State of Presence
What is our state of Presence?
“Where” is this experiential
state of consciousness?
How is this accessed?
In response to everything we think we are,
in all the conceivable palpable
and emotionally visceral
ways that we define ourselves,
please now say:
I AM NOT THIS!
- because you are not that which you “think” you are
- you are not that which you “feel” you are
- emotions are powerful, but you are not emotion(s)
- thoughts are powerful, as
they might have you believe the
thoughts that you think
- but you are not your thoughts
“Where” is this experiential
state of consciousness?
How is this accessed?
In response to everything we think we are,
in all the conceivable palpable
and emotionally visceral
ways that we define ourselves,
please now say:
I AM NOT THIS!
- because you are not that which you “think” you are
- you are not that which you “feel” you are
- emotions are powerful, but you are not emotion(s)
- thoughts are powerful, as
they might have you believe the
thoughts that you think
- but you are not your thoughts
It is now widely accepted that emotions create physical body chemistry - and duly acknowledged that this synergistic and non-linear mechanism resides within what could be seen as a paradoxical inquiry of, what creates what first? Emotions becoming body chemistry? Or Body chemistry becoming emotions? Or, a self-reflective feedback-looping, self-organizing system? And/or thoughts in both cases?
We will peer into our seemingly boundless essence from the vantage point of thoughts and emotions creating body chemistry, given that Presence is a state of rest within consciousness and is experienced as a domain void of thought and emotion. From this unbounded timeless infinity of inner non-dimensional transparency as placid tranquility, we can then experience in stunningly clear awareness, that as thoughts and emotions arise, we then have a non-physical timeless “inner spacial-ness” to “feel” the results of emergent thoughts and emotions revealing unrestrained and immeasurable clarity. All floating through mind as transient patches of fabric within a dissolving tapestry.
Conscious or subconscious memory(or both) is being activated by stimuli which then releases hormones produced by either the sympathetic(fight, flight or freeze) or parasympathetic(mindful relaxation and bodily rest) nervous systems. The question of what creates what first is pondered from within a stochastic mind that welcomes examining processes as holistic integrated and interdependent mechanisms. We can think of this as addressing ailments, disorders and afflictions from the causative nature - a whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the physical symptoms of a disease.
This piece is by no means intended to minimize the importance or function of emotions. An emotion such as grief is essential within how we grow and deepen an understanding of ourselves as human. Exploring and expressing emotions in a contemplative way both inwardly and within interpersonal relationships is crucial. However, psychological, spiritual and physical wellbeing all depend on how we process and articulate these emotions and hence behavior
in healthy, expansive and life-giving ways. We might also choose to embrace a light-filled Presence within heart that allows for emotions arising out of grief, doubt or self deprecation to be explored in and as non-attachment, freeing one’s mind from any particular self-induced outcome. There is then the profound opportunity to embrace feelings of sadness, remorse or grief within the differentiated clarity of not having them be inextricably inseparable from suffering. Simply put as a distillation, you can experience and embrace multitudes of realms of sadness without suffering.
We will peer into our seemingly boundless essence from the vantage point of thoughts and emotions creating body chemistry, given that Presence is a state of rest within consciousness and is experienced as a domain void of thought and emotion. From this unbounded timeless infinity of inner non-dimensional transparency as placid tranquility, we can then experience in stunningly clear awareness, that as thoughts and emotions arise, we then have a non-physical timeless “inner spacial-ness” to “feel” the results of emergent thoughts and emotions revealing unrestrained and immeasurable clarity. All floating through mind as transient patches of fabric within a dissolving tapestry.
Conscious or subconscious memory(or both) is being activated by stimuli which then releases hormones produced by either the sympathetic(fight, flight or freeze) or parasympathetic(mindful relaxation and bodily rest) nervous systems. The question of what creates what first is pondered from within a stochastic mind that welcomes examining processes as holistic integrated and interdependent mechanisms. We can think of this as addressing ailments, disorders and afflictions from the causative nature - a whole person, taking into account mental and social factors, rather than just the physical symptoms of a disease.
This piece is by no means intended to minimize the importance or function of emotions. An emotion such as grief is essential within how we grow and deepen an understanding of ourselves as human. Exploring and expressing emotions in a contemplative way both inwardly and within interpersonal relationships is crucial. However, psychological, spiritual and physical wellbeing all depend on how we process and articulate these emotions and hence behavior
in healthy, expansive and life-giving ways. We might also choose to embrace a light-filled Presence within heart that allows for emotions arising out of grief, doubt or self deprecation to be explored in and as non-attachment, freeing one’s mind from any particular self-induced outcome. There is then the profound opportunity to embrace feelings of sadness, remorse or grief within the differentiated clarity of not having them be inextricably inseparable from suffering. Simply put as a distillation, you can experience and embrace multitudes of realms of sadness without suffering.
~
How can YOU as Presence, the experiential unchanging essence, be thoughts or emotions? Thoughts and emotions shift in a moment, constantly. It is only thoughts, emotions and their creations that shift and change. You as pure consciousness, “behind” or within all the thoughts and emotions, is Presence that is experienced as awareness - Being.
In terms of referencing you, limited to the best you can do with thought, is describing yourself or your state of being as emotions. But the descriptions are never you - You are none of this. All of your describing is an overlay masking that which you are.
Once we identify the emotions that we are feeling, as a state of experience, then there is the capability and emerging vantage point or awareness to know emotions as fleeting - coming and going - not the essence of you or you as Presence. From your state of awareness as Presence, you possess the mechanism to dissolve emotion in an instant if that is what you choose, returning to the infinite nature of you - which has always been you.
The components of emotion reside as vast, apparently inter-dimensional, seemingly incalculable forms of memory “in” and “out of” time/space. Memory, within and as every aspect of that which expresses itself as ubiquitous intelligence - which is everything as undivided wholeness.
You are pure consciousness - a Presence that is expressing itself whether you think or not - whether you are feeling emotions or not. Your thoughts and emotions will come and go willy-nilly as a dog chasing its tail - and then the tail wags the dog.
Your thoughts and emotions wag your overlay which is what you think, feel and believe you are. As you choose to practice dissolving thought and emotion, the “overlay” becomes more clearly identified and defined as that which obscures your Presence, as a delicate morning mist can mask an expanse of a vast towering majestic mountain range. There is then clarity, bliss, calm, freedom from the stories, freedom from the emotion and thought functioning as a controller of your state of mind. Emerge as freedom within knowing that the stories and emotions exist as a response to what you so very often perceive to be “outer” stimulation, circumstances and conditions.
In terms of referencing you, limited to the best you can do with thought, is describing yourself or your state of being as emotions. But the descriptions are never you - You are none of this. All of your describing is an overlay masking that which you are.
Once we identify the emotions that we are feeling, as a state of experience, then there is the capability and emerging vantage point or awareness to know emotions as fleeting - coming and going - not the essence of you or you as Presence. From your state of awareness as Presence, you possess the mechanism to dissolve emotion in an instant if that is what you choose, returning to the infinite nature of you - which has always been you.
The components of emotion reside as vast, apparently inter-dimensional, seemingly incalculable forms of memory “in” and “out of” time/space. Memory, within and as every aspect of that which expresses itself as ubiquitous intelligence - which is everything as undivided wholeness.
You are pure consciousness - a Presence that is expressing itself whether you think or not - whether you are feeling emotions or not. Your thoughts and emotions will come and go willy-nilly as a dog chasing its tail - and then the tail wags the dog.
Your thoughts and emotions wag your overlay which is what you think, feel and believe you are. As you choose to practice dissolving thought and emotion, the “overlay” becomes more clearly identified and defined as that which obscures your Presence, as a delicate morning mist can mask an expanse of a vast towering majestic mountain range. There is then clarity, bliss, calm, freedom from the stories, freedom from the emotion and thought functioning as a controller of your state of mind. Emerge as freedom within knowing that the stories and emotions exist as a response to what you so very often perceive to be “outer” stimulation, circumstances and conditions.
Memory
We are reacting to memories of how we perceive things to be. Memories, because all of perception is nothing but that which we reference. Without a point of reference and its information, we know nothing as defining any experience. Referencing can only be in a state of that which resides as memory. Even when in awareness of this, it is very often in an instant that we get ensnared in emotion, resulting as feeling and behaving in any number of self-deprecating ways. And the most alarming and potent aspect of this, is that what emerges as reactiveness out of perceptions of self, emerging as situational, appears in our awareness as “real.” There is no reality to these perceptions of self what so ever other than a temporal, fleeting state of mind that will shift as circumstances and conditions morph out of the soup of emergent collective interconnected interaction.
The only pure state of Being is Being; in and as Presence. All you are ever referencing or “memory-izing” is that which you have already experienced. And, to confuse this even more, your notions of what might come to be as your “future,” given circumstances, may cause nothing but anxiety. This is born of stress emanating from that which you think will come to be. The stress exists as physical outcomes of thoughts and emotions looking into the mirror of themselves and creating a frenzied dissonance of that which does not, nor will ever exist as you think it into a figment of your mind. Then this process in and of itself becomes a non-linear stressor. Content of mind, continually sourcing memory, continues in creating further increased complexity by referencing that which was contrived as thoughts that created stress becoming anxiety, based on that which never existed to begin with.
EVERYTHING we perceive and hence think, is referential because anything that occurs as experiential is now sourced from and as memory. There is no way around this. We are sentient beings of a mechanism of memory “referential-ness” - believed to exist as truths - becoming beliefs - becoming truths - round and round and obscured and obscured all the time within a house of mirrors that is one big referential memory system. There is no “you.” “You” as is perceived, is based on memory of that which you perceive as experiences - so the traumas that have become dramas which you perceive as true and “real,” are nothing but redefined and re-referenced memories of all that you experience yourself to be.
The only pure state of Being is Being; in and as Presence. All you are ever referencing or “memory-izing” is that which you have already experienced. And, to confuse this even more, your notions of what might come to be as your “future,” given circumstances, may cause nothing but anxiety. This is born of stress emanating from that which you think will come to be. The stress exists as physical outcomes of thoughts and emotions looking into the mirror of themselves and creating a frenzied dissonance of that which does not, nor will ever exist as you think it into a figment of your mind. Then this process in and of itself becomes a non-linear stressor. Content of mind, continually sourcing memory, continues in creating further increased complexity by referencing that which was contrived as thoughts that created stress becoming anxiety, based on that which never existed to begin with.
EVERYTHING we perceive and hence think, is referential because anything that occurs as experiential is now sourced from and as memory. There is no way around this. We are sentient beings of a mechanism of memory “referential-ness” - believed to exist as truths - becoming beliefs - becoming truths - round and round and obscured and obscured all the time within a house of mirrors that is one big referential memory system. There is no “you.” “You” as is perceived, is based on memory of that which you perceive as experiences - so the traumas that have become dramas which you perceive as true and “real,” are nothing but redefined and re-referenced memories of all that you experience yourself to be.
What and where is Presence?
- There is no accessing
- It is always present
- It is not an “It”
Presence is clear / unimpeded flow, timeless,
nothing, no thing, no thought, no emotion -
yet infinite and subtle, quietly ecstatic, joyful, peace, stillness,
All Oneness, non separated
- It is always present
- It is not an “It”
Presence is clear / unimpeded flow, timeless,
nothing, no thing, no thought, no emotion -
yet infinite and subtle, quietly ecstatic, joyful, peace, stillness,
All Oneness, non separated
But what does this mean? Non-separated:
The “I” has no existence independent of anything that is not everything. You as all that you think yourself to be, all that defines you, all that you believe, is a story of all that you have been. It is the design of your emergent life that is serving you to come into awareness of your stories. Take away the stories and what is there? Simply cease to think thoughts that weave a tapestry of your stories, and what is there? Clarity, space, no thing as thought or emotion, belief. As this all dissolves, there is Presence. Pure Presence as what is referred to as Consciousness. This Presence is within everything as a state of infinity - all that ever was, all that is. Pure space yet without time to create distance. No clock subdividing time - which always Is. Time that presents itself by way of all that exists as energy, within time. Systems as that which we define as cosmos, all that exists in every way as a wholeness, emergent unfathomable mechanism. This is why time and space are known and considered to be one in and of each other, yet there is no “each other.” Dissolve the perspective of all the definitions and measurements and there is Presence, pure consciousness - no thought, no emotion, no belief, no story.
Now, what can we see as possible
from this state of, “no story?”
Healing trauma, minimizing reaction, drama and emotion
What is now possible to emerge with the insight of this mechanism? A mechanism that emerges as a response to doing something? Perhaps stop doing this “something” that emerges as reactiveness, continued obscured thought, making emotion. With deeper inquiry into stillness, we can discover that within all of reactiveness resides our Presence. It is our essential nature and its pure state is that of joy, boundless serenity, infinite possibility to be anything as state of mind one chooses. Suppose you rest in deeper and deeper inquiry as to the state of pure Presence and its flowing freedom of and from all that you perceive as your self, all the stories of that which you believe to be true about who and what you are. All is but a story as some aspect of Infinite Intelligence as You and your aggregating “multidimensional” “design” that was configured beyond time/space as we know it, prior to this life as a way of staging and hosting a drama calling forth responses and reactions and how you identify and define what it is that you are experiencing.
Emerging as YOU
Think deeply on what “your” brain is doing as a function in, of and As nature. Brain is not separate from nature. Brain emerges as anything else within and As nature emerges. A tree grows, emerges as nature - plants, birds, rocks, insects, stars, planets, galaxies and all they host, bacteria, water, life-sustaining environments, all the components of every aspect of nature known/unknown, seen/unseen - brain IS Being nature in and of itself.
So what is your relationship as awareness to and with your brain. There is no brain as a thing that exists to function in any way but being nature itself. You ARE this brain as you are eyes, legs, kidneys, bones, veins, skin, cells. Brain is processing nature yet brain IS nature, no different then the mechanism that knows what to do within any aspect that emerges and/or grows - cells, DNA, “sub atomic” existences, states of existence that are not electromagnetic,(non-electromagnetic suddenly catapults us into domains a far-reaching embrace of emotional intelligence trekking vast non-distances into states of mental imagery as imagination - within non-physical/non-time realms of that which creativity and insight are sourced). You, as all that is you - all the components of every level that is you, emerges in and AS nature. Brain IS these emergent components - emerging ‘”out of” nature. So what is “doing” the “brain-ing” … the “You-ing?” … the “I-ing?”
All is expression in and of, AS nature. What appears to “trick” us is that humans possess a self-referencing mechanism that emerges a “perspective-izing of that which is expressing itself as a notion of “I-ness” - “me” / other than all that IS. If we were to understand and perceive our selves in no different way than a flower that flowers out of that which it is - seed, dirt, water, sun, cells, on every level and every level of components with and as nature that are the components of the flower, we would shift into a very advanced paradigm of self awareness as understanding that which we are as all that exists. There is no, “other.” To see and know this is to comprehend the massive depth of implication as the nature of defining the location of an electron. The electron becomes the location of the measurement process. This is even beyond a definition of integration. It is not integration - the act of measuring emerges the state of “location-ness”. We must contemplate this - for this is what shall free us from the shackles of our present paradigm of understanding who and what we are as emergent nature. Not a “me” or “you” or “I” or “him” or “her” or “them” or “it” - which is all abstraction of “other-ness.” This leads us to the possibility of realizing an infinitely self-perpetuating all pervading expression, whether expressing as expansion/increasing complexity, or contracting/entropy.
And a slightly different perspective - we are thrown even deeper into our manifest world of seeming dualities as we accept our programmed thinking of any aspect of that which exists as “inanimate.” It is simply that we are not perceiving an aliveness as “inner” movement and process. A rock is quite alive with all vibrational movement on all levels of structure. The rock responds within and as nature and expresses its “rock-ness” as relatively but surely existing as animate. In terms of time and observing our rock’s shifting and shaping, for the most part, we simply are not around long enough to perceive such unfolding movement. And in general, we lack the mindset in realizing that the inner workings of the rock from within its structure, is expression from within consciousness that beholds an intelligence knowing what to do as a rock. Linguistics has the ability to embed, seemingly indelibly so, a world/cosmological view/perspective which induces abstracted truths within notions and paradigms of concretizing duality. Language as any other technology must serve us, not us serving the technology or vast inaccurately contrived inferences within language. It can be thought that we are willingly and submissively enslaving our minds unto a paradigm of a self-induced separateness.
So what is your relationship as awareness to and with your brain. There is no brain as a thing that exists to function in any way but being nature itself. You ARE this brain as you are eyes, legs, kidneys, bones, veins, skin, cells. Brain is processing nature yet brain IS nature, no different then the mechanism that knows what to do within any aspect that emerges and/or grows - cells, DNA, “sub atomic” existences, states of existence that are not electromagnetic,(non-electromagnetic suddenly catapults us into domains a far-reaching embrace of emotional intelligence trekking vast non-distances into states of mental imagery as imagination - within non-physical/non-time realms of that which creativity and insight are sourced). You, as all that is you - all the components of every level that is you, emerges in and AS nature. Brain IS these emergent components - emerging ‘”out of” nature. So what is “doing” the “brain-ing” … the “You-ing?” … the “I-ing?”
All is expression in and of, AS nature. What appears to “trick” us is that humans possess a self-referencing mechanism that emerges a “perspective-izing of that which is expressing itself as a notion of “I-ness” - “me” / other than all that IS. If we were to understand and perceive our selves in no different way than a flower that flowers out of that which it is - seed, dirt, water, sun, cells, on every level and every level of components with and as nature that are the components of the flower, we would shift into a very advanced paradigm of self awareness as understanding that which we are as all that exists. There is no, “other.” To see and know this is to comprehend the massive depth of implication as the nature of defining the location of an electron. The electron becomes the location of the measurement process. This is even beyond a definition of integration. It is not integration - the act of measuring emerges the state of “location-ness”. We must contemplate this - for this is what shall free us from the shackles of our present paradigm of understanding who and what we are as emergent nature. Not a “me” or “you” or “I” or “him” or “her” or “them” or “it” - which is all abstraction of “other-ness.” This leads us to the possibility of realizing an infinitely self-perpetuating all pervading expression, whether expressing as expansion/increasing complexity, or contracting/entropy.
And a slightly different perspective - we are thrown even deeper into our manifest world of seeming dualities as we accept our programmed thinking of any aspect of that which exists as “inanimate.” It is simply that we are not perceiving an aliveness as “inner” movement and process. A rock is quite alive with all vibrational movement on all levels of structure. The rock responds within and as nature and expresses its “rock-ness” as relatively but surely existing as animate. In terms of time and observing our rock’s shifting and shaping, for the most part, we simply are not around long enough to perceive such unfolding movement. And in general, we lack the mindset in realizing that the inner workings of the rock from within its structure, is expression from within consciousness that beholds an intelligence knowing what to do as a rock. Linguistics has the ability to embed, seemingly indelibly so, a world/cosmological view/perspective which induces abstracted truths within notions and paradigms of concretizing duality. Language as any other technology must serve us, not us serving the technology or vast inaccurately contrived inferences within language. It can be thought that we are willingly and submissively enslaving our minds unto a paradigm of a self-induced separateness.
Our Conundrum
Awareness as a state of mind,
perceiving our own awareness -
of that which we are perceiving
perceiving our own awareness -
of that which we are perceiving
Perceive your brain - yet it is the mechanism of brain that is processing the perceiving - not to be confused with consciousness.
It can be interpreted that consciousness is the medium through which we experience reality. In one deduced way or another, an active component of the mechanisms of nature. Perceptions are in and of consciousness. Emerging out of consciousness is expression spanning from that which we cannot conceive, to that which we believe ourselves to be, to that which is too large as our vantage point of relative size in and of time/space. In other words - what was your/“our” collective state of perceiving 100 billion years ago in contrast to a state of perception 100 billion years from now as time/space unfolds its enfolded Oneness/whole? Consciousness exists as expression in and of / as all that is expressing itself. Again, let us not be confused or duped by our seemingly current evolutionary notions of self-ness as self-referential personified “I.” Existing as our collective human state of intellectual development, we now have the opportunity to step into the self inquiry of informational mechanisms of that which we are, and how the emergence of ‘I” is as an exponential feedback-looping algorithmic process of exquisitely magnificent subtle intricacy beyond definition as metaphor or analogy. And once again here too, it would be the self-referencing mechanism that is creating the metaphor or analogy of its self!
There is no “other” as separate that can be perceived as “other” separated from this state of awareness, non-separated wholeness. Every thing is doing what it does as everything. Everything is of one mechanism expressing itself in ways that continue in unfathomable interconnected, interdependent ways as expression. And this interconnected/interdependent whole is You - reading / comprehending this. What is doing the comprehending? - based on what referential mechanism allowing such a mechanism to emerge as increasing complexity to add to its own memory and then reference itself?
It can be interpreted that consciousness is the medium through which we experience reality. In one deduced way or another, an active component of the mechanisms of nature. Perceptions are in and of consciousness. Emerging out of consciousness is expression spanning from that which we cannot conceive, to that which we believe ourselves to be, to that which is too large as our vantage point of relative size in and of time/space. In other words - what was your/“our” collective state of perceiving 100 billion years ago in contrast to a state of perception 100 billion years from now as time/space unfolds its enfolded Oneness/whole? Consciousness exists as expression in and of / as all that is expressing itself. Again, let us not be confused or duped by our seemingly current evolutionary notions of self-ness as self-referential personified “I.” Existing as our collective human state of intellectual development, we now have the opportunity to step into the self inquiry of informational mechanisms of that which we are, and how the emergence of ‘I” is as an exponential feedback-looping algorithmic process of exquisitely magnificent subtle intricacy beyond definition as metaphor or analogy. And once again here too, it would be the self-referencing mechanism that is creating the metaphor or analogy of its self!
There is no “other” as separate that can be perceived as “other” separated from this state of awareness, non-separated wholeness. Every thing is doing what it does as everything. Everything is of one mechanism expressing itself in ways that continue in unfathomable interconnected, interdependent ways as expression. And this interconnected/interdependent whole is You - reading / comprehending this. What is doing the comprehending? - based on what referential mechanism allowing such a mechanism to emerge as increasing complexity to add to its own memory and then reference itself?
This is, You -
or rather that which you remember
yourself to be as an emerging flow.
or rather that which you remember
yourself to be as an emerging flow.
Self Inquiry:
Explore self-referential nature as You,
within awareness -
vantage point of Presence
Discover joy, bliss, ecstasy
as Being, no thought, no emotion
Freedom -
flow in and as flow itself -
void of self referencing definition
flow, flow, flow
Presence
Flow
Presence
within awareness -
vantage point of Presence
Discover joy, bliss, ecstasy
as Being, no thought, no emotion
Freedom -
flow in and as flow itself -
void of self referencing definition
flow, flow, flow
Presence
Flow
Presence