The Presence Process and the experience of oneness.

Lately, in my emails, there have been an increased suggestion to discuss the experience commonly referred to as 'Oneness'. The problem with entering a discussion on oneness is it requires more than one.

These questions and comments about oneness are likely being initiated by Jordan Shafer's The Daily Now printing of excerpts from Being Our Companion [which is available on Free Downloads on the website]. I wrote this book about five or six years ago - and have not read it for a few years.

I would rather place my contribution to this discussion from the point of view of how I experience it now. This is best shared by placing an excerpt from the newly revised, The Presence Process Recreated. This book is currently being edited by David Ord of Namaste Publishing - who has told me he is making it more palatable for the readers. So, what is printed here is my pre-Ord-edited version. It unwraps oneness through the expression, "the unified field". It is just words, but I prefer this point of you.

I pop this excerpt into the unified field as my contribution to deepening our direct experience of oneness. However, discussions of the subject, for me, are a funny paradox.

This is also the first time an excerpt from the new book is being shared. Enjoy. It will be available sometime early in 2010 from Namaste Publishing.

CONSCIOUSLY ENTERING THE UNIFIED FIELD

Cause and effect states that “what we seek, we find” and “what we ask for, we receive”. Therefore, the automatic and unfaltering consequence of this is, we always see exactly what we are looking for, and the experiences we have in each moment are exactly what we have asked for. Our life and the way we experience it is therefore an ongoing answer to questions we continually ask and an ongoing revelation of what we are seeking.

The reason why this predicament is not clearly apparent to us is because most of our seeking and asking takes place unconsciously, driven by the emotional charge imprinted into our energy field as children. If we had the felt-capacity to peer inwardly and feel the sum of the charge of our current imprinted condition – and if we had the felt-capacity to then peer outwardly and feel the sum of the felt-resonance emanated by the emotional, mental, and physical facets of our current life experience – we would realize they are a precise match.

Therefore, when we are not in harmony with the quality of what we are now experiencing as “our life”, it is our responsibility to integrate the imprinted condition which is causal to this predicament. No one can accomplish this for us. Having the capacity to accomplish this for ourselves is what free will is. This is what The Presence Process procedure gives us the opportunity to accomplish: TO LIVE ON PURPOSE WITHIN THE UNIFIED FIELD OF THE HUMAN EXPERIENCE. Let us explore how this may be practically applied within the context of our day-today life experience:

There is a gap between us and every other human being. This gap is the space we perceive between us. This gap appears authentic because of our physical body-vehicle. In the gap between everyone else and us is where the world manifests. Our world is this gap.
Because our physical body-vehicle leads us to believe this gap is real, we believe we can be separated from others. We believe our body-vehicle is separate from the body-vehicles of others, and that we therefore have our own private physical sensations. We believe we have our own private mental body, and therefore our own thoughts. We believe we have our own heart, and therefore our own felt-states. We believe we have our own vibrational body, and therefore our own vibrational insights and revelations. This segregated perception leads us to believe that when we are not in the company of another human being, we are therefore completely on our own. Having a physical body-vehicle allows us to believe we may be totally alone in the unified field.

Yet, we all have experiences proving this is not so. Let us call these, “unified experiences”. We have seen others physically hurt themselves and immediately felt their pain within our own physical body-vehicle. We have thought about another, and then shortly thereafter, bumped into them or received a phone call from them. We have felt something behind us, and turned around to discover someone watching us. We have found that as we are about to utter a thought, someone standing next to us has expressed it exactly. We have been about to confide in someone as to how we feel emotionally, when they have pre-empted us by revealing they too are having the same emotional experience. We have also had vibrational insights and revelations we assumed unique to us, only to hear others verbalizing their encounter with the same insight and revelation.

We may call these unified experiences being psychic, transference, intuition, empathy, telepathy, and the consequence of being sensitive. It does not matter what label we give them – what matters is we adjust our perception about the nature of our paradigm according to the ongoing proof being laid before us by these unified experiences. The proof inherent in these unified experiences reveals that:

· Our physical body-vehicles, though appearing separate, are not. They are intimately, energetically, connected to each others body-vehicle.
· Our mental body is not the physical brain in our head. Its capacities extend beyond the confines of our physical body-vehicle to any distance we care to think about.
· Our emotional experience is not confined to us alone. They are shared by the world around us.
· Our ongoing and unfolding vibrational awareness is not personal and exclusive. It is universal and inclusive.

Aside from these obvious unified experiences, which the mental body dismisses as quickly as possible, what keeps us believing we are having a separate experience from others is our inability to clearly communicate what is happening to us. We do not yet realize that when explaining ourselves to others, we are constantly verbalizing the same experience to each other. We do not realize this because we are focused on our personal interpretation of the experience we are having – the mental story – and not on the felt-resonance of the experience itself. The moment we mentally interpret any experience, we personalize it, and in doing so turn it into an individual and therefore separate and seemingly segregated and isolate incident. When others cannot comprehend and relate to what we attempt mentally communicating to them, we feel a sense of separation and alienation. This then reinforces the illusion we are separate from others and may therefore have “our own experience”.

The obstacle we place before us when attempting to communicate our physical, mental, and emotional experience to each other is we are too focused on what our experience means, and not on what is happening within us on the level of pure felt-perception. Because of differing belief systems (mental stories) about the nature of experience, a specific occurrence means different things to different people. In accordance with our beliefs, we naturally see what we are looking for – which means we consistently bend the interpretation of what we experience to confirm that what we believe is true.

Another problem which occurs is when what appears before us does not fit into our personal mental story of what is possible. We then find a way to explain it away. This is the same as not seeing at all. This is the reason why the mental body continually explains away unified experiences – because they do not fit in with our present collective story which states our physical body-vehicle separates us from each other.

Therefore, there is no point in entering a debate and discussion on whether we are unified and not. Because, according to our personal stories, what “being unified” means to one person differs from what it means to another. It is more productive therefore to ignore what we think about being unified, and focus rather on what the experiences we have of being unified are already revealing to us. Let our experience be the proof. Let our experience be our teaching. Let our experience be embraced as valid.

If we think of someone and they immediately phone, why do we continue to behave as though we are separated from them? Is the overriding the proof within these blatant experiences that we are unified not enough?

As we now consciously approach the unified experience, which is the intimate connectedness of Presence within each other and all life, we also remember to what extent we are still unconsciously and perceptually enslaved by ancient imprints which are diligently passed down through the generations. These imprints translate mentally into age old beliefs systems which support the consciousness of separation. From the moment we entered our present experience, we inherited these ancient imprints through our parents – just as they inherited theirs through their parents.

Let us begin, therefore, by acknowledging that by their nature, these ancient imprints and the beliefs they spawn about “how the world is”, are out of date. Even though they are familiar and therefore comfortable to the mental body, they are ineffectual. We may acknowledge that they may at one point in our evolution have served us, but now they no longer do. Now they limit us and maintain the mistaken illusion we are separate from one another, that we may be alone, and that we have to “go out and get ours” or else we go without.

These imprints and the outdated belief systems they support are the foundations of much of our current suffering as a species. They, through the separation, segregation, racism, nationalism, and class society consciousness they encourage, are the foundations of eons of fear, anger, and grief. With the proof our current unified experiences place before us, maintaining the perception of being separate from each other on any level is madness. It is delusion and denial. It is the same as believing the earth is flat when we clearly perceive the curve of the open horizon before us.

An efficient and accelerated way to approach the updating of our perception, so we may accommodate the actuality of being unified, is to consciously invite encounters with of this unified paradigm to flood our awareness. We experientially initiate this updating by choosing from this moment onward to behave as if we are one with all life around us. In the same breath, we invite daily occurrences supporting the unified paradigm to impact our personal experience.
Ask and receive.

We activate this through cause and effect by consciously looking for experiential evidence that we are one unified body-vehicle, one unified mental matrix, one unified heart, and one unified vibrational field. By consciously looking for evidence of it, we perceive it, because cause and effect states we perceive what we are looking for.

Seek and find.

However, all of this asking and seeking hinges upon an agreement we make with ourselves: That when the experiential evidence is placed before us, we do not allow our mental body to explain it away. The best way to ensure this does not happen is to apply a procedure called containment:

When experiential evidence of our unified paradigm is presented to us within our daily encounters, we are not to reveal or explain it to others. By revealing or explaining these unified experiences to others, we are seeking acknowledgement that what is happening to us is valid. Yet, no one can ever confirm our personal experience of the unified field as valid. This is because the act of explaining an experience of being unified to someone else is an immediate acknowledgement of separation. The moment we explain “being unified” to another, we go from being one to two! Explanation of a unified experience between two individuals requires and reinforces the consciousness of separation.

Another’s agreement or disagreement with us has no bearing on the validity of what we experience. When we do not attempt explaining these unified experiences to others, they cannot be explained away. When we have a unified experience, and instead contain it, we digest it. The nutritional benefit of holding these experiences within is our faith in the unified paradigm grows into “a knowing”. This knowing permeates our awareness and behavior in spite of what the world’s ancient imprinting propagates. Faith does not require outer support – only belief does.
Anyone verbally informing us that “we are one” speaks from a point of segregated consciousness. Authentically being unified is a feeling that extends naturally into our behavior – not a conversation seeking validation, debate, or discussion.

After agreeing to contain and digest our experience, we can then accelerate the process of inviting this unified paradigm to flood our awareness: We accomplish this by taking an active step towards having this paradigm confirmed – we choose to live this way on purpose. Accomplishing this is simple. Accomplishing this is what The Presence Process procedure leads us toward. This is the invitation inherent in experiencing Presence. Being unified is the terrain of Present Moment Awareness, because experiencing unification with all life forms is only possible in the present. The present is the unified field.

Let us now place our attention back into the gap we perceive existing between us – the gap in which the world exists. In this gap between us, there is stuff – plenty of it. We know what the stuff is in the gap between us because we agree upon the names we give to the individual components.

For example, when we place a pen into the gap between us, we both know what it is because we agree about what we call this particular item and what its purpose is. Because of this agreement, we may then say, “Please pass me the pen?” or “Please refill the pen with ink for me?” Because of this agreement, we understand each other without debate and discussion. We understand each other because we are not debating and discussing what the pen is and what its purpose is. We agree upon these things.

This is the nature of all the items found in the gap between us – they all have a name and a purpose. The names of the different items appearing in the gap between us are mostly agreed upon. The names may change, because the person using the item may speak a different language, but beyond making the translation, we generally agree a pen is a pen, a car is a car, and a house is a house.

Where difference of opinion occurs, where the meaning of the item becomes relevant in the experience of the user, and where debate, discussion, and possible misunderstanding may occur about any particular item, is in the nature of its purpose. The pen itself, like all items appearing in the gap between us, is neutral. Of itself it has no purpose, and therefore no meaning. The user provides meaning and purpose, and it is at this point which the experience becomes shared or separated.

For example, a pen may be used to write a love letter or sign a declaration of war. The pen itself is not fueled with love or hate – it is wielded by it. Whether we support love or hate determines whether we share the experience of the person using the pen or not. The pen is there to facilitate experience.

To continue this line of examination – we are now invited to suspend our ancient beliefs about separation so as to consider the predicament this idea of separation places us in. We may easily accept there is a gap between other human beings and ourselves. We may also accept it is in this gap in which the world as we know it exists.

What The Presence Process now invites us to consider is this: That this gap between us, the one in which the world exists that we have named and given purpose, is the very thing standing between us and our experience of what our shared Presence is. What The Presence Process invites us to consider is, that the distance we perceive between any other human being (or any living creature) and ourselves, is the exact distance which lies between us an our experience of Presence. In the same breath, we are invited to consider that in any given moment, the significance we place on this gap is what prevents us from realizing that it is always Presence looking directly back at us from the other side of the gap.

It is beneficial to reread the above paragraph again slowly with intent of allow our heart to feel and digest the words.

The Presence Process procedure is inviting us to perceive that this gap between us – this world we have made – is a veil thinner than a butterfly’s wing and more transparent than a breath of air. Yet, because of the significance we place upon the items within the gap, and upon their meaning and purpose, we forget how to perceive what is “authentic”. We forget how to look across the gap and recognize what is authentic – that which never changes.

All the items in the gap keep changing. Therefore, the gap and all it contains cannot be defined as having any lasting reality to it. When – through developing felt-perception – we recall how to perceive what is authentic – what is eternal – we realize that the Presence peering at us from the other side of the gap is always the same. By engaging solely with what is inauthentic – with the gap and its contents – we focus on the expression of Presence, and not upon Presence itself.
To be able to look beyond the gap, we require remembering how to perceive beyond the trinity making up the structure of the transience of our human experience. We require training ourselves to place no overriding significance on the behavior, appearance, and life circumstance of the expression of Presence before us in any given moment. Why? Because these aspects of Presence are constantly changing and therefore not authentic. They are not causal and not to be perceived as such. They are part of the veil of illusion between us and what is forever unchanging. When we – through felt-perception – look across the gap and perceive what is beyond these changing expressions, we realize it is always the same Presence before us. There is only one Presence. Presence is shared – it is us, unified.

Being able to “see” this takes the development of felt-perception – and this felt-perception is accomplished by integrating the emotional chargers imprinted into us during childhood. While our emotional charges remain unintegrated – and while our felt-perception therefore remains undeveloped – we automatically believe our mental story that our behavior, appearance, and life circumstances represent our authentic identity. We therefore also mistakenly identify others in this way. While we cannot, through felt-perception, connect with Presence within ourselves, we struggle to connect with Presence within others.

Consequently, we do not realize we are one body-vehicle, one mental matrix, one heart, and one vibrational essence. Fortunately, choosing to dismantle this illusion only requires the wielding of intent. There are only two options before us in any given moment: We are either opening the gap between us by living according to our ancient imprinting, or we are closing it by opening ourselves to the unlimited possibilities of being Presence unified. We either value the gap and what is in it, or we value Presence on the other side of the gap. It is this simple. It is this obvious. It is our choice to make.

For example: When we pay for our groceries, we either focus on the items we purchase, or on the cashier who is ringing them up for us. We either fret about the prices of the products in front of us, or we greet the cashier warmly. We either worry about whether we have purchased the correct ingredients for our dinner, or we ask the cashier about their weekend. We either open the gap by focusing on the items within it, or we close the gap by acknowledging Presence on the other side of it. It is this simple. It is this obvious. It is this easy. It is a choice.

When we only focus on the stuff of life, on the world we have built between us, the gap widens. When we focus on the Presence on the other side of the gap, the gap closes. Each human encounter is one in which we either open or close this gap. Opening the gap is a reaction to life, while closing it a response. Each moment we live through is one in which we either support the veil of separation, or consciously part it in the name of remembering our unified, shared PRESENCE.

Opening and closing the gap is not “a doing” – it is a state of being. There is no specific time, place, and job description which makes opening the gap possible or impossible. It is a point of view – one which recognizes “a sacred point of you”. It is living from within the heart. It is a consciously chosen level of awareness. It requires only Present Moment Awareness.
Our interaction and relationship with the items in the gap also determines whether we are opening or closing the gap. We may use the items of this world to serve either purpose, because the items have no inherent purpose of their own. We may agree that everything in the gap we call “the world” is neutral, because it is. A bomb is a lump of stuff until we assign its purpose. A rose is just another flower until we give it to someone we love. We may agree the items are neutral because the user supplies the meaning and purpose of the items found within the gap. The user decides whether a pen writes love letters or hate mail. When we write love letters – we close the gap. When we write hate mail – we open the gap. The choice is ours, and our ongoing experience of life is a consequence of the choice we make and intent we set. It is this simple. It is this obvious. Or not.