How many times do you do you have a sudden realisation that you were not present at all when you were just doing something and now barely remember doing it? Common moments like this can be driving home or doing a domestic chore. Even worse, is having that realisation after doing something really important for someone, or only partially paying attention when a loved one was talking with you or doing something with you that could have been a special moment?

Allowing ourselves to get lost in our stream of thoughts too much of every day is even easier now with the cacophony of distractions in modern life on top of over-thinking and lack of time or care to just sit and be fully present. Not balancing ‘being’ with ‘doing’ means we can be cut-off from the most important aspect of who we are within ourselves and with each other – and that is love.

To help reconnect, there is a resurgence and redefining of ways to practice consciously being present in the ‘now’ on a daily basis. A specific chosen mindful activity serves best when it is a self-nurturing and quiet activity. A regular and particular time of day, is most effective when it is the start and end of each day.

One of the ways our thinking mind can draw us out of our deeper self, is through our unconscious acceptance of assumptions which come out of long term habitual thinking, as do our automatic or reflexive opinions and stance on things.

It is natural to categorise things as good or bad, right or wrong, important or not important, likeable or dislikable and even spiritual or non-spiritual because these dualistic points of view become part of our moral identity and character.

This is okay when we are open to adjusting and refining our boundaries and views as our knowledge and maturity develops. However, making them a rigid and unquestionable part of our identity, turning them into a universal truth everyone must agree to in order to be acceptable to us, is what can have our past conditioning run the show, so we are seeing old projections rather than what is truly before us. This can get in the way of our ability to listen more deeply to ourselves and others in the present moment.

When our points of view come into conflict with other people’s views, the inner tension can alert us to turn up our state of being present. With presence, we can review how to deal with even subtle tension and conflict in a way that maintains our own integrity to presence here and now, while being respectful and open to other people’s points of view. This is part of living from the heart and exercising wisdom. It is putting trust in our own deeper nature, rather than than identifying primarily with an opinion or belief which may have some merit, but is a projection of mind and not our true selves.

Treating our viewpoint as a universal fact leads inevitably to making other people wrong or manipulating them into thinking ‘our’ way as the only ‘right’ way, because no two people have exactly the same ideology. Many people have vastly different views on certain matters. When we are unconsciously judging and manipulating, we are removed from our innate wisdom and love.

If we are identified with the living presence that is doing the thinking, then we can loosen the hold and be free from the compulsion to take a strong position on every opinion and thought to defend our identity. This is because when our identity transcends our thoughts and beliefs, it is not defined by them. We can then take our view points and reality as relative and feel less threatened when they are challenged.

I imagine that you recognise certain conditioned beliefs and their matching experiences are your own and not necessarily the truth or experience of everyone. Yet many people have a mindset or have decided certain views are simply the way they are, things are and that is it. When we do this, we close ourselves to new positive experiences and awareness of new possibilities in relationships and life situations that are part of our life path and life lessons.

I have come to the point of view that the only way to truly bridge differences between people, and move through our own defences and unconscious walls, is to commit daily to coming from love with everything, including ourselves.

While there are many types of love in life, what characterises true love is a heartfelt sense of our own oneness with whatever or whoever inspires or requires our love. From the point of view of spiritual awakening, that means everything and everyone, but it does not mean becoming passive and easily manipulated to other people’s views.

It does mean looking beyond differences to a sense of common essence with others as a primary mode of operating, and then dealing with any issues only once that sense of oneness is found in that moment. Being centred there within our own hearts, then connecting with that essence in others as first base is required to then apply love in communication and engagement.

A person or relationship, an activity, an object or sensory delight that we may apply the word ‘love’ to is usually where we feel a bond, emotional investment or a strong sense of pleasure. On a deeper level where we become more identified with our universal self, the essence of ourselves as a living being, love becomes more broadly the sense of unity or oneness within our own inner essence, which is the same living essence expressed uniquely through all other living beings in a living and animated universe.

This love transcends, yet does not exclude romanticism, sentimentalism and pleasure seeking. Nonetheless, these can draw us away from real love when invested in from the conditioned and conditional mind. They are transformed to something beautiful when embraced with presence and essence.

From this view, oneness exists every microsecond whether we are dealing with pleasure or pain. Suffering comes when we cannot accept, when we struggle with or resist pain. Being in oneness means learning to have a sense of connection to life and reality no matter what is going on, so that good or bad, pain or pleasure, do not draw us into rejection or attachment. In this way, our depth of oneness and presence enables us to experience greater depths of pleasure or pain without being drawn away from its great breadth and strength.

We all have great reserves of untapped strength, wisdom and compassion. Only the vast spaciousness of presence can give us the ability to be open heartedly present with deep pain in ourselves and in others.

On this basis, it is helpful to be reminded or inspired to feel our love and oneness or connection to people and the world by tuning within to our own soul with heart and mind, having a conscious choice as to with whom, when and how we express or flow this conscious love and sense of being into the moment.

I often reflect on a principle that to a non-spiritually minded person, nothing is spiritual; but to a spiritually awakened soul, everything is spiritual. Spiritual here is implied by conscious presence that transcends the thinking mind. Much of the time, our hearts and minds serve us best when clear and reflecting our true essence like a still pond reflecting the moon. Clearer thoughts can then arise than when we are locked in our own stream of thinking and reacting to mind disturbance and mind content.

In this state, our own unique character and body are outer garments of expression to be used consciously to express our deeper essence. The living conscious essence that is experiencing the mind, body and character we have, is intimately with us every second yet impossible for us to really define intellectually. It is closer than our own thoughts. It is where we can find a profound sense of transcendence and authenticity of being while observing our life experience in the present moment.

Greater potential and challenge for pleasure and fulfilment arises when we can engage this consciousness in any situation with anybody, and in specific moments with a specific somebody. This requires equanimity and non-attachment to our own position and stance in life, so that many battles once fought over various points of view are no longer engaging us. Yet it also means living with conviction to whatever task, behaviour and principles are in alignment and engage us at the depths of our being with full consciousness.

Being more present, appreciative and open with conscious depth, enables exploring greater depth of experience and having the courage to meet challenges as well as many simple and special moments with an open heart. All experiences and actions can benefit everyone, including ourselves, when approached with a heartfelt and conscious intent.

It is our thinking mind that labels people, situations and things so that they become over-familiar and taken for granted. This happens when we are perceiving them through a conditioned mindset of associations that have become habitual. Being in the present moment tunes us in to even common or familiar settings as if we are there for the first time, enabling a timeless appreciation of things, like a long term relationship or elements of daily life, as a gift.

The conditioned and thinking mind cannot provide this because it defines everything into its own self image and time bound set of thoughts and feelings. Living presence experiences the living moment directly. The conditioned mind experiences everything through its own constructed content, narratives and conclusions. Even things that were once precious can become part of what feels like ‘ground-hog day’ to the conditioned mind. It is then we unconsciously become distant and only partially present while our mind goes into a blend of auto-pilot and distraction with unrelated streams of thoughts. Meanwhile, we miss being fully present in a relationship or situation.

It is a challenge to notice when we have a limiting thought and shut down. It is also a challenge when we are drawn into a thought stream, then realise we are not fully present, to then awaken ourselves with a deep breath and ‘re-set’ in the here and now. It is time for us to rise above our own conditioning when it is activated and decide to be present with our own love.

Open hearted presence is enough to transform a conditioned thought or feeling in ourselves that is causing a ‘shut down’ and distracting us from being more present, loving and embodying our authentic true selves. It is not the situation or person causing our ‘shut-down’ but our own inability to respond consciously.

When you notice you are taking a position against something, or else feeling mental, emotional or physical resistance with someone or a situation, see if you can use breath and body awareness to relax and become open from within to deal with the situation from a strong and open heart. Be open to whether the resistance or tension is arising from within yourself or is something you are picking up from around you. Transforming such moments requires self-honesty, being non-judgemental and trusting in the power of presence in the world before launching into any action or expression.

The power of presence is available once you have found the sense of oneness with self and all of life in the moment revealing not only love but that you are love.

Photo credit:gerrybuckel on Visual Hunt/ CC BY-NC-SA (modified)