Last Wednesday evening, I was talking with my oldest daughter, Emma. She’s in the last weeks of her senior year in high school. She has secured admission to her dream college and received a full-ride scholarship in vocal performance and theater. Still, like many other teenagers around the world, she’s trying to find the motivation to stay engaged and be excited about what is becoming an unconventional transition between high school and college.

“If only I had known that Friday would be my last day of high school, I would have done it so differently” she shared with me.

We were both tired, and I didn’t think what I was saying was making a lot of sense, so I drew a picture on the flip chart I keep near my writing space. Without realizing it, I was illustrating the link between practical spirituality and everyday life. Of how consistently experiencing the Divine within impacts all aspects of the inner and outer world. An essential resource for navigating every anticipated and unexpected part of life, and the key to unlocking the power of now, as Eckhart Tolle refers to it.

Here’s a picture of the drawing (the two scribbles at the top of the page were my notes to myself for the Deep Dive II virtual workshop – the rest was from talking with Emma):

It illustrates the relationship between our inner process (where we encounter God) and how we’re feeling, our self-talk, and how we engage with others. As I was drawing it, I started seeing and understanding things in a new way that went way beyond the conversation that Emma and I were having.

Monday, I did a live stream on YouTube and to explore the relationship between spirituality and everyday life. I started the broadcast with an updated version of the drawing and concluded with a guided meditation and transmission to further support the deepening experience of this connection. You can watch the replay here and click this link to subscribe.

I’ve started live streaming a free virtual community circle on Facebook  and YouTube each Wednesday at 5p Eastern – US (today’s circle will be on Facebook here and on YouTube here ) because of how positive and essential an impact experiencing the Divine within has on everyday life.

When you sink into the experience of who you really are on a regular basis, the lens through which you experience and interpret your inner and outer world begins to illuminate what is actually real, rather than what appears to be real.

The illusion of separation loosens its grip, and the near constant siren song of separation, amplified by current circumstances and all it is enlivening individually and collectively, is no longer as seductive. Even more important than a temporary reprieve, this practice of sinking in ultimately becomes a pathway for sustaining experiences Divine resonance in all aspects life.

The initial challenge with something so mundane as an invitation to sink into an experience of the Divine within, is that it is wholly without drama. It’s not about opposing some negative energy or protecting yourself. It’s not about creating safety, or the myriad other aspects of the disempowered and empowered separate self that are especially enlivened right now.

If there’s no drama, how can it be worth the time? Isn’t this an “all hands on deck” moment? Doesn’t that mean those things that appear as most urgent are where we should focus attention?

Herein lies the gift of each developmental stage of consciousness, and of the current pandemic: that which is unintegrated is amplified, and everything in separation is even more polarized and dissonant; whereas everything which is integrated is even more calm and resonant, free from the charge of polarization.

The origins of your journey into Victim Consciousness may well be unique, but its lessons are not. The primal instinct for safety is never more amplified than in this stage of consciousness, and all the unintegrated aspects of the disempowered separate self are enlivened anytime safety or wellbeing are at risk. Here too are the expressions and experience of good and evil, as if to underscore what is at risk.

Add to this the singular lesson of responsibility in the transition into Controlling/Manifestor Consciousness, and its unending invitation to impact reality while refining and expanding personal power, and the stage is set for the epic showdown that appears to be unfolding individually and collectively right now.

If we remind ourselves that all this is happening in support of our integration, that we might experience and remember who we really are, the temptation to interpret this statement as code for masters of the universe with absolute power, or living in God’s favor as a force against evil might be too much to resist.

Yet the integration at hand is of the separate self (disempowered and empowered) that we might experiences ourselves (and all of creation) as the undistorted expression of the Divine (love) that it actually is.

Once the disempowered and empowered separate self are fully explored, engaged, and integrated, the next step is complete surrender to God. That the Divine may full express in, through, and as you on every level of your being.

The act of complete surrender is forever a bridge too far for the empowered separate self as long as there’s still a solution to pursue to the foundational question of Manifestor Consciousness: how can I control everything such that reality unfolds exactly as I want it to?

There is but one answer to this essential question, yet each of us must discover the embodied truth of it: I (the empowered separate self) am not capable of controlling everything, for that which I most seek through my efforts of control is the resolution of separation itself. Only in surrender is the solution revealed. Only once I stop holding myself as separate from the Divine, can I experience that which I most want and have been seeking for all these decades.

What more powerful way to arrive at all these foundational conclusions than to discover the limits of personal power, in part because of a pandemic which is constantly enlivening the unintegrated empowered (and disempowered) aspects within?

And what more essential support could be offered in service to your journey than to sink into a deeper experience of who you really are, for which there is no understandable cause or logical explanation (at least none that appeals to the separate self).

With this foundational shift—born of surrender or arising from sitting together in deep resonance—is the discovery and embodied experience: God is Here. Not commanded or directed. Not found after having been hidden because of some secret now revealed. Not appeased and unlocked having now followed The Rules. Everywhere, without exception. In you, through you, and as you.

Indeed, God is everywhere.

That’s it for this week . . . From My Heart.

Always in God’s Love and Presence, Further Into the Mystery—All the More Extraordinary with You!

Ken