How To Become Present?

Don't we all want to become more present? How do you become present? How do you know whether you are present or not? And what happens when you are not present - are you absent? We meticulously and experientially explore each of these questions to debunk a lot of misconceptions about Presence. Meandering through all the misconceptions that are not based on our own experience, we arrive at what is left viz. the pure experiential understanding of what Presence is and how to be Present. Join us on this gently guided contemplation on becoming aware of our own Presence and some practical tools and tips on how to become present.

Transcript

Let's close our eyes.

You know it's funny,

I decided the topic for today's meditation when I created the live event which was a few days ago.

And serendipitously I was wrapping up my stuff in the office today at work and I came across a piece of paper that I'd scribbled some notes from one of the trainings I was doing months ago.

And what caught my eye is I don't remember writing it down and it was serendipitous to what was the topic tonight.

There was a sentence in my notes which said,

Presence comes from being present.

I picked up that piece of paper and brought it home.

But it actually said presence comes from being present.

If I asked you right now,

Are you present?

You would obviously say yes,

I'm present.

How do you know you're present?

Of course I'm not expecting an answer because there is no answer for this question.

It's one of those self-evident truths that cannot be described by anything other than itself.

If I were to ask you to describe a banana to someone who does not know anything about a banana,

You'll use colors,

Shapes,

Some description for it.

But if I asked you just like I did,

How do you know you are present?

You probably hit a wall and the best you can say is,

I just know.

That is a funny question.

How do you become present?

Of course the training that I was attending was about listening and listening requires one to be present.

That's when I scribbled that line in my notes.

Yet the facilitator never said anything about how do you become present?

These seem like very simple questions,

But we have no answers for these questions.

The longer I stay silent,

The more you'll feel that you are becoming absent.

Because somehow silence is an invitation to become lost in our thoughts again.

Of course we never formulate a sentence that I was absent.

We might say I was lost.

I was daydreaming.

The thing is,

No matter what you were daydreaming,

No matter where you were lost in your thoughts,

You got to be present to know that you were daydreaming.

Otherwise how would you know what you were doing?

Isn't that an obvious question to ask?

You had to be present to know what was happening,

Whether it was daydreaming or you were staring at a blank screen of your mind or just lost in thoughts.

And you could probably tell what thoughts you were thinking as well.

So were you really lost?

Or let me rephrase my question.

Can you ever be absent?

Being present is our nature.

However,

We don't feel most of the times that we are present.

And the reason I'm emphasizing this part early on is that there is a desire in us to be more present.

I don't even know what that means.

How can you be more present?

You are either present or not.

But I'll.

.

.

I digress.

We all want to be more present.

We want to be present.

We don't want to be lost or daydreaming.

Because somehow there is an intuitive knowledge within us that being present is good for me.

I know I'm throwing out two contradictory ideas that was captured in the first question.

The first question,

Can you ever be absent?

And then this desire,

I want to be present.

So let's start with this question.

Can you ever be absent?

And how would you know you were absent?

I'm not trying to make this an intellectual exercise or a thought experiment.

Right now,

In your experience,

Try to not be present.

Find a way to become absent.

Open a door,

Walk through it and disappear.

And when I ask you a question,

Are you present?

Say no.

So rather than making this a thought experiment,

Try to disappear.

So here,

Try to not be present right now.

Pretty impossible,

Huh?

So when we do want to become present,

What are we really wanting there?

Just that we have heard somewhere someone talk about it,

That we have latched on to this idea that we want to become more present.

But it's very abstract,

That has no experiential validation.

Even the so-called being lost in thoughts.

If in the middle of being lost in thoughts,

I were to pause,

Just like in a movie,

And ask you,

Are you present while being lost?

Of course,

You are.

While being lost,

Of course,

You would say yes.

I know what's going on.

I'm there while all this thinking is happening.

Even right now,

So much is happening while you are being present.

And in some mysterious way,

Everything is happening effortlessly.

And by everything,

I mean,

If your eyes are open,

You are seeing things.

You are definitely listening.

You are definitely listening.

All these inputs are being processed,

And understanding is happening.

You're guiding your attention to particular questions that I am prompting you to consider.

All this is happening while being present.

So even this idea that becoming present amidst an activity is interrupting that activity is quite an alien idea.

Alien from an experiential validation standpoint.

In abstract,

It might make sense.

Then the only question that remains is,

Why do I not feel present all the time,

And why do I feel that I'm present right now?

There's a small detail that's missing.

Between being present now,

Or the flavor of being present now,

And the flavor of being present all the time.

And that is the knowledge that you have right now,

That you are present.

And that is the knowledge that you have right now,

That you are present.

When you are not present,

Allegedly,

Most of the times,

You don't know that you are present.

That's the only missing piece.

If somehow,

During every activity,

Somebody paused you and asked you,

Are you present,

Are you present,

Are you present?

You will remember you are present.

Right now,

You already know that you are present.

You already remember that you are present.

So notice the flavor of this presence right now,

So as to imprint a deep remembrance of this experience where you're consciously present.

See what your experience of perception feels like.

Are the sounds crisper?

Is there more depth to what you can hear?

Can you hear the sounds that you are hearing?

And can you also hear the pauses,

The absence of sound that you are hearing?

Are you aware and can you appreciate the contemplation that is happening in your mind through these words?

Like the machinery is working in full speed.

See what your experience of your bodily sensation feels like when you are present.

Are you more present in your body?

Are you more present in your body?

Most of the time,

We are not aware of our bodies until we get hungry or thirsty or we need coffee or we are in pain.

That's the only time body makes its appearance to us.

So travel the entire gamut of your experience through sights,

Sounds,

Textures.

Your thoughts,

Your feelings,

Your sensations.

The breadth and depth of everything you are experiencing.

And notice the richness of it.

And by the way,

All this that you are experiencing is always there.

Is always in the same depth and breadth.

But when we seem lost.

And most of the times we are lost in our thoughts.

Even if we are,

Even if we are in pain,

We are lost in the thoughts of pain.

Thoughts of fixing the pain.

Thoughts of fixing the pain.

Even if we are sad.

We are lost in thinking about sadness.

At least that's been my experience.

It's very hard for me to be lost in bodily sensations or emotions for too long.

Thinking is what gets me.

So this richness,

This breadth and depth is limited to thinking only.

That's why it feels mostly absent.

And because it's unconscious thinking.

It lacks the.

4K quality that you are experiencing right now.

If I were to give you a complicated problem to solve in an area that you love.

Suddenly you're thinking.

Will be like stars shining.

Shining.

And every part of that thinking will have breadth and depth to it.

Exclusive.

Unintentional attention to thoughts.

Renders our life pretty unconscious.

Because we have cut off everything else and exclusively.

Devoted it.

And involuntarily,

By the way.

To thinking for some of us,

It might be feeling or sensing.

Or just watching TV.

Or scrolling the phone.

So it could be a site,

It could be sound,

It could be thinking,

It could be emotion.

Find out what it is for you.

And notice,

Do you feel alive when you are doing that unconsciously?

And would you do that?

Consciously.

Just like you are here.

Just like you are here.

You are present.

You are present to everything.

Even while watching TV,

If somebody paused.

Our mindlessness and were to ask us,

Are you present?

Then suddenly you will have become aware of the room,

The sofa,

The TV,

The characters.

Your body,

Your phone,

Everything.

We are only one step away.

From answering or at least.

From being engulfed by the first question I asked you.

Which was,

How do you become present?

It's an act of grace.

There is no one coming to pause us in the middle of our experience,

Other than me.

To ask you if you are present.

The only thing that will remind us is grace.

We can cooperate though.

We can use technology to our advantage.

Set reminders,

Attend a session like this.

Where the practice of becoming present.

Happens frequently.

It's like the more you remember,

The more you will remember.

And if we remember.

Instead of taking the invitation.

Of becoming lost.

We will choose presence.

And our physical environment that we.

Are inhabiting is filled with triggers,

Filled with invitations to become lost,

To become absent.

To become restricted and limited to one particular experience.

Some of the examples of these triggers.

Enter your living room.

And your hand will automatically go towards the TV remote.

And what happens after that we all know.

Get in the car.

The music starts,

The radio starts.

And until someone cuts us off.

We are pretty gone.

Start reading a book.

And you have to keep coming back to the same passage again and again.

If you get on a treadmill or a bicycle,

You probably have a TV in front of it.

So if we take the bait that is presented to us.

We go that route.

Try doing this.

Try walking backwards.

And.

See if you can become absent.

At that time,

See if you can become lost at that time.

Try going.

Going.

Somewhere in your car without a GPS to a place that you have no idea where it is.

And try.

Being lost in the music.

If you are anything like me,

You would probably turn off the radio and focus on where you are going because you don't have a GPS.

Try eating a meal that you have no idea how to eat.

And see if you can.

Be lost.

I'm not saying the familiarity is the root cause of us becoming lost.

It's just the.

Primitive design of our minds to automate things.

So that our brain is free to do other things.

But if that other thing is being unconscious of that activity,

Then.

We are still being primitive.

Sophistication lies.

In being present while we are doing whatever we are doing.

Not because our life is in danger.

But because we can be present consciously.

Can you imagine how powerful of a.

Gift that is.

We don't have to be in danger.

Somebody doesn't have to cut us while driving.

Or we don't have to.

Participate in an extreme sport to become present.

We can be present doing mundane things.

We can even be present when we are sad.

Why?

And my question would be why not?

Living a full human experience requires experiencing everything we can fully.

Everything that we are capable of everything that nature brings our way.

I would say it's more difficult to be present.

While we are.

Enjoying pleasures than in pain.

So nothing can make us not be present.

Even ourselves,

We cannot make ourselves not be present.

We can,

However,

Forget.

That we are not present.

We can,

However,

Forget.

That we are always present.

And that.

Is enough of an illusion for us to believe that.

We can not be present and we can.

Then embark on this journey.

Of becoming present doing these practices doing these practices.

Doing those practices.

But if it is your experience that you can never.

Not be present,

Then it's only a matter of.

How do I remember?

That I am present.

Whatever number of years or decades we have spent practicing not being present by limiting our experience.

Limiting one particular experience like thinking or watching or listening.

It's a habit.

And all habits can be eroded.

And replaced.

But the only way we can.

We can.

Work on a habit is if we see it.

That the way the habit is today.

Is not good for me.

As long as it is serving a purpose in my life today,

I will never change it.

To the first thing we need to do is see the uselessness of that habit.

And then ask yourself,

Am I present?

Once you see the uselessness of.

Forgetting.

That you are present.

That blow.

Is enough to start.

The.

Deterioration process.

And the compliance we can comply with this process by asking ourselves,

Am I present?

Am I present?

A simple question is a reminder to us to become present.

It's not that complicated.

And grace is always working.

Grace is finding ways to remind us.

And we are finding ways to escape that reminder.

If we stop.

Then grace can find us.

The more you.

Set reminders.

The more you read books about.

Presence.

The beauty of.

All this is.

The books.

These words.

The words.

All this is.

The books.

These words.

Walks in nature.

Sitting at the beach is filled with presence.

It's filled with the magnetic pull of presence.

These words have been dipped in presence.

They come from presence and they call out.

To the presence.

So it becomes easier.

At least in the beginning.

To surround our physical environment with all these cues.

And just like.

A figure skater.

Practices practices practices and then it becomes effortless.

In our case.

We have cues.

We have cues.

We have cues and then we stop forgetting.

Nobody can make us present.

And I want you to verify that as well.

Can anyone make you present?

Unless you decide you want to be present.

No one can make you present.

So do you want.

To be present.

Knowingly.

Thank you.