Tag: awakening

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.

 

Connections and Distractions

Photograph © 2014 Anne Katzeff
Photograph © 2014 Anne Katzeff
We are connected invisibly all the time, every one of us, through a psychic web of thoughts and emotions. The existence of the Internet has made this web tangible to people around the world. However, we are now in danger of losing our awareness of the power of that connection because of our dependence on technological gadgets that rob us of our intuitive intelligence. Smart phones are dumbing us down by keeping us compulsively plugged in to social media and online information sources.

When I ride the bus and train these days, there are very few riders who are not glued to their smart phones—checking emails, texting, tweeting, posting on Facebook, etc. The world around them goes by in a blur without their noticing. They could be passing urban high-rises or a park with trees and flowering gardens, and they would not look up. Where are they really? Yes, they are interacting with friends or acquaintances, and some of these exchanges are important and worthwhile. But a lot of this constant social back-and-forth is just distraction, avoidance of the present moment. So many of us pass the day in a trance state that blocks natural connections with the people and world right in front of us.

As you might guess, I am not a big fan of cell phones. I have avoided them for years because of the health hazards associated with them and also because I don’t want to be available for phone calls anytime, anywhere. Recently, however, I purchased a cell phone to use when I’m traveling. Because of the almost universal demise of pay phones, it became a necessity. Although my phone is “smart,” I use it only for the occasional call when I’m away. My home iMac is where I read emails and interact with friends via social media. I value these connections greatly, but I know firsthand the addictive attraction of online activity, wherever you are. It seems to have a compelling, magnetic power all its own. The images, posts, and website content draw me in and before I realize it, hours have gone by. I’ve been completely and utterly distracted.

The only way I’ve found to break this pattern is to limit my online activity. I usually check email, Facebook, etc. once a day and only interact for an hour or so. This can be challenging because I’m a writer, so I’m often at my computer anyway. It’s so easy to check in more frequently. I have to be strict with myself in order not to succumb to the sirens’ call to “log in just for a minute.” This is where conscious awareness comes in. Through meditation, yoga, and other spiritual practices, I have come to live more fully in the moment, to be aware of distractions when they ensnare me, if not immediately, then relatively soon. I know that when I spend several hours online, I am less connected to my own internal process and rhythms. The only exceptions are the spiritually related webcasts and communications that I participate in, which do in fact impact me at a deeper level. Other than these, my time offline is the most life-enhancing and soul-enriching: walking, gardening, writing—any quiet activity that centers me in my own peaceful inner core. Actually, spending time doing absolutely nothing except being present to the world around me brings me the deepest soul connection.

So what is the value of online activity? Is it more harmful than helpful? Well, I see it as an interim evolutionary tool to demonstrate to humanity the existence of invisible connections. I think more and more people are starting to become aware of the distractive downside of being perpetually online: smart-phone dependency. I recently read an article by a yoga practitioner whose 9-year-old son asked him, “Daddy, why do you have to check your emails so often?” A wake-up call for him. Perhaps it will be the next generations who show us that we don’t need those phones to be connected. Our own internal intuitive “smarts” that we are born with can handle that just fine, if we learn to access and use them instead of letting them atrophy. Each time we awaken to our own distractions, we take an evolutionary step into that space of awareness and connectivity.

Moments of Grace

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

The word grace has so many meanings, depending on the speaker’s intent. Grace can be flowing movement; a prayer of gratitude; or a blessing. It can also be an act of kindness, mercy, or compassion. We talk about dancers or skaters moving with ethereal grace. Many people bow their heads and give thanks by saying grace before meals. Spiritually, grace is associated with an infinite divine love that envelops all humans regardless of their beliefs. The iconic song “Amazing Grace” describes a man lost and then found through God’s grace. The juxtaposition of human and spirit seems to run through all these meanings. For me, grace has come to mean flowing with life’s blessings and experiencing connection to a greater Presence in the multiverse we inhabit. Grace is always with me, and my awareness of it grows with the expansion of my consciousness.

The Presence I speak of some call God/dess or the Divine. Raised outside of all religious traditions, I have found my way to spiritual connection through various teachers and my own experiences, often in nature. In fact, the closest analogy I can think of to the shining radiance of Spirit is the sun. The sun’s light is powerful and ever-present, whether or not we can physically perceive it. Clouds, weather, or the turning of the Earth may obscure our view of it at times, but it is always there. When the skies clear, or the day dawns, and that light hits us full force, we are energetically and emotionally uplifted. Yet we are not able to gaze at it directly or run the risk of blindness. Our physical bodies cannot visually take in the full force of the sun’s light. The same is true of the Divine. Physically, we are not yet equipped to receive all of that heavenly radiance without blowing out our circuits. This is changing, faster and faster now, however.

At this amazing time of transformation on planet Earth, we are evolving and expanding so that we will eventually be able to continuously perceive/receive the Divine in its full expression of light and love. In the meantime, we are experiencing what I call glimpses of God—flashes, bursts, increasing increments of open-hearted joy, peace, and love. Moments of grace. When we evolve to the point of fully embodying spirit in our human bodies, there will no longer be a separation between inner and outer; all will be the oneness of divine consciousness, of which we are each an integral part. In truth, the only separation that ever existed was in our own limited physical ability to see the entire panoramic view. As the doors of perception open wider and wider, the light of conscious awareness floods our being with infinite grace, and we see as we are seen. God’s vision of us and the world becomes our own.

That is how my own life seems to be evolving anyway. I am experiencing Spirit/Presence in rushes of electric energy and euphoric expansion that repeatedly fill me to the brim with light and warmth, like the sun. The Divine is acclimating me bit by bit to the power of its infinite love. These experiences flow and then ebb but always recur, each time with greater expansiveness and deeper immersion. Is this en-light-enment? Possibly. Not the historically known, sudden individual awakening, but a new kind of gradual collective awakening that we are all experiencing in our own ways, each of us influencing the greater whole. Great spiritual masters through the ages have pointed the way to this time, when all of humanity would embody what they embodied. I never quite knew what that meant until now. That is why we are here, to live this. These are infinitely grace-full times. What a gift to be alive now and experience it all!

2013: Reboot to Resilience

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
The year 2012 is behind us. The world didn’t end. But it did shift in major ways for people all over the world, and those shifts continue. Many of the changes involved extreme challenges and emotional/physical upheaval, but the promise of the Great Shift was never instant utopia. It was transformation: the caterpillar gradually morphing and expanding within the cocoon until it breaks free, emerging as a full-fledged butterfly. During this transitional time of expansion and growth, our greatest strength is our resilience, our ability to stretch ourselves beyond limitation or growth pains and emerge triumphant. And 2013 is all about resilience, fueled by the power of our individual and collective evolution.

In 2012, my heart opened more and more—with love, with joy—until there were times when I felt as if it couldn’t possibly open any wider. In the process, however, I found that I also had to face the presence of pain that I had carried within me for a very long time. My heart was aching with the suffering I saw everywhere in the world, and my body itself struggled with pain in the form of headaches. Unconsciously, I felt a resistance to becoming fully resilient and healed because I believed that would separate me from other people. As I moved to a place of acceptance of the full spectrum of human experience on Earth at this time (pain included), my entire consciousness shifted. Pain/suffering is one part of a greater whole, and as we continue to evolve, that part begins to diminish in the face of human compassion and love, which brings all of us closer and closer together in the global experience of oneness.

What is more, as I/we expand and become more resilient (peaceful, joyful, loving), that energy goes out into the collective matrix and helps to shift everything/everybody. This is the power of interconnections and of the reverberations of light resilient energy. It is the butterfly that moves its wings in China and affects the wind on the other side of the planet. It is the human heart that opens so wide as to embrace every experience and every living being with unconditional love. It is the power of fully awakened spirit in human form.

God Is in the Goosebumps

Photograph © 2011 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2011 Peggy Kornegger

These are powerful times. The veil between the physical and nonphysical realms is thinning, and we are becoming more and more aware of something greater that permeates and expands our experience here on Earth. Yesterday was the harmonic gateway 12.12.12, synchronistically occurring on the same day as the Maya New Year, 8 Batz, in the Cholqij calendar. Next week, the long-anticipated date December 21, 2012, will finally become present, then past. No single day is the point of complete awakening or ultimate transformation, however. Everything is part of a continuously expansive becoming that humanity is experiencing at this time.

For me, the moments of clarity and opening have been increasing exponentially over the past few months. In October, I attended a 4-day gathering with Panache Desai at Kripalu Yoga Center in western Massachusetts. I’ve taken part in gatherings and webcasts with Panache for over a year now, and with each experience, I find that my heart opens wider and wider. At this particular event, as part of a meditation journey, I asked for a tangible physical sign of the presence of Spirit in my day-to-day life—and not just any sign—one that would “blow me away” with its power and “unmistakability.” Well, I got my wish. As the weekend progressed, I found that chills covered my body at every synchronicity or deep connection with another person or with the group as a whole. God was not only “in the details” (as the saying goes); he/she was very much in the goosebumps!

In the weeks after Kripalu, the chills increased in frequency until, during a 12.12.12 Global Gathering in Florida this past weekend, they became practically nonstop. Beautiful experiences in nature, deeply touching music, inspiring passages in books, and loving conversations with friends all brought up the now-familiar gooseflesh, and often tears as well. As I took daily long walks in my neighborhood, my heart would open and my eyes would fill at the beauty everywhere: a towering evergreen silhouetted against the sky at dusk; a Japanese maple surrounded by a scarlet carpet of autumn leaves; the vast expanse of endless blue sky streaked by white/pink clouds at sunset. At the Florida gathering, the collective energy of the 405 people present was so powerful that it shifted every cell in my body to a more intense loving vibration.

What I discovered was that I was actually living the wise advice that I had read somewhere once: Live every moment as if it is your first, or last, on Earth, as if you have never seen this world before, or will never see it again. Every second became filled with such poignancy and such heart-breaking magnificence that my body, and my soul, could only respond with tears and goosebumps. And gratitude, infinite gratitude. To be alive at this time and to experience the magic of the world as it transitions into a greater expression of itself, and we all become greater expressions of ourselves, is the most amazing miracle I can imagine.

A number of years ago, comedian Lily Tomlin starred in a one-woman show on Broadway called The Search for Signs of Intelligent Life in the Universe (written by Jane Wagner). One of the play’s many characters, Trudy, the wise/crazy bag lady, talked about her “space chums” who visited her and were in awe of the “goose bump experience” here on Earth. They would take that back with them to outer space