Daily Insight into the Spiritual Journey from the Story of The Little Prince
So many people tell me they long to be present in their everyday life-that they yearn to be able to sustain a sense of present moment awareness.
All of that longing has nothing to do with actual presence. It's just a mental concept of presence.
If you find yourself asking, "How can I be more present?" you are already on a fruitless track.
Presence isn't a "how to" experience in any manner at all.
Speaking of the Little Prince, the pilot refers to the "impenetrable mystery of his presence."
The Little Prince is a symbol of our own essence, the heart of our being.
Have you ever thought of yourself in terms of the impenetrable mystery of your presence?
Because our initially alive center was constricted by the societal boa constrictor that gripped all of us to varying degrees when we were very young, we tend to see ourselves in mediocre ways instead of realizing our magnificence.
But it doesn't help to tell ourselves we are magnificent. All of the self-talk we can muster won't produce a genuine experience of the marvelous mystery of our authentic presence.
On the contrary when we engage in a lot of self-affirmation, we frequently end up bolstering our ego, which is our false self-an inauthentic image of ourselves that we adopted when our original self was crushed.
A sense of the impenetrable mystery at the heart of our being can only arise from within us spontaneously. It isn't something we can generate. It's an experience that has to come about naturally.
How can we begin to experience ourselves in this way?
It's something we relax into, which is the antidote to the constricting grip of the boa constrictor.
Constriction, or relaxation: those are our choices.
When we embark on a journey of spiritual growth, our tendency is to want to make things happen.
What we don't realize is that this is more of the boa constrictor mentality. To try to make things happen involves further constriction. We are trying to make ourselves different.
The ability to be present in each moment of our day, whereby we experience the wonder of our mysterious being in a continuous way, isn't something that can be forced.
The pilot's use of the word "impenetrable" in connection with the mystery of presence is important. Presence isn't something we can think our way into and it isn't subject to being analyzed. Rather, it just is-and it arises whenever we relax.
And I'm not talking couch potato relaxation. I'm talking allowing, not resisting, not trying to fix ourselves.
The crucial insight is that presence isn't something that has to be manufactured. It isn't something to journey toward. It isn't a goal.
Presence is the essential nature of our inherent being. So we are in a very real sense always present in our life. Indeed, we cannot be otherwise!
But what we can do is, as it were, scatter clouds across the sunlight of our presence by thinking and drowning in emotion.
So stillness is the key to presence. Relaxing into what is already true of us is how we experience the impenetrable mystery of our presence.
This means that it's possible to be present in your life right now, at this moment, exactly where you are in your life.
It doesn't require any "efforting" to be present. It just requires allowing what is to surface into your attention.
Allow me to emphasize once more that we are always present. Where else could we possibly be?
Only in our thoughts and emotions can we be anywhere else, but never in reality. Presence is our natural state.
So many people tell me they long to be present in their everyday life-that they yearn to be able to sustain a sense of present moment awareness.
All of that longing has nothing to do with actual presence. It's just a mental concept of presence.
If you find yourself asking, "How can I be more present?" you are already on a fruitless track.
Presence isn't a "how to" experience in any manner at all.
Speaking of the Little Prince, the pilot refers to the "impenetrable mystery of his presence."
The Little Prince is a symbol of our own essence, the heart of our being.
Have you ever thought of yourself in terms of the impenetrable mystery of your presence?
Because our initially alive center was constricted by the societal boa constrictor that gripped all of us to varying degrees when we were very young, we tend to see ourselves in mediocre ways instead of realizing our magnificence.
But it doesn't help to tell ourselves we are magnificent. All of the self-talk we can muster won't produce a genuine experience of the marvelous mystery of our authentic presence.
On the contrary when we engage in a lot of self-affirmation, we frequently end up bolstering our ego, which is our false self-an inauthentic image of ourselves that we adopted when our original self was crushed.
A sense of the impenetrable mystery at the heart of our being can only arise from within us spontaneously. It isn't something we can generate. It's an experience that has to come about naturally.
How can we begin to experience ourselves in this way?
It's something we relax into, which is the antidote to the constricting grip of the boa constrictor.
Constriction, or relaxation: those are our choices.
When we embark on a journey of spiritual growth, our tendency is to want to make things happen.
What we don't realize is that this is more of the boa constrictor mentality. To try to make things happen involves further constriction. We are trying to make ourselves different.
The ability to be present in each moment of our day, whereby we experience the wonder of our mysterious being in a continuous way, isn't something that can be forced.
The pilot's use of the word "impenetrable" in connection with the mystery of presence is important. Presence isn't something we can think our way into and it isn't subject to being analyzed. Rather, it just is-and it arises whenever we relax.
And I'm not talking couch potato relaxation. I'm talking allowing, not resisting, not trying to fix ourselves.
The crucial insight is that presence isn't something that has to be manufactured. It isn't something to journey toward. It isn't a goal.
Presence is the essential nature of our inherent being. So we are in a very real sense always present in our life. Indeed, we cannot be otherwise!
But what we can do is, as it were, scatter clouds across the sunlight of our presence by thinking and drowning in emotion.
So stillness is the key to presence. Relaxing into what is already true of us is how we experience the impenetrable mystery of our presence.
This means that it's possible to be present in your life right now, at this moment, exactly where you are in your life.
It doesn't require any "efforting" to be present. It just requires allowing what is to surface into your attention.
Allow me to emphasize once more that we are always present. Where else could we possibly be?
Only in our thoughts and emotions can we be anywhere else, but never in reality. Presence is our natural state.
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