Monthly Archives: January 2016

Presence is the True Self

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PresencePresence can be seen as the boundless and permanent container of impermanence. Objects fall and rise in Presence which has no beginning nor an end, it is eternal and infinite.

Presence is not an object but it is the source of all objects, the essential nature of objects, and the essential true self.

It is easy to fall into the trap of thinking that you have a self but it is really the wrong way around, the self, Presence, has you.

Presence is the essential nature of all objects, of all forms, it has no boundaries or limits, it permeates everything, from the atom to the galaxies, it is immanent and transcendent at the same time. “Having impregnated the universe from a portion of myself, yet I remain” says an old Hindu scripture.

Presence is sometimes referred to as “nothing”, being the source of “everything” this can be a source of confusion. Presence appears as nothing if we try to define it from an object-oriented point of view because it has no identifiable attributes or limits like objects have. Nevertheless, Presence is made of Presence so in that sense, it is not nothing. Also, the nothing/everything approach is dualistic in essence and doesn’t convey properly the essential unity of all that IS.

Presence is the reality behind the “I am”, Presence is the true self.

Calwen

Presence and the Hidden Object Analogy

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Presence

If approached correctly from an intuitive level, as an analogy,  the little experiment I am describing here can act as a powerful doorway to PRESENCE.

Ask a friend or your partner to hide a little object under a box in front of you without telling you what it is.

In order to label an object, the mind needs to be able to frame a couple of attributes for that particular object, for example, its colour, its weight, its size, its shape. Because it is hidden under the box all the attributes of the object are unavailable and obviously the mind can’t label it. But does it really prevent you to acknowledge the reality of the presence of the object? if you pause for a little while and look at the box it will become very obvious to you that the presence of the object cannot be hidden from you, only its attributes. Although the mind cannot label the object, you can feel that the object is present. It does not need to be perceived by the senses to be present, its presence is just self-evident.

This analogy can be applied to Presence. It does not need to be labelled or “found” to be present.

WHAT IS does not need to be acknowledged, found, recognized or approved to BE THAT WHICH IS.

Calwen

Spiritual Awakening – Into Presence

Searching for TruthI started my spiritual quest when I was a teenager. I remember devouring mountains of books on religions and spiritualities, I was very enthusiastic about it all. I could intuitively feel that there was more to life than what I had been told or shown. I had to find what it was.

I quickly realized that most sincere spiritual approaches were pointing to the same direction, the words were different but I could feel that there could only be one thing behind the multiple appearances, and I would find what it was.

Nature has always been the source of my inspirations, the subject of my meditations and contemplations. The sky, the trees, the rain, everything was a symbol pointing to a living reality, Nature was a gateway.  I eventually came to realize that there was nothing like “me and Nature” but there was just Nature, there was just Nature contemplating itself, it was my first glimpse into Oneness.

One day, as I was watching myself meditating, it suddenly became very clear that there was no need to make any effort to find reality. That reality was directly accessible to me through the realization that there was only What IS and it was just about surrendering to that obvious IS-ness, The Presence of What IS

Another major way point was reached when I realized that it wasn’t me who was experiencing the world, it was Presence experiencing it all, my mind, my body and the world.

That awakening was nevertheless a temporary illusion, a consciousness switch from the form to the formless, from being something to being nothing/everything. A necessary awakening from the ego had happened but it was just a temporary station, there was more to it.

The path to realization goes through the complete integration of the form with the formless, of the born with the unborn, of your human impermanence with What IS, with Presence… and it is an embrace of Love.

This blog offers insights into a spiritual experience, there is no final destination and we all are eternal students, I have nothing to teach, I am only projecting my experience. It might resonate with you, it might not, I am just singing my song in the universal choir 🙂

Calwen