The Power of Presence

“There is no such thing as a spiritual journey.” Meister Eckhart

Shocking as that statement may be, especially to those of us who have devoted a great deal of our time to spiritual growth and identify as spiritual seekers or initiates, there is a profound truth within its depths. A journey implies a distance travelled. It is assumed that what is spiritual is above and beyond our earthly experience – something to strive for, to seek, a destination arrived at only after years of devotion. The truth, however, is that there is no distance between our physical and spiritual realities. They are one and the same. The spiritual lies all around us and deep within us and materializes through Presence.

In response to Meister Eckhart, John O’Donohue said, “If there is a spiritual journey it’s about a quarter of an inch long, and it’s just about coming into rhythm with your deeper nature and presence.”

So what do we mean by presence? There are two distinct definitions. On the one hand it means being awake, aware and attentive in the present moment. Ram Das and Eckhart Tolle speak of being in the Now moment. Without presence we are living in a dream, either lost in the past or planning for a better future, but never in contact with what is going on in the present moment. And it is only in the present moment that we have the power to change, to make different choices that steer our lives in a new direction.

Presence of this sort allows us to discern our reactive patterns, our habits, the way we interact with people. Presence permits self-awareness. Most of the time we live within a story of who we are, based upon the past, what others tells us, misinterpretations of our experience, childhood conditioning. We box ourselves into an identity that is not only limited, but only a fraction of our true potential. This identity isn’t authentic. It’s a role we play based on ideas of how to perform it. We have concepts about being a mother or father, a wife or husband, a “good person,” a productive worker or citizen, etc. We confine ourselves within these characters and feel trapped. Life becomes the obligation to fulfill these empty roles and we find ourselves dissatisfied and longing for something more.

When we commit to mindfulness, to being conscious in the present moment, the emptiness of our lives can feel unbearable and we might want to escape back into unconscious play-acting. It is precisely at those moments of discomfort that we need to bring more awareness, more attentiveness to what is happening – bodily sensations, emotions and thoughts. The ability to stay with emotional discomfort is a transformative power.

Which brings us to Transmutation. In my Full Moon post I mentioned that Venus has entered her Transmutation phase which lasts until May 15th. She is invisible now, engulfed in the blinding light of the Sun, undergoing a purification before she is reborn into the night sky. Transmutation begins with purification. The whole point of Lent is purification – a time to cleanse the body, to quiet the mind, to purge the heart of bitterness. It’s an opportunity to transmute our negative thoughts and emotions, attitudes and self-sabotaging habits in order to prepare for rebirth.

Whatever anger, fear, resentment, disappointment or self-recrimination we carry vibrates at a very low frequency. It is dense, heavy, ponderous. It weighs us down. It paralyzes us and perpetuates itself leading to depression where we feel disempowered and helpless to create change. The Venus Transmutation Phase is the perfect time to root out those weighty issues and release them.

So how do we do that? We can come at it from two directions, a frontal attack on the one hand, getting to the heart of a negative emotion through self-examination and query. What am I feeling now? When have I felt this before? What is the source of this feeling? What experience triggered it? What is the message, the gift, this feeling brings?

Obviously this process requires two things – silence and solitude. We can do this self-examination in meditation, with our journal, on a walk in nature. As we cultivate solitude we can learn to listen to the silence which will yield insight. The purpose isn’t to fix the discomfort, to get rid of it or control it. Rather the very process of being with an uncomfortable emotion allows it to move of its own accord. By their very nature, emotions move. They are energy in motion and when allowed to flow freely through our bodies, they dissipate or transform. It is only when we resist, or postpone, deny or avoid experiencing them, that they persist and continue to haunt our peace of mind.

The other approach, and I strongly suggest employing both, is to cultivate emotions that function at a higher frequency. We don’t do this to suppress other emotions, but to practice bringing our psyche into a higher resonance. Gratitude is one of the most effective paths. The resonance of gratitude has the power to lift even the densest of emotions.

Two years ago I wrote about the discoveries of the Heart Math Institute. In that post, called “The Heart Has a Mind of its Own,” I described a meditation that brings heart and brain into coherence. I suggest reading this post because it is the perfect practice for transmutation. By taking a few minutes every day to practice coherence, a process is seeded within consciousness that blooms all by itself. It soon becomes second nature, generating well-being, lifting our resonance and cultivating gratitude. As coherence builds, gratitude becomes our go-to emotion and we attract more things into our lives be grateful for. This is spiritual alchemy.

As we lighten our burdens, transmute our painful wounds and emotions into gratitude and release our rigid self-concepts, we begin to open a space for an even greater presence. I have called this our true self, our essential self or authentic self. A.H. Almaas refers to it as our “true nature.” Whatever name or description we give it, this is the Presence, with a capital P, that lies waiting in our depths. It is the original, pure, divine essence that we have always been and will always be. Next time we will explore the wonder of this Presence appropriately at the New Moon in Aries – the I AM of the Zodiac.