Tag: presence

A Lifetime Longing

Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2013 Peggy Kornegger
In a recent teaching, Panache Desai talked about how so many of us have unconsciously yearned to know God or the truth of existence all our lives. We didn’t always have words for it, but at our core was a deep-seated longing to understand the universe, to feel a connection to something beyond our own separate selves. In our individual aloneness, we reach out for contact, for meaning, even in our early years. I certainly did, although I did not recognize it as a desire to know God. My reaching or yearning took the form of fear. Fear of eternity, of an infinite universe. It scared me so much that I was unable to sleep at night, and my mother would sit at my bedside to comfort me.

I was not raised within any particular religion, so God was just an idea to me. A possibility, my parents said, a question that each person must answer for themselves. I suppose, in their own way, they were referring to what Native Americans have called the “Great Mystery.” Nothing I could relate to at 6 years old. What I was seeking was relief from the terror I felt whenever I thought about the universe going on and on forever. God’s existence had no relevance to that, at least in my own mind at the time. As I saw it, eternal life (heaven) and eternal death (the void) were both eternity and thus equally frightening. I lived for years and years with that fear embedded in my consciousness. Many times, I thought it would drive me crazy.

It wasn’t until I met Panache and began to work with him that the fears I had carried all my life began to gradually transform. Through him, and later on my own, I experienced infinity as divine presence, or God. It filled me with the most profound peace imaginable—absolutely no fear. I felt at one with everything everywhere, beyond time and space, and my consciousness shifted completely. It was then that I began to realize that this was what I had yearned for my entire life, this immersion in oneness and unconditional love that is God. I had always longed, as William Blake wrote, to “hold Infinity in the palm of [my] hand” and know it as pure love, not fear at all. And here it was at last—God’s loving gift of presence within my own heart and soul. In truth, that sacred connection had always been there. It is who I am, who we all are.

Sometimes you wait your whole life for a key experience that changes everything in all directions—past, present, future. Often you can only reach that experience after having lived your way to it. Ultimately, that is why we came to this Earth: to experience our separateness and find our way home again; to recognize that separation is only an illusion within that greater oneness which encompasses all of existence. That is the human journey, during which we can feel so lost and alone at times, but looking back, we see nothing but grace and love. In that moment of realization, of conscious awareness of our oneness with everything, we step into ananda, or bliss. We know in our deepest heart that all of life is a blessing and that we ourselves are a part of that blessing because we are part of the infinite presence of God.

 

You Are Unique

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger

There is no other being on this Earth, in this universe, who is just like you. You are entirely unique. Not only in your physical features—your face, hair color, and body shape—but also in your cells, your genes. No part of you is replicated anywhere in the cosmos. Think of that for a moment. Nowhere is there a duplicate of your specific body, mind, and spirit. Just like a snowflake, you are distinctly different from every other person on this planet. If you didn’t exist, your essence would be missing from the fabric of the created world.

Pause. Take that in. To be you is such a gift, an honor really. You came into this life for a reason. You were created to be the essence of who you are in your soul. The overlay of personality traits that you have developed to exist in a world that doesn’t always embrace your uniqueness is just that: a surface layer of coping mechanisms, of past history. Those things do not define you. At the deepest level, within your heart and soul, you are pure light expressing as loving presence in this world. You are a love song, a sonnet, an improvised dance, a spark of fire, here to ignite the collective consciousness of all humanity through the sheer power of your beingness. Each of us is that.

Sounds like a big responsibility, doesn’t it? Actually it’s so much more than that. It’s an entry point to the playground of possibility that is life on Earth. We who have incarnated at this time are here to live out the furthest reaches of expanded awareness and creative expression that human beings can embody. We are doing it together, each of us in our own lives but connected through an invisible network of human/divine energy that makes our planet, too, unique. Earth is a planet of polarities, true, but it is also a place where we can come into harmony and balance in the midst of everything as we create lives based in oneness, love, and ongoing transformation.

How do we do that? Well, it’s a little different for every one of us. For me, it means writing my soul self into the world: sharing my experiences, insights, and visions and expressing my vulnerability and my humanness. It also means being completely present to those who cross my path each day (people, animals, birds, everything). To love and appreciate it all. To make every step, every breath, a prayer or an offering to life. And to continue to be open to the expansion of who I am and who I can become in my lifetime. We are each here to live our unique gifts into the world and constantly stretch ourselves into more. And to remember it is a shared journey, always.

So, every morning, look in the mirror and smile at that beautiful unique reflection before you. There is not another like it anywhere, and you are here to show us all that special something that makes you you. Celebrate your unrepeatability! Express your soul self in the world, and soon you will be surrounded by others doing the same. In multi-part harmony, we will fill the planet with music and song.

 

 

The Pause

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Life can occasionally hand you a time-out whether you asked for it or not. It could take the form of a health challenge, a job loss, a missed connection, or a misunderstanding. You are zooming along nonstop when suddenly an impenetrable wall appears right in front of you. Bam! Stopped in your tracks. Sidelined. No way over, around, or through. You have to come to a halt, take a deep breath, and wait. The pause.

In our speedy multi-tasking world, we aren’t encouraged to see the importance of allowing for that pause. The usual message, from childhood on, is “pursue your goals, full speed ahead, and don’t let anything deter you.” Until we are forced to slow down and reevaluate, we don’t understand the key role of timing in our lives. However, if we look around at the natural world we are part of, timing is the basis of everything. Winter waits patiently for spring and the reappearance of green leaves and flowers. Animals and birds, as well as humans, wait weeks or months for the birth of their babies. Patience and timing are at the very core of life on Earth. To push against that is to cause ourselves unnecessary suffering.

As I faced an uncertain medical diagnosis recently, I repeatedly found myself in the position of waiting—for test results, for the next appointment, for a clearer diagnosis, etc. After the most recent doctor’s visit, I am still in that position. In fact, that seems to be part of the diagnosis: to wait and see if it stays the same, gets better, or gets worse. Status quo means all is well, for the moment. Such is life, really. It’s all a guide for living with awareness. The wisest approach is to live in the “wellness” of the moment. No one can predict what will occur next. So we “wait and see.”

What if we could realize that waiting is not stuckness but beingness? Each moment holds everything within it. If we rush past it, we lose all those precious seconds of everything. To be stopped by circumstance is a gift, a blessing. It allows us to look around and really see the world around us and within us. For our own mental, emotional, and spiritual health, we need time and space to just breathe and be. Out of that flexible state of presence, our next best version of ourselves emerges without effort or pushing. And it will only emerge in its own divine timing. Soul time. Not human clock time.

As I look at the waiting of the past couple of months, I see with more clarity how much was going on within that waiting. A greater wisdom, surrender, and dissolving of effort was arising in me. An integration of experience and emotions. We have to allow ourselves the pause that engenders awareness about what we are encountering in our lives. So let yourself be stopped, let yourself pause. Each day, everything is unfolding just perfectly, with impeccable timing….

“A delay isn’t a denial; it’s an opportunity to evolve.”—Panache Desai

 

Opening to Love

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

Sometimes a seeming crisis, like my recent eye diagnosis, can be an unanticipated catalyst for profound inner change and deeper awareness. In the last few weeks, I have written about losing my self and emptying out the past. In the process, nothing was really lost. It was more like opening to Spirit, or the Divine—to my soul’s source within universal consciousness, which is love itself. When people speak of these things, it can sound vague and inaccessible. That does not have to be the case. In fact, I believe it is not only accessible to everyone, it is our human destiny to live in conscious awareness of our spiritual connection. It’s why we’re here, at this time, on this planet. No accident. And we are walking in the footsteps of those spiritual masters before us who are showing us the way.

I found that the more I emptied out, the greater the feeling of expansive inner openness. And within that vast space a question spontaneously emerged: “How may I be of service to others in the world, how may I live love in each moment?” I was asking to live for something beyond my own personal gratification or fulfillment. Or, as St. Francis expressed it, “Make me an instrument of peace.” I knew that on the deepest level I was inviting the Divine into my heart and soul. And when you do this, the Divine shows you that it has always been there. The heart of the Divine is my heart, your heart. The soul of the Divine is the universal soul of humankind.

I felt this divine connection sweep over me in waves, igniting my entire physical body. I walked to my computer, sat down, and began to write. The words came faster than my fingers could type them. I wrote nonstop for hours, from my heart and soul, connected to the energy of love, which was orchestrating everything. This was the answer to my question, at least in part: writing what came through me to be shared. I had sensed that before, but now I knew it at a deeper level of soul purpose. Each of us has such a purpose in our lives, a unique way to share our heart’s love with others. One by one, we are being guided to that knowledge.

What I discovered was that when I surrender the illusion of control, my life begins to live itself in perfect alignment with my soul’s purpose for being on this Earth. When I ask for guidance, it arises magically from within me and around me. I live what appears before me to live in each moment, arising seamlessly from connection to Spirit. I let go in the deepest part of my being, knowing that I am here to live not for me as a single personality or ego, but for me as one soul among millions, one thread within a universal living tapestry of light.

This is the shift in consciousness that humans are experiencing at this time. We are gradually becoming attuned to something greater inside us, beyond definition or explanation. Every day now, I ask to be emptied and filled, again and again: “May love and compassion flow through me.” In aligning with that Presence that is the source of everything in this world, I know I am not alone; I am many: the “I” that is “you,” that is “we,” that is all of us, individually and collectively. As each of us clears out the old stories and opens to the dynamic energy of soul connection, our hearts will overflow with joy, gratitude, and a limitless love that will radiate outward to all hearts everywhere.

 

We Are Infinity

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
“You are here to demonstrate what infinity looks like.”—Panache Desai

I have carried a fear of infinity within me my entire life. Fear isn’t even the most accurate description. It was mind-freezing terror that kept me awake at night as a five-year-old child, imagining a universe that went on “forever and ever.” Religion can sometimes provide comfort to those fearing death, but I was not raised within that structure, and actually, death was not exactly the issue. As I grew up, the “answers” of traditional religion (eternal life) and atheism (eternal nonbeing) were equally frightening to me because they were both eternal. Yes, of course, death was scary, but it was what came after death that was terrifying to me. Eternity. Infinity.

I learned to distract myself from the fear as I grew older, but it never really disappeared. It just lurked in the background, making an appearance at unpredictable times, like when I took an astronomy class in college (which gave me actual visuals of infinity!). Sometime prehistory could set it off too. No one I knew quite understood what I was talking about, so I felt very alone with this extreme awareness of eternity and the accompanying extreme fear. I carried it inside me like an unwelcome guest. Many years later, when I was in my 40s and embarking on a spiritual path, I would ask various teachers about it but never received guidance that was particularly helpful. They too looked at me with lack of understanding. That is, until I met Panache Desai.

Panache, who has been my teacher and friend for several years now, has the uncanny ability to feel what others are feeling, from the inside. He never questioned my fear or its hold on me. In my first individual session with him, he just took me to infinity—a place of utter peace and divine tranquility. Thus began a timeless journey to embrace something I had held at bay all my life. It has been a gradual process: a letting go or surrender to a power much greater than the mental fear in which I had been trapped.

My first epiphany, after turning around to face what I had run from for so long, was that it was my mind that was terrified. My soul has no fear of infinity, because it is infinity. What a realization that was! Actually, it was Panache’s teachings about infinity and divinity as one and the same that helped me realize this. Through my work with him as well as my own experiences, I came to see the Infinite and the Divine in all things everywhere, in the world as well as within myself—my core essence or soul. My conscious awareness that “everything is God” has deepened and expanded, especially this past year when I took part in a yearlong acceleration program with him. That program culminated in a transformative weekend event, Global Gathering 2015 (see my last blog article, “Soul Reunion”).

At GG15, any remaining distinction between infinity and divinity that my brain held onto was washed away in a wave of divine energy that carried the codes for awakening and embodiment of spirit within it. As the energy coursed through my physical body (transmitted vibrationally via Panache in sessions), every separation fell away, every fear fell away. All that existed was beingness, oneness. I was simultaneously empty and filled. The transmission was so powerful that there was a paradigm shift within me: my soul took the lead, and my mind stepped into a support role. What I had been moving toward for years came into full presence in a nanosecond. Afterward, I could barely speak coherently, let alone write, but gradually I was able to articulate the essence of what I had experienced: I am infinite. I am divine. Infinity is divinity. On this rapidly evolving planet of ours, we are now beginning to fully and fearlessly live the truth of that. We are human beings with infinite souls. We are infinity.