Commitment to Presence..

How would your life change if you were able to remain boundlessly open to and fully present with whatever was going on—not only around you but inside of you as well?

Spiritual awakening, explains Gangaji, involves a commitment to turning toward our experience and the willingness to be with what is there. When we are able to face whatever arises, we break our habitual tendency to turn away from our experience and to cut ourselves off from life.

It seems so natural and normal, we are drawn to what feels good, comfortable, safe, familiar.. and we avoid what feels bad, that which evokes our deepest fears. The invitation is to notice what arises internally when we get triggered, activated. Make noticing what is here now, as a sensation in the body the most important thing. Notice movement in the body, or the opposite, holding, contraction, heaviness, density.

As we begin to notice the way these feelings show up in the body we can also ask ourselves, "Is this ok that this is here, just as it is? Is it entirely ok, or not entirely ok, is there resistance?" Most often there is some resistance, it's natural, it's how we are wired, to avoid what we think is painful. So we can practice noticing the sensations that are present, the resistance, the thoughts that arises with commentary and stories, we can notice all of this and yet not follow the thoughts back into the mind, allowing awareness to rest in the body.

Usually after a period of allowing what is here to be here, there comes a deeper breath, some small amount of relaxation, so we notice that, and soon things seem to lighten a bit, the contraction lessens, we drop deeper into awareness of ourselves, things become still, calm and there is a feeling that all is well, all is exceedingly well.

This is where it really begins, the dropping, the deepening, coming back to the natural state, resting in our true nature. The invitation is to surrender deeply into this, melt, let yourself feel as if you are resting on a raft and the mighty river is taking you. Taking you where ever it will, the river knows where it is going, you are completely at rest, actually you are the river, feel the current moving beneath you, around you, you are the current.

You are one with life, all of life, open, allowing, fully present, awake ... enjoy!

Been stopped lately??

Have you noticed how Life stops you? It may be in an airport having missed a flight... sick in bed or in a doctors office.. or just opening your mail.. and you get stopped. For some period of time you are not going to be moving, doing, your plan of action is halted. Once one stops fighting, resisting or complaining there is this settling down period, maybe even a deep breath. Often at that point I'll notice deep emotion; frustration, sadness, grief even and I'll start to look at how it shows up in the body - tension, holding, heaviness or density in the chest or belly. For a brief time there is a conscious allowing for whatever is here to just be here, just noticing what is here and meeting it as a sensation in the body.

Awareness seems to have shifted from being totally consumed with the situation "out there" (and how much I don't like it) to just noticing what is arising in the body right now, sensations, movement, tension, tingling, whatever. There is curiosity about feeling the "energy body", seeing how it moves, how the nervous system deals with the energy that arises. I am the awareness that is noticing what is here in this energetic system and as it is allowed, there is eventually relaxation and resting and a descending into stillness and spaciousness.

As a result of "being stopped" I notice that "I" am back to the natural state, there is a sense of calm and a feeling that All is Well and everything is unfolding as it is and suddenly the problem that was so objectionable before is remarkably not a problem at all..