You may recall in the early part of 2008 Oprah hosted the largest global, live video-conference on a series offered by her special guest Eckhart Tolle. The topic was his new book, A New Earth, which focused on the importance of ‘being present and staying in the present moment’.
For some people this is a way of life, for others it remains a mystery and a challenge, while for yet others it’s an unfathomable concept. What is meant by ‘be present?’ I’m here, can’t you see me? That’s being present isn’t it?” Many people think this way, and that is understandable. Though this concept of ‘being present’ has been a core practice of many eastern spiritual traditions, it has not been in the mainstream thinking for that long.
When I first came across this concept a few years back, I too thought that being physically present was what ‘being present’ meant. At first glance it seemed simple. Over the years I’ve come to more fully appreciate the underlying dynamic that ‘being present’ evokes. My current understanding is that a first aspect is to ‘be present with yourself in your experience of the moment you’re in’. The deeper aspect is about inviting our ‘inner presence’ into our lives. This requires a whole lot more than merely being physically present. Let me illustrate the first aspect by way of a personal example.
The other day, for instance I wrote down a ‘to do list’ of all the things that I wanted to accomplish that day. As life would have it, I had a really busy day reacting to calls, running errands and getting involved in many things, none of which were on my original list. Has this ever happened to you? All of these things at the time called for my attention. I kept doing, doing, doing while ignoring the niggling irritation that crept in and began to grow below the surface of my awareness. By four o’ clock I revisited my ‘to do list’ only to find that I had only completed one item. The irritation surfaced in the form of my inner critic…! Needless to say I was less than charmed with myself.
As I reflected on what had lead to this, I realized that I’d gone into a tail-spin of ‘busyness’. And, as I thought about it, I became aware that I had in fact switched over to automatic pilot as a way of coping instead of tackling what I had secretly been avoiding, namely tackling a task that was unfamiliar and challenging. And, in switching channels in this way I’d allowed my day to be hijacked by the tyranny of the urgent instead of aligning my actions with my intentions. After all, I had started off with a ‘to do list’, hadn’t I? So how did this busyness hijacking happen?
The answers to my experience lie below the surface, not on top of the surface. Dr Bruce Lipton, in his book Biology of Belief, states that, “…the subconscious mind is millions of times more powerful than the conscious mind. If the desires of the conscious mind conflict with the programs of the sub-conscious mind, which ‘mind’ do you think will win out?”
In not being fully present to what I was experiencing, I was oblivious to the numerous internal signals that were bubbling to the surface, because being in automatic pilot numbed my awareness and allowed me to ignore what was really going on. I’d switched to a familiar pattern of ‘getting things done’ because that’s what I had been trained to do in my early childhood.
By way of illustration, let’s compare swimming and deep sea diving. We swim on the surface of the water and when we look down we see that the water below is dark. And, in seeing that, we could conclude that there’s nothing to see below, it’s dark. And herein lies the paradox. However, when we go deep sea diving, and we take the necessary precautions to kit ourselves with the right equipment including oxygen tanks, masks and underwater lights, we discover that the darkness that we believed was all there is below, is in fact not so at all. Instead, as we shine a light into the depths, we begin to notice a vast undiscovered underwater world. A world filled with natural treasures and indescribable life forms in luminescent colours that impress us with their beauty and leave us in a state of awe and wonder. And we suddenly become aware that they’ve always been there, far below the surface, invisible to us from the surface, but radiant in the darkness, like hidden treasure that we have to search for to find! As we re-surface we take with us the impressions and are enriched by the experience.
Let’s draw from this analogy. Every day you and I are faced with many choices, two of which are: to either exist on the surface or to live our lives as fully present as we are able to.
The first choice allows us to switch to automatic pilot, and to live our lives on the surface, without much awareness of what is really going on with us or with others. I call this ‘living asleep’. It’s as if I am not fully awake to my life. I’m unconsciously following a rote pattern with little inner or outer awareness. In this state I am less likely to allow another to impress me with who they really are. In this state I can easily rely on past experiences of someone to cloud what they’re bringing forth today. In this state I am more concerned with myself, my concerns, my needs and my agenda. I’m sort of there but not quite! And, in this state my inner critic gets the most airtime, and that shows in my communication with others. I’m in a hurry. I’m impatient. I interrupt. I don’t notice the cues that others are giving. I’m living in my head, either thinking about a past event, or planning a future event. I miss the present moment. What’s going on when I am in this state? My presence is missing! When our presence is missing, our eyes are dull, the shine is missing and others can tell! They notice it!
The second choice, I call ‘living awake’. Living in this state, of being awake to what is, opens us to more possibilities. When we are present in our lives, and are present and genuinely curious about what is going on, we start to notice things about ourselves and other people that we ordinarily miss. Moment to moment, life presents itself anew and we allow ourselves to be impressed by others. I know for myself when I am in this state of awareness, I am often surprised by little things I notice about others that I didn’t notice before. I am calm. I am more genuinely interested in them and who they are. I listen more attentively. And, I am better able to dwell in curiosity open to discovering more. I like the way I feel when I am in this state. I feel more alive, more vibrant!
By inviting ourselves ‘to be present’ moment to moment, we tune in to a higher frequency of awareness. We open to a state of curiosity, creativity and wonder. And, in so doing we partner with life and our sub-conscious mind to show us more of who we truly are. We invite our spirit, our essence, our core being into our life. And the moment our Spirit joins in, that is when we sparkle!
