Let's close our eyes.
Let's close our eyes.
Become aware of your presence in the room.
You have always been in this room.
But,
Notice what happens when I say,
Become aware of your presence in the room.
Let's close our eyes.
Notice the shift that happens.
When you become aware of yourself in the room or in your office.
You don't have to picture the room.
You have to be experientially aware of yourself in the room.
The recognition of this shift is very important.
The shift from being dispersed and distracted or the common phrase,
All over the place.
The shift from that to here and now.
A common theme that connects all of us is we are here because we want to be in the here and now.
We might call it peace of mind,
Meditation,
Etc.
All of which is only accessible here and now.
If I told you,
You can access your happiness in the past,
You'll probably start laughing at me.
If I told you,
That you can be peaceful while you are all over the place.
You wouldn't know what that experience is.
Because the moment we are aware that we are distracted,
We are here and now.
And we are no longer all over the place.
We are here because of you.
You are here because of me.
You are here because of me.
Sometimes simple triggers like my words can make this instantaneous shift to here and now.
The words like,
Become aware of your own presence in this room.
If you try to analyse these words using your logic,
There is no logic in these words.
Because they feel vague.
If I told you,
Become aware of your foot,
Then it's a direct logical instruction.
But becoming aware of your own presence is something so intuitive that your heart knows what I mean.
I don't need to define what your presence means in order to make that instruction worth following.
You are here because of me.
And the beauty of this instruction is that it can be triggered and followed no matter what we are doing.
Let's say you are driving.
You are paying attention on the road,
On your mirrors,
Maybe listening to something,
Maybe talking to someone.
It's a complicated experience,
Multi-sensory experience.
In the middle of that experience,
If I were to tell you,
Become aware of your own presence.
I'm sure you're not going to stop driving the car,
Not stop perceiving what you're seeing or listening.
But somehow,
The same shift will happen,
Albeit momentarily.
But you will become aware of your presence,
Just like you're aware of your presence right now in this room,
Sitting on this chair,
Listening to my voice.
Let's say you are eating a meal.
You can smell the food,
Taste the food.
You're probably seeing and talking to someone else.
Again,
A very multi-sensory,
Complex experience.
But if you were to hear these words,
Can you become aware of your own presence,
Doing all those things?
A shift will happen.
Instant recognition will happen.
You will be happy,
Excited.
Extremely pleasant sensations running through your body.
Your mind is filled with happiness and excitement.
And in the middle of that experience,
You hear the words.
Can you become aware of your own presence?
There will be a shift.
Underneath all those emotions and excitement,
The shift is even subtler than that,
Which can be sensed,
Which can be experienced very clearly.
And more clearly,
You will experience your own presence.
So we went from a few multi-sensory complex experiences to exciting experience,
Where emotions,
Sensations are running high.
The question doesn't lose its charm or its effectiveness.
Neither is the ensuing recognition any less powerful,
Yet familiar.
What I mean by familiar and safe is let's take in a thought experiment.
Let's say you wake up in the middle of the night to go to the kitchen to drink water.
While you're drinking water,
You feel someone else's presence in the room.
There'll be a rush of emotions,
Fear,
Etc.
You will feel unsafe.
But this presence that I'm talking about,
Your presence that I'm talking about,
Is a very familiar presence,
Safe presence,
Intimate experience.
Now let's say you were feeling lonely,
Sad,
Maybe a little depressed.
In the middle of this emotionally intense experience,
If I were to ask you,
Can you become aware of your own presence for an instantaneous moment?
As the shift happens,
You'll plunge into the now.
You'll go to that familiar,
Intimate,
Safe experience of your own presence.
The sadness might stay,
The sensations might stay,
But your presence will not be mistaken for anything else.
You might not want to stay there,
But the power of this question will take you there,
As if there is a place.
But language is limited,
And I'm speaking to your heart,
And your heart gets the point.
It knows the shift.
Just like your heart knows your presence,
The quality of that presence,
The instantaneity,
Instantaneousness of that presence.
So no matter what we are experiencing,
How complex of an experience it is,
How intense the experience is,
How involved sensorially that experience is,
The shift is inevitable,
The recognition is instantaneous.
This recognition is inbuilt in us for some intense experiences.
For example,
If you're doing an extreme sport,
You can't be all over the place.
You're so intensely present,
And you are intensely aware of your own presence.
That's what charms people to do extreme sports.
The activity is just like this question,
Potent to take you there.
Intense fear does the same.
Those are gifts from nature as pointers so that we could trace our way back to our own presence,
Because there is something very special there.
Otherwise,
Someone who plays extreme sports would not go back again and again to that experience of our own presence.
Don't take my word for it.
Take a stock for yourself right now as to how you feel when I say,
Can you become aware of your own presence?
Thank you.
