Tag: spirit

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.

Trust

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to experience it all—everything. Live in different places, travel to different countries, work in different jobs, expand into different identities. I did not want to be stuck in any one location or persona all my life. For the most part, I’ve lived that. My life has been full of change and exploration: shifting experiences that have opened me to a continuously growing beingness in the world. Only recently, however, have I come to know the shadow side to that inner desire: regret, fear of missing something. This too is a part of the human quest for a fully lived life.

This past August my high school graduating class held a large reunion celebration in Lockport, Illinois, where I grew up. For various reasons (travel logistics, other events scheduled that same month), I did not attend. A few days afterward, when individuals began to post photographs of the weekend, I began to feel a deep sadness that I had missed out on something very special: the opportunity to see again friends I hadn’t seen in decades, some whom I had known since first grade. I couldn’t shake it for days, and a week later, I experienced similar pain at not being able to attend a six-day intensive spiritual immersion. It was Panache Desai who pointed out to me the unconscious pattern of regret that I had been carrying inside me, a fear that I would miss out on something extraordinary that everyone else was experiencing. Bringing it into my conscious awareness helped me see it pop up in other ways in my life.

Even in my spiritual practice, I found it intertwined with my deepest desire for divine connection. There it was: Fear that I would be somewhere else when everyone else got “enlightened.” Fear that I would miss hearing the key words of wisdom that would open the door to samadhi, awakened oneness. Fear that I would never experience again the expanded consciousness that embraced infinity and God as part of me, as part of everything. Within my most profound spiritual experiences and connection to something greater lay a fear that I might be missing something or I might lose what I had found. And at the heart of that fear was the issue of trust, surrender.

The more I surrender in my life, the more I see that needs to be surrendered to. I thought I had reached the deepest possible acceptance of “all that is.” I had recognized and embraced the divine orchestration of everything in life. Yet, there I was, feeling that I had somehow made a mistake in not attending a high school reunion or a spiritual retreat. Inside me was a kernel of apprehension that I might miss something KEY to my own evolution as a human being, as awakened spirit. The next step, of course, was to surrender to that too. Accepting the fear itself as part of being human opened the door to a deeper letting go.

With that surrender came another level of realization: that there are no mistakes. I’m always where I’m supposed to be for my soul’s experience and growth on Earth. Spirit has the road map for my human journey, and there is never a wrong turn. Wherever I am, all is in divine order, always. It’s about trust. Trust in something greater and wiser than my own mind’s idea of what I should be doing or experiencing. More and more, I am letting go into infinite unquestioning. I still want to experience everything, but I also have faith that wherever I am and whatever I’m doing is perfect beyond my human understanding. Ultimately, I am surrendering to trust itself. As Panache often says: “Your soul has already chosen. You’re just along for the ride.”

Spirit of the Garden

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger

In my flower garden, I encounter all of life on a daily basis. I am also continually given opportunities to practice classic spiritual principles: Be in present-moment awareness. Accept what is. Let go of all attachments to a particular outcome. Each one is perfectly applicable to both gardening and living. Nature doesn’t play by human rules or expectations. Nature just is. Entering the natural world that surrounds us brings us home to a part of ourselves that often gets lost in the clock-centered busyness of daily life.

When I walk through my back door in the early morning stillness, I am met with a presence that I would call sacred. Neighbors still asleep, traffic sounds distant and minimal. I am alone with the beauty of the green and growing Earth, my eyes clear and open to all that is before me: nature in living color and infinite variety. Immediately I am completely engaged and present. Thinking has faded to the background, and I am just being. When I look at each blooming lily or rose, there is no separation. The flowers and I are one in the spirit of life that flows through us. Standing beneath a towering maple tree, I am drawn into the silence that holds both of us in timeless being. I AM. The tree IS. We are both part of a consciousness that links every living thing on Earth and in the cosmos. Each morning becomes a meditation in slow motion that centers me in the now and eases me into my day.

The actual work of gardening—seeding, planting, weeding, pruning—is another practice that both engages me and teaches me acceptance of all that is. The past winter’s cold has killed my butterfly bush as well as several other perennials. My native honeysuckle, covered with bright red blossoms, has aphids that are eating the new buds. Finding replacement plants and removing insects and dead leaves are all part of gardening. Within that process of letting go of the old and welcoming the new, I surrender to the flow of life, with both sadness and celebration. The garden teaches me to hold it all in my heart without judgment or distress. Every day is a new opportunity to embrace each event in my life and in my garden. When I have sudden unexpected expenses or a painful migraine headache, I am reminded that living includes these challenges as well as the joys of laughing with friends, listening to music, or watching a glorious red sunset after a dramatic thunderstorm. To be human is to encounter all parts of the experiential spectrum.

Gardening immerses me in nature, but it also aligns me with divine presence. My soul is with me in the garden. In truth, my soul is with me everywhere. And it is being in presence within my garden that teaches me this. There is nowhere and nothing that is not filled with spirit, that is not God experiencing life on Earth in a multitude of forms and expressions, including human. We are so much more than we think we are, and it is only in not thinking but just being present that we experience that expansive awareness. Heaven is here on Earth, and when we realize that, we see paradise everywhere we go.

 

Soul Vision

Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2015 Peggy Kornegger

There are moments in my life when I become acutely aware that there is a greater Presence behind and within everything. Often it occurs when the beauty of nature opens my heart, and I perceive life with such expansive love that it feels as though God is seeing the wonders of all the world through my eyes. Or, put another way, God seeing God through God’s eyes. In those moments, I feel in the deepest part of my soul that every single thing is divine, inner and outer.

Spirit breathes through us, and when we take a deep breath and know ourselves as that soul force, then we see the miraculous unfold in every second of our lives. We become aware of Spirit—God, the Great Mystery—whenever we let go of thinking and slip into just being. Present-moment awareness, as it is called in meditation practice. When I consciously breathe and drop down into the stillness at my core, the connection between my human self and my soul becomes illuminated and unlimited. At times there is only infinite floating awareness, beyond the boundaries of my physical body. What I was before birth and what I will be after death. In truth, what I am now. What we all are. Our experiences of limitless soul beingness will increase, and we will remember them more and more—until we live in that state of awakened awareness continuously. We are gradually becoming conscious spirit in physical form, what we came here to embody at this key time on planet Earth.

It may sound esoteric and unattainable, but really it isn’t. As growing numbers of us experience moments of deep spiritual connection and consciously integrate them, it will become more accessible and commonplace. It is part of our human and planetary evolution, why everything is unfolding the way it is now—at times chaotic and catastrophic, at times flowing and expansive. Birthing pains include all of these extremes. A new age is being born in our lifetimes, and we are both the midwives and the newly birthed. We are the witnesses and the participants. “We are the ones we’ve been waiting for.” The wait is over; it is happening now.

When I see the world through God’s eyes, my heart fills with so much love and gratitude that tears stream down my face. I feel myself part of something beyond the physical plane, and within that soul vision, life is a streaming flow of birth and death and becoming in which I am one drop of consciousness in the greater eternal consciousness spiraling upward and outward. I am here to be a thread in the tapestry of cosmic creation—to experience and evolve, not to understand or control. The orchestration of the universe is beyond my human comprehension. Yet, there are times when I hear the transcendent notes of the music of the spheres in my soul, and I sense how I am one with everything, seen and unseen, in this extraordinary multiverse we are passing through, on our way home.

 

 

The Age of Authenticity—Coming Out as You

Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2012 Peggy Kornegger

We are living in an age of authenticity, one in which we are being called by the spirit within us to be true to our soul selves and to live from a place of love. When my partner Anne and I married a year ago after 31 years together, we were very conscious of stepping into an expansive collective energy of love and acceptance that was unparalleled in our lifetime. Within the time span of our relationship, the world had shifted profoundly in its openness to many different kinds of people, partnerships, and life commitments. The recent U.S. Supreme Court decision for marriage equality throughout the 50 states further demonstrates the power and momentum of these changes. To me, the increasing acceptance of marriage equality is symbolic of a larger acceptance of diversity and individual authenticity in the world.

Even the mainstream media is beginning to reflect this shift in consciousness. In an Ellen interview a few months ago, Jill Soloway, creator of the TV series Transparent, talked about her father, who became a transgender woman at 74, as the inspiration for her show. She explained how trans people are moved to make a break for freedom, for authenticity, to save their own lives. Individuals like Jill’s father have been standing up for their own inner truth within the trans identity for many years now, opening closed doors and closed minds for those who followed.

At this year’s Tony awards, broadcast on national TV, lesbian cartoonist Alison Bechdel’s poignant life story Fun Home won five awards, including best musical. It made history as the first Broadway musical to feature a lesbian protagonist. Alison has humorously chronicled the feminist movement and lesbian life for more than 30 years in “alternative” publications. Her 2006 memoir, which is the basis for the show, brought her national recognition—fascinating to those of us who have read and loved her comic strips for many years. There she was—authentic down-to-earth Alison—on stage at the Tonys, praised as brilliant for sharing her very real life story.

These individuals are living their soul selves. Alison has done it for most of her life; Jill’s father aligned with it later in life. Each of their lives is a sign of something much greater coming into being. Something that will touch all of our lives eventually, in one way or another. We see it played out publicly in the media, but those better-known examples are singular reflections of countless private lives around the globe. The Great Shift we are experiencing now on planet Earth is moving us all to consciously choose change, evolution, and soul truth over prevailing social expectations and outdated behavioral models.

The term “coming out” has historically been associated with the LGBT community and those who have had the courage to live the truth of their lives, even in the face of danger, derision, and ostracism. Now the term appears to be expanding to include all those who are coming to a deeper soul-self awareness and bringing that unique expression out into the world. The rainbow symbol is truly all-inclusive. The LGBT community has been standing strong in our diverse expressions, challenging the sexual-identity status quo, for decades. In so many ways, we have been breaking new ground and speaking out for all those who don’t fit into prescribed social norms, those called “different” for whatever reason.

As new waves of acceptance of diversity of all kinds continue to sweep across the globe, language itself will change. “Difference” will no longer be shunned because we all are different. We won’t have to “come out” because no one will have to be hidden. In the age of authenticity, you, in your most awesome authentic soul expression, will be the protagonist of your own life, loved for your brilliance by all who know you. Applause, applause—for each and every one of us!