Tag: spirit

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.

 

Background Bliss

Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2016 Peggy Kornegger
One of the most profound universal spiritual teachings is that we are divine at our core. The sacred soul self within us is made up of God’s essence, which is pure peace and love. When we are connected to that part of us, we feel a bliss that encompasses all of our life’s experiences, whether happy or sad, crisis or celebration. Bliss that is not ecstatic joy but instead a full embrace of the poignant beauty of life. Divine connection, once accessed, can never be lost or superseded. It is eternal, and it carries us through everything that we may face in our lives, including death. It is always in the background, like a soft comforting presence. Many years ago, I experienced my first taste of this kind of background bliss before I encountered that particular teaching. I lived its truth before I heard it articulated. This occurred at the deaths of each of my parents.

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

Photograph © 1999 Lynn Van Gundy
Photograph © 1999 Lynn Van Gundy

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.

 

 

Second Sight

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Intuition and extrasensory perception are sometimes called “second sight.” This refers to knowledge or awareness that comes to individuals from beyond the realm of the mind and the five senses. The translation of the original French clairvoyant captures the essence of second sight: “clear-seeing.” Intuition is a gift we are all born with, and today we are beginning to reclaim that natural ability to see the universe, and all its many layers and dimensions, more clearly. The world is opening up all around us in unusual and extraordinary ways, and synchronicity is showing us the hidden connections that link every single bit of it.

Over the past few months, during which I came to terms with the possibility of future impaired vision, everything associated with my eyesight became extremely precious to me. My acute sensitivity to this particular sense led me on a journey that opened my heart and expanded my awareness in ways I could not have possibly imagined beforehand. And the more I let go and trusted the entire process (including the uncertainty), the greater my own experience of clarity and flow in each moment. I began to see not only with my physical eyes, but with my soul as well.

Two days stand out during this time period. One morning, I was searching online for a particular group whose work I admired, intending to make a donation. In the midst of this process, I remembered another group that I used to give to in the past and went to their website instead: the Seva Foundation. Once there, I realized why I had been “guided” to Seva: their focus is on restoring eyesight and preventing blindness globally. Stunned, I sat and looked at the images of the people in the various countries around the world that Seva serves. With tears in my eyes, I recognized these individuals as “just like me” in what they were facing. As I clicked the Donate button, I felt more than money pass between me and those receiving it. There was a connection at the soul level—oneness. And thankfulness for that profound feeling of oneness.

The next day, I was sitting at my desk writing in my journal and listening to several of my favorite Andrea Bocelli CDs. The fact that I had been led to listen to a blind singer who lives a divinely soul-guided life did not enter my consciousness until after what transpired next. As I immersed myself in the music, I began to cry at the exquisite angelic beauty of his voice. I walked slowly to the window, where I stood almost prayerfully looking out at the spring day. Suddenly my perception shifted dramatically. Everything within my field of vision was moving in perfect synchronicity with the music, and I felt intensely how every single thing was invisibly connected to everything else: the trees swaying in the wind, a man walking by the house, the car pulling out of the neighbor’s driveway. And me standing at the window. All of us part of the same universal dance of energy–a grace-filled choreography of consciousness.

I saw these connections, felt them, with my soul. Second sight. In a split second, my awareness stretched beyond three-dimensional “reality” to something infinitely expansive. I stepped into the magic of perceiving, if only for a moment, the all-encompassing orchestration that aligns even our heartbeats and breath as we live our seemingly separate lives. Blind or sighted, we are all connected. Every one of us on this planet—as well as all the stars and galaxies in the cosmos—lives and vibrates within one cohesive energetic presence that is Spirit manifesting. As we open to it more and more in our lives, second sight allows us to see that. It shows us the miraculous synchronicities at the heart of our world and fills our eyes with tears of gratitude that we are part of it all.

 

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.