Tag: spirit

Whose Hands Are These?

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What is sound before hearing, world before language, being before the idea of it? A baby, who has yet to develop a conceptual framework or ego, sees the world solely as spirit without words or ideas. That conscious spirit, that pure awareness, exists within us all beneath the layers of egoic stories and beliefs that we have gathered over a lifetime. The soul, or spirit, is our inner home: the Great Mystery silently witnessing life through our eyes.

A few months ago, I was on my way to a silent retreat in Florida and was reading one of Adyashanti’s books, Emptiness Dancing, on the plane. As I sat absorbing what I read in an almost-meditative state, I grew sleepy and gradually dozed off. After a short time, I opened my eyes and looked down at my hands resting on the book in my lap. “Whose hands are these?” passed through my not-fully-awake consciousness. This question was not “mine”; it came from that place before “I.” For a second, there was only the mystery, prior to my idea of me. Then “I” returned and recognized “my” hands. It was a moment of deep connection with that conscious spirit within, a step beyond anything I had experienced previously.

Occasionally, when I am in deep meditation for a prolonged period of time, I slip silently into a space without boundaries, infinity opening infinitely. I perceive my physical body as a temporary container for this eternal beingness without form. It is an exceptionally peaceful state that I always long to return to, but it is not reached by an act of will, of course—only by completely relaxing and letting go. That kind of letting go is an ongoing evolutionary process for human beings now, and we all need almost daily reminders to release the reins of control. Meditation definitely helps, and certain books do as well. Although on the surface meant for the mind, books like Emptiness Dancing slide between the cracks and reach our soul without our realizing it at first. My own experience on the plane awakened the “I” of me to that place of conscious spirit before and beyond form, if only momentarily. A new and more profound level than I had reached through meditation alone.

We are all heading in this direction, I believe. The Divine is always patiently waiting for opportunities to show us our divinity, our presence within infinite consciousness beyond the parameters of body and mind. During these extraordinary times of increasing awareness and awakening on our planet, the moments of passing effortlessly between form and formlessness may become more and more prevalent. After all, it is not alien to us. We were formless before birth, and we will be formless again after death. Perhaps this time on Earth is tutoring us in eternal fluidity and flow, which is the heart of divine consciousness in the cosmos. We are gradually learning not to be afraid of that mysterious unknown realm but instead to embrace the magnificent wonder of it.

In Silence…

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

We humans express our selves and our lives in words, language, and sound. It is a learned process, reinforced with every generation. We talk our way through each day, sometimes clamoring to be heard above the general din of daily life that seems to have increased over time. Not only human voices but cars, buses, planes, media, and machinery (leaf blowers, snow blowers, etc.) add to the mix that becomes the “noise” we have learned to acclimate ourselves to—more or less. But at what cost? Today, stillness and complete silence often seem like the dream of a long-gone world. Yet, it is only in silence that we can hear the voice of spirit within, our own soul’s wisdom and guidance. Without that compass, we flounder through our lives, stumbling along the ego’s path of alternating attachment and avoidance in relation to all things. We are never at peace, always running toward or away from something. Only in stillness and soul connection can we find respite from that hamster wheel of striving and suffering.

Silence has always been important to me. As an only child, I spent long hours outside quietly playing alone or reading books high up in the branches of my favorite climbing tree. School was a place for friends and social connections; home was where I decompressed and communed with my self, although I was too young to even articulate it that way. As an adult, I found work to also be a “social” experience; when I came home, I needed large expanses of quiet time alone to rebalance myself. At some point, I began to meditate to more easily access that inner harmony. Gradually, I discovered that the longer I spent in silence, the more peaceful I became—and the more I carried that inner peace with me everywhere I went in my life.

My partner and I recently made an agreement to remain silent each morning until we finish breakfast. We finally figured out—after more than 30 years together—that this is the most peaceful way to begin the day for each of us. We both feel less distracted and more centered. When I am talking, I am not listening, period—whether to the subtle sounds of nature outside the window at dawn or to my soul’s voice within. Once I spend time in that inner/outer silent space, I can truly listen to others, and to life, with presence and without restless distraction. My partner and I start our days in a much happier, more harmonious frame of mind because we have given ourselves this gift. Even in the frequently noisy external world we all inhabit, it is possible to find ways to bring more quiet, stillness, and calm to our lives—and thus to the lives of others. In silence is the deepest truth, the most profound peace.

 

Awakenings

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
We live in a time of awakenings—people coming to a greater sense of who they are at the soul level, beyond the ego or personality self. Many spiritual masters throughout history (and, increasingly today, ordinary people) have experienced pivotal moments when they in essence “died” to themselves and awakened to a connection to something greater—God, the Divine, Source. The separate personality-self falls away, and an experience of oneness with All That Is moves to the fore. Sometimes these events involve an actual near-death experience, or individuals can feel like they are physically dying when they are not. Actually, it is the individualized self that is dying, allowing for the dissolution of all separation and the unimpeded flow of pure divine energy and unconditional love.

In these life-changing moments, people begin to live as their soul more than as their ego—a kind of death and rebirth in life. Radical awakenings do not have to be dramatic one-time events, however. Many individuals have a series of awakenings over many years, and this latter process is becoming more widespread now as our individual experiences spark other people’s, and the collective consciousness awakens itself through us. What has been called enlightenment can be instantaneous, gradual, or a combination of both, and we need to acknowledge the unique truths of our own evolving lives—and be open to awakenings that are ongoing, leading further and deeper into divine connection.

Looking back, I see a combination of experiences within my own life—in actuality, multiple phases of awakening, which continue to this day. At 18, I had a near-death experience (burst appendix) in a hospital in Italy on my first trip away from home alone. When I returned to the United States and began my freshman year of college, I felt as if my small-town-girl persona had died in Venice, and I had emerged newly born, trying to figure out who “I” was. From this identity crisis came an individual awakening within the larger generational awakening of the radical 1960s and 1970s. It was an extraordinary time that shaped so many of our lives and planted seeds of fledgling awareness. A sense of global transformation and magical possibility carried us forward into our lives.

Later in my life, I began to consciously explore spirituality as a way to understand life and death and address my own fear of eternity. When my parents grew older and eventually passed away, this search became even more compelling. Sitting beside each of them as they transitioned, I experienced another level of awakening: to an all-encompassing loving Spirit that softly enveloped my parents and me and connected our hearts. Several years after their deaths, when I first met spiritual teacher Panache Desai, I encountered this same divine presence in an even more intense way. It came directly through him and vibrationally shifted everything within me. At one of his gatherings, in deep meditation, I experienced myself as pure, intense inner vibration, my soul’s essence within the physical body—cells pulsating with an almost electric charge. It was an extraordinarily powerful opening to spiritual awareness. Frequently thereafter, I would feel the loving presence of the Divine, and it always brought tears to my eyes and shivers to my physical body.

Over the next few years, I kept moving forward, sensing there was more awakening to come but having no idea what that would mean. Eventually, I stood in a raw place of “not knowing,” letting go of mental questioning and attempts to figure everything out. Essentially, I embraced the “Great Mystery.” If Oprah had asked me, “What do you know for sure?” I would have had to answer, “Nothing.” Only mystery. Yet that mystery is everything—God her/himself, the Divine in infinite beingness. Indefinable. Our minds can’t know Spirit, but our hearts can experience it through our souls. This is the global awakening we are in the midst of, each of us affecting all those around us. In this amazing time of profound planetary metamorphosis, we are individually and collectively awakening to the sweet mystery of our own inner spirit. Together, we breathe soulful conscious presence into the world.

The Eternal Moment

Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © 2014 Peggy Kornegger

 Spiritual masters down through the ages have advised seekers to live in the present moment, where all wisdom, peace, and divine connection reside. Those who meditate know that within each breath is that presence, the spirit within, connected to all spirit across time and space. Whether or not we formally meditate or call ourselves spiritual seekers, we all have countless opportunities to access that wisdom in daily life.

Many years ago, my father told me a story about his own experience of realizing how irreplaceable each moment is. He said that when I was a little girl, he used to be upset that my feet wore away the grass beneath the swing hanging from an old oak tree in our yard. My mother told him, “Someday you’ll wish Peggy was still around to play on that swing.” Years later, when I was 18 and on a graduation trip to Europe, my appendix burst in Italy, and I was taken to the hospital in Venice. My parents received a long-distance phone call in which they were told I was dangerously ill and they should fly to Venice immediately. After the call, my dad stood staring out the window, lost in thought, when his eyes fell on my old swing, now hanging by one rope, the grass all filled in on the ground below. He recalled my mother’s words and realized how much wiser than he she had been. “You were all grown up and hospitalized in another country, and I would have given anything to have you safely back home and swinging on your swing in the backyard.”

At that point in his life, my father was able to see the greater wisdom. It changed him, I think. He became softer in later years, more centered in the flow of life’s precious moments, especially in the natural world outside where he spent much of his time gardening after he retired. Interestingly, it was during those years that I remember him reading William Blake and sharing quotes with me. “To hold infinity in the palm of your hand/And eternity in an hour” was one of his favorites.

I’ve never forgotten my father’s story or his love of William Blake’s writing, which I share now too. Life presents us with so many doorways to a wider perspective that can open our hearts and minds to timeless insights. Just the other morning, as I sat in meditation, my mind preoccupied with some passing worry, I suddenly remembered Blake’s words and was stopped mid-thought. I opened my eyes, looked out the window at the rising sun lighting up the winter trees, and was filled with such intense gratitude for the beauty right before me in that moment. Spirit gives us these reminders all the time. Our days are full of them. We can fear the future and rail against life’s difficulties, or we can appreciate the world around us in all its infinite wonder and variety. If we step into living our lives fully and openly, we experience eternity  in every passing moment.

Only Child, Only Parents

Photograph © Peggy Kornegger
Photograph © Peggy Kornegger
My parents were both born in the month of October. My mother would have been 100 years old this year, my father, 105. I was their only child, born nine years after they met and married, one of the baby-boomer generation. Although they have been gone for a long time (my mother died 19 years ago; my dad, 10), I still miss them. As an only child, I dreaded their deaths, fearing I would lose my mind without them. Of course I did not. In fact, their transitions were profoundly loving and spiritually uplifting experiences, partly because I was able to be with each of them as they passed. Sitting by their sides, I felt connected to them and to the spiritual realm beyond and intersecting this one. That connection was a great comfort to me for months and years afterward.

It was during those years that my spiritual journey and quest for the meaning of life (and death) began in earnest. My exploration was intentionally eclectic, and I worked with many different teachers. Perhaps I inherited that tendency from my parents, both of whom were also eclectic and nonaligned religiously. They were free thinkers who read widely and attended philosophical discussion groups that pondered the mysteries of life. They encouraged me to make my own choices with regard to religion and spirituality. Over and over throughout my life, they gave me that gift of freedom and unconditional, uncritical love in every area. Whatever paths I took (and I took many—personally, politically, spiritually), they loved me without question.

Their love—for me and for life—is what has stayed with me beyond their lifetimes. It is interwoven with all that I am. As I searched for my own “meaning of life,” my evolving beliefs have always been grounded in love, as were theirs. I can still hear my dad reading aloud a poem by William Blake and choking up at the beautiful words: “To see a World in a Grain of Sand/And a Heaven in a Wild Flower/Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand/And Eternity in an hour.” Reading those lines now makes me cry too, recalling that shared moment of love and gratitude for life. It was music that touched my mother’s heart, the voices as well as the lyrics: Italian tenors, Paul Robeson, Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, Judy Garland—she loved them all. We used to listen to all kinds of music together (including birdsong), often with tears in our eyes at some particularly moving musical expression. I am so grateful that my parents passed on their emotional openness to me. As my friends and my partner well know, I cry all the time at life’s beauty and poignancy.

An only child experiences the loss of parents a bit differently because there are no siblings with which to share family memories. No one alive today remembers my parents in all the ways I do. Consequently, I carry their lives within me, where they are present in spite of absence. My backyard flower garden is one of the places I feel them most strongly. They were both gardeners—my dad, vegetables, bushes, and trees; my mother, flowers. I grew up on five acres in rural Illinois, so living with this small piece of nature right outside my door now has been like “coming home” for me—to my childhood home, to myself, and to my parents. Along with so much else, my mother and father gave me a deep appreciation for nature’s miracles. Each time I stand in awe, gazing into the delicate heart of a flower or at a sleeping bee or dancing butterfly, they are with me. They live on within the love in my heart.