Q: There is an online support group for The Presence Process at a website about a mind-body chronic pain condition called TMS. We've had almost 200 posts already, which you can read starting here. The wiki gets about 12,000 page views per month and I'm sure that people would be thrilled to hear from you. If you respond to this email, I'd be happy to prominently post any feedback from you, especially if it mentions TMS.
A: Mostly, a support group only supports ego, drama, the intent to "understand", and individuals who cannot contain their experience. Everything anyone requires of me personally related to this work is already freely available on the website. Talking about and discussing this work with each other does not in any way improve our capacity to do it - it actually does the opposite. Wherever we rely on "a support group" is where we do not grow and develop emotionally.
Our authentic "support group" are those we encounter in our daily lives, like our family and work colleagues. This is the group The Presence Process teaches us to work with. When we cannot be authentic within these natural day-to-day encounters - we form or engage in specialized groups as an escape from them. When it comes to this work in particular, support groups take what is intended to improve felt-perception and instead mentalize it.
I have already written an article called "Let's Not Form Another Group" to offer those requiring support groups the possibility of emancipating themselves from such a cul-de-sac. However, if people choose to entertain such things, this is a lesson obviously not yet learnt. But inevitably, it shall be.
Also, to become fixated on any physical symptom and to form a group around discussing this symptom is to completely miss the point of this work. It is the causal point of symptomatic discomfort which ought to be our point of focus if we are serious about integrating it - and the causal point of all symptomatic discomfort is the same. To focus on symptoms is to focus on "effects", not causality - which is "in effect you all" - ineffectual. It is to entertain drama. Chat groups formed around commonly shared symptoms is simply drama - they bow to the symptom as being more significant than its causal point. Talking about our symptoms is therefore the propagation of drama.
It is more efficient to move directly toward integrating the symptoms causality - which requires feeling the related emotional signature without condition. No support group has the capacity to feel on our behalf. Symptomatically-driven support groups aspire to "understanding the condition" - and our intent to use understanding as a means to integrate takes us away from "feeling what is without condition".
You are welcome to post this notice on your support group. It is designed to inspire discussion for those who enjoy drama - and liberation from such a mental cul-de-sac for those who seek authentic integration of their discomfort. By posting it you will discover who is who.
Friday, July 31, 2009
Thursday, July 30, 2009
Will The Presence Process help me sell better?
Q: I have a sales job, where I get payed by the sale. Direct marketing. One thing I have noticed is, women love men who are present with them. They respond differently somehow. Next to the 15 minute breathing I try to be conscious of my breathing the whole day, by breathing as deeply as possible. However, I'm into self-help and am using hypnosis tapes for my work - one is for charisma and the other is for leadership ( which allows me to exude confidence, give me real hardcore focus and allow me to have grace under fire, it makes me feel like a leader and gives me that body language, also the tapes gives me the possibility to positively influence people etc.. ). I need this for my job and to keep up my daily income. I need the money for college and rent. My question to you is, could you tell me if there are any side effects when using these hypnosis tapes? I'm willing to drop them if you say so, if it means that it will interfere with the process in any negative way. But it would make a lot of things harder for me.
A: Personally, I cannot enter sales work. I cannot even do book signing in a book store. So, you are talking to the wrong person. I do not believe in the manipulation of others for personal benefit. Dale Carnegie is a creep. This is why I developed the tool, "Navigating Our Experiences" - available free on the Writings page. It is based on navigating our experience - not on the manipulation of others. Your email is timely. I have a friend who adjusts their personality for whomever is in front of them depending on what it is they wish to portray, or what they wish to get out of the encounter. To me this is parasitic. It is "importing a manufactured self" for each occasion - or self-importing - or self-importance. It recently became clear to me [again!], that if I entertain those who behave in this manner, I too become this way.
There are three types of people responsible for propagating ongoing suffering in this world: Priests, politicians, and profiteers. What they all have in common is they manufacture appearances deliberately to manipulate others. They are all the same type of person simply wearing different faces. I am disgusted with myself whenever I behave in this way. This manufacture of personality deliberately to acquire from others is called "iniquity". My work has nothing to do with furthering ones skills at manipulating others. Using this work to impress women and to get people to buy what they may not require has a price tag - eventually we have to pay the piper. The universe is crushingly merciless with those who practice iniquity - as we are finding out right now, economically and otherwise.
When I toured and taught this work I did not even allow my books to be sold in the same room where I spoke. I did not speak to people so they would buy my book. This kind of behavior disgusts me - and I am disgusted with myself whenever I entertain it within myself. We have to be who we are when we are talking to our mother, our lover, the person at the gas station, and the stranger on the street. If we change our face because a face changes in front of us - we are inauthentic, have no integrity, and the closeness we assume we feel with anyone is bullshit.
So, I am not going to tell you what to do. This is what you have a heart for. It appears you have very strong beliefs about what you think you have to do to be supported by the universe. I suggest you read "Navigating Our Experiences" and contemplate the difference between "navigating our own experience" and "behaving in a way as to manipulate another's". The difference between the two is so vast that "a manipulator" and "a navigator" appear as different species. Manipulators inevitably enter self-destruction, whereas navigators evolve. Both take many with them - so we have to take care whom we entertain. We have to choose which group we occupy - not through our words - but through what is in our heart. Then, we live with the consequences. To be sure - we live with the consequences.
A: Personally, I cannot enter sales work. I cannot even do book signing in a book store. So, you are talking to the wrong person. I do not believe in the manipulation of others for personal benefit. Dale Carnegie is a creep. This is why I developed the tool, "Navigating Our Experiences" - available free on the Writings page. It is based on navigating our experience - not on the manipulation of others. Your email is timely. I have a friend who adjusts their personality for whomever is in front of them depending on what it is they wish to portray, or what they wish to get out of the encounter. To me this is parasitic. It is "importing a manufactured self" for each occasion - or self-importing - or self-importance. It recently became clear to me [again!], that if I entertain those who behave in this manner, I too become this way.
There are three types of people responsible for propagating ongoing suffering in this world: Priests, politicians, and profiteers. What they all have in common is they manufacture appearances deliberately to manipulate others. They are all the same type of person simply wearing different faces. I am disgusted with myself whenever I behave in this way. This manufacture of personality deliberately to acquire from others is called "iniquity". My work has nothing to do with furthering ones skills at manipulating others. Using this work to impress women and to get people to buy what they may not require has a price tag - eventually we have to pay the piper. The universe is crushingly merciless with those who practice iniquity - as we are finding out right now, economically and otherwise.
When I toured and taught this work I did not even allow my books to be sold in the same room where I spoke. I did not speak to people so they would buy my book. This kind of behavior disgusts me - and I am disgusted with myself whenever I entertain it within myself. We have to be who we are when we are talking to our mother, our lover, the person at the gas station, and the stranger on the street. If we change our face because a face changes in front of us - we are inauthentic, have no integrity, and the closeness we assume we feel with anyone is bullshit.
So, I am not going to tell you what to do. This is what you have a heart for. It appears you have very strong beliefs about what you think you have to do to be supported by the universe. I suggest you read "Navigating Our Experiences" and contemplate the difference between "navigating our own experience" and "behaving in a way as to manipulate another's". The difference between the two is so vast that "a manipulator" and "a navigator" appear as different species. Manipulators inevitably enter self-destruction, whereas navigators evolve. Both take many with them - so we have to take care whom we entertain. We have to choose which group we occupy - not through our words - but through what is in our heart. Then, we live with the consequences. To be sure - we live with the consequences.
Will The Presence Process help me to find peace?
Q: I am wondering is The Presence Process will help me find peace. It feels like the world is becoming more and more chaotic. I feel hopeless. How are we ever going to live in peace? Is this book going to help me?
A: One of our greatest misconceptions is the notion that if we seek peace, we have to “make it”. This assumes peace does not exist unless manufactured. This misunderstand arises from being mentally and physically transfixed. It stems from the belief we are to rearrange the physical and mental aspect of our experience to moderate its quality. We only have to observe how we behave when we claim we seek peace to realize our approach is a misconception. We even say, “Let’s make peace”. Because of our misconception about what peace is, when intending the experience of peace, we predictably take one of two approaches: Attempting to rearrange our circumstances physically, or mentally. Observing our world and community leaders demonstrates these two ineffectual [in effect you all] approaches.
Our leaders demand that, for there to be peace, people must be moved, removed, borders re-drawn, and population behaviors controlled. This is born out of a belief that peace is established through rearranging physical circumstance. This approach never accomplishes peace – and any apparent appearance of peace gained from rearranging physical circumstance is always short-lived because it is born of control and sedation. Peace may be expressed physically - however, its existence is not determined by physical circumstance.
Our leaders also insist on approaches such as “peace talks” – in which governments and peace organizations present treatise – make compromises with each other – and declare after long discussion and debate that peace is accomplished. This approach mistakenly believes peace is something mental. This approach has never also accomplished the realization of authentic peace – and any apparent appearance of peace gained from mental discussion and debate – from agreement between opposing parties - is always short-lived, because it is also born of control and sedation. Just as peace is not a physical circumstance, it is also not a mental agreement.
Peace is a vibration recognized through felt-perception. We don’t “do peace” or “think peace” – we feel peace. Peace is – it does not require manufacture. Peace is everywhere, whether we are aware of it or not. The entire planet is blanketed in peace. It is easy to experientially realize this: We may enter any war-torn environment – any experience of conflict - remove all human beings – and what becomes immediately self-evident is the resonance of peace. Peace is in the midst of all chaos and conflict. Nothing we do or think ads or takes away from this actuality.
In each moment of our individual experience we are immersed in the vibrational resonance called peace. However, due to our imprinted charged emotions and their emanations of fear, anger, and grief – and the mental stories told by these emotional states – and the physical activities born of believing these stories – we remain unaware of the peace already given to us all.
We are therefore not required to “make peace”, but to realize it – to real eyes it – to perceive it with the eyes of the heart. By sedating and controlling our current states of imprinted felt-discomfort, we simultaneously shut down the perceptual mechanism required to realize peace – our feeling capacity. We are all personally responsible for whether we experience peace or not. No other can feel on our behalf, and therefore no other has the capacity to grant us the experience we call peace. Peace is available to us right now through a choice to feel peaceful.
When we are unable to feel peaceful it because our experience of peace is obscured by our emotional, mental, and physical reactions to our discomfort. The road into realizing peace is therefore the intent to integrate imprinted emotional charge. We are all personally in charge of our capacity for peacefulness. Once we authentically feel the vibrational resonance called peace – this resonance automatically radiates into our mentality and physicality. Peace therefore begins with us, individually. Realizing peace individually is a prerequisite to realizing it collectively. Hence the saying, “Peace be with you”. In this light, The Presence Process and its intent to assist us in integrating our imprinted emotional charges is a tool for realizing peace. But, it begins with us. Peace has nothing to do with the other.
A: One of our greatest misconceptions is the notion that if we seek peace, we have to “make it”. This assumes peace does not exist unless manufactured. This misunderstand arises from being mentally and physically transfixed. It stems from the belief we are to rearrange the physical and mental aspect of our experience to moderate its quality. We only have to observe how we behave when we claim we seek peace to realize our approach is a misconception. We even say, “Let’s make peace”. Because of our misconception about what peace is, when intending the experience of peace, we predictably take one of two approaches: Attempting to rearrange our circumstances physically, or mentally. Observing our world and community leaders demonstrates these two ineffectual [in effect you all] approaches.
Our leaders demand that, for there to be peace, people must be moved, removed, borders re-drawn, and population behaviors controlled. This is born out of a belief that peace is established through rearranging physical circumstance. This approach never accomplishes peace – and any apparent appearance of peace gained from rearranging physical circumstance is always short-lived because it is born of control and sedation. Peace may be expressed physically - however, its existence is not determined by physical circumstance.
Our leaders also insist on approaches such as “peace talks” – in which governments and peace organizations present treatise – make compromises with each other – and declare after long discussion and debate that peace is accomplished. This approach mistakenly believes peace is something mental. This approach has never also accomplished the realization of authentic peace – and any apparent appearance of peace gained from mental discussion and debate – from agreement between opposing parties - is always short-lived, because it is also born of control and sedation. Just as peace is not a physical circumstance, it is also not a mental agreement.
Peace is a vibration recognized through felt-perception. We don’t “do peace” or “think peace” – we feel peace. Peace is – it does not require manufacture. Peace is everywhere, whether we are aware of it or not. The entire planet is blanketed in peace. It is easy to experientially realize this: We may enter any war-torn environment – any experience of conflict - remove all human beings – and what becomes immediately self-evident is the resonance of peace. Peace is in the midst of all chaos and conflict. Nothing we do or think ads or takes away from this actuality.
In each moment of our individual experience we are immersed in the vibrational resonance called peace. However, due to our imprinted charged emotions and their emanations of fear, anger, and grief – and the mental stories told by these emotional states – and the physical activities born of believing these stories – we remain unaware of the peace already given to us all.
We are therefore not required to “make peace”, but to realize it – to real eyes it – to perceive it with the eyes of the heart. By sedating and controlling our current states of imprinted felt-discomfort, we simultaneously shut down the perceptual mechanism required to realize peace – our feeling capacity. We are all personally responsible for whether we experience peace or not. No other can feel on our behalf, and therefore no other has the capacity to grant us the experience we call peace. Peace is available to us right now through a choice to feel peaceful.
When we are unable to feel peaceful it because our experience of peace is obscured by our emotional, mental, and physical reactions to our discomfort. The road into realizing peace is therefore the intent to integrate imprinted emotional charge. We are all personally in charge of our capacity for peacefulness. Once we authentically feel the vibrational resonance called peace – this resonance automatically radiates into our mentality and physicality. Peace therefore begins with us, individually. Realizing peace individually is a prerequisite to realizing it collectively. Hence the saying, “Peace be with you”. In this light, The Presence Process and its intent to assist us in integrating our imprinted emotional charges is a tool for realizing peace. But, it begins with us. Peace has nothing to do with the other.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Can I use the breathing audio while I breathe?
Q: I have a question, I'm about to enter Session One tomorrow. But I'm not sure whether I should be repeating the Present Activating statements while breathing? I read in the book that we should do it when we are not engaged in mental activity? I'm always thinking? Does that mean I should do it only during the connected breathing sessions?Also can I play the http://www.thepresenceportal.com/how_we_breathe.htm mp3 while doing the breathing sessions so I can use that as a pattern of breathing while doing it? Something like a guidance?
A: I am currently in the midst of rewriting The Presence Process, not that there is anything wrong with the current edition - however I am ready to put out a more efficient prototype.
One of the changes is I no longer call them Presence Activation Statements - now they are referred to as Conscious Responses. Another change is that there is a Conscious Response used all the way through the procedure only for the breathing sessions - if we wish to do mental repetition while breathing. It is: "I AM HERE NOW". I suggest you use this during your breathing practice.
As per your question, you may be thinking all the time, which is a complete waste of time as all thinking is a dysfunction of the mental body - but this does not mean you are required to be mentally active all the time. If someone is having a conversation with me - I am mentally active. If I am doing numerical calculations - I am mentally active. If I am giving a presentation - I am mentally active. Using a Conscious Response during moments like this is not recommended. It's called , "trying too hard".
However, most of our time is spent meandering in meaningless thought. During these moments it is useful to repeat whatever Conscious Response we have been given for that week.
As far as the audio is concerned: It is only 5 minutes long, deliberately. The breathing practice is 15 minutes long. You may use the audio for the first 5 minutes to set a pace. However, do not tape and repeat it to the length of 15 minutes so it runs throughout your breathing practice, otherwise you are turning it into a crutch. This work is not about leaning. And, after a while of using it to set the pace - hopefully you stop using it altogether and rely on your own inner resources to establish the momentum of your breathing practice.
A: I am currently in the midst of rewriting The Presence Process, not that there is anything wrong with the current edition - however I am ready to put out a more efficient prototype.
One of the changes is I no longer call them Presence Activation Statements - now they are referred to as Conscious Responses. Another change is that there is a Conscious Response used all the way through the procedure only for the breathing sessions - if we wish to do mental repetition while breathing. It is: "I AM HERE NOW". I suggest you use this during your breathing practice.
As per your question, you may be thinking all the time, which is a complete waste of time as all thinking is a dysfunction of the mental body - but this does not mean you are required to be mentally active all the time. If someone is having a conversation with me - I am mentally active. If I am doing numerical calculations - I am mentally active. If I am giving a presentation - I am mentally active. Using a Conscious Response during moments like this is not recommended. It's called , "trying too hard".
However, most of our time is spent meandering in meaningless thought. During these moments it is useful to repeat whatever Conscious Response we have been given for that week.
As far as the audio is concerned: It is only 5 minutes long, deliberately. The breathing practice is 15 minutes long. You may use the audio for the first 5 minutes to set a pace. However, do not tape and repeat it to the length of 15 minutes so it runs throughout your breathing practice, otherwise you are turning it into a crutch. This work is not about leaning. And, after a while of using it to set the pace - hopefully you stop using it altogether and rely on your own inner resources to establish the momentum of your breathing practice.
I am in excruciating pain - any suggestions?
Q: I am not sure if I have a question. I am in excruciating pain. I have never had pain that I could not tolerate before. I am completing week 7 tonight. It feels like all my past pain and hurts have accumulated in my right quadriceps. To find comfort I have to lay on my stomach. I feel embarrassment and shame for even writing this for crying out for help. I have been very mental having to understand everything. I know that that is not required. I am finding the process very transforming and it is perfect for me right now. I have moments when I sit with the pain and it goes away but also returns. The pain has been present for over a week but has intensified today. Very challenging to feel better at feeling when you are in severe pain. Any suggestions?
A: Yes, continue. You are obviously on the right track. You will get through to the other side as long as you continue - and stop all the thinking about it. You may benefit from reading the article called "Gifts" on the Writings page of the website. Also, make sure you are tuning into the emotional state surfacing along with the pain. It will be there in amidst the physical discomfort. It is this emotional signature which is causal. Makes sure you are giving it attention - being with it without condition. Often, when we do this work, we feel as if our pain is worsening - it is my experience that this is not necessarily the case. It is our awareness which is improving. Many of us have great discomfort being in the body because of built-up and unattended emotional charges. When we do this work we reenter the body and start to feel aspects of our experience not available to our awareness when adrift in the mental plane. The way out is through.
A: Yes, continue. You are obviously on the right track. You will get through to the other side as long as you continue - and stop all the thinking about it. You may benefit from reading the article called "Gifts" on the Writings page of the website. Also, make sure you are tuning into the emotional state surfacing along with the pain. It will be there in amidst the physical discomfort. It is this emotional signature which is causal. Makes sure you are giving it attention - being with it without condition. Often, when we do this work, we feel as if our pain is worsening - it is my experience that this is not necessarily the case. It is our awareness which is improving. Many of us have great discomfort being in the body because of built-up and unattended emotional charges. When we do this work we reenter the body and start to feel aspects of our experience not available to our awareness when adrift in the mental plane. The way out is through.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
Is the warm water hot enough?
Q: I am on my second experiential journey through The Presence Process, and am in Session 8. The first time around, I used warm water for the activation of the Sessions, and then, during the week that followed, took my regular hot baths. At that time I experienced the heat in my solar plexus that you described, in both the warm, and the hot baths. My question is, do you suggest to use warm water only so that someone won't get burned, and then blame it on you or The Presence Process, or is it actually the warm, and never hot water that facilitates the release of the negative emotional charge? Thank you for continuing your journey, and for taking the time to read this.
A: Yes. You have no idea how desperately desperate people behave! One has to protect such people from themselves and from ruining this procedure for others. In rebirthing one uses very warm water - almost uncomfortable to the skin. However, I have discovered one only requires water that is body temperature, or a degree or two over that. It is not just the heat of the water at work here - it is also the intensity of the accumulated intent acquired from having moved experientially from Session One to the water sessions in Seven, Eight, and Nine.
I get emails from people wanting to attend to the breathing practice four to six times a day, who have stayed on one of the Sessions for five weeks to "get it right". These are the people who require protection from themselves and who would scald themselves with the water just to feel something happening. So, warm water is all that is required.
In the end it is Presence which makes all possible, and these simple procedures are there to make us vulnerable to Presence. When we try to do it better, longer, harder, and hotter, we only do so because of lack of faith in Presence and the procedure as it is given us. Acting from this lack of faith does not improve anything.
A: Yes. You have no idea how desperately desperate people behave! One has to protect such people from themselves and from ruining this procedure for others. In rebirthing one uses very warm water - almost uncomfortable to the skin. However, I have discovered one only requires water that is body temperature, or a degree or two over that. It is not just the heat of the water at work here - it is also the intensity of the accumulated intent acquired from having moved experientially from Session One to the water sessions in Seven, Eight, and Nine.
I get emails from people wanting to attend to the breathing practice four to six times a day, who have stayed on one of the Sessions for five weeks to "get it right". These are the people who require protection from themselves and who would scald themselves with the water just to feel something happening. So, warm water is all that is required.
In the end it is Presence which makes all possible, and these simple procedures are there to make us vulnerable to Presence. When we try to do it better, longer, harder, and hotter, we only do so because of lack of faith in Presence and the procedure as it is given us. Acting from this lack of faith does not improve anything.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Does The Presence Process require rumination?
Q: I am one of those folks that doesn't have a 'skin' towards the outside world (empath?). I seem to feel all the suffering of everything around me and get quite overwhelmed with it all (even feeling paralyzed by it). I am always trying to make sense of ontology but seem to fall in the black hole of just generating endless questions with the philosophical approach. Therefore,long story short: Is The Presence Process likely to worsen my rumination,obsessing, and feeling overwhelmed 'or' is it more likely a sign that I have issues which this process might eventually help me with? On another note, I have a severe case of ocular hypertension and I think it might be related to my inner state.
A: The Presence Process has nothing to do with rumination. It is a practical approach to integration of the emotional charges imprinted during childhood which, while unresolved, drive our mental and physical experience in an uncomfortable way. It also teaches containment - something you appear to require. Your level of felt-perception is obviously well-developed - now your learning is about responding to this capacity. I suggest, if you would like to know what The Presence Process is about before engaging it, that you first read Alchemy Of The Heart. This book is short, simple, and provides a thorough overview of the work initiated by The Presence Process procedure. Rumination is not part of it. Thinking, understanding, and analysis are not part of it.
A: The Presence Process has nothing to do with rumination. It is a practical approach to integration of the emotional charges imprinted during childhood which, while unresolved, drive our mental and physical experience in an uncomfortable way. It also teaches containment - something you appear to require. Your level of felt-perception is obviously well-developed - now your learning is about responding to this capacity. I suggest, if you would like to know what The Presence Process is about before engaging it, that you first read Alchemy Of The Heart. This book is short, simple, and provides a thorough overview of the work initiated by The Presence Process procedure. Rumination is not part of it. Thinking, understanding, and analysis are not part of it.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
I would like to form a group around The Presence Process...
Q: Would it be inappropriate to have a class using your book so that an interested group could go through it together? Do you feel that would violate the principles of the book or would that upset you? I thought it would be a good idea to go through the book with a group, but someone raised the issue that it was contrary to the book's ideas. Please let me know...
A: Read "Let's Not Form Another Group" on the Writings page of the website.
Q: Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly. It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember now the thoughts on support groups. While this was not what I was thinking, I can see your point. I was just thinking that it's good material to get out there and I assumed no one would show up unless they were ready. I certainly want to respect your thoughts.
A: Don't take my word for it - form a group if you must - and then let all the egos that show up do their little dance of self-importance. Once you are sick of it - you'll move on. Remember, for this work in particular there is no group more authentic and efficient than the human beings surrounding us in each moment. Those who form "specialized spiritual groups" around this work only do so out of couched self-importance and unconscious projection of their unintegrated emotional charge upon others. And, they then attract those who behave the same. It is fun at first - but only at first. Then it gets really messy.
People also form groups around this work because they do not yet have the courage to get real within their authentic group - within their families, with their companions and with the people in their work place - so they form a "special group" as a cover-up. But that is all it is - re-covery - not discovery. If this "specialized support group thing" is a lesson you require to learning - you have my full support. I did this myself, and welcomed the teaching which comes with it.
Every religion is a group formed by people who don't have the capacity to face God just as God is - as being everything and everyone appearing to us in each moment. There is only one group - all of us.
A: Read "Let's Not Form Another Group" on the Writings page of the website.
Q: Thank you so much for getting back to me so quickly. It's been a while since I read the book, but I remember now the thoughts on support groups. While this was not what I was thinking, I can see your point. I was just thinking that it's good material to get out there and I assumed no one would show up unless they were ready. I certainly want to respect your thoughts.
A: Don't take my word for it - form a group if you must - and then let all the egos that show up do their little dance of self-importance. Once you are sick of it - you'll move on. Remember, for this work in particular there is no group more authentic and efficient than the human beings surrounding us in each moment. Those who form "specialized spiritual groups" around this work only do so out of couched self-importance and unconscious projection of their unintegrated emotional charge upon others. And, they then attract those who behave the same. It is fun at first - but only at first. Then it gets really messy.
People also form groups around this work because they do not yet have the courage to get real within their authentic group - within their families, with their companions and with the people in their work place - so they form a "special group" as a cover-up. But that is all it is - re-covery - not discovery. If this "specialized support group thing" is a lesson you require to learning - you have my full support. I did this myself, and welcomed the teaching which comes with it.
Every religion is a group formed by people who don't have the capacity to face God just as God is - as being everything and everyone appearing to us in each moment. There is only one group - all of us.
I am reaching out because I cannot stand this shame anymore...
Q: I am writing this email wondering what to say and how to verbalize what I am experiencing. I am currently on I am safe in this body and I am experiencing the depths of agony. It is so intense I feel like I am depressed and my mind says this is how you have always felt. I have been praying to turn over these thoughts however the experience of shame that I feel is what I have felt my entire life. Although the the physical and mental are not the primary cause it feels like in some way that I might need some neurotransmitter help.. These are the kind of thoughts that I intuit come from the emotional charge.. I have been willingly consistent with this process. I simply want to function without shame.. I have been sitting with this and my stomach is on fire.. I am not sure what my question is??? I am just reaching out...
A: This is a good time to get down on your knees and beg forgiveness from whatever God is for you. But not to get rid of "thoughts" - for these are effects of a deeper wound. Ask for assistance, for having this "feeling" taken from you, because after all the thinking and figuring out, and understanding, you still do not know what to "do about it".
Know that this -praying for help in having this feeling of shame taken from you - means you are going to first be required to feel it all fully, so you know what you are asking to be forgiven for from a point of felt-perception.
Unless we truly know how our shamefulness has impacted others - how it has hurt them - how they have felt because of it - unless we feel all this hurt - then our prayers for forgiveness are just empty words from the head. But when we feel the consequences of our actions - our prayer becomes a beckoning for help from our heart. Then we are getting real.
Know that the hurt you have caused to others - for which you now have "fire in your stomach" - which is now "indigestible" - which you can "no longer stomach" - know that this hurt is to be given up consciously through feeling it consciously. Stay on your knees until you mean it, until you know there is no where else to go but inward to the source, and until you realize the arrogance which brought you into the shame. When you pray this hard, feeling your condition this deeply, offering it up this humbly, which requires facing the arrogance squarely, then only is it taken - not a second before. Then the pretence is washed away and Presence restored.
So, this is not about reaching out...this is about reaching inward...with the heart. Let the heart give you the words for your prayer - not your head. If you truly allow yourself to feel your shame fully - the right neurotransmitters are automatically fired up - and the response of unconditional love is inevitable. If it is truly shame you feel - and if you are willing to feel the extent of it - then get down on your knees and get real.
A: This is a good time to get down on your knees and beg forgiveness from whatever God is for you. But not to get rid of "thoughts" - for these are effects of a deeper wound. Ask for assistance, for having this "feeling" taken from you, because after all the thinking and figuring out, and understanding, you still do not know what to "do about it".
Know that this -praying for help in having this feeling of shame taken from you - means you are going to first be required to feel it all fully, so you know what you are asking to be forgiven for from a point of felt-perception.
Unless we truly know how our shamefulness has impacted others - how it has hurt them - how they have felt because of it - unless we feel all this hurt - then our prayers for forgiveness are just empty words from the head. But when we feel the consequences of our actions - our prayer becomes a beckoning for help from our heart. Then we are getting real.
Know that the hurt you have caused to others - for which you now have "fire in your stomach" - which is now "indigestible" - which you can "no longer stomach" - know that this hurt is to be given up consciously through feeling it consciously. Stay on your knees until you mean it, until you know there is no where else to go but inward to the source, and until you realize the arrogance which brought you into the shame. When you pray this hard, feeling your condition this deeply, offering it up this humbly, which requires facing the arrogance squarely, then only is it taken - not a second before. Then the pretence is washed away and Presence restored.
So, this is not about reaching out...this is about reaching inward...with the heart. Let the heart give you the words for your prayer - not your head. If you truly allow yourself to feel your shame fully - the right neurotransmitters are automatically fired up - and the response of unconditional love is inevitable. If it is truly shame you feel - and if you are willing to feel the extent of it - then get down on your knees and get real.
I have done TPP three times, can I take action to quit smoking now?
Q: I am finishing up my third time with the presence process and this journey has been so beneficial in many different aspects of my life. Per the journal [available as a free download on the website], I have been setting goals, and one of those being to stop smoking. I know in The Presence Process it states that these addictions/behaviors will simply go away as your negative emotional charge is reduced and integrated/replaced with positive emotional charges. I have seen this happen with many of my actions, but the smoking is one that has alluded me. I know it also states not to try to make these types of changes while on the journey, but now that I have done it and am accustomed to the feelings that arise so do you think this urge/addiction to control will just subside or should I actively attempt to quit through other methods along with the process? Any thoughts you might have would be greatly appreciated and have a great weekend.
A: You are now equipped to respond to the deliberately stimulated surfacing of emotional charges. Therefore, take action - take charge. Your action in this regard is no longer reaction - but response. Smoking and alcohol are the most challenging parasitic invasions upon humanity. So be patient, but be firm. Pray for help. Stop identifying with the experience of "[your name]the smoker" - and start identifying with "[you name] the vibrational Presence". Daily application of Consciously Approaching The Vibrational is useful in this regard. The hardest thing about quiting an addiction is our identification with the addictive experience. When we say, "I am a smoker", we are reinforcing a lie which keeps us lying to ourselves and living in this lie. Rather say, "I am Presence having an experience of smoking cigarettes". You are not your experience - identifying with it traps you in a self-defeating lie. Onward then - be the Presence you really are and the manufactured experience of "[your name] the smoker" goes up in smoke.
A: You are now equipped to respond to the deliberately stimulated surfacing of emotional charges. Therefore, take action - take charge. Your action in this regard is no longer reaction - but response. Smoking and alcohol are the most challenging parasitic invasions upon humanity. So be patient, but be firm. Pray for help. Stop identifying with the experience of "[your name]the smoker" - and start identifying with "[you name] the vibrational Presence". Daily application of Consciously Approaching The Vibrational is useful in this regard. The hardest thing about quiting an addiction is our identification with the addictive experience. When we say, "I am a smoker", we are reinforcing a lie which keeps us lying to ourselves and living in this lie. Rather say, "I am Presence having an experience of smoking cigarettes". You are not your experience - identifying with it traps you in a self-defeating lie. Onward then - be the Presence you really are and the manufactured experience of "[your name] the smoker" goes up in smoke.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
My beer-drinking gets in the way of my breathing - what do you suggest?
Q: I keep trying to do the process, but my beer drinking gets in the way. I drink beer most days (very admittedly for sedation purposes) and thus am not able to do the breathing at night as suggested. I keep trying to stop drinking and do it right, but as you have pointed out, that is monkeying with effects, not the cause, and is unsustainable. Do you think it would be beneficial to still do the program but do second breath session in afternoon? If not, how else then to eliminate cause, so I can do the program. Feel like I am chasing my tail. Thank you soooo much for being available and for the wonderful things on your website. The breathing audio has allowed me to do the breathing session with so much less distress. Before I kept thinking "I can't keep this up, I can't keep this up", but with the audio I am doing it.
A: I suggest you do your second breathing practice of the day in the afternoon - as you have already intuited - before having your first beer. As you have quite rightly stated - your beer drinking is not the issue. Do not even be concerned about it. Continue to apply yourself to The Presence Process in spite of it. Continue to attend to the breathing practice twice a day. Most importantly, when faced with uncomfortable emotional states during your pre-drinking hours - be with them without condition. If upsets arise while drinking - then beer with them without condition.
I have absolutely no doubt I will at some point receive an email from you telling me you have not had a beer for days - if not for weeks. You are definitely a candidate for repeating The Presence Process once completing it. So, take three weeks off when you are finished this round, and during that time off apply the practice for Consciously Approaching The Vibrational. Then re-enter and continue. Well done for keeping at it.
Am I doing it right? Am I doing it wrong? Am I missing something?
Q: Funny about this latest question. In regards to the felt-perception, feelings, vibrational, etc. It's been bothering me for a while and keeps coming up so I am writing to you. Most of this is due to the "Approaching the Vibrational" which I've been "doing". In Part I, you don't mention staying with the eye center. I have so much trouble with that in Part II and III, that I try to do it in Part I also. I know these are guidelines but is there a reason you did not put it as part of Part l? Also, it's really hard to stay in the eye center, my naturally lazy eye always seems to look down. Any input for me there? The real confusion for me has always been differentiating the feelings,emotions, felt perceptions, vibrational and pulsing. They all seem to actually be (once I drop the stories)in the physical sensations in the body. All these, including the "feeling the vibrational" seem to be internal physical pulsating movements. I can't hear or see them but attempt to with the closed eyes at the center and it all seems to be the internal physical body pulsating. I really don't know the difference between an emotion and a feeling. Are you using these word interchangeably? Am I missing something? I do enjoy this physical stuff wouldn't want to be missing the point.
A: Yes, you are correct - you are completely missing the point. From your email it is obvious you are diligent, trying very hard, and holding this work as being very, very, very important to you. It is for this reason I recommend you immediately stop doing the practice for Consciously Approaching The Vibrational, that you stop doing any emotional integration work, and that you stop reading anything I write - whether on this Q & A - on the website - or any of the books I have written. In fact - please throw my books away.
Your eagerness, your "trying", and your diligence to this work, are completely annihilating your capacity to approach it in a manner in which accomplishes any valid progress. Such enthusiasm transforms what is intended to be "a state of being" into "an important doing" - and as such - neutralizes any of the possible benefits. I suggest you immediately cease conscious involvement in any aspect of "Michael Brown's writings or practices" until it has all become completely irrelevant and inconsequential to you.
While you try so hard and continue to behave like "a diligent student", you cannot receive the basic instructions given for the vibrational or any other of the practices. It is obvious from your email you cannot hear me. You are not even listening - you are thinking. It is impossible to listen and think at the same time. You are completely mental about all of this. You are not only anal eyes-ing each word I write, but you are also anal eye-sing every moment of your unfolding experience. Accordingly, there is no prospect of you achieving anything from this work which may benefit you.
I suggest you throw away all your "spiritual books", and immediately stop doing anything you consider to be "spiritual". In fact, do an immediate spring-cleaning from your current life experience of anything you define as spiritual, metaphysical, mystical, religious, etc. This includes all pictures, crystals, CD's, DVD's - the lot. Pretend spirituality does not exist. Pretend this is your only life experience and that what you do in this world matters more than anything that may possibly happen "afterwards" or "elsewhere". From this point onward behave as if there is no "afterwards" or "elsewhere" and that Michael Brown is a stinking liar who has completely betrayed you. Have absolutely nothing to do with him. Actively dislike him for having led you astray and wasted your time.
I suggest you approach your life as if you are already fully evolved, and that there is nothing more to accomplish or understand or experience than what you have already. Only when you arrive at a point where you realize you have not thought about "the vibrational" or "emotional body cleansing" or "breathing" for weeks - then I suggest you - only at that point - you sit down - close your eyes - and be with your experience just as it is. Not to accomplish anything, not to understand anything, not to get anything right or to do it correctly, but simply because you happen to be here, sitting, like a tree in the ground, being where you are because you are where you are and for no other reason.
You have clearly lost your way and it is because you approach this work as if it is somehow more important and more significant than brushing your teeth, putting your hand in front of your mouth when you cough, saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes, or wiping your butt properly after a good bowl movement. It is not, nor am I, and nor is anything I write. Please now treat it all like crap and whip it away diligently.
Only when approached in the same manner of necessity and non-analysis as these above listed activities is any progress possible for you. You have clearly turned all of this into "an important doing", and accordingly isolated these activities from the rest of your life as somehow being of more importance. For this reason you have zero chance of reaping any useful benefits. Please immediately stop all such practices you have learnt from my writings and drop all insights received. Go build a kite, and fly it. This will serve you far more than reading another word I write or attending to another practice I have recommended.
As you suggest, you are indeed missing something - your life! Be free of this work - be free of me - it is causing you to "head" away from the "heart" of what is truly important - living.
Now go. Go fly a kite.
A: Yes, you are correct - you are completely missing the point. From your email it is obvious you are diligent, trying very hard, and holding this work as being very, very, very important to you. It is for this reason I recommend you immediately stop doing the practice for Consciously Approaching The Vibrational, that you stop doing any emotional integration work, and that you stop reading anything I write - whether on this Q & A - on the website - or any of the books I have written. In fact - please throw my books away.
Your eagerness, your "trying", and your diligence to this work, are completely annihilating your capacity to approach it in a manner in which accomplishes any valid progress. Such enthusiasm transforms what is intended to be "a state of being" into "an important doing" - and as such - neutralizes any of the possible benefits. I suggest you immediately cease conscious involvement in any aspect of "Michael Brown's writings or practices" until it has all become completely irrelevant and inconsequential to you.
While you try so hard and continue to behave like "a diligent student", you cannot receive the basic instructions given for the vibrational or any other of the practices. It is obvious from your email you cannot hear me. You are not even listening - you are thinking. It is impossible to listen and think at the same time. You are completely mental about all of this. You are not only anal eyes-ing each word I write, but you are also anal eye-sing every moment of your unfolding experience. Accordingly, there is no prospect of you achieving anything from this work which may benefit you.
I suggest you throw away all your "spiritual books", and immediately stop doing anything you consider to be "spiritual". In fact, do an immediate spring-cleaning from your current life experience of anything you define as spiritual, metaphysical, mystical, religious, etc. This includes all pictures, crystals, CD's, DVD's - the lot. Pretend spirituality does not exist. Pretend this is your only life experience and that what you do in this world matters more than anything that may possibly happen "afterwards" or "elsewhere". From this point onward behave as if there is no "afterwards" or "elsewhere" and that Michael Brown is a stinking liar who has completely betrayed you. Have absolutely nothing to do with him. Actively dislike him for having led you astray and wasted your time.
I suggest you approach your life as if you are already fully evolved, and that there is nothing more to accomplish or understand or experience than what you have already. Only when you arrive at a point where you realize you have not thought about "the vibrational" or "emotional body cleansing" or "breathing" for weeks - then I suggest you - only at that point - you sit down - close your eyes - and be with your experience just as it is. Not to accomplish anything, not to understand anything, not to get anything right or to do it correctly, but simply because you happen to be here, sitting, like a tree in the ground, being where you are because you are where you are and for no other reason.
You have clearly lost your way and it is because you approach this work as if it is somehow more important and more significant than brushing your teeth, putting your hand in front of your mouth when you cough, saying "Bless you" when someone sneezes, or wiping your butt properly after a good bowl movement. It is not, nor am I, and nor is anything I write. Please now treat it all like crap and whip it away diligently.
Only when approached in the same manner of necessity and non-analysis as these above listed activities is any progress possible for you. You have clearly turned all of this into "an important doing", and accordingly isolated these activities from the rest of your life as somehow being of more importance. For this reason you have zero chance of reaping any useful benefits. Please immediately stop all such practices you have learnt from my writings and drop all insights received. Go build a kite, and fly it. This will serve you far more than reading another word I write or attending to another practice I have recommended.
As you suggest, you are indeed missing something - your life! Be free of this work - be free of me - it is causing you to "head" away from the "heart" of what is truly important - living.
Now go. Go fly a kite.
[Thank you for being the vehicle for the reply to your email which ended up on the Q & A. I am wondering if you were able to absorb it. I hope so. What I attempted to communicate to you is crucial: "Trying to understand" as a means to move forward is "Eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil". It only serves to keep you thrown out of Eden-consciousness and at a distance from a direct experience with the vibrational. Your experience is your teaching - not your understanding of it - but your navigating each step by watching the consequences of what unfolds when acting upon anything. However, trying to understand what cannot be understood by us is not only arrogant [we all suffer from this], but it is to except the misguided invitation of an enemy [the mental body playing God]. When we do not insist on "understanding" as a means to approach what God is for us - there is no enemy in the way - because then there is no enemy. We were told right in the beginning - "Live joyfully in The Garden - but do not try to figure God out - for to do so is to step onto a pathway leading out of The Kingdom [mental projection] into the mental realm." I know I was harsh with you - but my intent was to stop you in your tracks - because you are "heading" in the wrong direction. Trust your experience as it reveals itself to you. It is given you intimately by the Vibrational. Read it and receive it by feeling it unconditionally. Feeling it unconditionally brings in-sight - as opposed to understanding. Insight delivers to us whole [holy] and complete awareness's that understanding only ever promises - but can never deliver. Insight through the felt-capacity of the heart is direct communication [communion] from and with God - understanding is to mistakenly bow to the mental body as being God. Contemplate this deeply so you may move forward with renewed strength - not because of my writings or recommended procedures - but because your experience is given you to be as your Teacher. Trying to understand my words is futile. Use them only to receive from your experience what is already given to you. The heart has all the required insight - the head has only understanding - and understanding is as the word reveals - we end up "standing under" something!]
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Do I need more than The Presence Process while doing it?
Q: Hi I wanted to ask your opinion about the process itself. As we know there will be a lot of emotion arising, and it could be quite hard. All those horrible memories coming up. Now a friend of mine suggested the sedona method in combination with the presence process. The Sedona Method can show you and your organization how to tap your natural ability to let go of any unwanted thought, feeling or belief in the moment. This will free you to have, be or do whatever is best for you now. The Sedona Method liberates you without you needing to feel more pain and without having to figure out why.
A: First of all, I know nothing about The Sedona Method - so no comment there. Secondly, the assumption that doing The Presence Process means you have to "relive all your horrible memories" is something you made up - a story - one which you will not found told in the text of the book. The only aspect of resurfacing memory necessary to experientially encounter is "the felt-resonance of the memory". The stories we associate with these felt-imprints are irrelevant and do not assist in integration - other than bringing our attention to the feeling. Also, if you are looking for "an easier way" - then you are way off track in your assumptions about what this work requires. Seeking "easy" is fear-based avoidance and resistance. Our task is to fully feel each surfacing felt-expression of memories requiring integration, without condition. We integrate them by feeling our way consciously through them - not by trying to find methods to get around, over, or under them. As we feel our way through them, we are simultaneously developing felt-perception. Once our felt-perception is sufficiently developed, we become experientially qualified to consciously approach the vibrational - which we initially accomplish by "feeling the vibrations". Feeling is the initial sight and hearing mechanism of the heart. The integration of our unresolved emotional content is therefore a journey which fuels our capacities to consciously enter and contain vibrational awareness. The Presence Process is self-sufficient and requires no additives in assisting us to make this approach. Everything required to support the procedure is on the website.
A: First of all, I know nothing about The Sedona Method - so no comment there. Secondly, the assumption that doing The Presence Process means you have to "relive all your horrible memories" is something you made up - a story - one which you will not found told in the text of the book. The only aspect of resurfacing memory necessary to experientially encounter is "the felt-resonance of the memory". The stories we associate with these felt-imprints are irrelevant and do not assist in integration - other than bringing our attention to the feeling. Also, if you are looking for "an easier way" - then you are way off track in your assumptions about what this work requires. Seeking "easy" is fear-based avoidance and resistance. Our task is to fully feel each surfacing felt-expression of memories requiring integration, without condition. We integrate them by feeling our way consciously through them - not by trying to find methods to get around, over, or under them. As we feel our way through them, we are simultaneously developing felt-perception. Once our felt-perception is sufficiently developed, we become experientially qualified to consciously approach the vibrational - which we initially accomplish by "feeling the vibrations". Feeling is the initial sight and hearing mechanism of the heart. The integration of our unresolved emotional content is therefore a journey which fuels our capacities to consciously enter and contain vibrational awareness. The Presence Process is self-sufficient and requires no additives in assisting us to make this approach. Everything required to support the procedure is on the website.
Why do you still have rough days?
Q: During a talk of yours in Santa Barbara last year, you mentioned that the day of that talk you had had a really rough day. This has always confused me about freedom, enlightenment, etc. What does that mean for you to have a rough day? To me it means not accepting what is. My thought is that you shouldn't have rough days anymore. Please enlighten me.
A: I am not enlightened - I do not even believe in such a concept - so I am free to have any sort of day I please - even days of not accepting what is.
A: I am not enlightened - I do not even believe in such a concept - so I am free to have any sort of day I please - even days of not accepting what is.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Does The Presence Process make my symptoms worse?
Q: This is the third time I am going through the PP, and it's much more intense this time. My question is: I have had moderate to severe stomach discomfort and pain for several months now. It seems to worsen with stress and anxiety. I am concerned that the processing might worsen the physical condition, but I'm also doing the PP again to help bring underlying emotional issues to light. Is there a danger in those with stress ulcers or stress-aggravated physical conditions in undergoing the PP, or is it nevertheless beneficial to push through despite these aggravations?
A: The Presence Process cannot worsen what already is - it only brings a greater felt-experience of what already is into our awareness. This increase in awareness is often mistakenly perceived as 'worsening'. Many people are having stomach ailments at this time because we are all being faced with unresolved aspects of our past which we cannot stomach, and therefore cannot digest. The idea that we need to "push on through" shows how constipated we feel because of this.
The intent, as you correctly state, is to seek the awareness of the emotional signature flowing beneath these surfacing symptoms. To accomplish this we as ask ourselves: "What is it I cannot stomach and therefore experience as indigestible?" However, do not answer the question mentally - do not even seek an answer actively in any way. The answer arises as unexpected emotional states which are uncomfortable - often triggered by unexpected events or encounters with others. As these surface - we are to be with them without condition. This has a laxative effect: Our "being with them without condition" integrates them gradually and organically. This integration may also be perceived as "digestion".
A: The Presence Process cannot worsen what already is - it only brings a greater felt-experience of what already is into our awareness. This increase in awareness is often mistakenly perceived as 'worsening'. Many people are having stomach ailments at this time because we are all being faced with unresolved aspects of our past which we cannot stomach, and therefore cannot digest. The idea that we need to "push on through" shows how constipated we feel because of this.
The intent, as you correctly state, is to seek the awareness of the emotional signature flowing beneath these surfacing symptoms. To accomplish this we as ask ourselves: "What is it I cannot stomach and therefore experience as indigestible?" However, do not answer the question mentally - do not even seek an answer actively in any way. The answer arises as unexpected emotional states which are uncomfortable - often triggered by unexpected events or encounters with others. As these surface - we are to be with them without condition. This has a laxative effect: Our "being with them without condition" integrates them gradually and organically. This integration may also be perceived as "digestion".
Friday, July 17, 2009
Am I using the Presence Activation Statements correctly?
Q: Do I repeat the presence activation statements constantly throughout the breathing exercises, or just periodically during that exercise?
A: Do what works best for you. In the new created edition of The Presence Process [still busy working on] I have recommended using the statement "I AM HERE NOW" for all breathing sessions - and then the other weekly given statements for daily mental repetition when not mentally engaged. You may wish to try this too as it works well in sync with the breathing - and it is very powerful when you receive the insights it contains.
Q: Do I say it in my mind in English, although this is not my native language? But I'm comfortable with it, since I lived during the last 6 years abroad with English as main language. But since I want to address the emotional body, and you were mentioning the seven year cycle, I feel very often the need to also translate the statement into my language. Is it better to keep it in one language or is it OK if my mind is serving it in different ones? And if I stay with one, do I stay with yours or with mine?
A: Do it both ways. But remember - your child self is not English, right? So, make sure it receives attention too, in its mother tongue. But again, do what works best for you - always use your experience as a barometer for what is most efficient.
A: Do what works best for you. In the new created edition of The Presence Process [still busy working on] I have recommended using the statement "I AM HERE NOW" for all breathing sessions - and then the other weekly given statements for daily mental repetition when not mentally engaged. You may wish to try this too as it works well in sync with the breathing - and it is very powerful when you receive the insights it contains.
Q: Do I say it in my mind in English, although this is not my native language? But I'm comfortable with it, since I lived during the last 6 years abroad with English as main language. But since I want to address the emotional body, and you were mentioning the seven year cycle, I feel very often the need to also translate the statement into my language. Is it better to keep it in one language or is it OK if my mind is serving it in different ones? And if I stay with one, do I stay with yours or with mine?
A: Do it both ways. But remember - your child self is not English, right? So, make sure it receives attention too, in its mother tongue. But again, do what works best for you - always use your experience as a barometer for what is most efficient.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Even though I have completed TPP, I still have this feeling of "waiting" or "hoping" - any insight?
Q: Thank you for the Presence Process. I have experienced it once and it is such a powerful procedure. In addition to the emotional currents of fear, anger and grief, it helped me feel another, until now, unconscious current that I can only describe as a perpetual “waiting” or “hoping”. I don’t know if it is an emotion, because while emotions come and go, it seems to always be there, like a very faint sense of dissatisfaction. It feels like a “pull” that takes me away from the here and now. As you say in TPP, I realize that this “waiting” has been with me since I can remember, and I should know by now (I am 45) that it is pointless. I can even feel it underneath all the spiritual seeking. It’s just another thing to wait for, like many other things were before. One would think that in this shocking realization the waiting would vanish, but except a few moments of hopelessness when it seemed that I was finally “getting it”, there is still always the faintest hope there. I am reaching a point of despair, as I see every day slipping away as a repeat of the previous one, suspecting that there is nothing I can do about it. I cannot even seem to be able to stop trying to do something about it. Or hoping.Can you offer some words of wisdom?
A: This is a great question, and there are two things I'd like to say in response:
Firstly, in the eastern mystic traditions they don't call it "waiting" or "hoping" - they call it longing. I connect with the word "longing" too. I can only speak to you from within my own experience of it and of my own way of interacting with it.
While we are in this world it never goes away. It may become temporarily submerged in the noise of our outer experiences, but this feeling is as constant as the rising and setting of the sun.
For many years it drove me to distraction, because nothing quenches it. Now, I realize nothing in this world is supposed to. I realize it is a resonance which penetrates the fabric of this transient experience that is emitting a signal from something which is permanent. It is not coming from "elsewhere", although while we are in this world, it feels like it does. It is a signal being emitted from our home while we are "elsewhere".
This current experience of ours is, when compared to our home, is perceptually "elsewhere". No matter how much we forget our home, no matter how much we invest in a future here, no matter how much we identify with this world - the reality is we are all visitors. Even if we have been here for millions of life experiences, been Kings and Queens, street sweepers and ditch diggers, we are still visiting. This world is rightly called "the creation", because it was manufactured. It is an artificial environment - like a very hi-tech, 3-dimensional, full-participation, holographic video game. It is so real, it feels real. It is supposed to -otherwise we wouldn't play. It is so real we believe it to be all there is [that is why we call it 'our world'], and so we invest ourselves in it as if it is all that counts.
Yet, when we become quiet enough, or when we are impacted by great trauma, or even for no reason at all, we feel "a sense of longing" - a pang of homesickness that nothing here can and ever will satisfy. Somethings temporarily appear to satisfy this feeling - like a good orgasm - but this sense of satisfaction is only temporary. Nobody only has sex once.
Also, some appear to feel this longing, while others apparently never do. Personally, I think those who staff this creation have this longing switched off so they can do their jobs without becoming introspective. Those who are simply visiting, have the signal on at various intensities - depending on their intended duration of stay.
When we encounter this resonance within ourselves, it may also cause nostalgia and melancholy. Great poets and artists are those swirled up by it. When we react to it unconsciously, we build religions in its honor, bow down to beings who say that can one day deliver us into a place where it no longer emits its signal, and erect great temples as hopeful portals of reentry. Yet, most of this behavior is reactionary. Whenever we go down on our knees and pray to some god as a reaction to this world, instead of as a response to what God is for us, we are reacting to this feeling of longing. Cults are always built by one smart fellow taking advantage of this resonance of longing within others. If these cults become big enough, they get to call themselves "religions", and then have the power to call the other up-n-coming deceivers of people, cults. Yet, all religions, no matter how well entrenched or legitimized by government and business, are cults. And, they all prey upon this inherent feeling of dislocation and dissatisfaction, which is deliberately placed within us upon our entry here.
Becoming aware of this longing is therefore a point of liberation. When we take responsibility for it, instead of mistakenly believing some individual or organization can satisfy its thirst, we free ourselves of all this political, profiteering, and religious manipulation. We realize that all advertising and political speeches are preying upon our belief that our inner longing can be satisfied through some new efficient product, or some re-hashed political promise.
Once we tune into this feeling, our task is to respond to it, and responding to it has absolutely nothing to do with attempting to still its transmission. Instead, when we realize it is a signal from home, we cherish it. It reminds us of the transience of this world. This longing, when internalized, fuels our intent to reconnect with the authentic causality of our Presence. This reconnection intent sets us upon a pathway whose first stop is to integrate the causality of our mistakenly believing we are to make our home here, and our mistakenly placing our allegiance in those who prey upon our inbuilt discontent with this manufactured experience.
Initially, the causality of the quality of our human experience is our childhood emotional imprinting. This imprinting drives our wanting. However, as we commence integrating this point of emotional causality, we gradually reawaken into our authentic point of causality - the vibrational. This longing within us is a signal emanating from within the vibrational realm - our true home - a place which exists before and beyond any elaborately manufactured creation - such as this world is. And so, this is where the paradox arises: We cannot reenter vibrational awareness by trying to go somewhere to get somewhere.
Trying to get somewhere in the midst of a holographic illusion is futile - because no matter how much distance or progress we perceive ourselves making - we still have travelled nowhere in nothing. Becoming famous or glamorously successful in a video game reveals its pointlessness when the machine suddenly gets switched off. "Oh shit, what happened to my bank account?!"
To extract ourselves from this current experience of "elsewhere-ness" and return our awareness homeward requires arrival-mentality - instead of the escape-mentality which all cults prey on and pray for. What we authentically are is so magnificently powerful, and so real, that when we integrate it - when we bring it all into one point of focus - anything which is created [manufactured] is automatically dissolved, revealing in its wake everything which always is , and which cannot be tampered with or altered.
So, the portal for reentry into the vibrational is always available in the present in which we always reside. Our task therefore, is not to react to this feeling of longing by trying to go or get somewhere, but rather to respond to it by showing up fully exactly where we perceive ourselves to be right now. So, that is the first thing I wish to share with you: That this longing is your friend - your ONLY friend - so do not let anyone else attempt to satisfy it for you, or lead you to believe that while in this world, it can or should be removed or eliminated. It is the beacon of authenticity calling you home into yourself - reminding you this is not and never will be your home. However, do not let this realization stop you from being at home while you are here... Yup, the paradox!
The second thing I wish to share in a response to your question is this: We are supposed to be here now. If we are here, it is required. Only we may ever know why, and when we finally enter the awareness empowering us to realize why, this realization likely becomes insignificant and inconsequential.
Being here, without being driven by this longing into mistakenly assuming this worldly experience can satisfy it, is a skill. It is a skill which hinges upon one word, "enough". Right now, I want you to notice something undeniable: You are and have enough. Maybe not for yesterday, or for tomorrow, or for someone else - but within this precise moment - you are and have enough to be. However, you cannot perceive this "enough-ness" unless you are "in this moment".
In each moment we are given exactly what we require for each moment - we are given "enough". However, when we live driven by our wanting, as in this time-based continuum, in which the moment is simply a means to some other end - in which the moment is simply a stepping stone to the fulfilling of some plan we have for ourselves which we believe will bring absolute consistency amidst a world of constant change - then we cannot perceive that "in each moment we have and are enough". So, I recommend you contemplate this word, "enough". Bring yourself into the moment, right here, right now, and realize that right here, right now, for this here and now, you have and are enough.
When we are able to experientially realize what "being and having enough in the moment" implies - we stop trying to use this world to get, get, get. Instead, our time here becomes about opportunities to give. In my life this realization of "enough-ness" was the turning point which empowered me to become of service - to place my full attention upon tasks, like this answering of your email, for which I do not get paid - for which there is no boss to check in with. I get up each day and go to work, and just about everything I do each day is not on anyone's clock. And, I do not do this in hopes it will accomplish anything other than allow me to leave a legacy which polishes the only gem I treasure - my integrity. However, I am only able to approach my life this way - an approach I have now lived by for many years - because I realized what the meaning of "enough" is - and, because I also know this world is not my home.
I am a visitor here. I am like a guest in a very elaborate hotel. I am not here to tell the staff how to do their business or to get a fulltime job at the reception desk. Of course, I may moan and groan about the hotel's service - but that is my right as a guest. Not that anyone pays any attention to my gripes. So, being a guest, I am not going to rearrange the furniture in my room more than is required to complement my current required activity. Nor am I going to check out after my stay with the capacity or intent to carry any of the furniture out with me. It belongs to the hotel - and quite frankly - I have no desire to furnish my real home with this hotel furniture! None of what is here belongs to me or is mine to own. I am already enough without it.
However, nor am I going to run from the hotel because I realize it is not my home. Going home is inevitable and unfolds when required. I trust this implicitly. Making it happen is not my business. Do I miss home? Of course. Do I know exactly what it is I am missing? I haven't a cooking clue. Yet, within me there is a signal beacon emanating a melancholic resonance which keeps me from mistakenly identifying with the hotel and the staff as being something permanent. How do I know what I am supposed to do while here? Only the moment reveals what is required, because what is required happens - and so I respond to this in each moment as best as I am able.
It is a very strange, paradoxical, 3D, holographic, full-participation, completely hands-on creation to be immersed in. What a wonderful and simultaneously horrific experience! Many years ago I realized all my efforts to "get out of it", whether via substance use or religious fervor - simply led me further into amazement [what is meant to be a maze] and away from myself. Now, I know in the deepest recesses of my being that the only way out is in - is showing up in this experience as fully as I have the capacity to muster.
Of course, in each moment I fail hopelessly at this intent. But, my failing does not ever nullify the intent. So, yes, I too feel "the longing". But I do not try to satisfy it - I instead celebrate the beautiful agony of it. I allow it to remind me daily to spend some time pointing myself homeward - onward, inward, and upward. I approach the vibrational consciously each day. And even within this endeavor, I am no longer fanatical. I approach this task with as much significance and intensity as I do brushing my teeth. My approach to the vibrational is part of my daily routine [route in]. While here I am in approach - not to guarantee arrival [because I never really left] - but because I love my home with all my heart. Because this aspect of my experience is taken care of unconditionally - I am then free, while here, to participate as fully as I am capable. And, this participation arises from within a realization that, in each moment, I am, and have, enough.
Knowing this, I am less likely to be manipulated or to manipulate. Knowing each moment is full of "enough-ness" allows me to be with this experience without condition. And, so far, so good. And not. This is why my only prayer is, "Thank you", and why my only truth is, "If this is happening, this is required, and therefore valid, so let me respond as best as I am able." [Everything else is an elaborate story.] Then, I get on with it, and fall, and get up again, and fall again, and make sure that as I repeatedly dust myself off, I am also having a good laugh at the fact I can go through life thinking I actually know what's going on, when in fact I do not have a cooking clue.
After all, when the machine is switched off - which happens cyclically for repairs, upgrades, and maintenance - the whole spectacle reveals itself as not being that important - or that serious. So, we lost and gained a few lives. So what. There are billions upon billions of these games being played - and it is more than likely we are playing many of them simultaneoulsy. Being a homesick game-player is not a problem - it is a blessing. Onward, inward, and upward then. Game-on.
A: This is a great question, and there are two things I'd like to say in response:
Firstly, in the eastern mystic traditions they don't call it "waiting" or "hoping" - they call it longing. I connect with the word "longing" too. I can only speak to you from within my own experience of it and of my own way of interacting with it.
While we are in this world it never goes away. It may become temporarily submerged in the noise of our outer experiences, but this feeling is as constant as the rising and setting of the sun.
For many years it drove me to distraction, because nothing quenches it. Now, I realize nothing in this world is supposed to. I realize it is a resonance which penetrates the fabric of this transient experience that is emitting a signal from something which is permanent. It is not coming from "elsewhere", although while we are in this world, it feels like it does. It is a signal being emitted from our home while we are "elsewhere".
This current experience of ours is, when compared to our home, is perceptually "elsewhere". No matter how much we forget our home, no matter how much we invest in a future here, no matter how much we identify with this world - the reality is we are all visitors. Even if we have been here for millions of life experiences, been Kings and Queens, street sweepers and ditch diggers, we are still visiting. This world is rightly called "the creation", because it was manufactured. It is an artificial environment - like a very hi-tech, 3-dimensional, full-participation, holographic video game. It is so real, it feels real. It is supposed to -otherwise we wouldn't play. It is so real we believe it to be all there is [that is why we call it 'our world'], and so we invest ourselves in it as if it is all that counts.
Yet, when we become quiet enough, or when we are impacted by great trauma, or even for no reason at all, we feel "a sense of longing" - a pang of homesickness that nothing here can and ever will satisfy. Somethings temporarily appear to satisfy this feeling - like a good orgasm - but this sense of satisfaction is only temporary. Nobody only has sex once.
Also, some appear to feel this longing, while others apparently never do. Personally, I think those who staff this creation have this longing switched off so they can do their jobs without becoming introspective. Those who are simply visiting, have the signal on at various intensities - depending on their intended duration of stay.
When we encounter this resonance within ourselves, it may also cause nostalgia and melancholy. Great poets and artists are those swirled up by it. When we react to it unconsciously, we build religions in its honor, bow down to beings who say that can one day deliver us into a place where it no longer emits its signal, and erect great temples as hopeful portals of reentry. Yet, most of this behavior is reactionary. Whenever we go down on our knees and pray to some god as a reaction to this world, instead of as a response to what God is for us, we are reacting to this feeling of longing. Cults are always built by one smart fellow taking advantage of this resonance of longing within others. If these cults become big enough, they get to call themselves "religions", and then have the power to call the other up-n-coming deceivers of people, cults. Yet, all religions, no matter how well entrenched or legitimized by government and business, are cults. And, they all prey upon this inherent feeling of dislocation and dissatisfaction, which is deliberately placed within us upon our entry here.
Becoming aware of this longing is therefore a point of liberation. When we take responsibility for it, instead of mistakenly believing some individual or organization can satisfy its thirst, we free ourselves of all this political, profiteering, and religious manipulation. We realize that all advertising and political speeches are preying upon our belief that our inner longing can be satisfied through some new efficient product, or some re-hashed political promise.
Once we tune into this feeling, our task is to respond to it, and responding to it has absolutely nothing to do with attempting to still its transmission. Instead, when we realize it is a signal from home, we cherish it. It reminds us of the transience of this world. This longing, when internalized, fuels our intent to reconnect with the authentic causality of our Presence. This reconnection intent sets us upon a pathway whose first stop is to integrate the causality of our mistakenly believing we are to make our home here, and our mistakenly placing our allegiance in those who prey upon our inbuilt discontent with this manufactured experience.
Initially, the causality of the quality of our human experience is our childhood emotional imprinting. This imprinting drives our wanting. However, as we commence integrating this point of emotional causality, we gradually reawaken into our authentic point of causality - the vibrational. This longing within us is a signal emanating from within the vibrational realm - our true home - a place which exists before and beyond any elaborately manufactured creation - such as this world is. And so, this is where the paradox arises: We cannot reenter vibrational awareness by trying to go somewhere to get somewhere.
Trying to get somewhere in the midst of a holographic illusion is futile - because no matter how much distance or progress we perceive ourselves making - we still have travelled nowhere in nothing. Becoming famous or glamorously successful in a video game reveals its pointlessness when the machine suddenly gets switched off. "Oh shit, what happened to my bank account?!"
To extract ourselves from this current experience of "elsewhere-ness" and return our awareness homeward requires arrival-mentality - instead of the escape-mentality which all cults prey on and pray for. What we authentically are is so magnificently powerful, and so real, that when we integrate it - when we bring it all into one point of focus - anything which is created [manufactured] is automatically dissolved, revealing in its wake everything which always is , and which cannot be tampered with or altered.
So, the portal for reentry into the vibrational is always available in the present in which we always reside. Our task therefore, is not to react to this feeling of longing by trying to go or get somewhere, but rather to respond to it by showing up fully exactly where we perceive ourselves to be right now. So, that is the first thing I wish to share with you: That this longing is your friend - your ONLY friend - so do not let anyone else attempt to satisfy it for you, or lead you to believe that while in this world, it can or should be removed or eliminated. It is the beacon of authenticity calling you home into yourself - reminding you this is not and never will be your home. However, do not let this realization stop you from being at home while you are here... Yup, the paradox!
The second thing I wish to share in a response to your question is this: We are supposed to be here now. If we are here, it is required. Only we may ever know why, and when we finally enter the awareness empowering us to realize why, this realization likely becomes insignificant and inconsequential.
Being here, without being driven by this longing into mistakenly assuming this worldly experience can satisfy it, is a skill. It is a skill which hinges upon one word, "enough". Right now, I want you to notice something undeniable: You are and have enough. Maybe not for yesterday, or for tomorrow, or for someone else - but within this precise moment - you are and have enough to be. However, you cannot perceive this "enough-ness" unless you are "in this moment".
In each moment we are given exactly what we require for each moment - we are given "enough". However, when we live driven by our wanting, as in this time-based continuum, in which the moment is simply a means to some other end - in which the moment is simply a stepping stone to the fulfilling of some plan we have for ourselves which we believe will bring absolute consistency amidst a world of constant change - then we cannot perceive that "in each moment we have and are enough". So, I recommend you contemplate this word, "enough". Bring yourself into the moment, right here, right now, and realize that right here, right now, for this here and now, you have and are enough.
When we are able to experientially realize what "being and having enough in the moment" implies - we stop trying to use this world to get, get, get. Instead, our time here becomes about opportunities to give. In my life this realization of "enough-ness" was the turning point which empowered me to become of service - to place my full attention upon tasks, like this answering of your email, for which I do not get paid - for which there is no boss to check in with. I get up each day and go to work, and just about everything I do each day is not on anyone's clock. And, I do not do this in hopes it will accomplish anything other than allow me to leave a legacy which polishes the only gem I treasure - my integrity. However, I am only able to approach my life this way - an approach I have now lived by for many years - because I realized what the meaning of "enough" is - and, because I also know this world is not my home.
I am a visitor here. I am like a guest in a very elaborate hotel. I am not here to tell the staff how to do their business or to get a fulltime job at the reception desk. Of course, I may moan and groan about the hotel's service - but that is my right as a guest. Not that anyone pays any attention to my gripes. So, being a guest, I am not going to rearrange the furniture in my room more than is required to complement my current required activity. Nor am I going to check out after my stay with the capacity or intent to carry any of the furniture out with me. It belongs to the hotel - and quite frankly - I have no desire to furnish my real home with this hotel furniture! None of what is here belongs to me or is mine to own. I am already enough without it.
However, nor am I going to run from the hotel because I realize it is not my home. Going home is inevitable and unfolds when required. I trust this implicitly. Making it happen is not my business. Do I miss home? Of course. Do I know exactly what it is I am missing? I haven't a cooking clue. Yet, within me there is a signal beacon emanating a melancholic resonance which keeps me from mistakenly identifying with the hotel and the staff as being something permanent. How do I know what I am supposed to do while here? Only the moment reveals what is required, because what is required happens - and so I respond to this in each moment as best as I am able.
It is a very strange, paradoxical, 3D, holographic, full-participation, completely hands-on creation to be immersed in. What a wonderful and simultaneously horrific experience! Many years ago I realized all my efforts to "get out of it", whether via substance use or religious fervor - simply led me further into amazement [what is meant to be a maze] and away from myself. Now, I know in the deepest recesses of my being that the only way out is in - is showing up in this experience as fully as I have the capacity to muster.
Of course, in each moment I fail hopelessly at this intent. But, my failing does not ever nullify the intent. So, yes, I too feel "the longing". But I do not try to satisfy it - I instead celebrate the beautiful agony of it. I allow it to remind me daily to spend some time pointing myself homeward - onward, inward, and upward. I approach the vibrational consciously each day. And even within this endeavor, I am no longer fanatical. I approach this task with as much significance and intensity as I do brushing my teeth. My approach to the vibrational is part of my daily routine [route in]. While here I am in approach - not to guarantee arrival [because I never really left] - but because I love my home with all my heart. Because this aspect of my experience is taken care of unconditionally - I am then free, while here, to participate as fully as I am capable. And, this participation arises from within a realization that, in each moment, I am, and have, enough.
Knowing this, I am less likely to be manipulated or to manipulate. Knowing each moment is full of "enough-ness" allows me to be with this experience without condition. And, so far, so good. And not. This is why my only prayer is, "Thank you", and why my only truth is, "If this is happening, this is required, and therefore valid, so let me respond as best as I am able." [Everything else is an elaborate story.] Then, I get on with it, and fall, and get up again, and fall again, and make sure that as I repeatedly dust myself off, I am also having a good laugh at the fact I can go through life thinking I actually know what's going on, when in fact I do not have a cooking clue.
After all, when the machine is switched off - which happens cyclically for repairs, upgrades, and maintenance - the whole spectacle reveals itself as not being that important - or that serious. So, we lost and gained a few lives. So what. There are billions upon billions of these games being played - and it is more than likely we are playing many of them simultaneoulsy. Being a homesick game-player is not a problem - it is a blessing. Onward, inward, and upward then. Game-on.
Monday, July 13, 2009
I have done The Presence Process twice but still experience "Hellish" experiences in the early hours of the morning...
Q: I have completed the Presence Process for the 2nd time and, although I have moments, even days of feeling thankful and close to the presence around me and in me, I still wake around 2 am in intense fear of some unknown horror in the future. “Hellish” thoughts of death and illness and poverty, along with a feeling of being victimized by intense hatred last until around 4 am and then go like a thunder and lightning storm that passes by and leaves peace in its wake. I have assumed it has its cause in the fundamentalist religion I was raised in, but would like your input.
A: We live in a moment of great integration. We have imprinting that is multi-layered beyond our current mental comprehension. We live on a planet that has hosted millions upon millions of civilizations, which have all risen and fallen. We live in a solar system that goes through cycles of creation and devastation so vast, our poor mental body cannot begin to fathom. Some of us have been here through it all, just as some of us are temporary visitors. Now, we yet again move through the ending and beginning of another great cycle. Yet, in of itself, it is a blinking of an eye. As we do so, we are offered great opportunities to integrate. Integration is the key to evolutions doorway.
Those of us hypnotically paralysed by our past [all of us] believe we are here to earn a living, boost our bank accounts, become somebody of importance, bring world peace, and other such pointless but entertaining endeavors. Our destination-mentality, and hence, the mortality-consciousness this mentality propagates, causes us to repeatedly shoot ourselves in the foot - and then we moan about our limp. We grasp at whatever comes our way as a means to feel better, to get what we want, and to satisfy the charged emotions of our generational imprinting. We cannot discern between what we want and what is now required. While we function in this manner, we miss the bigger picture - an opportunity to integrate the fear, anger, and grief causing us to continually re-manufacture experiences in which we suffer.
The Presence Process is not like The Secret or any technology wielding concepts like The Law Of Attraction for personal gratification. It is not another metaphysically-drive slight of hand convincing us we can have exactly what our unintegrated emotional content drives us towards. It is not designed to deliver unto us a brand new car, great job, perfect partner, and to convince us that "an unlimited universe means we can keep raping this planet just to get our rocks off". This procedure is to initiate and support integration, to clean the vessel of our awareness so it has the opportunity and capacity to open to, arrive at, move through, and jettison beyond the current opening of the portal into vibrational consciousness. This portal is here, now. It is always "here", "now". Its just that because of our evolutionary development we only now have the capacity to perceive and hence realize it. The portal into vibrational consciousness is "this, here, now" - not "that, there, then". This portal is only accessible within this moment - within the present. To enter it we are required to be present.
As we continue to consciously approach the resonance of the present moment we are faced with all that is keeping our attention stretched out and fragmented in time-based mentality. We thus face the unintegrated experiences of our childhood, received from our parents, with our lovers, through our religions, politics, and many, many other levels of developmental experience we have moved through to arrive in this moment. There is horror in it all just as there is love in it all. We have all experienced massive apocalyptic cataclysm and been traumatized by being run over by sudden shifts for which we were not ready. We have seen everything and everyone we love seemingly destroyed, drowned, burned, and murdered in cold blood. This is the fabric of our past - not our future. This is what we are now called to integrate.
Yet, while we remain unintegrated, then as we approach the portal of this moment, these unintegrated memories are what guard the entry to the portal. They say, "While you believe in us more than the promise of what you truly are, then we stand between you and this realization. You must pass through us to know we are not real, or run from us back into the illusions which inspire more experiences just like us."
As we approach the portal of the present moment, we all project our apocalyptic mayhem upon its entrance. This is how we know we have arrived at the entrance of the portal - because we simultaneously arrive at an experience mirroring our unresolved horrors. It gazes upon us as a future possibility - yet, it is an echo of the past. Many shall be driven by their unintegrated horror into actions which are self-destructive, and hence lose their physical vehicle. Fewer shall realize the cinematic illusion of it all and keep moving forward in spite of the dire warnings of impending cataclysm. The only way to enter the heart - the portal through which we awaken beyond the horrors of the past - is to gaze directly into the eyes of this monster, and to be with it through felt-perception without condition. Feel it all. It cannot kill what cannot die - it can only destroy what has no substance.
So, in the early hours of the morning, when the doorway of the portal awakens you from your desire to "sleep it off" - get up - and approach the vibrational consciously. Sit quietly in the midst of the horror and know it is not the future, unless you act as if it is. It already happened. We already died many, many times. The only death required now is to die to this idea of dying. This planet is a way-station for dead people who have not yet processed their experience of living in time - who have not yet integrated their past so they may arrive consciously into the kingdom of the awakened. This moment upon planet earth is an accentuated opportunity for all seeking to catch the next train inward by integrating the horror, and to receive our divine inheritance as conscious co-creators of unlimited possibility.
So, instead of tossing and turning and blaming your fundamentalist religious past for you not being able to "sleep it off", rather arise and spend this time focused upon the vibrational certainty which is your birthright. The only way through is through. Onward, inward, and upward.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
How to breathe for The Presence Process.
Q: I have been doing connected breathing for about 3 weeks. During few sessions I went into very deep relaxation, in that state my inhales and exhales become very slow, very short and the gap between my exhale and inhale becomes very large. What am I suppose to do in this situation? Should I just let it be or should I do something about it.
A: When you enter deep relaxation breathing you are no longer breathing efficiently for the purpose of emotional integration - for The Presence Process intent. The intent for the breathing practice within The Presence Process is not necessarily the same as for rebirthing, breathwork, various yoga breathing, or meditative breathings. The intent of The Presence Process is emotional integration. This requires alert breathing, breathing loud enough to hear one's breath, and remaining within a brisk breathing pattern throughout the 15 minute practice. I intend communicating this in a clearer manner in the new edition of The Presence Process. For now I have placed on The Presence Portal three different audio examples, 5 minutes each, of how I recommend breathing be practiced for The Presence Process. http://www.thepresenceportal.com/how_we_breathe.htm This is not how we are taught to breathe through breathwork or rebirthing or yoga practice - which is deeper, more relaxed, etc. When we breathe in this way - as demonstrated by these audios - pausing between breaths is not an issue. These three 5 minute audios [beginner, intermediary, and pro] enable you to breathe in time with me for the first 5 minutes of your practice - and then to continue on your own.
NOTE: Sometimes these audios do not open in Windows. I do not know why, so please do not write and ask me what to do if you are having this problem. It is best to ask someone who is computer literate - which I am not.
What about The Presence Process for children?
Q: Have you worked out, or come across, something like The Presence Process for children? We have an 8-year-old who is following in the pattern of his angry, lazy, and cocky older brother -- very hard to manage, even at this age. I've done whatever I could with BodyTalk, but....
A: It's your pattern. It is in you. Fiddling with the child is the parent cleaning the mirror to rid the pimples it is reflecting. I have often been asked by parents to write The Presence Process for children. Alchemy requires "We do unto ourselves as we would have others do". This means you require integrating your angry, lazy, cocky self. Until you do, your children roll play this suppressed aspect of your own emotional condition so you may perceive outwardly what you hide inwardly. If you do not take care of this through alchemy, your children become parents who hand it - like you have done - to their children. The Presence Process is not for, or about, messing with children. It is for adults to take responsibility for the imprinting shared with their children. I recommend inner child work before outer child interference.
A: It's your pattern. It is in you. Fiddling with the child is the parent cleaning the mirror to rid the pimples it is reflecting. I have often been asked by parents to write The Presence Process for children. Alchemy requires "We do unto ourselves as we would have others do". This means you require integrating your angry, lazy, cocky self. Until you do, your children roll play this suppressed aspect of your own emotional condition so you may perceive outwardly what you hide inwardly. If you do not take care of this through alchemy, your children become parents who hand it - like you have done - to their children. The Presence Process is not for, or about, messing with children. It is for adults to take responsibility for the imprinting shared with their children. I recommend inner child work before outer child interference.
Sunday, July 5, 2009
What happens if I do not have a bath tub for the water sessions?
Q: I was wondering, because i don't have a bath, do you think it is a good idea to use a warm shower as a substitute? I put today my solar plexus area under the shower and it felt like dying.
A: Yes. This is one of the changes I am making to the text of the new edition of The Presence Process. Increasingly, in this day and age, we do not have bath tubs - we only have access to showers. This says something about our willingness, as a species, to submerge ourselves in warm water - which is a metaphoric representation of allowing our awareness to fully enter the authentic condition of our emotional body. The recommendation is therefore to use the tools at our disposal. When we do not have a bath tub, behave as if this is required. Then, a 10 to 15 minute hot shower, before drying off and attending to our breathing practice, is efficient. We are still exposing ourselves to "wet heat" - and this still impacts the fabric of our experience within The Presence Process - as you have already realized.
A: Yes. This is one of the changes I am making to the text of the new edition of The Presence Process. Increasingly, in this day and age, we do not have bath tubs - we only have access to showers. This says something about our willingness, as a species, to submerge ourselves in warm water - which is a metaphoric representation of allowing our awareness to fully enter the authentic condition of our emotional body. The recommendation is therefore to use the tools at our disposal. When we do not have a bath tub, behave as if this is required. Then, a 10 to 15 minute hot shower, before drying off and attending to our breathing practice, is efficient. We are still exposing ourselves to "wet heat" - and this still impacts the fabric of our experience within The Presence Process - as you have already realized.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
What is it that actually heals?
Q: In going through some recent journals I realize I've been digging IN to these CAUSAL places for many, many years. I have felt the pain of these childhood wounds, not as concepts but emotionally, deeply. I've gone to these places and felt them and written about them afterwards and they're still effecting my life now. What's the difference between those experiences and The Presence Process? What neutralizes these feelings - what makes them healed - known instead of understood? I'd appreciate some light.
A: What my experience reveals is that viewing anything as something needing healing - and thinking and writing about it in these terms - keeps us stuck. Especially when we engage with them in such a way as to keep the experiences in question somehow anchored in the mental realm - whether through understanding, analysis, or explanation. Yet, we cannot help ourselves - especially while we worship the mental body as God.
Apparently, the most challenging thing to communicate to another human being is "being without condition", "not-doing", "response", and "complete surrender to what is". Why? Because it cannot be understood. The mental body cannot grasp being. It does not have the capacity and while we allow it to be Godlike, we fail to be. We remain in a "I think therefore I am" state of insanity.
The radiance of being without condition is what integrates. It is the approach of "being with what is through felt-perception without any attempt to physically, mentally, or emotionally alter the experience". When we are authentically this way with ourselves, integration unfolds organically - not according to our mental schedule.
I really felt that after writing Revelation Of Being there would be no necessity for me to write another word, ever. Because this piece hits the nail on the head. Done. Apparently not. I really felt that after writing and sharing the practice, Consciously Approaching Vibrational Awareness, that there would be no reason for me to place another experiential approach to an awareness of being before anyone - because when one applies this practice consistently, EVERYTHING is given and received. Apparently this landed mostly on deaf ears too. We are apparently immune to receiving as we are adamant about getting and fiddling. Now I know why, at a satsang one find day, when questioned by a disciple about what the meaning of it all is, Buddha simply produced a flower, held it up for a few moments, then got up and walked off.
We are so mental. We are so lost. We keep trying to understand the difference between something that cannot be understood and something else that cannot be understood. My personal experience is the time it takes for us to integrate what Being Without Condition is, is the exact time it takes for us to accomplish discernment between "wants" and "requirements". Simple. Done.
We want so badly to heal, when only being with what is is required. There is a big difference between The Presence Process and keeping a journal. A journal does not deliver us deliberately along The Pathway Of Awareness to the causality of our disquiet. A journal keeps us stuck in the mental realm. A journal, for the most part, is our personalized Ode to Drama, not a vehicle for accessing Dharma. However, it can be.
I am so grateful there are those who have contacted me and said, "That article, Being Without Condition, that's it right there...I'm done!" And, I am so glad some write to me and say, "That practice for Conscious Approach to the Vibrational is home base!" Otherwise I would assume myself completely bloody nuts. Okay, no assumption required - I already know I am completely nuts. This is required. I am also grateful I am able - to a larger extent - be available to this work without condition. The miracle of "being available to this work without condition" means I get to discover 84356 ways to say: Feel whatever is happening without condition. Whatever is happening to you is valid. It is required. It is your teaching. You are not required to heal your lessons - only to learn from them - to gain insight - and even if you don't - this too is valid.
The paradox in all of this is hysterical. Now I know why some say that when authentically approaching an awareness of whatever God is - there is first the sound of laughter. God sends us our daily lessons and we try to heal them. It's hilarious!!! Laughter is the medicine we are after - especially when it is laughter turned inward upon the point of greatest hilariousness.
The simple answer to your question is: Once we stop trying to heal that which is sent to heal us - we heal.
I wonder if the the can perceives the can opener as something which has to be healed?
A: What my experience reveals is that viewing anything as something needing healing - and thinking and writing about it in these terms - keeps us stuck. Especially when we engage with them in such a way as to keep the experiences in question somehow anchored in the mental realm - whether through understanding, analysis, or explanation. Yet, we cannot help ourselves - especially while we worship the mental body as God.
Apparently, the most challenging thing to communicate to another human being is "being without condition", "not-doing", "response", and "complete surrender to what is". Why? Because it cannot be understood. The mental body cannot grasp being. It does not have the capacity and while we allow it to be Godlike, we fail to be. We remain in a "I think therefore I am" state of insanity.
The radiance of being without condition is what integrates. It is the approach of "being with what is through felt-perception without any attempt to physically, mentally, or emotionally alter the experience". When we are authentically this way with ourselves, integration unfolds organically - not according to our mental schedule.
I really felt that after writing Revelation Of Being there would be no necessity for me to write another word, ever. Because this piece hits the nail on the head. Done. Apparently not. I really felt that after writing and sharing the practice, Consciously Approaching Vibrational Awareness, that there would be no reason for me to place another experiential approach to an awareness of being before anyone - because when one applies this practice consistently, EVERYTHING is given and received. Apparently this landed mostly on deaf ears too. We are apparently immune to receiving as we are adamant about getting and fiddling. Now I know why, at a satsang one find day, when questioned by a disciple about what the meaning of it all is, Buddha simply produced a flower, held it up for a few moments, then got up and walked off.
We are so mental. We are so lost. We keep trying to understand the difference between something that cannot be understood and something else that cannot be understood. My personal experience is the time it takes for us to integrate what Being Without Condition is, is the exact time it takes for us to accomplish discernment between "wants" and "requirements". Simple. Done.
We want so badly to heal, when only being with what is is required. There is a big difference between The Presence Process and keeping a journal. A journal does not deliver us deliberately along The Pathway Of Awareness to the causality of our disquiet. A journal keeps us stuck in the mental realm. A journal, for the most part, is our personalized Ode to Drama, not a vehicle for accessing Dharma. However, it can be.
I am so grateful there are those who have contacted me and said, "That article, Being Without Condition, that's it right there...I'm done!" And, I am so glad some write to me and say, "That practice for Conscious Approach to the Vibrational is home base!" Otherwise I would assume myself completely bloody nuts. Okay, no assumption required - I already know I am completely nuts. This is required. I am also grateful I am able - to a larger extent - be available to this work without condition. The miracle of "being available to this work without condition" means I get to discover 84356 ways to say: Feel whatever is happening without condition. Whatever is happening to you is valid. It is required. It is your teaching. You are not required to heal your lessons - only to learn from them - to gain insight - and even if you don't - this too is valid.
The paradox in all of this is hysterical. Now I know why some say that when authentically approaching an awareness of whatever God is - there is first the sound of laughter. God sends us our daily lessons and we try to heal them. It's hilarious!!! Laughter is the medicine we are after - especially when it is laughter turned inward upon the point of greatest hilariousness.
The simple answer to your question is: Once we stop trying to heal that which is sent to heal us - we heal.
I wonder if the the can perceives the can opener as something which has to be healed?
Thursday, July 2, 2009
I have done TPP three times and am still not getting what I want!
Q: I have done the process 3 times now, read all that is on your site and saw you in California. And, I still require something that I do not understand or get. My partner left me after a 16 month affair. She left many things at our home we built together, she will not pay the mortgage, she left her 15 year old cats and I care for them, she comes by 4-5 times a week, we do things together, she has just lost her job. She says she loves me, she says loving things to me, tells me not to ask her to come home , it is okay to tell her I love her , want her back but this seems not about her so much as I cannot figure out how to get me back?? Could you suggest what direction to go, please?
A: The only reason we can make a statement like "I'm stuck", or ask a question like this one, is because we are not yet able to discern between "a want" and "a requirement". Let me assist you with definition.
"A want" is something that is not happening. We want it to happen, but it doesn't. We get upset because it doesn't. We get upset or set up because our "wants" are arising out of an unintegrated emotional charge. Whatever we are wanting is whatever we believe will satisfy the insatiable hunger of our unintegrated emotional charge. Because this hunger is insatiable - because feeding an emotional charge only maintains it, as opposed to bringing it to resolution - whenever we receive our wants they only lead us to want something else.
"A requirement" happens. This is how we recognize a requirement. If it is happening, it is a requirement. We do not want requirements. We do not expect requirements. We do not appreciate requirements. While we remain emotionally unintegrated, our requirements appear as things that get in the way of us achieving our wants. Only the emotionally mature are able to live life through responding to requirements.
Attempting to feed and satisfy our wants leads to personal and collective drama and depression. Attempting to satisfy our wants leads to raping the earth, manipulating those we profess to love, and behaving as if we are separate from the rest of the universe. Our wants, and us trying to satisfy them, are the causal point of the current world economic recession. They are the causal point of war, whether through politics, priesthood, or profiteers. If we ignored our wants - priests, politicians, and profiteers would be the only ones in recession. "The American Dream" is a disguised way of saying, "This is a country in which everyone can have exactly whatever they want". And, so, as the rest of the world blindly follows "the American way" the consequential collective nightmare awakens. Imagine exchanging "The Pursuit of Happiness" for "The Realization of Joy", or "The American Dream" for "The American Vision" - what a shift in intent. This is the same sort of shift we require within ourselves - from frantically feeding our wanting, to calmly recognizing and embracing what is required of us.
Embracing what is required by responding to what is happening as if what is happening is valid leads to emotional growth and integration. It leads to individual and collective evolution. All requirements are overseen and delivered into our individual and collective experience by the universe. They are what are required for our evolution. If we insist on only navigating our experiences according to our wants - then invariably what is required is immense suffering - suffering intended to awaken us to the reality that chasing only our wants is self-destructive.
Our wants are not required.
Responding to requirement leads to personal and collective evolution - to harmony, integration, and our functioning as if we are part of everything. Through responding to what is required we move in flow with The Giver - through trying to feed our wants we move in flow with the dictates of a distorted energetic pattern within our emotional body.
Responding to requirement leads to presence and present moment awareness. The Presence Process is not about "getting our wants fulfilled" - it is about opening us to receiving what we require - to receive what is already being given to us in each moment of our unfolding experience.
You say you have read everything on the website? Really. Where you reading it as a means to find our how you can use this work to get what you want - to get you companion back? Such intent delivers us into frustration and neutralizes any benefit this work offers. It's a bit like reading The Presence Process and then trying to figure out how we can make money out of selling its presented insights.
Yes, as you write, you have completed The Presence Process three times. Yes, as you have written, there is something you are "not yet getting". Join the rest of the economic community trying to provoke recovery of the economy so they can continue to live as if they can have exactly what they want when they want it.
My recommendation is you shift from trying to get something [feeding your wants] into being open to receiving something [what is required]. Your life, as it is right now, is exactly what is required. How do I know this? Because it is happening. What you want of it is simply "a want". How do I know this? Because it is not happening.
It doesn't matter if you do The Presence Process 1000 X 1000 times - if you cannot yet receive your life experience as valid - and respond to it as if required - you remain what we call "stuck". You are like a child sitting in the middle of a playground whining about not having the sweeties you want, when all around you are swings, whirly-go-rounds, and other kids to play with. However, you cannot see any of this because all you can see is what your unintegrated emotional signature cries for.
The Presence Process is a guide toward "growing up". However, it cannot grow you up for you. You have to take the actions to grow you up for you. Growing up commences and accelerates the moment we discern between our "wants" and "requirements", and when we then respond accordingly.
The deeper response is to engage through felt-perception with the emotional signature which arises whenever you cannot get what you want. This is the causality of you not being able to receive what is required. Being with this emotional signature without condition empowers you to transition from trying to get what you want to willingly and gratefully receiving what you require.
I am sure your companion does not want to be in a relationship with a whining child who is obsessing over not having sweeties. Grow youself up. Embrace every aspect of your life exactly as it is unfolding now as a requirement for your growth. Respond to it accordingly. This responsive approach is what leads us into the rest of the playground. The kids on the swings don't like to hang out with whiners [wanters]. They wanna play on the playground with players. Now is the dawning of the age of "the players". All the whiners and wanters are being laid off.
I am sure if you grow up a little and respond, instead of reacting, to your life experience, your companion's behavior shall shift. She may return, or she may leave you altogether - either way, you won't perceive yourself as stuck anymore. Stop wanting her.
Peace, joy, and a day full of play comes from knowing a simple little secret: Want only what is required. If humanity does not real eyes the difference between "a want" and "a requirement" REALLY SOON - we can kiss our arses goodbye - individually and collectively. Making this discernment is what elevates a species.
A: The only reason we can make a statement like "I'm stuck", or ask a question like this one, is because we are not yet able to discern between "a want" and "a requirement". Let me assist you with definition.
"A want" is something that is not happening. We want it to happen, but it doesn't. We get upset because it doesn't. We get upset or set up because our "wants" are arising out of an unintegrated emotional charge. Whatever we are wanting is whatever we believe will satisfy the insatiable hunger of our unintegrated emotional charge. Because this hunger is insatiable - because feeding an emotional charge only maintains it, as opposed to bringing it to resolution - whenever we receive our wants they only lead us to want something else.
"A requirement" happens. This is how we recognize a requirement. If it is happening, it is a requirement. We do not want requirements. We do not expect requirements. We do not appreciate requirements. While we remain emotionally unintegrated, our requirements appear as things that get in the way of us achieving our wants. Only the emotionally mature are able to live life through responding to requirements.
Attempting to feed and satisfy our wants leads to personal and collective drama and depression. Attempting to satisfy our wants leads to raping the earth, manipulating those we profess to love, and behaving as if we are separate from the rest of the universe. Our wants, and us trying to satisfy them, are the causal point of the current world economic recession. They are the causal point of war, whether through politics, priesthood, or profiteers. If we ignored our wants - priests, politicians, and profiteers would be the only ones in recession. "The American Dream" is a disguised way of saying, "This is a country in which everyone can have exactly whatever they want". And, so, as the rest of the world blindly follows "the American way" the consequential collective nightmare awakens. Imagine exchanging "The Pursuit of Happiness" for "The Realization of Joy", or "The American Dream" for "The American Vision" - what a shift in intent. This is the same sort of shift we require within ourselves - from frantically feeding our wanting, to calmly recognizing and embracing what is required of us.
Embracing what is required by responding to what is happening as if what is happening is valid leads to emotional growth and integration. It leads to individual and collective evolution. All requirements are overseen and delivered into our individual and collective experience by the universe. They are what are required for our evolution. If we insist on only navigating our experiences according to our wants - then invariably what is required is immense suffering - suffering intended to awaken us to the reality that chasing only our wants is self-destructive.
Our wants are not required.
Responding to requirement leads to personal and collective evolution - to harmony, integration, and our functioning as if we are part of everything. Through responding to what is required we move in flow with The Giver - through trying to feed our wants we move in flow with the dictates of a distorted energetic pattern within our emotional body.
Responding to requirement leads to presence and present moment awareness. The Presence Process is not about "getting our wants fulfilled" - it is about opening us to receiving what we require - to receive what is already being given to us in each moment of our unfolding experience.
You say you have read everything on the website? Really. Where you reading it as a means to find our how you can use this work to get what you want - to get you companion back? Such intent delivers us into frustration and neutralizes any benefit this work offers. It's a bit like reading The Presence Process and then trying to figure out how we can make money out of selling its presented insights.
Yes, as you write, you have completed The Presence Process three times. Yes, as you have written, there is something you are "not yet getting". Join the rest of the economic community trying to provoke recovery of the economy so they can continue to live as if they can have exactly what they want when they want it.
My recommendation is you shift from trying to get something [feeding your wants] into being open to receiving something [what is required]. Your life, as it is right now, is exactly what is required. How do I know this? Because it is happening. What you want of it is simply "a want". How do I know this? Because it is not happening.
It doesn't matter if you do The Presence Process 1000 X 1000 times - if you cannot yet receive your life experience as valid - and respond to it as if required - you remain what we call "stuck". You are like a child sitting in the middle of a playground whining about not having the sweeties you want, when all around you are swings, whirly-go-rounds, and other kids to play with. However, you cannot see any of this because all you can see is what your unintegrated emotional signature cries for.
The Presence Process is a guide toward "growing up". However, it cannot grow you up for you. You have to take the actions to grow you up for you. Growing up commences and accelerates the moment we discern between our "wants" and "requirements", and when we then respond accordingly.
The deeper response is to engage through felt-perception with the emotional signature which arises whenever you cannot get what you want. This is the causality of you not being able to receive what is required. Being with this emotional signature without condition empowers you to transition from trying to get what you want to willingly and gratefully receiving what you require.
I am sure your companion does not want to be in a relationship with a whining child who is obsessing over not having sweeties. Grow youself up. Embrace every aspect of your life exactly as it is unfolding now as a requirement for your growth. Respond to it accordingly. This responsive approach is what leads us into the rest of the playground. The kids on the swings don't like to hang out with whiners [wanters]. They wanna play on the playground with players. Now is the dawning of the age of "the players". All the whiners and wanters are being laid off.
I am sure if you grow up a little and respond, instead of reacting, to your life experience, your companion's behavior shall shift. She may return, or she may leave you altogether - either way, you won't perceive yourself as stuck anymore. Stop wanting her.
Peace, joy, and a day full of play comes from knowing a simple little secret: Want only what is required. If humanity does not real eyes the difference between "a want" and "a requirement" REALLY SOON - we can kiss our arses goodbye - individually and collectively. Making this discernment is what elevates a species.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)