Tag: oneness

When Opportunity Knocks

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger

One of my favorite board games when I was growing up was called Careers. It came with a small set of Opportunity cards, which you chose every time you landed on an “Opportunity Knocks” square on the board. Each card directed you to a different career adventure. For some reason, I remembered this game the other day and thought how we all could probably use Opportunity reminders in our lives. The deeper I dive into the wisdom of accepting all life events as part of my soul’s journey, the more I realize that each event is an opportunity to surrender.

Within that framework, even the most painful and challenging experience (such as living through a global pandemic) is a doorway to greater expansion and growth. When I look back at my life, I can see the flowering into something new that occurred on the other side of what seemed like disaster or tragedy. Life is always presenting us with these opportunities to remain open to change and rebirth, often accompanied by fear or discomfort. If we can remember that that uncomfortable feeling is the precursor to possibility, then we can answer the door with peace in our hearts when opportunity knocks. Birth is always uncomfortable, but untold miracles await us if we relax into the process. The emergence of a new consciousness, a new Earth, is part of that.

So my latest self-reminder is to see each experience, each event, each moment, as an opportunity to surrender ever more deeply into the flow of life. Life as it is unfolding on one planet in one dimension in the multiverse. I am part of something so much grander than my own limited perception of it, an infinite tapestry of beingness that spans all time and space. That thought can be either terrifying or inspiring depending on how open I can remain within my heart and mind. And how deeply connected I am to my soul. Because the surrender I am talking about is ultimately to my soul, to the Spirit within.

My soul knows the design of my life. It was in on the pre-birth planning with God (or Goddess, Source, Spirit). The cosmos is not an accident. Your life is not an accident. There is a greater design beyond the human mind’s ability to understand or explain. At a certain point, we have to let go of figuring things out and just experience the Mystery that is life. To witness it with awe and wonder, as our soul does. That is the sacred gift of life: just to be here, to be present within this extraordinary experience of life on Earth and fully appreciate it. Fully receive it.

I spent so many years trying, instead of just receiving. We are taught that. To try to achieve, to accomplish, to create a life that is perfect. The personality-self, or ego, thinks that in striving and trying we are actually controlling outcomes, forgetting that there is a greater divine orchestration going on that our souls are part of. The universe is very generous and loving. When we try so hard to control events, we are actually slowing down the natural process of giving and receiving that life is based on. When we remain open and surrender to each moment, life can flow through us with ease. The ego tries to control; the soul just receives.

So when you hear unexpected change knocking at your door, think of it as a meditation bell reminding you of another opportunity to let go and receive life at the deepest level. This is why we’re here in human bodies, to learn to soften into oneness, into loving-awareness, into a Presence that includes everything. We think life is a board game, but it’s really divine grace unfolding….

 

Are We Here Yet?

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger
Like small children, those of us on a spiritual path sometimes want to tug on the sleeve of those walking nearby and ask, “Are we there yet? Are we any closer to enlightenment?” Perhaps the question should be rephrased: “Are we here yet?” Because as long as we see enlightenment as a goal and oneness with God as a destination, we will be forever on the path. “There” seems to imply an ending, the achievement of an intention, the reaching of a final destination, whereas “here” is more about the present moment, right before us. “Be here now,” Ram Dass wrote. In truth, we are always living in the “here” of eternity, an infinite present in which time does not exist. The problem is we can’t recognize it because our vision is blocked by visions of “there.”

Time to take off those future-colored glasses and look around without any questions, aspirations, or parameters. Where we are now is full of light and God, even during a pandemic and social/political unrest. World events are throwing us all back into the present moment repeatedly. We want to plan our lives and map out future events to create certainty in the midst of seeming chaos. Yet this is a time of no certainty, and the chaos we perceive is actually dynamic change in motion. The illusion of permanence that many of us have subscribed to for so long is being overturned by continually shifting circumstances. We keep trying to bring back what we once knew as normal life: social gatherings with friends, travel, school openings, regular jobs, elections. The trouble is none of that is playing out in the same way, even when we try to force the issue. Nothing is the same.

Every day we are pointed to the present moment as the only workable way to live, as the greater truth of our lives. Perhaps our collective enlightenment is coming to us through the back door. Awareness doesn’t always arise from long years of practice and devotion. Sometimes it appears unexpectedly in the middle of sudden out-of-control life events. In this unprecedented time in which the world as we knew it has been turned upside down, individuals are learning to let go of the future in favor of the present. In casual conversation with socially distanced strangers on my morning walks or in line at the grocery store, I find that we often speak of living “one day at a time,” appreciating each moment. This also comes up in emails and social media posts from friends around the globe. It seems to be a worldwide experience: remembering the wisdom of Now.

Here is our reality, here is universal truth, here is enlightenment. Not in some distant future or at the end of an extended quest. Profound realization can catch you off-guard within crisis and uncertainty. We want life to run smoothly and predictably, but it never does. If you can return to living one precious breath at a time, one heartbeat at a time, you may find peace and connection when all else appears to be upheaval and loss. Life is many things, but at its heart it is love and oneness with others and with God. Expanding planetary awakening is showing us that now. As our gaze returns to the present, instead of the past or future, we recognize, for the first time, the light shining in all we see, including ourselves. Elusive enlightenment right here, right now, in the never-ending present moment.

 

Can You Keep On Loving?

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger

If you believe that love is humanity’s greatest hope and clearest path to a more compassionate inclusive planet, how are you feeling right now? When people seem to be hating one another with greater intensity. When rage and violent outbursts are becoming more common. Those who wear masks vs. those who refuse to; those who believe Black Lives Matter vs. those who deny it. Science vs. religion, Democrats vs. Republicans, health and safety vs. economic “recovery.” Individuals of different races, ages, nationalities, and belief systems fighting over statues and guns and face coverings. Where does unconditional love and kindness come into play in the midst of all this? Can we love our neighbor if our neighbor hates us?

These are questions humanity has considered for hundreds of years, but now they seem to be coming to a dramatic crescendo, particularly in the U.S., a country supposedly founded in the principles of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” Yet the reality is that those words applied to white male slave owners and no one else. The land of the free was in truth based in systemic racism that continues to this day. Racial hatred that continues to this day. A hatred so deep that rather than let go of it, people start inventing a world of “hoaxes” and “fake news.” Is it possible to live with love in the midst of so much conflict and intolerance?

Martin Luther King Jr. did. John Lewis and countless civil rights workers did. Gandhi, Peace Pilgrim, and so many others did. Every individual who lives a life of integrity and compassion while being demeaned daily lives love in the face of hate. African Americans, Native Americans, Asian Americans, Muslim Americans, Mexican Americans. Women of all races, the LGBTQ community, all immigrants. There are lives of courage everywhere among us, inspiring us with their commitment to life. To be alive is to love life so powerfully that you keep on living in spite of everything. At this time in history, we are being asked to stand strong and keep on loving in the same way. Against enormous odds.

There is a rift in the fabric of this country that won’t be easily sewn back together. A Presidential election can’t completely address the extent of it. Laws won’t fix it. Religion won’t mend it. Justice and restitution won’t entirely resolve it. It is a wound and a splitting so deep that it can only be healed at the level of the heart: Loving what is hated, on both sides of the divide. We have to love living in peace with one another more than anything else, including our own viewpoints. A seemingly impossible challenge.

Yet we chose this lifetime, this time of tumultuous change and upheaval. We came here to this troubled planet to heal the wounds of centuries, to bring peace to a world split by wars, internal and external. We came here to finally look in the eyes of our “enemy” and see a human soul, to choose compassion over power and empathy over antipathy. We came here to continue to love through every impossible challenge that shows up. Because at some point, some unknown and hard-to-imagine transformative moment, we will reach a tipping point, everything will shift, and humanity will know oneness again at last. That is the dream. Can you hang on until we reach it? Can you fulfill the promise you made before you were born: Can you keep on loving?

 

 

The End of Time…

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger

In the Western world, time tells us when we are born and when we die. Based on calculated averages, we know approximately how long we’ll live. We go through our lives with a clock ticking away in the background, measuring out the years we have lived and those we have left. This “knowledge” influences everything we say or do, every decision we make. In fact, it permeates our entire culture: education, employment, medicine, insurance, religion, marriage, law, property. Our lives are shaped by time’s constraints. Yet physicists tell us that time and space are human inventions, a way to quantify something that is unquantifiable.

So if time is not “real,” but only a mental construct, do birth and death exist at all? And what about aging? In his book By Human Design, Gregg Braden describes meeting a monk in Tibet who could tell him what year he was born, but only after asking the current year could he give his age: 93. Time in terms of measuring one’s life passage does not exist for Tibetan monks and nuns. They live moment to moment, and each moment is eternal. Thus longevity and other measurements based on time have no meaning for them.

In the last few months, the world has faced death on a grand scale as the coronavirus has swept around the globe, taking life after life. Many of us have felt as if we were living on “borrowed time,” hanging precipitously on a cliff edge waiting for the latest statistics about the death tolls, country by country, state by state, city by city. “Longevity” was not on our minds; surviving the week, the month, and hopefully the year, were closer to what we were thinking. When everything in your life has been cleared out, and you stand alone staring into the emptiness, plans for the future have little meaning. Suddenly, your life becomes one precious breath after another, one moment after another. Because there is nothing else but living in the present, appreciating every second of life. Forever is now.

Perhaps we are being schooled in the highest Tibetan wisdom through the unlikely vehicle of a deadly virus. God moves in mysterious ways, as the saying goes. And humanity has certainly been in dire need of higher wisdom as it races headlong toward self-destruction in a multitude of areas, from systemic racism to environmental crisis. If each person stopped for a moment and looked at their life as if they only had five minutes to live, what kind of choices would they make? COVID-19 has put every one of us on the planet in that position. My guess is that most people would not run to the bank or the mall but to the loving presence of a family member or close friend. In my last moments on Earth, I would certainly choose love over anything else in the material world.

Do we become wiser when we are face to face with death, with eternity? When we realize how tenuous our hold is on life and living, do we begin to see that each moment is a gift and a blessing, each person a miracle? In the midst of this global pandemic, humanity has the chance to awaken at last to the collective wisdom of the ages: That time is an illusion, and there is only Now. That separation and otherness are also illusions, and there is only One. In this moment is the only forever we will ever know and the greatest love we will ever experience. When the entire world stops and takes a collective breath together, forever is revealed in the love we see in one another’s eyes. Timeless loving awareness. Maybe that is what an unstoppable virus came to teach us.

 

Your Unique Soul Journey

Photograph © 2020 Peggy Kornegger
Our soul journeys—how we find our way to recognizing the enlightenment or God that lives within us—are completely unique to each of us. I mean completely. Even your closest friend or wisest spiritual teacher is not on exactly the same path as you. We need to remember and honor the wisdom within us that is our guide in this, especially now at this time of such tumultuous change in the external world. The old religious structures that prescribed certain behaviors and beliefs, monitored by an external authority figure, are not the wave of the future. Neither are current spiritual programs that revolve around the popularity of one teacher or speaker. Previous paradigms of all kinds are falling away. We may eventually live in a “flexi-paradigm,” part of an ever-evolving and expansive collective consciousness. Within that, each one of us is singular, unrepeatable.

Over the years, I have found wisdom and inspiration in a variety of places. Everything I received from external sources, however, had to resonate with something inside me in order for me to experience it as true. I think this is probably the case for most of us. I came to realize that there is no one viewpoint or perspective that supersedes my own soul’s voice, the peaceful essence at my core. My life journey upon this Earth is unique to my particular human/divine embodiment. God speaks to, through, each of us differently.

My spiritual path has become primarily centered in a connection to Spirit through Nature and the beauty and light found therein. It is something I can find anywhere on this Earth. Even one flower in a single flowerpot holds that sacred life force. I celebrate this connection through my presence, love, and gratitude. Life becomes a living meditation, a never-ending prayer. It is not a mental process; it arises spontaneously from my heart and soul when I am immersed in the natural world. Simple loving awareness. No breaks in which I am or am not in meditation or prayer. I am always there.

Perhaps spirituality and religion began with the voice of one seeker speaking his/her awareness into the silence. Someone heard and repeated it, and then someone else repeated that, and eventually it was written down. Over the centuries form overtook essence, and we lost the free-flowing aspect of our connection to something greater in this universe. Now, in this unusual transformative time on planet Earth, form in all its various manifestations is falling away, and essence is once again appearing. The ancient wisdom “Look within” for God, for peace, is being heard again as if for the first time.

Truly, you yourself are God, as are we all. We can listen to, and learn from, one another’s soul stories, but we cannot walk this journey in someone else’s footsteps. Divine intelligence has given each of us a blueprint, a piece of the puzzle, which is our gift and blessing in this lifetime. Individually, as we live each moment in gratitude and compassion, we become part of a oneness that weaves each unique individual thread into a collective tapestry of peaceful universal consciousness. God returning to God, who never really left.