CULTIVATING PRESENCE:

 

 

Let Me Be

 

I think, therefore I am.

Time turned on at the big bang,

Then all of natural life began,

Including Christ the loving Lamb

And pigs we slaughter for their ham.

 

I am a happy human being,

Endowed with senses just like seeing.

When in danger always fleeing,

When I argue, disagreeing.

 

Perhaps, I am a human doing,

Spending so much time just growing.

Here and there, coming and going,

One of many cattle lowing.

 

Now, BEING is the bliss eternal,

Far removed from the infernal,

Not unfolding like a journal,

Transcending what we call temporal.

 

From On the Eighth Day God Created Time:

Secrets God Chose Not to Share with Einstein,

by Lennox Augustine Cornwall

 

 

What would you do if you were all alone and it suddenly dawned on you that you had just one minute to live?

 

That’s right, you’d do nothing. You’d have no time to do anything. You’d just be. You’d want to experience your one minute fully, without distraction. You’d certainly not allow a newsflash to consume your minute. I suspect you’d not entertain a ringing telephone or the “you’ve got mail” prompt.

 

Yes, I know…one minute to live…I’m being ridiculous…or am I?

 

A former associate of mine who runs a personal development seminar company once said that he was going to hire an actor to teach his attendees how to “act as if….” It occurs to me that we are so busy acting like someone else that we do not make time for ourselves to show up in the world. And so, my challenge to you is to step out of your drama and into your life—today. Right now!

 

If the 10 billion year old universe—generally accepted to be 10 – 15 billion years old—were represented by 60 seconds, and average life expectancy at birth were 85 years (and I’m being generous), then you and I would have 0.03 of 1 second to live. The point is that our lives are merely a flash in the pan, too short to allow the multitude of distractions “out there” to dissuade us from our intentions.

 

But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.

—2 Peter 3:8, King James Bible

 

We get so caught up in the excitement on which our mind and five senses feast, believing that we are living life to the full, when perhaps we are living a poor replica of the real thing. Your entire experience as perceived through the mind and five senses can only ever be an historic experience. Collectively, the mind and five senses should be dubbed the deceitful six. Every sight, every sound, every sensation you experience through the nervous system is latent. A real example is the light you see in the night sky emitting from, say, Sirius. When it hits your eyes, it has traveled 8 light years, and so the information you are processing is of Sirius 8 years ago, and not today. Even light from the sun takes 8.5 seconds to travel the 149.6 million kilometers to your eyes. One might imagine one of king Arthur’s messengers riding from the battlefront to Camelot with a message marked “urgent.” By the time he reaches Camelot the message would be outdated. Conditions at the battlefront may have changed markedly. What “urgent” messages are going unnoticed around you for the sake of your not being present. Given the historicity of the information we receive through the nervous system, presence must be a phenomenon beyond what is possible to experience through the nervous system.

 

Consciousness is the gateway to presence. Consciousness is not a function of the nervous system; it is not seeing, feeling, smelling, hearing or tasting. It is represented by the awareness which allows a mother to know that there is something awry with her son who lives three thousand miles away, it is the awareness that enables you to look deeply into a stranger’s eyes and sense who they are at their core, it is the awareness that informs your soul that if the universe was indeed created by a big bang, then it was God who lit the match to ignite it.

 

Imagine that your consciousness could travel the entire universe in a billionth of a billionth of a second. The flash of a lightning bolt would seem obtuse compared to your current experience of it. You would know what is happening in any part of the universe to within a billionth of a billionth of a second. Your life would no longer be an experience of history, but an experience of presence. Your experience of Sirius would be a present experience as opposed to one of Sirius 8 years ago. Could this be your reality beyond the story relayed by the deceitful six? Consciousness is not limited by the strictures of linear time. Its playground is eternity, the portal to which is light speed. At the speed of light, time is infinite and distance nonexistent. You tend to not experience such presence because the deceitful six are limited by your corporealness, and you accept their best guess, historical interpretation of reality as the truth.

 

Perhaps you are accepting of this explanation, perhaps not. In either case, in the absence of experiencing your consciousness traveling the entire universe in a billionth of a billionth of a second, the question remains:

 

“How do I cultivate presence?”

 

The disappointing answer is, I do not know. And yet, the mere contemplation of the question, “How do I cultivate presence?” initiates a curiosity that must bring you closer to a valid answer. It is similar to the question of God’s existence. I do not KNOW that God exists; I CHOOSE to believe that God exists. Similarly, I choose to believe that the way to cultivate presence is through prayer, meditation, contemplation and authentically living a life of intention, and that is to:

 

LIVE EACH DAY AS THOUGH IT WERE YOUR VERY FIRST AND YOUR VERY LAST.