Your Soul Plan

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Okay, the way I see it is that God (infinite beingness) and I (my soul) sat down to talk (merge energy essences) before I was born to create a plan (cosmic overview) for my current lifetime (incarnation). After my birth, I forgot the plan, but God didn’t. Everything I experience in my life is here to remind me. As long as I resist “what is,” I am not aligning with my soul’s purpose, who I came here to be. When I surrender to God and the flow of divine energy in “what is,” I too begin to flow and to flower into my soul essence. The ego or personality self takes a supportive role, and my soul rides the wave of expansion and unfolding that life is meant to be.

We all forget. It’s part of being human. But life is here to remind us in every experience, every event, every person we meet. We can awaken to the greater overview for our lives and for life itself. Now, during this time of radical upheaval and transformation on the planet, possibilities are revealing themselves in unexpected ways. The veil is thinning between this human world and the Source consciousness from which we came.

That dynamic energy of unlimited potential created this universe, of which we are an integral part. We hold the same unlimited potential for creativity within us. When we stop trying to understand and control the events of our lives, when we let go at the deepest level, we suddenly step into the same energy and power that created the universe. We too are creators. When we allow the flow of life instead of resist it, we become aware of our own divine creative energy, our soul purpose. And we begin to flow with it. We create as God creates, because we are God, every one of us. We just have to recognize the reflection of divinity within and all around us.

I’m sharing this perspective because that is what happened to me. When I let go at the deepest possible level, it was like a clogged drain opened up. Everything began to move forward at a faster, dynamically inspired pace. Quite literally, when I took my foot off the brake, God accelerated! That’s the best way I can describe it. There was a magic to the day-to-day experience of my life. Every choice I made, every action I took, came from a deeper place within me. Thinking and feeling and doing were all part of one soul expression in this world. I became acutely aware of being a spirit expressing itself in human form, part of the greater Spirit of universal consciousness.

“What is” is not a concept, an obscure spiritual teaching. It’s your life. It’s God/dess in physical form. Open to it, accept it unconditionally, and you will begin to experience the miracles you are surrounded with all the time. And now is the time for miracles. The world is on fire with possibility. The old paradigms are shattering all around us, in spite of the desperate attempts of those trying to shore them up. Humans are incapable of building any wall that will keep God out. And God lives in every human on this Earth. Look around; you are surround by angels. Really look in the eyes of the next person you encounter. God looking out at you. In every animal’s eyes, God. In every tree or flower, God. Let all the walls fall down, and remember the true nature of life and of you: limitless being, beautiful in its ever-changing creative uniqueness. A miracle, shining into radiant visibility.

Stop Suffering

Photograph © 2017 Peggy Kornegger
So much of our personal suffering is self-imposed. We struggle against the way life is unfolding, trying to force certain outcomes. When we fail, we are miserable. Our minds replay our supposed failures over and over again, triggering memories of past “failures” so that finally we are drowning in an avalanche of suffering. We see ourselves as victims, barely able to carry on beneath the burden of unfulfilled dreams, of life’s unfairness. The promise of abundant possibilities and self-fulfillment seems to elude us again and again. What if we are only living out our mind’s perception of life—a self-constructed illusion that keeps us trapped in struggle and unhappiness? Our personality self, or ego, which is connected to the mind, engages in the world at the level of effort and trying. Our souls exist in connection to a Higher Self, or God. When we completely surrender to something greater than our own individual personality selves, we let go of suffering as a way of life.

I’ve been learning about the power of surrender for a number of years. The first level for me was to recognize that life is not about one-focus doing, it’s about being, out of which doing arises organically. When you surrender to something that is beyond the mind, beyond the will—whether you call it God/dess, universal consciousness, source energy, the name doesn’t matter—you step into the flow of life. I found that the more I let go of desired outcomes and objectives, the more I felt connected to that flow. Life unfolded perfectly without my even trying. Now, by “perfect” I don’t mean everything was necessarily what I wanted to experience. What was perfect was my letting go of it being perfect! At a deeper level, I accepted all of life’s experiences, not just the “good” ones, those my mind thought should happen. When I did that, I stopped suffering: on some level, everything was “good,” because it was part of a greater soul plan for my life.

Not everyone believes in soul plans. I do—perhaps because I’ve repeatedly experienced the power of that trajectory, that connection to God and soul purpose. Recently, I was working hard at learning a new kind of writing, one that I had never attempted before and knew nothing about: a play. The idea of doing it was exciting; the day-to-day reality was at times intimidating, overwhelming. I persisted because of my own internal commitment to do it, but I proceeded at the level of effort, of difficult daily mental work and figuring things out. There were moments of inspiration, but overall, I was not experiencing the flow that I have come to know in my writing when something beyond my personality self takes over and speaks through me. In spiritual writing, which has been my main focus in recent years, this connection comes easily for me. I am a conduit, and my own particular writing abilities are in service to that. In attempting something new, I felt none of this.

The solution came, of course, in letting go even more. My morning prayers of gratitude and surrender expanded to the point where I was only asking to be of service to God: “If this is what I’m here to do, please show me the way. I surrender to whatever my soul’s agenda is.” Last year, during a health crisis with my eyes, I had surrendered in much the same way, and everything opened up around me. This time I went even deeper, and once again I was lifted out of the entanglements of my own fears and efforting into connection and flow. I began to hear my characters’ voices in my head and transcribed their conversations into the play. I witnessed their lives unfolding, just as mine was. My mind became the tool of my soul and helped me actualize the creative flow I was experiencing. I stopped struggling.

And the miraculous byproduct of this new level of surrender was an even deeper relationship with God, the spirit within that is always with me. The vast loving energy of a universe that is eternally ready to support our soul’s evolution here on Earth. One morning, as I was praying at the end of yoga, on my knees in child’s pose, surrender went through my body like electricity, like a flood, leaving me shaking, with goosebumps all over and tears streaming down my face. The divine connection was so powerful that I felt an inner vibration for days afterward. Now, day to day, I feel even less attached to the outcome of anything, in writing or in life. I’m here to live my soul’s purpose, and I accept wherever that takes me. Suffering or struggle, if it arises, passes very quickly when I remember that one guiding principle.

 

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.

 

Let Your Soul Shine

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger

The energy of this new year 2016 feels so powerful. I was completely flattened by it in January. And then uplifted to a new level of opening and expansion in February. To me, 2016 feels like the year when the cookie-cutter constraints of our social programming fall away, and we stand fully embodying our soul’s presence in the physical world. We emerge from the shadows of fear and uncertainty and experience the power of our own true essence. Courage and inner vision will carry us forward into a new paradigm of Being on this planet, one in which full-out soul expression is celebrated instead of stifled. Our liberated minds and bodies will support our complete creative unfolding. Now is the time for each of us, in our own special way, to play the music of the spheres for all to hear.

So sing your song, write your book, share your vision, dance your unique soul self into unlimited being. Give yourself over to everything that is longing to be expressed through you. This is your life—claim it. Live it to the farthest edges of possibility. Together, we are shedding old externally imposed self-images and stepping into a new world of infinite expansion at the soul level. The old separations between body, mind, and spirit are dissolving. The deepest truth is that every part of you is sacred and filled with light. The curtain of illusion is falling away, and we see clearly who we are: eternal divine beings in human form. Shining, sparkling, embracing ourselves and one another with love and gratitude.

Faced with the world’s uncertainty and fear, we choose to walk bravely into the unknown, trusting in something greater that is carrying us forward into the flowering of our inner spirit. Let it happen. Don’t hold anything back. This very moment in eternal time is your moment, our moment. It’s why we were created and why we are here on this planet at this particular miraculous time of transformation. Let go completely of everything that has come before. It is a new planet, a new paradigm, and nothing is as it was….because we have changed. We are allowing the powerful energy flowing through us to completely shift our lives.

With each breath we take, we are blessed with a new beginning, a rebirth. May our collective breaths bring us all together in the deeper realization that we have always been one, and separateness and the judgments that accompanied it were just illusions. Within oneness, within the unbroken stream of light that is cosmic consciousness, there is no “other.” There is only love, infinite and unique manifestations of love. May we see that so clearly that we never forget again. May this be the year that we look into one another’s eyes and see stars of infinite magnitude—the reflection of our own shared brilliance.

So let the light of your soul shine. Let your spirit flower. Let nothing stand between you and your inner magnificence. It is the time of sweet awakening, of the full remembrance of who we are. In our hearts and souls, we always knew this day would come….

 

Human Angels

© 2008 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
© 2008 Anne S. Katzeff / Artist
Most of us have had someone—a good friend or a complete stranger—step into our lives at a key moment and help us when we were facing some challenging experience or event. One of those individuals in my life was a Catholic sister at the hospital where my mother lay dying after a heart attack 20 years ago. She visited my mother’s room on the third day of my vigil sitting at her bedside. After kindly and gently talking with me as I cried, she asked if I would like to say a prayer with her. I told her that I was not really religious, but I did believe in the Great Spirit. Without missing a beat, she extemporized a prayer to the Great Spirit that was heartfelt and greatly comforting to me, an only child about to lose her mother. She gave me a hug when she left, and I felt as though I had been visited by a human angel. And indeed I had been.

Human angels are everywhere on Earth, appearing exactly when we need them most—to offer empathy, kindness, compassion, even humor. Whatever will lift the energy to a lighter level is what they are here to give. I’ve often felt that some beings only take physical form briefly to do spot assistance and then fade back into the invisible dimensions. But I also believe there are souls who incarnate specifically to lead lives of loving-kindness and caring for others. Some are nurses, medics, aides, or hospice workers. Others are teachers, therapists, or spiritual counselors. And many are mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers, who care for family members for years with unselfish dedication and love.

Ultimately, were all human angels. We are spirit in physical form, here on this planet to awaken to the deep truth that our separate identities are only the costumes we wear while we’re here. Underneath, we are the same, part of a oneness that spans every dimension, including Earth as well as whatever we might envision as Heaven. At this key transitional and transformative time, light beings across the universe have incarnated to help shift planetary energy to a higher vibration. Sometimes by saving a life, sometimes by wiping away a tear, sometimes just by listening. That’s why each of us is here: to be completely, lovingly present to everyone who crosses our path—friend, family, or total stranger.

My mother was that kind of human angel—a compassionate listener. People would come up to her anyplace—on a bus, sitting in the mall—and begin to share their life stories with her. My father and I used to joke that we could leave her for five minutes, come back, and a stranger would be glued to her side, confiding the details of their life. My mother had open-hearted, loving energy; she smiled at people, appreciated them, and they were drawn to her. Her brother, my uncle, was exactly the same. My father, on the other hand, shifted energy with laughter, the unexpected, dry comment that would magically lift your depression or sadness. Now that I have lived so many years beyond their lifetimes, I see more clearly who they came here to be. They were precursors, forerunners, of who we are all here to be now. I was blessed to have had such beautiful role models in my family.

If we look closely, there is almost always someone like that in our lives. It may not be a parent or other family member. It could be a friend or coworker who quietly listens or makes you laugh. Someone who comforts you when your heart is broken. It could even be an animal companion—in fact, animal angels are some of the best master teachers here on the planet. Dogs, cats, horses, dolphins—animals teach humans daily, by example, how to be loyal, loving, patient, playful, forgiving, and totally present in each moment. Perhaps they have been sent specifically to give us one-on-one tutoring in how to live our angelic soul selves here on Earth. However you want to see it, all the people and animals in your life are there for a reason. They reflect your soul back to you and show you your own shining angelic beauty. Look, listen. There’s an angel sitting next to you right now….