Tag: peace

Body and Soul

The body sometimes assists the soul’s journey with quite dramatic insistence. After I completed a third chemotherapy treatment for breast cancer, my body let my doctors know very clearly that it had reached its limit. I had allergic reactions in the form of an inflamed rash/bumps all over my body, edema (fluid retention), and breakthrough bleeding beneath the skin (to name just a few). Treatment 4 was cancelled. This particular segment of my spiritual “firewalk” was complete.  My body is now being given time to reestablish equilibrium and prepare for radiation in a few weeks.

Sometimes life’s “medicine” (in the sacred sense) takes an unusual course, and I am called to align with it. In doing so, I open myself to further spiritual growth and expansion. These chemo treatments have been an integral part of a process of completely dropping any identification with my physical form. Losing the hair on my head was one dramatic marker. Next came severe allergies. When you look down, and your own body is unrecognizable, something shifts in your awareness. You realize that what you are seeing is a temporary vessel, and what is seeing this vessel is not. You recognize the presence of a greater consciousness beyond the physical: your own spirit or soul, which is eternal.

As I have moved forward with the cancer treatments, I’ve shed various life identities. The more that fell away, the freer I felt at the soul level. Now, the power of these latest reactions has further amplified the dropping away. At this point, there is little left. I can feel that when I meditate. Almost immediately, as I close my eyes and open to inner stillness, “I” begin to dissolve. A spaciousness opens up within which I disappear from my own perception. What remains is pure beingness. No I or not I. I am empty while at the same time filled with spirit. This seeming dichotomy is the gateway to infinite consciousness. When the body fades to emptiness, the soul takes over completely. Spirit flows without interruption. The mind, emotions, and physical reactions are in neutral, and the soul fully lives its perfect design, unimpeded.

On another level, I have begun to experience a different response to the exterior world. At times, I feel as if I am watching a distant newsreel of this reality from another dimension entirely. I am untethered from the polarities and separations, the clashing opinions. My heart aches at the terrible suffering I see, but I trust there is a cosmic design within which the Earth is evolving. My role, as part of that design, is to give all those who cross my path love and empathy. I am not here to convince or convert people. I am here to live love, period. That’s is why we are all here, ultimately.

From my soul’s view, my responsibility as a human being passing through this planet is to live a life based in loving-kindness, not dissension or argument. To meet others on the common ground of caring, compassion. So much of the world is wrapped up in prickly debates over one thing or another, down to the smallest details. To hold peace in my heart and in my daily interactions seems to me the best way to live in this world, body and soul. Within that, the rigidity of individual identities fades, and the spaciousness of collective spirit flowers.

Precious Moments

Whatever your current age or state of health, you have probably experienced moments when life feels exceedingly ephemeral, as if it could disappear in a split second. This is raw truth. We are here on Earth as human beings for a tiny moment in eternity, yet time itself is always relative—sometimes racing and sometimes “stopped.” As our lives move forward and evolve, we experience the various aspects of life and living and come to know both impermanence and loss. In doing so, our hearts may break, yet we grow wiser. And we begin to see beyond time to eternity itself.

When my mother and father were first married and living in Chicago, they went to see a show in which one piece of music particularly touched them. Throughout their lives it was their favorite song. It describes how a lifetime seems long at first but then suddenly very short—and very precious. Every time someone sang it on TV or radio, they would pause, listen, and look across the room at each other meaningfully. I have such a clear memory of this, which I’ve carried with me all my life. The songwriter, and my parents, had tapped into both the sweetness and the poignancy of life.

My parents were married 57 years when my mother passed away; my father died nine years later. I think I came to know why that song held such significance for them as I lived through their aging years and eventual deaths. Now, many years later, as I myself am aging, as well as facing breast cancer, it all takes on new meaning. In my heart, I feel strongly that I will survive this health challenge, yet you can’t live through such an unexpected and intense experience without being changed, without taking a hard look at your own mortality. Of course, my entire life I have been focused on the mystery of eternity and death, feeling both fear and fascination. (Maybe it runs in my family genes!) None of it coincidence, I suppose. This is my soul journey. Before birth, I chose the parents I had for exactly these reasons.

Over the years, my spiritual path has gradually led me to a “peace that passeth understanding” about it all. Particularly in the last few months, I have come to see an extraordinary beauty in eternity and the nature of the universe. Cancer can be both frightening and soulfully expansive. In recent weeks, I have experienced moments of timeless immersion in infinity, primarily in Nature, which defy description. The heart and soul cannot translate what transpires at those times. But you are transformed; the inner “enlightenment” you were born with rises to the surfaces and shines through your being. Fear no longer defines your days and nights; light does. And trust in something greater than the mind’s limited view. Your inner vision expands to encompass a magnificence and grace that spans all time and space.

Does every human soul eventually experience this as an incarnated being on planet Earth? I don’t know for certain. I can only express what I myself am living through. Still, the trust I carry within me whispers that this is the destiny of all human beings: to see the true nature of life and what appears to be mortality. In the calendar of life, the days we are given at first seem long, then short, then eventually become infinite, timeless—and “precious” beyond life, death, and meaning itself.

“You are infinity dancing in impermanence.”—Panache Desai

A Camino: Firewalk and Life Streaming

When I first heard the diagnosis “breast cancer,” I was lost in shock and fear. How could this happen in my life? To me?! After a few days, I gradually was able to re-center in the peace within me, to remember that everything that happens in my life is part of a soul plan that I was part of designing before my birth. Nothing is a coincidence, and everything is connected to everything else. I am one soul in one lifetime on one planet. Yet I am also part of the entire fabric of being in the universe. Sometimes it takes loss or crisis in our lives to fully realize this. When things fall away or apart, the long view becomes more visible.

Illness or disease can stop you short in your tracks and remind you of your own mortality. Even if you think you are unattached to outcome or completely surrendered to however events unfold. Even if you feel connected to a greater consciousness beyond life and death. There is always more surrender available, deeper all the time. And there is always more letting go of attachment—until there’s nothing left but soul. The physical body holds within it the last attachment. You definitively let go of that attachment at death. But you can also let go of it as part of life. This is what is meant by “dying unto yourself.” You release attachment not only to your identity but to your physical form. You live your life as your soul, immersed in peaceful Presence. The same immersion in Presence that occurs at death. Only you are radiantly alive and aware.

I have experienced times of surrender and Presence on my spiritual journey, but when breast cancer came into my life, I stepped onto an accelerated path: my own Camino.* The more I trusted that I was being divinely guided on this path, the more everything flowed. During and after surgery, I felt surrounded by angelic healers, floating in profound Oneness. My physical form seemed almost nonexistent. I returned home to heal and rest quietly. A week later, the pathology report showed wide clear margins—excellent! Then my surgeon told me that new test results indicated I should probably include chemotherapy in my treatment plan along with radiation. I had already accepted the latter, but the combo frightened me. Attachment to my body as it currently looked and felt was front and center. I was being asked to dive even deeper into acceptance and surrender.

My breast-cancer-survivor friends helped me with this acceptance (as did my very knowledgeable and kind doctors), but then my own inner genie handed me a vision that changed the way I saw everything. During a powerful meditation one morning, I suddenly understood what breast cancer represented in my life. In my mind’s eye, I saw an image of burning coals, like those used in the traditional firewalk, practiced by many cultures for thousands of years as a rite of faith, healing, or initiation. Immediately, I knew that for me radiation and chemo were the “burning coals,” and that I would safely “walk” through them as I surrendered attachment to my body and trusted my soul’s journey. My Camino walk is a fire of initiation, transmutation, and expansion beyond the physical. I envisioned myself afterward as pure soul light. No attachments, just life streaming through eternity in timeless splendor.

This is our collective destiny: to walk through humanity’s fires and emerge as light, each in our own way. Every person’s journey is unique. Each soul path divinely orchestrated. On the other side of our firewalks is a Presence that permeates the universe in life and in death. In truth, they are one: infinite beingness. When we realize that, all fear falls away, and we can live our lives with peaceful, open hearts and souls.
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*The Camino is a well-known path of spiritual pilgrimage across northern Spain.

Becoming a Vessel

The idea of becoming a vessel, or conduit, for selfless love to flow through you into the world is part of many spiritual teachings. To be of service in this way can become one of the highest aspirations for those on a deeply committed spiritual path. Julia Butterfly Hill, who spent two years living in the branches of a 1500-year-old redwood tree to prevent it from being cut down, has described her own preparation for this dedicated act of service. She let go of all physical attachments in terms of possessions, but then Mother Nature emptied her of everything else in a fierce wind/rain storm that brought her face to face with the possibility of her own death. She was “emptied out” for the task ahead.

We may not all be called to such courageous actions, but more and more I believe we are called to be fully present in our lives in the most loving way possible. When your heart is open, you can touch the hearts of all those around you. Love is the greatest act of service imaginable. It doesn’t necessarily take physical stamina or facing death, but it may require you to let go of attachments that keep the energy of love from flowing freely. Ones you may not even be conscious of. Like attachments to particular outcomes or to controlling how things occur. This requires letting go at the deepest level. And often the letting go itself is beyond your control. Perfectly designed that way.

I have written previously about my move to Florida and my expectations about how it would unfold in terms of being of spiritual service there. God presented me with a framework, and then proceeded to take it apart piece by piece. Nothing I had planned on came to pass. And as things fell away, I felt at times lost and abandoned by spirit. Yet that same spirit kept me going, showed me light in the midst of my inner darkness—and the beauty of Nature everywhere. At the end of more than a year of being emptied out, I finally saw that this was exactly what was meant to happen. I had asked to be of service, to be a vessel, over and over in my prayers. I couldn’t be that when I was full of expectations and ideas about what that meant. Surrender means completely letting go and just being peacefully present, without attachments, for whatever arises.

Then the “storm” of COVID arrived, within which we each encountered our own possible death (like Julia). At that point, I could see that all I had just been through had prepared me for emptying out and letting go even further into acceptance and peace. There was nothing I could do about stopping this pandemic. I saw that what I could do was remain peaceful and loving every day, through meditation, writing, and connections with individuals around the world online or in my own neighborhood who were holding this same space of peace and love. The “invisible” network that the Internet provides has helped many of us find support when feeling isolated and alone during this time. It has shown us how we are always connected in our hearts.

We all do what we can in our lives—and the greatest gift we can offer is in being who we are deep inside: compassionate, peaceful human beings. COVID has compelled us to look inward, to meet our own souls, maybe for the first time. From the soul’s perspective, there is no necessity for trying to control what happens or doesn’t happen. Within the soul, there is only loving-awareness. When life empties you out of all external activities and aspirations, you come home to that wisdom within you. The wisdom that shows you that in emptiness is peace and space for the love in your heart to flow freely to all those who cross your path. This is what it means to become a vessel, a conduit, in the world. Perhaps yet another of COVID’s hidden blessings.

Internal Weather

What if the weather outside your window is actually a reflection of the weather conditions inside you? What if your perceptional framework for viewing life shapes everything, including how you see physical conditions such as rain, snow, clouds, and sunshine that appear to be outside you? What if nothing is quite as it seems to be to the mind? What if the world is as you are?

Ever since I was a small child, I have carried within me an at-times-overwhelming grief about the nature of life, death, and eternity. The “human condition” terrified me; infinity terrified me. Late at night, I described my fear to my mother as “the world goes on forever and ever.” She comforted me and tried to help me learn to distract myself with happier thoughts. But the core unease never really disappeared. In college, I found infinity hiding inside my astronomy and philosophy textbooks. Fear of death and whatever came after was always hovering in the back of my consciousness. In my 30s, I turned to a spiritual quest to try to resolve it. That was the beginning of a shift in my perception.

Over the years, I came to a much broader view of life and of God’s presence in the universe. I have experienced a vast inner peace arising from my soul. At times, when I am completely immersed in it, the peace is as infinite and all-consuming as the fear once was. I “know” with every fiber of my being that infinity is actually divine love, which permeates every aspect of life. There is nothing but infinite consciousness expressing, always, everywhere in the cosmos. It is inside me and outside me, and actually there is no inside and outside. There is a seamless Oneness to all Being. This is what I experience, and within that is peace.

Yet there are still moments, usually late at night, when the fear arises, and a tremendous grief accompanies it. Some people are comforted by the idea of eternity; I am terrified by it. Now, however, I have come to see it as a catalyst for my soul’s evolution in this lifetime. It propels me ever deeper within and connects me to divine Presence, which lives as peace in my soul. My human grief also lives inside me. Depending on my state of mind, I can see that grief as separate from and larger than the peace or as only a small part of it. I realize that my humanity is actually how my divinity experiences itself on Earth. My human life pushes me further and deeper on my soul journey, until I completely merge with God consciousness.

Meanwhile, there are times on this path, this journey, that the catalyst of fear awakens me to a new level of awareness about the nature of reality and my life in it. I begin to understand that my perceptual framework (which interprets the world around me, and how and what I see) is dependent on whether I am in human fear or divine peace. And the seeming separation and polarity is actually for my own expansion and growth. Eventually, I will abide in peace without the interruption of fear or grief. The wisdom deep in my soul tells me this, and I trust it as the expanses of peace in my daily life become more and more seamless. When the old grief or fear arises, it is clear to me now how they can shape my perceptions. Rain and snow are just experiences; life and death are just experiences—all of them part of the soul’s journey in this world. If I see them as miracles, that is what they are in my experience. And grief gradually dissolves within Presence.