving for three solid hours on a daily basis. (One morning, when I slept through the usual 3 a.m. time, a loud voice in my head shouting my name woke me up with a start at 4:30. No sleeping in!) After several days, it occurred to me that I was being firmly guided to follow this regimen not just to get rid of pain but also to learn how to allow and receive everything: anger, sadness, and fear as well as beauty, joy, and love. Challenging events, emotional reactions, stunning sunsets, loving friendships—they are all part of the human experience on Earth, and it is impossible to have one aspect and not the others. They are the intricately interwoven blessings of being alive. That perspective alone has completely changed how I experience life on a daily basis.

Through this meditation, I practiced how to live from a place of receptivity instead of resistance, gradually learning how to be in the flow of the energy of life, however it showed up. Allowing and receiving has seeped into my moment-to-moment experience. Each day, I open more and resist less. My inner default setting has shifted from defense to gratitude, from worry to trust. The accompanying insight for me is that physical pain is not inevitable. I discovered that it was the voice of Spirit within my body persistently trying to get my attention. At long last, I woke up and listened.

Infinity

“The infinite nature of your being exists beyond name and form. Any definition that you place on infinity becomes a limitation.”—Panache Desai

During my week on retreat in Costa Rica with Panache Desai (see last blog post “The Silence Within”), transformation occurred at many levels. Yes, it was about accessing the silence within each of us, but it was also about living from that place of spaciousness and calm no matter what the circumstances in our lives are. For me, it was also about facing a lifelong fear of infinity/eternity.

Panache always tells us that we are infinite beings with infinite potential, that we are expanding infinitely, part of a universe that is also expanding infinitely. It’s amazing how often he uses the word infinite! And I love what he says, while at the same time being terrified of infinity—how cosmically ironic is that? Clearly, synchronicity led me to this human being, this avatar who embodies a Divine presence, for a reason. So I decided that this week would be a good time to take a look at that fear of infinity so deeply embedded in me. I signed up for one of the hour-long personal breakthrough sessions that he offered mid-week.

On the morning of my appointment, I walked to the meeting room, and Jan, Panache’s wife, who works with him, met me at the door. She sat to my right, holding a calm, supportive space, and Panache sat across from me, eyes half-closed, clearly in a deep meditative state. He told me that all layers of fear were going to be peeled away first. We then sat in silence, and I began to cry as I felt the inner shredding occur. After several minutes, I told him that the core fear for me was infinity/eternity. He asked what I was afraid of, and I said I couldn’t really say, just that I had had a terror of “the world going on forever and ever” since early childhood. He said, “Okay, we’re going to go there, experience it.”

Initially, I felt overwhelming pain and sorrow, tears streaming down my face, as I released a lifetime of struggling to avoid that powerful terror. He told me that it was moving up and out my crown chakra, and he saw it as a fear of embodying my own infinite power as a soul on Earth. The next step was to dissolve the density of old stories, beliefs, experiences, emotions, and separation. I experienced all sorts of shifting energy inside: heat rushes, heaviness, lightness, shakiness, brain expanding. Then, slowly, all emotion drained away, and I felt…empty…my body insubstantial. And along with the emptiness was a stillness, calm, peace…almost a comforting energy. When I described this to Panache, he said, “That’s infinity. It’s inside you. It’s who you are.” The final step was to anchor this within me. I could feel my whole system being recalibrated as my body was rebooted “from self-defense to relaxation.”

Afterward, as I walked slowly back to my room, instead of my usual desire to write in my journal after an experience, I only felt a wish to lie down and rest in the inner peace. My personality-self seemed very distant. I rested and slept a bit and then just remained in silence for the afternoon. At dinner, even as I took part in group conversations, there was still a core of silence within me.

Flying home and returning to my daily life, I watched myself not reacting to things that might have triggered a judgment or fear before. There seemed to be a neutral allowing, something like “witness consciousness,” emanating from that still space inside. As the days and weeks passed, I would sometimes be swept up in the emotions and experiences of my life, but if I took time to breathe deeply and focus on “allowing and receiving,” that feeling of infinite peace at my center was restored. I could feel the emotions and let them pass through me, knowing it was just part of being human. And, for the first time ever, I was able to look forward to the rest of my life and beyond, into infinity, and feel excitement undiluted by fear. Truly miraculous.

(See http://panachedesai.com/ for gatherings and webcasts with Panache Desai.)

The Silence Within

“Silence is an internal state of being where life is met with no resistance. All is embraced as part of the greater journey.”—Panache Desai

I recently returned from a weeklong retreat in Costa Rica, where spiritual catalyst Panache Desai guided us through the process of accessing and anchoring inner silence. In choosing this retreat, I was strongly drawn to the idea of experiencing extended inner silence. Exterior silence, especially in nature, has long been a refuge for me because my mind tends to be very busy, even though I have practiced both yoga and meditation for many years. I treasure the times of silent spaciousness that I have experienced, but I’ve always hoped for a deeper immersion….

Initially, in addition to periods of silent meditation, Panache had us work together to express and release emotional blocks and triggers. In small groups of two or three, and then in the larger group of sixteen, we processed whatever was keeping us stuck in resistance to the flow of life through us. “At any given moment, you are either in complete acceptance of what is or in resistance to what is,” according to Panache. “That creates your experience. Letting go and allowing opens the flow of energy.” Sounds good, but how exactly does that happen?

Well, with Panache, it is never really about words or language, though what he says is both inspiring and heart-opening. It is the experience of vibrational transformation, however, that creates radical inner/outer shifts in people. The profound, loving energy of Spirit, or the Divine, that Panache embodies—through his voice, his touch, his presence—transforms individuals at the deepest levels. If you’re around him, you’re gonna get shifted, guaranteed. And the shift opens the door to your own divinity and authenticity. He sees himself as a “catalyst,” not a guru or teacher. As the week progressed, we meditated for increasingly longer periods of time, either in complete silence or with music in the background. And each day, the inner journeys and group interactions were deeper and more powerful, the effects spilling over into all parts of our lives.

For me, Panache’s directive—to breathe deeply and “allow and receive”—became a miracle mantra. I came to Costa Rica not only with a busy mind but also with a long history of neck pain and migraine headaches that woke me at 3 a.m. During my week there, on four consecutive nights, I awoke at 3 a.m. with the familiar pain. In the past, fear always gripped me, and I often ended up taking strong medication to stop the pain from getting out of control. In Costa Rica, I got up, drank a full bottle of water, stretched, and then sat in silence in the dark, palms open, breathing deeply, just “allowing and receiving.” It took two to three hours, but each night I got rid of the headache. And it did not return during the day. This was beyond anything I had ever imagined myself capable of. Resistance to what is and all the accompanying fear had fallen away—and with them went the pain. I had let go on a very deep level and allowed the energy to flow unimpeded through me.

During group meditations, I relaxed into the silence and breathed long deep breaths of gratitude and peace. My mind, too, was quieter; it was if the mental chatter had been trying desperately to cover up my own resistance and fear. Now, I felt a slowing down and relaxation on an energetic level, allowing experiences to pass through me without judgment or clutching. It was a completely different way of being in the world.

(See http://panachedesai.com/ for gatherings and webcasts with Panache Desai.)

New-Earth Day

“A new heaven is the emergence of a transformed state of human consciousness, and a new earth is its reflection in the physical realm.”—Eckhart Tolle

Forty-two years ago, the first Earth Day was celebrated on April 22, 1970. It was the beginning of a long journey back to fully recognizing our planet as our mother, our home. Our energy, our consciousness, and our ultimate destiny are inextricably interwoven with that of Mother Earth. Humans have strayed so far from that awareness, lost in the extremes of separation and denial. Yet, slowly we are making our way back to seeing our oneness—our oneness with all living beings and our oneness with the planet we call home.

Some may look around and see only disaster and suffering—global warming, human destruction of the environment, the callous attitudes of corporate and political leaders. Still, there are ever-widening cracks in the facade of business as usual. People, young and old, are gathering together to bring about life-affirming change, in spite of the forces set against them. People are speaking out against the proliferation of chemicals in the food we eat, against the uncurbed killing of trees for timber, against the unnecessary dependence on fossil fuels for energy, against the loss of habitat and wilderness. Countless groups are working to bring our planet back to full alignment with its blue splendor and green magnificence.

One such group is Trees, Water & People (www.treeswaterpeople.org). Their stated goal is to “improve people’s lives by helping communities to protect, conserve, and manage the natural resources upon which their long-term well-being depends.” Specifically, their work includes a fuel-efficient, forest-saving cookstove program, community-led reforestation projects, a tribal renewable energy program, and watershed health programs. The Organic Consumers Association is another dynamic grass-roots public interest group (http://www.organicconsumers.org). They are concerned with issues of food safety, industrial agriculture, genetic engineering, fair trade, and environmental sustainability. Their over one million members take part in campaigns to urge public officials and politicians to address matters of concern to local and global communities, such as labeling genetically modified foods and stopping the pervasive use of pesticides, herbicides, etc.

Thousands of other groups and millions of individuals are now participating in the co-creation of a new Earth, one in which humans no longer heedlessly destroy the very environment that sustains them. The wisdom of indigenous peoples who have traditionally thought of the impact of their actions upon generations yet to come is finally approaching critical mass in the collective world consciousness. We still have so much yet to do, but looking back over 42 years, what we have achieved together is no small feat.

Celebrate Earth Day this year by buying organic vegetables and fruit at local farmers markets or food coops, taking part in a local tree-planting activity, or asking two or three friends to help you pick up trash in a local park. Attend an Earth Day celebration near your home and learn about all the community activities available to help our planet in small and large ways. You can also visit global online sites such as Earth Day Network (www.earthday.org) and participate in projects like their Billion Acts of Green campaign. Finally—take a few moments to look around with conscious awareness and appreciate the extraordinary beauty of our precious home sweet Earth. Happy New-Earth Day!

 

All You Need Is…

Love. The Beatles sang about it more than 40 years ago, and their message is never more important than today, during this time of a Great Shift in human consciousness. Love that is about universal sister/brotherhood. Love that links all beings in oneness, in unity consciousness. Love that connects us through the heart to something greater than our individual lives. This is the love that hundreds of poets and musicians have written of. Bob Marley sang about it in “One Love, One Heart,” and his son Ziggy carried it forward with “Love Is My Religion.” Tracy Chapman expressed it in “Heaven’s Here on Earth.

Love is the one value that seems to run through all cultures, countries, and religions. Many spiritual leaders and ordinary people have lived their lives in its service. Yet the world has remained divided by wars, violence, and hatred. Why have we failed as a species to hold to this value that we claim to believe in? Perhaps we had to live the extremes of human behavior in order to find our way back home. Perhaps we are evolving, finally, as a people and as a planet, to the point of irrevocably embracing the fact that love is the only real solution. Perhaps the veils are falling away at last so that when we look in one another’s eyes, we see our own reflection.

The truth is we are love at our very core. Layers of life’s hard knocks may have covered it completely, but it’s still present. As we move through the ongoing vibrational shifts on planet Earth, those layers will be peeled away or will fall away on their own. As we face monumental changes and challenges, we will be stripped down to our essence. We will reach out to our fellow beings for comfort, for reassurance; we will reach out in celebration, in joy. We will link arms and hearts in recognition that love is, and always has been, the universal truth of our lives here on Earth. It is why we came here—to embody human love and divine love simultaneously. It is why we are living the extremes of this time of radical change…so that we can finally stand together as one world united in love.

The next generations, too, are being born with the greater truth of love strong within them. Click on this link to see a wonderful children-produced video, “One World, One Heart Beating”: http://youtu.be/kY9HieCkT9c