“God isn’t an attainment.
It’s a memory.”
—Panache Desai

When we yearn for God, we think we have to do or become something in order to find that connection, but that just isn’t true. God, or Spirit, was in the infinite energy that held your essence before you were born and in the emergence of your individual expression in this world. Spirit has never left you because there is no part of you that is not Spirit. No part of the universe is Godless. When you realize that completely, the arbitrary boundaries created to define human existence disappear, and you are at home in a Presence beyond time and space. You remember.

What words come to mind when you think about 2020? 

We recently asked this question in one of our private groups and they shared words like chaos, anger, separation, fear, anxiety, uncertainty…

Was this how your year felt?

As we move deeper into the holiday season and nearer the end of the year, it’s important to focus on how you want your new year to look.

What words come to mind when you dream of your perfect 2021?

Peace, Love, Happiness, Health, Joy, Unity, Success, Abundance…

There is a way you can have all of that.

I've Been Thinking...

Can you believe that Christmas is this week?! Can you believe that New Year’s is around the corner? I’m amazed that we’ve reached the end of this year. 

As I think about this week and this year, as well as the new year ahead, I can’t help but be in awe of everything. I can’t help but be humbled. I can’t help but be grateful that I am here. 

So many heroes got us to this week. So many people stepped out of their comfort zones to save others, to feed others, and to help others this year. It’s been truly breathtaking. And yet, I know so many who were with us this time last year are no longer here. I know there is so much grief and so much loss. I’m so sorry if you find yourself feeling this kind of desolation and grief. I’m sorry that COVID has taken so many lives and so many livelihoods. 

COVID has felt like a level 5 tornado. It has wreaked havoc and caused so much destruction—physical, mental, financial, and spiritual destruction. It has ripped up families, relationships, and careers to the point where I think we are all now standing in some kind of rubble. As I write that line, my eyes well with tears. I can feel my heart cracking. I can feel it beating, but I can feel its cracks too.

What’s fundamental?

The Practice:
Back to Basics.

Why?

In middle school, I thought it would be cool to play a musical instrument and picked the clarinet. My wise parents rented one rather than buying it, and I started practicing. (In the garage because it sounded pretty screechy.) After a week or two of doing scales, I got bored and picked my way through a couple easy songs. But after a few more weeks, I couldn’t go further because I hadn’t laid a foundation with scales and similar exercises – so I quit in frustration. To this day, I regret never learning to play a musical instrument.

I and others tend to skip over the fundamentals for a variety of reasons, including impatience, laziness, or a kind of arrogance that thinks we can sort of get away with not paying our dues. There’s also the subtle impact of our media, which showcases celebrities who seem to spring out of thin air – though actually it took years for them to become an overnight success.

But when we don’t take care of the fundamentals, the foundation is shaky for whatever we’ve built: a relationship, a career, personal well-being, spiritual practice – or playing the clarinet. Perhaps we can get away with this for awhile, but there’s usually a background cost in uneasiness, waiting for a day of reckoning, perhaps with the sense of being an imposter. And eventually, when a real challenge comes, the building shakes and maybe topples.

What you are trying to attain isn’t outside of you. You can only ever experience that which is already authentically present within you. We’ve overly complicated everything. You’re here to be you and that means no longer resisting any aspect of you, no longer rejecting yourself, no longer denying yourself, no longer punishing yourself. You see, the key to your transformation is self acceptance and self love. 

At some point in addition to restoration of safety, we have to get to a place where we are able to be in our human experience and to realize that being human is the most divine thing of all. We have to lay a foundation of peace and harmony. And on top of that foundation, we can then begin to build a platform of self love and self acceptance. 

The holidays should be a time of joy. Yet they can often be filled with extra work, stress and exhaustion. 

This year brings about an entirely new level of stress. Many families are separated. Others are trying to fill the void of a loss. 

2020 has been a year of turbulent relationships, conflicting news, uncertainty and change that no one was prepared to deal with.

In addition, the days are getting shorter and we’re faced with less sun and more hours of darkness...

It’s enough to make anyone want to curl up in a ball and hibernate.