This is a question that many of us may have asked at different times in our lives, either from curiosity or in frustration. In this week’s video blog, I talk about both of these ways of wondering about God’s existence—whatever word you wish to use for Source energy or universal consciousness—and my own thoughts on where it can be found.
Tag: spirit
Your Soul Plan
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
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.
Background Bliss
First, let me say that I am an only child who was always very close to my parents. I feared their future deaths for most of my life. I thought I would lose my mind when they died. The irony is that “losing your mind” is often the best thing that could happen. The spiritual quest I began several years prior to their deaths put me in touch with something beyond my mind. The dissolution of a solely mental framework in favor of a greater awareness was exactly what helped me through the experience of their deaths.
My mother died at the age of 81. She had a heart attack and was rushed to the hospital in Illinois. I received a call in Boston in the middle of the night and flew there the next day. I spent five days sitting by her hospital bed, slowly coming to terms with the fact that she wouldn’t recover. Because my father was 86, I also needed to look out for his physical and emotional needs, convincing him to go home to rest at night. The nurses, knowing I was an only child, were exceedingly kind. Two of them stayed with me by her bedside at the very end. My mother passed away as I held her hand, telling her I loved her. Her final goodbye was a spiked heartbeat on the monitor when I said her name—then she was gone. I was alone but surrounded by love—from the nurses, my friends, my parents’ friends. Long-distance calls kept coming to the house in support of me and my dad, who was devastated without her. My partner flew to Illinois to help us both. I was grieving but somehow okay because of everyone’s kindness. Something greater was being shared: my mother’s love had merged with God’s love, and I could feel it within and all around me.
My father died nine years later. During that time, I flew back and forth to the Midwest, caring for him long-distance. Once again, I received a late-night call: he had been taken to the hospital with pneumonia. It took me two days to reach him because I was at a retreat center in western Massachusetts. He managed to stay alive until I could get there, which was the greatest gift he ever gave me. He recognized me through his oxygen mask, and we exchanged “I love you’s” as I sat holding his hand. Within five hours of my arrival, he took his last breath and passed peacefully away. In that moment, I could feel my mother’s presence, my father’s presence, and also a greater Presence that encompassed us all. It manifested itself in the loving-kindness of everyone I encountered. The waitress in the hotel restaurant sat and told me about her own father’s passing; the shuttle driver gave me a “remembrance angel.” Close friends and family called to express sympathy and love. And as my plane back to Boston lifted into the skies, I looked down and saw a rainbow corona encircling the plane’s shadow on the clouds below. I was so clearly not alone.
When my parents died, I felt great loss, but I did not feel lost…or crazy. I actually felt blessed to have been present as each of them passed. It felt like a sacred gift of love, from them and from God. I was given the chance to see through the veil and to understand that death is transition not finality. To experience at a very deep level the magnificent ways in which spirit fills our lives and surrounds us all with love in every single moment. I knew firsthand what it was like to feel grief right alongside gratitude. My heart, opened by sorrow, knew the bliss of divine connection, of presence within absence. When we think we are most alone, we are actually part of something so much greater.
Ride the Current
There is a river running through Bern, Switzerland, that is used as a kind of moving thoroughfare by local residents and adventurous tourists. Individuals don swimsuits and hike upstream alongside the river and then ride the fast-moving current back into town (without boats or rafts). The Swiss pride themselves on the cleanliness of the water, and a recent PBS travel program showed people of all ages and body types zipping along rapidly, laughing in delight at how fast they are traveling, with no effort whatsoever. They just have to jump in and become one with the current.
If only we could always see life in this way: a beautiful river that will carry us home if we let go and flow with it. Nature gives us so many examples of how life flows if we don’t try to swim against the current: dolphins and porpoises surfing ocean waves, birds and butterflies gliding on airstreams. Surrendering to life’s natural movement allows you to just be instead of striving and struggling. Strenuous effort is so draining, whereas becoming part of something greater energizes you and moves you forward with lightness and grace. Even when the current feels wild and a bit scary. That wildness is life’s pulsation, which is within each of us as well. If you find yourself caught in a small eddy of fear, sadness, or tension, relaxing into feeling it fully often allows you to effortlessly slip back into the main current of life’s events.
For much of my life I was a “trier,” believing that nothing would happen without my own efforts. Of course, I was taught this, at school and in the world at large. Only later did I come to realize that it was in moments of being rather than striving that I always found a connection to life’s flowing essence, which is spirit. As a child, when I climbed trees, ran through open fields, or lay in the grass watching the ever-changing sky, I was most relaxed, alive, inspirited. The natural world held me in its arms and nurtured the evolution of my young soul. Today, it is gardening in my backyard, hiking in the mountains, or swimming in the ocean that fills me with that sense of oneness with all things. As a writer, I tap into this ever-present life energy in order to express my soul’s voice.
Aligning with the pulse of the universe, inside us and all around us, brings liberation and deep connection. When I allow life to flow through me, I am not forcing anything. The current carries me easily. I let go of judgments about people, events, or my own feelings and see them all as part of life’s river, alive with motion and possibility. Every moment is a new opportunity to release expectation and just experience everything openheartedly: “Oh, this is happening now…” Living with all the doors and windows open, no barriers to what is showing up, is the perfect way to expand your inner being. Every river you jump into wholeheartedly will carry you to magical and undreamed of places that will feed your soul. Ride the current of your own heart’s desire, and you will come home to yourself, again and again.
Spiritflower 
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