THE BOOK, THE POWER OF PRESENCE

Intelligence is a function of thinking; wisdom is a function of not-thinking.

There is so much unconsciousness all over the planet these days that everything seems unpredictable and out of control. We find ourselves in a great sea of uncertainty. Yet we do have control over the one and only thing that we really need to control – where and how to direct our focus, and then make that our top priority. Let me explain.

There is the power of the egoic mind and the power of Presence. In any given situation, only one can win. So which one today is winning the most in your life?

We have been programmed by nature and nurture to think in a certain way. For example, we all go through life with one eye focused on tomorrow and the other one looking in the rear-view mirror. We are always trying to find pleasure and avoid pain. We are always looking for praise and trying to avoid criticism. And our focus is either on the past or on the future, but seldom – if ever – on the present moment, namely on what is happening right now, this moment, this very instant in time. This “time” is called Presence or Now, and it is the only time there is. Yesterday has already happened, and it happened in Now. And tomorrow is yet to come. But when it does come, it will happen – and can only happen – in Now.

Hearing; seeing; touching; smelling

In this very moment as you sit quietly in a chair, do you hear any sounds? Are they soothing? As you imagine a red rose in the palm of your hand, how does it feel as you touch one of its delicate pedals? Imagine as you look up in the sky, what are the clouds doing? What colors are they exhibiting? Is the wind that is blowing making any sound? What kind of sound? Is your heart beating? Can you f-e-e-l it? Is it happy or sad? And, are you breathing? How do you know? Is it fast or slow, or do you even know? Can you speed it up or slow it down? How? Why? Try slowing it down by making your breathing deeper. As well, pause for 5 seconds between each in-breath and each out-breath. Do this complete breathing cycle 25 times.

Now that you know what it is like to spend time in Presence, we can move on. Yes, your mind is actively thinking all the time but who is doing that thinking? Is it your mind or is it you? In other words, as this constant and often annoying thinking is taking place, are you doing this thinking … or are you actually being thunk? Answer: Regarding the general population, your mind is doing your thinking 99.99% of the time. Yes, you are being thunk! I am being thunk! Less than one person in 10,000 has even the slightest appreciation of this. That is 400 people in a city (like Berlin, Birmingham, Boston, and Toronto) of 4 million.

The result? This then forms your habits, beliefs, opinions, values, likes, dislikes, hopes, fears, concerns, dreads, dreams, nightmares, etc. And you don’t even know it! You just go on living your life just like any other programmed robot or puppet-on-a-string would: Unaware, and often uncaring; unknowing, sometimes to the point of total ignorance (e.g. about global warming); and unconscious, and being unaware you are unconscious. Scary stuff indeed! As a result, we each have to ask ourselves, “Do we want to be part of the problem or part of the solution?

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Is your mind doing all your thinking for you, or are you thinking for yourself? One clue is how often in a given day do you question what your mind is telling you? Do you regularly question “your” basic beliefs, opinions, values, understandings, concerns, worries, conclusions, or facts? Indeed, are such things even “yours” or are they simply part of your preconditioning?

Do you know you had a one in 400 trillion chance of being born? On the starry night of your conception, 300 million sperm cells and 70,000 egg cells came together and danced all night. Only one pair of them made it to see the sun rise in the morning. That was you!

There are elite athletes, elite painters, elite writers, elite thinkers, elite actors, elite dancers, elite musicians, and elite singers. In each case, they are in control of their thoughts, their thoughts are not in control of them. At least that’s the case while they are totally engrossed in their craft.

About 1.2 billion people in the world today are suffering from stress, anxiety, and depression. The population of the world is 8.3 billion. That is 15%. And about 60% of these people are not getting any treatment whatsoever, for a variety of reasons. One is stigma or shame. A second is ego or naiveté – they think their problem will just go away all by itself. A third is that the proper help is very difficult to access.

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When our mind is doing all our thinking for us, we have a very distorted and inaccurate impression of reality. Hmm. “Reality.” What is that? Are we actually seeing that? (No.) Can we see it? (???) Why is it important to see “reality” as clearly and as accurately as we can? Fact: No one can see what “reality” as it really is. We only see what our five physical senses “tell” us is reality, with nature and nurture adding their questionable, tainted input. We see through these eyes, think in these ways and feel what we feel, all without knowing what a major mistake we are making. A large part of nature – our inherited DNA – is ego. (Not my ego, not your ego, but THE ego.) This leads to Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human wants and needs, and the six “levels” we all strive to reach above anything else. We each have a built-in algorithm that runs 99.99% of our life for us.    

Warning! We are at a crucial time in human history.

Consider the following:

• there are 250,000 homeless people in New York City;

• the armaments industry is growing by leaps and bounds;

• Earth’s environment has never been so endangered;

• every country in the world is broke and in debt like never before;

• “same-old” thinking is taking us backward, not forward, and fast.

We all have what could be called a super-power; it is “acute” awareness, and it involves not-thinking. Yet when we go to school, the focus in on how to “think” and how to “memorize” facts and figures. Here is one fact no one has ever been told in school: intelligence is a function of thinking … and wisdom is a function of not-thinking. We know schools give out awards for intelligence and memory, but absolutely nothing for acquired wisdom. Has anyone you know ever been asked to write an essay on “wisdom” – what is it, how to acquire it, how to use it, how to share it – and how important is it? Have you? No, me neither.

These comments are not meant to discount “intelligence” per se. In its own unique way, it too is a super-power. It has helped our species conquer every aspect of our planet’s environment. We have tamed wild animals and driven others to extinction. We have dammed lakes and rivers to produce electricity. We have cut down vast forests for lumber to build our homes. We have built factories that pollute the air and soil. And we have dug huge holes in the ground to extract precious metals for expensive jewelry and advanced weaponry. Yes, we rule the planet. We call the shots. We are at the top of the food chain. Our species has found ways to kill whatever we don’t want better than any other creature. Sadly, yet correctly, this includes ever more efficient ways to kill each other at the push of a button.

Yet even in the case of “thinking,” the greatest discoveries in human history were often the result of non-verbal, out-of-nowhere, not-thinking. Only when the mind

is not thinking – like while in Presence – are we humans exposed to deep truths and spiritual insights that can be had no other way. In this sense, everyday thinking is a great hindrance to progress, a major barrier to evolving to a higher level – what some call enlightenment. When “insights” have to fight an uphill battle to show themselves, we necessarily stay in a rut of complacency and ignorance. No fun. No peace. No progress.

“Awakening” is no further from us than the moment

we are currently in.

Mindfulness often is described as a “practice” and not as a radical act of caring, compassion, rationality or transformation, indeed a transformation of us as individuals, our communities, and even as a species. Intelligence alone – and the exercise of power that comes with it – will only bring about our demise. Only wisdom itself can save us and open a new door, one of fulfillment, flourishing, and fascination.

“Acute” awareness is always here, it is always readily available. It is simply waiting to be accessed. It is not a huge challenge to go looking for it. Not a herculean undertaking. Awareness is not hiding from you or purposely trying to avoid you. You are the one who is doing all the hiding, all the avoiding, all the denying of its actual existence. So, being the problem, what exactly is your challenge? It is to break free from the habit of constant, annoying, non-stop thinking. On a regular basis, take time to watch what your mind is up to – thinking, saying, doing, and denying. Imagine you are 1,000 feet away from “you,” and are watching your mind – the doer, the thinker, the decider – from this vantage point. Question: Is it doing an excellent job or not? Fact: Your mind is just going through the motions, doing what it has always done day after day. And it will continue to do this until you decide to intercede and make it stop what it is doing. This requires a conscious act on your part as well as a commitment to persevere.

Of course, your mind is only doing what it has been trained to do over many millennia to do: alert you; guide you, protect you, and inform you of opportunities to climb up Maslow’s ladder of the wants and needs. They include (1) survival at the very bottom and involve air, rest, sex, food, and water; (2) safety and security; (3) family and social; (4) self-esteem; (5) self-actualization – striving to be all you can be; and (6) “transcendence” at the very top where earthy needs are outweighed by higher, more spiritual goals. Again, our mind chases after these wants and needs whether we know about them, understand them, like them, or not.

To be clear, Abraham Maslow uses the word “transcendence” to describe a stage of human development that is well beyond self-actualization. Self-actualization is about becoming fully oneself – maximizing one’s talents, abilities, integrity, creativity, and purpose. Transcendence goes one step further. It is progression well beyond the limitations or boundaries of the simple, so-called “self.”

A transcendent person still has a so-called “identity,” but they no longer live only for personal success, recognition, comfort, or achievement. Instead, there is a growing awareness of a larger connection: Connection to other people, to nature, to truth, to beauty, to humanity, and for many, to God or a deeper spiritual reality. Life begins to feel less centered on, “What can I get?” and more centered on, “What can I give?” This involves asking the important question, “What much larger reality am I an integral part of?”

Maslow noticed that some people experience moments of profound clarity, unity, peace or insight, what he called “peak experiences.” In such moments, fear and ego temporarily fall away. One may feel unusually present, compassionate, grateful, or deeply alive. Transcendence involves living increasingly from this very high level of awareness, what I call “acute” awareness.

It is important to know that transcendence is not about withdrawal from the world. In fact, it involves greater engagement with life and those who are living it. People who transcend “themselves” may become mentors, healers, artists, peacemakers, or servants to a larger cause. Their motivation shifts from personal advancement to meaningful contribution. In many ways, transcendence is the realization that the fullest human life is not merely self-centered fulfillment, but participation in something greater than oneself, namely the greater and grander whole.

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The goal is to be part of, join, occupy, or indeed inhabit Now, the present moment. Past and future are totally ignored as they in fact do not exist except as delusions in our mind. There is a unique awareness about this place – or space – that is non-verbal, non-personal, and non-spatial (e.g. there is no beginning and no end). It is omni-present, all-encompassing, and all-knowing. It is often called untarnished or “unconditioned” (e.g. not previously “affected” by this world) consciousness because it represents both nothing and everything at the same time. It is the one-mind that hosts all other lesser minds that are all delusions.

Presence is a unique human dimension that brings

us closer to knowing what it means to be truly human – with

calmness, clarity, and compassion at our very core. 

Without spending time in this “place” – Presence – we cannot know who we are, what we’re made of, or where we’re going. Of course, we “think” we know these things but in fact we do not. Illusions alone are running our mind, and delusions galore are controlling our thinking. Fact: Either we wake up or we die. Figuratively or literally. Either we find ourselves and know joy, or we lose ourselves and know despair. Herein lies a prime example of what is called “free will.”

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When our mind is doing all our thinking for us, invariably it takes us back to all the things that happened to us in the past – with special note of all the bad things – then it takes this imprint and firmly places it on all the things that happen to us in the future. Oboy! Where is the hope? Where is the joy? Where is the discovery of what might be? When we are locked in a prison of this kind – one of our own making – we are at the mercy of things beyond our control. There is no room for magical imagination or transcendent transformation. We are being pigeon-holed into a corner where only chance and circumstance play their cruel game.

The unexamined mind, the tethered soul, the weakened spirit – all these will be our downfall if we don’t resist. Nature and nurture will continue to do what they do. All the major decisions in our life will be made for us. Yes, this is enslavement but we don’t seem to care. After all, things aren’t that bad. Why disrupt what seems to be working? Is everyone successful at everything they attempt?  Can we do a better job if we start thinking for ourselves? Interesting questions. But in truth we are allowing ourselves to be overwhelmed by confusions and delusions that our mind is generating to protect its own turf. The ego has no intention of leaving town.

I close with this statement: The ultimate goal of awaking is to maximize well-being and minimize harm, both regarding ourselves, others, and the planet. I suggest it is in our best interest to start down this path sooner rather than later.

In stillness, we sense the sacred that is in us. Once we sense

the sacred that is in us, we begin to see the sacred that is in others,

indeed in all things. This is a higher level of consciousness.