Adjustments

Have you achieved awakened presence for a period of time just to have it evaporate like the morning dew? Have you tried to ‘effort’ yourself into presence but found it didn’t lead to authentic experience?

The Buddhists use a term, The Gate of Joyful Ease to describe the presence state. I like this description because it illustrates an experience that is nearly impossible to conceptualize. It creates the concept of an inside and outside of the gate. Once you’re inside, presence becomes pure joyful ease and doesn’t require effort to keep it. This Buddhist gate is described as being “flung wide open” which connotes being available to everyone but interestingly, we’re never offered a location for this gate.

There aren’t any directions for your navigational mind to find it because the gateway into presence is invisible, it’s a step backward into nothingness. It’s difficult to find, but once you’re there, you never want to leave.

There are many things that can pull you out of your awakened presence experience, and most all of them are under the category called ‘yourself.’ Yes, as you navigate the process of staying inside presence awareness, you will fall out and come to believe it was a particular situation or person that did it to you.

That’s partly true—some people and situations are going to be real negative charges and can suck away your presence energy like a black hole, no matter what you do. But for the most part, the triggering people and situations are just pointers directing you to your soul’s expansion work.

The conscious and unconscious elements that seem to govern your life—making you feel afraid of this and anxious about that are your lessons waiting to be completed here in Earth School.

My friend has often asked this quirky question, “Why humans?” She wondered - if our souls are perfection experiencing infinite love and knowledge, why come to Earth for the human experience? The truth is that our souls want growth just like our human selves do, and humaning is the way our souls accelerate that growth process.

Souls want to have experiences that teach them lessons that they can’t get through other means. So Buddha was on to something in stating that in life, there is suffering and the suffering can be overcome. It’s the suffering and overcoming the problem that caused the suffering that gives our lives growth and significance, not the typical human success metrics of money, status, and ‘the good life.’

If we can learn to embrace the essential nature of the process Joseph Campbell gave the world, the hero’s journey, we can start embracing the pain, the suffering, the mystery, the unknown, and even the fear as an incredible opportunity to overcome and expand.

Soul evolution is what brings you into this spirit having a human experience journey on Earth. Living in permanent awakened presence is the reward we’ve given ourselves for accomplishing our work. Permanent presence cannot be obtained outside of a monastery without overcoming great challenges.

Part of my process is to help you set the pace of how you will approach your triggering situations. Too much all at once can be quite a shock to the system and can send you into negative emotional states. Too little and your presence will be fragile. There can be difficult confrontations during The Program because, as your spiritual partner, part of my responsibility will be to bring you to your (fill-in the blank) sorrow, grief, anger, shame, hurt, vanity, false self-concepts, judgmentalism, and other aspects of ego and pain-body energy.

As you evolve into new ways of being, you will become more like your soul-self. More loving, more compassionate, more kind, more connected to the All. These changes may be enjoyable for you, but some others in your life may resist these changes. Sometimes, it’s important to bring them into your process so they can try to understand what is is you’re doing, and why you are doing it. I am here to help with that too. Just know that not everyone will be amenable to your evolution, but please let nothing get in your way.