Tag: infinity

Growing Up Godless

I grew up outside of organized religion. In a small Midwestern town, this was unheard of. I knew no one else like me; all my friends dutifully went to church every Sunday. My parents didn’t want to impose any one set of religious beliefs on me, so they basically left the door open. They told me that God might exist or might not; it was not provable, all based on belief—the agnostic’s view. So I was left with a question mark and a feeling of “differentness” among my peers. I can remember feeling very uncomfortable whenever the topic of church or God came up at school, fearful that I would be “found out.”

When I was about 9 years old, my parents took me to a Unitarian church service in a nearby town, after which I commented, “I’m glad that’s over!” Clearly I wasn’t longing to go to church as much as I was longing not to be different. When I reached college age, all my new friends were rejecting their religious upbringing, and I found myself ahead of the game since I didn’t have a religion to reject. But still I was searching for something, as were so many others of my generation. The meaning of life perhaps, or the secrets of the cosmos. At any rate, I gradually began to look for answers in diverse spiritual books and teachers, not really wanting a guru or one answer, but rather a tapestry of truths that resonated with me.

My search for meaning was partially driven by a deep-seated fear of eternity/infinity, which I had carried within me since childhood, possibly because I had no superimposed God image to block the fear. The void, or an endless universe in which “the world went on forever and ever,” was very real to me. Eternal life and eternal death seemed equally frightening. Still, in spite of this, I was a happy child for the most part, nurtured and supported both by my parents’ unconditional love and by the natural world outside our rural home. It was only at night that my fears about the infinite universe arose.

These night fears continued throughout adulthood, even after I came to believe in Spirit, or a greater sacred presence in the universe. After many years of spiritual exploration and growth, it was in an individual session with Panache Desai that I had my first tangible experience of infinity as an expanse that was both peaceful and comforting (see previous blog post “Infinity). Months later, during Panache’s webcast series “Mother, Father, God,” I faced my long-ago religionless past. As he instructed listeners to embrace the image of God they had grown up with, until it disappeared and became one with them, I felt disconnected, alone, different, stuck in my Godless childhood. But when he said, “The Divine in essence is formless and nameless and is in fact love,” I suddenly realized that I was already at “disappeared,” and God/Spirit had always been a part of my life, as love. I felt old fears dissolving as I also realized that I had never really been alone. God, or the Divine, was always there, at my very core.

Looking back, I see how what seemed my greatest challenge as a child was in fact my greatest blessing. What I experienced then, through my parents, through nature, and within my own heart, was Divine love in its purest form, undiluted by human concepts of an external God. Now, in my present life, as I continue to have extraordinary experiences of Spirit and infinity, I am so very grateful for my parents’ openhearted love and wisdom which allowed me to follow my own path when it came to matters of the spirit.

“Look in your heart for God, for truth, for the answer. Feel that heart space—that is where you and infinity can meet, because your heart is not limited, but ever expansive.”—Panache Desai

 

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.)