Tag: harmony

Authenticity of the Heart

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger

In the current political vernacular, the word authentic has crept into use to mean “speaking one’s mind,” whether or not that includes comments that are racist, sexist, elitist, or homophobic. Some people think that saying things that others are afraid to say is being authentic when actually it’s often just voicing acquired opinions and prejudices. If you listen to the speechmaking and off-the-cuff comments of those currently running for office in the U.S., you can hear a broad spectrum of harsh judgments and angry finger-pointing. All of which has the effect of creating separation and mistrust among people. How did “authenticity” get mixed up in this unpleasant and alienating scenario?

Some would say that that’s just the way politics is, full of name-calling and insults. However, labeling such behavior as “authentic” is completely misleading. Saying anything that comes into your head is not authenticity. The dictionary defines authentic as “genuine.” Genuine, to me, is tied to integrity and heartfelt expression. Authenticity arises from a connection to the heart and soul. Actually, to be one’s true soul self is to be authentic. Authenticity originates in the soul, and the soul is pure love. It does not hold judgments about others; nor is it angry, defensive, and accusatory. The personality may indulge in those attitudes and behaviors, but the soul is always peaceful and at one with all people and all situations.

Speaking your mind is not the same thing as speaking from your soul. The mind stores all sorts of accumulated detritus over a lifetime. It can’t be relied upon for loving-kindness or peaceful coexistence unless it is connected to the heart and soul. That deep connection opens the mind to harmony and balance. If you are confronted by someone who is “speaking their mind,” the wisest response might be to just hold a space of quiet presence. To listen and then speak from the heart calmly and peacefully. Argument just engages the polarity part of the brain and keeps the separation alive. To be your authentic self, stay connected to the soulful part of you that only sees oneness, not “otherness.”

So, in its truest sense, authenticity is of the heart and soul. If we are living as our souls in the world—the open, loving beings we were at birth—we are being authentic. Many highly polarized human beliefs are being expressed loudly and publicly these days. Yet I believe it is all part of a re-centering process that this planet and humankind are undergoing. The judgments, hatred, and separation we have carried so long within the collective consciousness will eventually be dissolved, and our authentic soul selves will come together at last in love, peace, and harmony on Earth.

 

Losing Your Self

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

What does it mean to lose your self? People talk about losing themselves in their work, or in music, or in a movie. This refers to a merging of the individual self with an experience that is completely absorbing. Another connotation is that of losing yourself in another, a kind of loss of identity, implying dependency or instability. What do these two have in common? Perhaps that they both refer to the personality self, as opposed to the soul self. The personality self is connected to the ego and can be in constant flux; the soul self, on the other hand, is always steadily present and can never be lost.

So what happens if the personality self loses itself within the soul self? Well, now we’re entering the realm of spirit, and the conversation can get really interesting. The personality is shaped by the struggle to live in the real world, to cope, to survive, to “rise above” life’s trials and tribulations. In many ways, the personality “just wants to have fun.” It seeks out pleasurable experiences and avoids unpleasant ones, not always successfully. Thus human suffering. Meanwhile, the soul is in the background, witnessing it all. When the personality suffers, the soul is at peace. Sounds like an impossible situation, but it isn’t really, because if the personality can connect to, or merge with, soulness, it too is at peace, no matter what experiences or emotions arise. That has been the quest of spiritual seekers through the ages.

In today’s world of rapidly accelerating change and radical shifts in beliefs and behavior, nothing is certain anymore. Certainly not a “personality.” People change overnight, or seemingly so. Beneath the surface, something greater is transpiring. We are living in a time of soul discovery, or perhaps soul recovery. Within the larger framework of changes in social consciousness, individuals are increasingly being drawn to the idea of authenticity, of living their true selves, not who society has always told them to be. And when the focus is authenticity, what’s really going on is soul connection. You can’t be your authentic self and be disconnected from your soul. This is the paradigm shift we are living into.

So are we all really losing our selves now, as the world also seems to be losing itself? That would actually be the best-case scenario. To lose your fabricated self within the wisdom and peace of your soul would probably be the most life-affirming thing that could happen to you, and to the world. Because as each person aligns with their authentic soul self (and in conjunction the love that resides in their heart), a connection to something greater also occurs. And in that greater connection is universal sisterhood and brotherhood, or oneness. A oneness that encompasses all beings and Mother Earth herself.

In losing our selves in this way, we are not really losing anything. The personality can live in harmony with the soul, and we can all live in harmony with one another. At the level of spirit, or soul, there is no separation. In truth, we came to this planet as souls for the extraordinarily diverse experience of being human—every poignantly sweet moment from birth to death. And within the trajectory that is life on Earth over the millennia, we have now reached the evolutionary point of complete soul immersion: living as conscious spirit in physical form. So celebrate the re-union of personality and soul. It is truly one of the greatest gifts you could possibly receive—or give to the world.

 

 

Peace of Mind

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger

Everyone aspires to “peace of mind,” but is it possible to access it when the mind often seems at war with itself? We in the Western world have long been a left-brain-dominated culture. We inherited a worldview in which rationalism and scientific thought predominated and have grown up and lived lives in which logical thinking and behavior was valued above all else. Left-brain orientation is often seen as directly opposed to intuition and emotions, associated with the right brain (and with women). Feminists in the 1970s and 1980s pointed out that feminine attributes have been undervalued and often denigrated within the prevailing patriarchal systems. This split between masculine and feminine and left and right brain caused an imbalance and disharmony that divided individuals against themselves and undermined day-to-day human interactions.

Gradually, over time, people have opened to the idea of a healthier whole-brain orientation and functioning. In 2008, neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor published her groundbreaking book My Stroke of Insight, which chronicled her experience of how her left and right brain functioned after she had a stroke. Initially her left brain (language, organization, linear time) was almost completely nonfunctional. On the other hand, her right brain (nonverbal, intuitive, timelessness) was providing her with brand new life-altering perceptions. A deep inner peace filled her, and a profound connection to something greater opened her heart. It took her eight years to completely recover the functioning of both halves of her brain. Part of her motivation was to be able to tell others how crucial the right brain is to our well-being. Each part of our brain has important functions, and when they work in tandem, we are more whole as human beings. We now need to consciously welcome our right brain’s input to bring about balance.

My own spiritual journey over the past 25 years has brought me to some of the same insights as Jill Bolte Taylor. Like so many others at this time, I am opening to an experience of consciousness that includes everything and everyone in its infinite expanse. In deep meditation, I have at times felt no separation between my physical body and the outer world. Boundaries fall away, and I am just open-ended awareness. Recently, in fact, I had this experience while walking in my neighborhood at dusk. My body was part of infinite consciousness, as were the crickets and locusts I heard in the trees. And I heard them not from inside my head but from within that conscious awareness which was simultaneously everywhere. The crickets and I were points of life within that vast awareness, the God essence that is experiencing the world through me and the crickets and everything else. A deep sense of peace and oneness arose from this awareness.

That is the peace and oneness we are beginning to access now, individual by individual and group by group, until ultimately it will fill the planet with a new way of being. Harmony, balance, wholeness, loving-kindness—these will no longer be utopian ideas but instead real ways of living our lives. When we allow our hearts (and right brain) to guide us, that high vibration entrains the left brain like a tuning fork so that both parts work harmoniously together, and we human beings do the same. It is an incredible cosmic shift we are living through, and we incarnated to do all of this, for ourselves, for one another, and for those who come after. Peace of mind and harmony of heart—that is the promise and fulfillment we are individually and collectively stepping into now.

The Silent Nature of All Things

Haleakala photograph © Peggy Kornegger
Haleakala photograph © Peggy Kornegger

I spend countless hours outdoors in my yard every day in the spring- and summertime. It is a deep inner calling that brings me peace of mind, heart connection, and balance between being and doing. Nature in its silent presence teaches me stillness and reminds me of that same place inside myself. When I stand quietly within the natural world at my doorstep, I am a part of all that I see, and I feel the stillness at the heart of everything, whether stone, tree, bird, bee, butterfly, human, cloud, rain, wind, star, or planet.

Indeed, the universe itself is complete stillness at its core. I experienced this primordial silence in a very powerful and unforgettable way once when I was hiking into the dormant volcano Haleakala on Maui. If you walk a ways down the trail that winds gradually to the bottom of the crater and then pause to listen, you hear absolutely nothing. No sound at all—no wind, no birds, no human activity. Nothing. I felt as if I were present at the birth of the planet, before anything existed except sandy red lava fragments, ocean, and sky. I’ve never forgotten that profound sense of eternity in the silence, and now I recognize it within all things, everywhere—if I pause long enough to feel it within myself, in my own breath.

That inner stillness is the spirit of life, our soul’s home. It is what calms and soothes us on our human journey. In silence, the soul witnesses our actions, thoughts, experiences, and emotions; our challenges and celebrations; our pain and joy. When we become lost in stress or suffering, often some mysterious force leads us to turn inward, to seek the silent solace of the soul. The human soul or the soul of nature, one and the same. We live at a time in which an increasing number of us are hearing the call to connect with our innermost being, a part of All That Is. A shift in consciousness is occurring, an awareness that opens us to choosing harmony and balance in our lives. I find it a hopeful sign that people are evolving to the tipping point of remembering the being part of human being.

I sense that thread of hope and remembering within my own life. When I balance activity or action with timeless time in nature or meditation, then I begin to live a seamless oneness of being and doing that are not in opposition to each other but exist naturally side by side. Doing that arises from being, not imposed by the mind’s tendency to overthink and plan, but organically part of the creative flow of all life, within and without. I experience internal harmony when I include moments of silent connection and presence continually throughout my day.

In fact, continual (“intermittent”) is gradually becoming continuous (“ongoing”). As my awareness expands and evolves, along with everyone else’s, the separations and distinctions of a world based in polarity and duality are fading into the background. Life becomes a divinely inspired stream instead of an on/off spigot that we think we control. And the source of it all is a peaceful stillness that we can access in each moment of our lives just by taking a deep breath and observing the true nature of what is right in front of us.

In Silence…

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

We humans express our selves and our lives in words, language, and sound. It is a learned process, reinforced with every generation. We talk our way through each day, sometimes clamoring to be heard above the general din of daily life that seems to have increased over time. Not only human voices but cars, buses, planes, media, and machinery (leaf blowers, snow blowers, etc.) add to the mix that becomes the “noise” we have learned to acclimate ourselves to—more or less. But at what cost? Today, stillness and complete silence often seem like the dream of a long-gone world. Yet, it is only in silence that we can hear the voice of spirit within, our own soul’s wisdom and guidance. Without that compass, we flounder through our lives, stumbling along the ego’s path of alternating attachment and avoidance in relation to all things. We are never at peace, always running toward or away from something. Only in stillness and soul connection can we find respite from that hamster wheel of striving and suffering.

Silence has always been important to me. As an only child, I spent long hours outside quietly playing alone or reading books high up in the branches of my favorite climbing tree. School was a place for friends and social connections; home was where I decompressed and communed with my self, although I was too young to even articulate it that way. As an adult, I found work to also be a “social” experience; when I came home, I needed large expanses of quiet time alone to rebalance myself. At some point, I began to meditate to more easily access that inner harmony. Gradually, I discovered that the longer I spent in silence, the more peaceful I became—and the more I carried that inner peace with me everywhere I went in my life.

My partner and I recently made an agreement to remain silent each morning until we finish breakfast. We finally figured out—after more than 30 years together—that this is the most peaceful way to begin the day for each of us. We both feel less distracted and more centered. When I am talking, I am not listening, period—whether to the subtle sounds of nature outside the window at dawn or to my soul’s voice within. Once I spend time in that inner/outer silent space, I can truly listen to others, and to life, with presence and without restless distraction. My partner and I start our days in a much happier, more harmonious frame of mind because we have given ourselves this gift. Even in the frequently noisy external world we all inhabit, it is possible to find ways to bring more quiet, stillness, and calm to our lives—and thus to the lives of others. In silence is the deepest truth, the most profound peace.