Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart!

kornegger-loseyourmind-cover-front-finalWith the publication of my new book Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart—Limitless Love on an Evolving Planet, I would like to share a short excerpt here to give everyone a taste of what it is about. The book is based on my belief that it is the love in our collectively opening hearts that will help us create a world that is truly livable as we move through this key time of global transformation. We can no longer afford to rely solely on the mind’s solutions without the balancing vision of the heart. In every single area of our lives, love is the answer. Indeed, it is the answer to every question we could possible ask in this lifetime.

In Chapter 2, “Irrational, Illogical, Crazy Mad Love,” I write about love’s power, which is much greater than we can know with our minds:

Love is not logical, linear, or politically correct. It is not the reasoned argument that will win a political debate in the U.S. Congress or United Nations. It’s not the point-by-point rational presentation of facts meant to persuade an intransigent opponent. Love won’t convince anyone of anything on the level of the mind. It comes from an entirely different place, and therein lies its power.

Love is all heart. It’s a no-brainer. Love is what you feel, not what you think. It’s a hug, a small kindness, a hand held, a sympathetic word, a single tear rolling down the cheek. Love is emotion, moving through us, wanting to be expressed, celebrated, and shared. Love is pure life force, the heart’s intelligence, the soul’s voice in the world. The mind can grasp love as a concept, but it can’t actually experience it. And it is through experience that we know ourselves, our neighbors, and life itself. When we love, we open the door to our hearts and welcome life with appreciation and gratitude instead of hesitation or apprehension. The mind pauses and weighs all the options; the heart just loves without reason or purpose….

Living soulfully in the world, conscious spirit in physical form, is the true meaning of this time of unprecedented change on the planet. Our soul selves are pure love, unique and unrepeatable, and we are here on Earth to shine our luminous individuality into every part of our lives. Each of us holds the key to personal/planetary transformation within our hearts. Imagine a world in which limitless love leads the way—and live in it! Be outrageous! Be crazy! Defy the status quo and the reasonable voices that say, “That won’t work.” Love everyone, even those who everyone else hates. Love the world into wholeness, one person, one sentient being, at a time.

Throughout the book, I give examples of groups and individuals who are living from their hearts (including my inspiring friend and favorite planetary catalyst Panache Desai). A peaceful planet based in loving kindness is possible. And it becomes more and more possible as each person makes the choice to live love in their own lives.

Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart can be ordered from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and other online booksellers. Love from my heart to yours….

New Book Now Available!

My new book Lose Your Mind, Open Your Heart–Limitless Love on an Evolving Planet is now available for ordering at Amazon and Barnes & Noble!
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Freedom, Justice, and Radical Love

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Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

The grand jury decision not to indict the police officer who shot and killed unarmed teenager Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, weighs heavily on the national conscience. Regardless of the specifics of this case, it’s a story that has repeated itself, with variations, countless times in this nation’s history. Even though today we finally have an African American president, the daily lives of people of color continue to be defined by racism, violence, and injustice. Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream of an equal, just society has not been realized.

Yes, we have evolved in many ways, but the tipping point that would shift momentum toward completely ending separation and “otherness” has yet to be reached. It gets down to the fact that people carry silent preconceptions about other people based on race, sex, age, etc. all the time, even if they don’t believe they do. Racism and all the other “isms” have permeated our collective unconscious mindset and inform how people see and act in the world. What needs to occur is a radical awakening and heart opening into conscious awareness that at the level of our souls, there is no difference between any of us. We are one. Our hearts and souls need to supersede the collective mindset.

How does this happen? Can it happen? I believe if ever there was a time in which it could occur, it is now, when global change and transformation are rocking our planet. It’s up to us to remember the dream of freedom and justice for all and live it. To speak out, act up, and occupy our lives with radical love for all people everywhere. The truth is that there is no “other.” We are one consciousness living the illusion that we are separate. Our minds tell us we are individuals, alone, pitted against everyone else for survival. Our hearts and souls see only oneness, only Being that takes a multiplicity of physical forms.

The “costumes” we wear in our lifetimes are temporary. Beneath our transient skin color, gender, and physicality is an unbroken stream of consciousness that fills all living creatures equally. Whether you call it Spirit, Source, God, or infinite Intelligence, something beyond physical form ties us all together on this Earth. It is this living spirit within that moves us to commit “random acts of kindness” and to march in the streets for human rights, as 1,400 peaceful protesters did in Boston (and many other cities) last night. When our hearts are fully open, it becomes impossible to see another human being as separate from us. The world becomes a mirror, and we see our soul’s reflection in everyone we encounter.

This Thanksgiving, let’s be grateful for the miraculous gift of sharing this world with so many other extraordinarily diverse, yet infinitely similar human reflections. Let’s end all Fergusons by making “love your neighbor as yourself” a reality in our lives. Love everyone, even those you think you disagree with. Sound impossible? Think you can’t do anything to change the status quo? Don’t think, just love, radically, one person at a time. True lasting freedom and justice arises from the love that connects every human heart.

 

Remembering

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
We humans forget all the time. We forget we are human, and we forget we are spirit. Then we remember. And then we forget again. Then we remember again. And each remembering is a blessing. These are incredible times we are living in. It is a time of remembering. Not long ago in human history, people lived entire lifetimes without realizing that they were really spiritual beings having a human experience. That awareness is now infusing the collective consciousness. We are remembering who we are. It may be happening in fits and starts, but it is happening. The planet is shifting, right before our very eyes.

In being human, we may not consistently live out attributes that we wish to embody: patience, compassion, unconditional love, peacefulness, generosity. We forget. We get angry. We say something thoughtless or unkind. Or we lose touch with others because we are lost in our own pain or sorrow. Yet anger, fear, and sadness are part of the human experience. If we judge ourselves harshly, we are distancing ourselves from the spiritual power of compassion and unconditional love. For self as well as for others.

I am learning, slowly but with increasing awareness, to let go of self-judgment when I lose patience or inner peace. Instead, I center myself in gratitude for having remembered that there is a different way and that I can always begin again with each deep breath, with each moment of conscious awareness. Yes, I want to be open-hearted and joyful, and I am that. But there are also times when I am shut down or sad. Recalling the existence of the full spectrum of human experience shifts the energy for me. Each time I remember is an opportunity to live deeper into my humanity and access the love that is at the core of my being. In the midst of dismay at not always living up to how I wish to be in the world, I am learning to trust in my own evolution and growth within the collective planetary expansion. One by one, we are all opening our hearts to embrace everything in life as both human and divine.

My soul is at peace with whatever occurs. It is here to experience all of life through me. If I see from my soul’s point of view, I trust in the ultimate perfection of all things. I trust in the beauty and love and infinite possibility of each moment. I begin to flow with the rhythm of the expansion and contraction of life. The in-breath and out-breath of the universe, of spirit, which is expressing itself through me, through all of us. We are each musical instruments opening to the wonder and beauty of our own music. When we remember that, life becomes a blessing instead of a disappointment. So when I forget and then I remember, I am grateful. Grateful for the chance to know I am both human and spirit, a physical being and a soul. I am one cell in a universe of evolving cells of light and love. What a tremendous miracle that is.

Only Child, Only Parents

Photograph © Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © Peggy Kornegger
My parents were both born in the month of October. My mother would have been 100 years old this year, my father, 105. I was their only child, born nine years after they met and married, one of the baby-boomer generation. Although they have been gone for a long time (my mother died 19 years ago; my dad, 10), I still miss them. As an only child, I dreaded their deaths, fearing I would lose my mind without them. Of course I did not. In fact, their transitions were profoundly loving and spiritually uplifting experiences, partly because I was able to be with each of them as they passed. Sitting by their sides, I felt connected to them and to the spiritual realm beyond and intersecting this one. That connection was a great comfort to me for months and years afterward.

It was during those years that my spiritual journey and quest for the meaning of life (and death) began in earnest. My exploration was intentionally eclectic, and I worked with many different teachers. Perhaps I inherited that tendency from my parents, both of whom were also eclectic and nonaligned religiously. They were free thinkers who read widely and attended philosophical discussion groups that pondered the mysteries of life. They encouraged me to make my own choices with regard to religion and spirituality. Over and over throughout my life, they gave me that gift of freedom and unconditional, uncritical love in every area. Whatever paths I took (and I took many—personally, politically, spiritually), they loved me without question.

Their love—for me and for life—is what has stayed with me beyond their lifetimes. It is interwoven with all that I am. As I searched for my own “meaning of life,” my evolving beliefs have always been grounded in love, as were theirs. I can still hear my dad reading aloud a poem by William Blake and choking up at the beautiful words: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.” Reading those lines now makes me cry too, recalling that shared moment of love and gratitude for life. It was music that touched my mother’s heart, the voices as well as the lyrics: Italian tenors, Paul Robeson, Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland—she loved them all. We used to listen to all kinds of music together (including birdsong), often with tears in our eyes at some particularly moving musical expression. I am so grateful that my parents passed on their emotional openness to me. As my friends and my partner well know, I cry all the time at life’s beauty and poignancy.

An only child experiences the loss of parents a bit differently because there are no siblings with which to share family memories. No one alive today remembers my parents in all the ways I do. Consequently, I carry their lives within me, where they are present in spite of absence. My backyard flower garden is one of the places I feel them most strongly. They were both gardeners—my dad, vegetables, bushes, and trees; my mother, flowers. I grew up on five acres in rural Illinois, so living with this small piece of nature right outside my door now has been like “coming home” for me—to my childhood home, to myself, and to my parents. Along with so much else, my mother and father gave me a deep appreciation for nature’s miracles. Each time I stand in awe, gazing into the delicate heart of a flower or at a sleeping bee or dancing butterfly, they are with me. They live on within the love in my heart.