Thought for the Week: Presence
Alex Thomson reflects on Presence in a world of duality
We live in a world of duality, of opposites and extremes. I find myself moving between these, trying to be one thing to discover I am the other. I have my weaknesses, my darkness, though I prefer to live in the Light. All the past and present conditioning doesn’t just disappear, it requires a practice to bring it into the Light and be healed. Life seeks equilibrium, a balance, and so do I. If you cut a stick in half there is still a right side and a left side. One side cannot exist on its own and that is the reality of the world. We are all learning, we are all one, and all different – the opposites cannot be eliminated, they need to be embraced.
I cannot live a purely spiritual life; I am a body in a physical world. I cannot live just as a body because I am also a spiritual being. The physical and the spiritual are one; the physical is an expression of Presence. Yet most people have little awareness of Presence. My understanding is in my life. I need to give time to both body and spirit, and awareness to both in order to bloom as a person and as a soul.
To know Presence is to know the way of the heart. The way of the head is needed for our everyday life, but it can make us cold, turning us into a robot, or a puppet. We also need to be in touch with our heart to know Presence. We need to sit in stillness and let go of our ordinary knowledge to experience Presence.
What is this Presence? There are aspects of Presence we can experience in stillness. The first is Awareness. Without Awareness there is no sense of Presence. Presence includes everything – a oneness without separation. Things arise and pass within Presence, yet they are part of that Presence. If it is fear, then fear is present, but it is embraced by Presence – an infinite vastness that is beyond words. The realisation of this interconnectedness, of everything embraced by a Presence of unconditional Love, is transformative.
This Presence is dynamic, forever changing; new patterns emerge, old patterns pass – all within Presence. Without change there is nothing to be aware of and there would be no life. Change can lead us to the experience of Presence – for Presence is always there, waiting to be revealed. When you realise Presence you recognise your true nature. Presence is knowingness, a direct knowing that is before thoughts, a knowing experience of God, a knowingness that you are within God and that nothing can hurt you, even though the physical appearance may be very different from that. You know you can never be separated from this Presence that is God.
Yet, here I am with all my faults from a lifetime of trying – sometimes fighting, sometimes struggling, to survive as a separate being. The source of my life is Presence, but how I manifest that Presence is very much up to me. So, I need a practice that keeps me in touch with Presence, with God, otherwise I become lost in the physical world, becoming conditioned by it and capable of causing all kinds of suffering. Yet, God is. When I am ‘being still’ and all kinds of things arise, I offer up to Presence all the things I cannot handle and that are too big for me. I sit in stillness, listening and watching for whatever takes shape. It is a different kind of knowing – the knowing of Love.
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