Tag: Divine

Awakenings

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
We live in a time of awakenings—people coming to a greater sense of who they are at the soul level, beyond the ego or personality self. Many spiritual masters throughout history (and, increasingly today, ordinary people) have experienced pivotal moments when they in essence “died” to themselves and awakened to a connection to something greater—God, the Divine, Source. The separate personality-self falls away, and an experience of oneness with All That Is moves to the fore. Sometimes these events involve an actual near-death experience, or individuals can feel like they are physically dying when they are not. Actually, it is the individualized self that is dying, allowing for the dissolution of all separation and the unimpeded flow of pure divine energy and unconditional love.

In these life-changing moments, people begin to live as their soul more than as their ego—a kind of death and rebirth in life. Radical awakenings do not have to be dramatic one-time events, however. Many individuals have a series of awakenings over many years, and this latter process is becoming more widespread now as our individual experiences spark other people’s, and the collective consciousness awakens itself through us. What has been called enlightenment can be instantaneous, gradual, or a combination of both, and we need to acknowledge the unique truths of our own evolving lives—and be open to awakenings that are ongoing, leading further and deeper into divine connection.

Looking back, I see a combination of experiences within my own life—in actuality, multiple phases of awakening, which continue to this day. At 18, I had a near-death experience (burst appendix) in a hospital in Italy on my first trip away from home alone. When I returned to the United States and began my freshman year of college, I felt as if my small-town-girl persona had died in Venice, and I had emerged newly born, trying to figure out who “I” was. From this identity crisis came an individual awakening within the larger generational awakening of the radical 1960s and 1970s. It was an extraordinary time that shaped so many of our lives and planted seeds of fledgling awareness. A sense of global transformation and magical possibility carried us forward into our lives.

Later in my life, I began to consciously explore spirituality as a way to understand life and death and address my own fear of eternity. When my parents grew older and eventually passed away, this search became even more compelling. Sitting beside each of them as they transitioned, I experienced another level of awakening: to an all-encompassing loving Spirit that softly enveloped my parents and me and connected our hearts. Several years after their deaths, when I first met spiritual teacher Panache Desai, I encountered this same divine presence in an even more intense way. It came directly through him and vibrationally shifted everything within me. At one of his gatherings, in deep meditation, I experienced myself as pure, intense inner vibration, my soul’s essence within the physical body—cells pulsating with an almost electric charge. It was an extraordinarily powerful opening to spiritual awareness. Frequently thereafter, I would feel the loving presence of the Divine, and it always brought tears to my eyes and shivers to my physical body.

Over the next few years, I kept moving forward, sensing there was more awakening to come but having no idea what that would mean. Eventually, I stood in a raw place of “not knowing,” letting go of mental questioning and attempts to figure everything out. Essentially, I embraced the “Great Mystery.” If Oprah had asked me, “What do you know for sure?” I would have had to answer, “Nothing.” Only mystery. Yet that mystery is everything—God her/himself, the Divine in infinite beingness. Indefinable. Our minds can’t know Spirit, but our hearts can experience it through our souls. This is the global awakening we are in the midst of, each of us affecting all those around us. In this amazing time of profound planetary metamorphosis, we are individually and collectively awakening to the sweet mystery of our own inner spirit. Together, we breathe soulful conscious presence into the world.

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!

It’s All Just Divine!

© 2011 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
© 2011 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
Divine is an interesting word, with more than one meaning, depending on context. The adjective divine means godly, angelic, or heavenly, in the spiritual sense. Divinity, or the Divine, is another name for God in some traditions. Then, somehow, the “heavenly” reference came to also mean splendid or sensational, especially with regard to food. “This chocolate cake is divine!” There is even a kind of fudge called divinity. The experience of God and the experience of food can both be transcendent, as we all know!

In my spiritual exploration over the past 20 years, I have often used Divine as an alternate name for Spirit, Source, or God/dess. I like the word because it has a shining, translucent aspect to it, like something floating between this dimension and another. Which is, I suppose, what God is, really—a luminous, non-localized presence. Within my own meditation and yoga practice, I have experienced that Divine presence at different times as shivers all over my body, tears in my eyes, inner vibration, pulsing in my palms, or deep expansive peace. More and more, I know that I am not alone and heavenly guidance is available to me 24/7 if I just breathe deeply and tap into that space of inner peace. This connection is not always instantaneous (to say the least), but if I just remember that it’s there, then I am halfway home.

One morning recently, I found myself unable to quiet my busy mind and the endless stream of distracting thoughts that filled my consciousness. Self-judgment followed. Then, I heard again the inner guidance I had heard before when I was trying to understand why I suddenly felt so much sadness in the midst of feeling peaceful: “It’s all Divine.” Right. I forgot. That’s the wisdom that keeps gently tapping me on the shoulder and whispering in my ear. God is in the thoughts and in the space between the thoughts, in the emotions and in the peace. There is no place where God is not. When I let go of judging and embrace my active mind and my sadness, I am at peace. Peace is always present within the soul’s silent awareness. The soul is quietly observing the Divine (itself) having the experience of being human, and there is no separation anywhere from that vantage point. It’s all human and Divine.

Each time my mind won’t settle down or I’m distracted by neighborhood noise during meditation now, I am remembering more and more easily: My spinning thoughts, the roaring garbage truck, and the water drops sparkling on the tree branches in the morning sun are all part of the same oneness. As I take deep breath after deep breath, I slowly relax into the inner peace that is awareness without attachment or judgment: It’s all just Divine….

Sacred Circle of Love

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger

Are our ideas about love evolving right along with us? Yes, I believe they are. Today, in our seemingly chaotic world, beneath the surface of visible turmoil and divisiveness, there exists a gradual, almost imperceptible shift in the way we think about love. We are seeing an expansion from clannish familial love and romantic love based on physical appearance/attraction to a more inclusive universal love that encompasses all beings. In the past, this universal love has often been linked to the Divine love associated with a God or Goddess. In various spiritual or religious traditions, the Divine Mother is the primary image of unconditional, compassionate love. Historically, it has been difficult for ego-bound humans to express this kind of selfless loving. But all that is changing.

Now, during this time of accelerating evolution in human consciousness, we are opening our hearts to that infinite love without conditions or parameters. As we step into embodying the archetypal mother’s love for her child, we experience and radiate that love to all whom we meet on our life’s journey. The Divine within each of us mirrors the Divine in others: I love, you love, we love—the sacred circle of unconditional love. This is the love that is at the core of our being and at the center of the cosmos. In truth, both our universe and we were born in love. And we are finally awakening to that universal Divine love that permeates all things.

This February, the month in which people celebrate Valentine’s Day and romance, let us also recognize a love greater than cards or candy or our individual lives. A love that, if we let it, could redefine the way we live on this planet and make every day one filled with profound human connection and global harmony. Let us celebrate Love in the capitalized sense. Let us love the way Mother Teresa, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr. loved all peoples of the Earth. Let us love one another, and ourselves, with the delight and wonder a new parent feels when they look at their child. Let us, at long last, love from the depth of our souls, beyond limits and beyond words.