Being present is to put the attention in the now.
Essential Nature of Presence
“The essence of the spiritual process is sustaining presence. Presence is our essential Self. It is a space to be filled by the qualities of Spirit—qualities such as love, generosity, patience, courage, humility, and wisdom, which are inclusive, encompassing, and transcendent. The ego is a crowded space filled with conflicting desires and thoughts.” Kabir Helminski, Living Presence, p34
“Presence signifies the quality of consciously being here. It is the activation of a human level of awareness that allows all our other human functions, such as thoughts, feelings, and actions, to be known, developed, and harmonized.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Living Presence Wisdom School, 50:03 Chapter-1-Presence-An-Introduction.
“Presence will lie in the direction of being able to embrace as much as possible of what’s happening in this now. I am lying here. Fear is present. I am breathing. I am still here. This now can be endured. That’s presence.” Cynthia Bourgeault, Living Presence Wisdom School, 01:09:18 Chapter-5-Balancing-the-Outer-and-the-Inner.
The Practice of Holding Presence
“Our job is to hold a post in the resonant field. Keep your attention in yourself. Keep within, don’t let your attention be scrambled. Don’t fall asleep. Look for opportunities to be present and give presence.” Cynthia Bourgeault, The Vocabulary of Wisdom.
“The attention coming from the different centers must be here in a right proportion and remain engaged as a conscious Presence. But it is constantly threatened by what draws it outside. We need to become conscious of this attraction.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p42
“Now I will say something of considerable importance; I speak to those who wish to work sincerely. Every morning, or at least every day, you must put yourself deliberately under the influence of the Work. … You must put yourself into a Work-state every day. Find the best way in your case.” Maurice Nicoll, Commentaries, p454
Quality of Presence
“When I withdraw from life to open to what I am, a moment sometimes comes when I feel myself belonging to a new order, a cosmic order. I receive this impression, I become conscious of it. This impression could now become part of my Presence. It is here to help me, and it can help me if I connect it to other similar impressions. When I have a feeling of my Presence, I am connected with higher forces.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p26
“The quality of influence that reaches me depends on the quality of my Presence. And the quality of my Presence depends on the relation of my thought, my feeling and my sensation. In order to be attuned to a more subtle force, the attention of each part needs to concentrate, to become charged with a new meaning and power to relate voluntarily. In this way the thinking purifies itself, as do the feeling and the sensation. Each plays its own role and functions in concert with the others for the same goal of being attuned with a more subtle Presence. This Presence needs to shine, to animate my body. It has an intelligence, a vision that is like a light in the darkness and thickness of my sleep.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p48
“Presence is a faculty that operates at all levels of being, and that also makes the mundus imaginalis [Imaginal World] intelligible, but only if we have presence on that level of refinement where we are not dominated or ruled by sensual concerns.” Kabir Helminski, Knowing Heart, p209
Inner Struggle for Presence
“I must agree to have no tension. I must be able to remain without judging, without expecting anything, without hoping, entirely in the awareness of what is. I will then perhaps come to the perception of a living Presence in me, a global sensation of the life of the whole.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p66
“When I begin to perceive a subtle Presence in myself, I feel it as something alive that calls for its action to be felt. But I cannot feel its action deeply because I am separated from it by a wall of tensions, that is, of my mental reactions. The unknown in this Presence provokes suggestions and impressions that give a shock to my mind.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p211
“After the first shock of Presence, of awaking and coming back to myself, there is a struggle to stay in front of two movements, two levels in myself. With the need for this Presence to last, there is a second shock, the awakening of a new feeling, a new wish, a will. In order to continue knowing myself and not disappear, I will this Presence to last.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p95
Formation of Presence
“By the force of my attention actively turned inward, the movement of energy changes. Instead of going outside, it concentrates within until it forms the center of gravity of my Presence. My whole effort, my whole work, is to maintain this direction— to maintain a body so relaxed that the energy does not leave, a thinking turned toward myself so vigilant that its very presence sustains the stillness of my body, and a feeling of what wants to be recognized, of what is here, a feeling of ‘I’.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p132
“I need to understand that a relation between the three lower centers is absolutely necessary for opening to a new energy. The opening can be sustained only if the relation is stable. This energy needs to become a Presence. I have to feel it as alive, with its own density, its own rhythm, a Presence that has a separate life that I need to preserve.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p227
Living from Presence
“The Movements can show us how to be in life, how to experience Presence and at the same time have a freer movement in manifestation. Instead of endless reactions— the conditioned responses of our automatism— there is the possibility of action coming from vision, from a conscious force that is higher. The Movements are a way of living the idea of Presence.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p123
“In order for the conscious force to develop, I have to maintain a continual sensation in all activities of my daily life— in walking, in speaking, in every kind of work. It is an attitude in which the attention is active and the body consciously passive. My attention needs to be wholly occupied with two things: feeling and following the sensation of Presence, and, at the same time, dismissing the associations, that is, not allowing them to take me.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p221
Subtle Body of Presence
“If I am sufficiently awake, with my energy entirely collected, I have the impression of a living Presence. I know this Presence by the sensation I have of it.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p191
“I begin to feel this Presence almost like another body.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p224
“This Presence, this body of another density, needs to have an action on me. I must have a close relation with it. For finer energy to penetrate and be absorbed, a kind of space must appear in which reactions do not arise, a zone of silence that allows this Presence, this second body, to expand with its subtle vibration.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p235
“If there is a deep letting go, a finer energy can circulate freely in me. I then feel the Presence like a magnetic field.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p265
Ultimate Recognition
“I always want to take or receive what is owed me, instead of letting go in order to feel the Presence of being, a divine Presence. I do not let this Presence act on me.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p141
“I understand that being connected with this Presence is truly my work, the meaning of my life. Without my Presence, the body is only an animal, obliged to eat, sleep, destroy and reproduce. A close relation between them, a kind of communion, is necessary so that from this cooperation an unknown movement can appear, creating a new force, a new life. When the Presence and the body are together, there is unity, with a new vision that sees the whole, a living whole.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p288
“The most difficult thing is to learn how to pay. We receive exactly as much as we pay. In order to feel the authority of a subtle Presence, we have to pass beyond the wall of our ego, the wall of our mental reactions from which springs the notion of ‘I.’ It is necessary to pay. Without paying, we have nothing.” Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being, p250
Logion 111
Yeshua says...
Heaven and earth will completely disappear
in your presence,
and the one who lives by means of the Living One
will not see death,
because, as Yeshua says,
'The cosmos is not worthy
of the one who discovers the true Self.'
Read a follow-up Impression on Presence II.
Kabir Helminski, Living Presence: a Sufi Way to Mindfulness and the Essential Self, (TarcherPerigree, 2017)
Jeanne De Salzmann, The Reality of Being, Shambhala Publications, 2010
Page numbers for Maurice Nicoll refer to Psychological Commentaries on the Teachings of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky (Eureka Editions:2020) unless stated otherwise.
All quotations from the Gospel of Thomas are from Lynn C Bauman, Ward J Bauman, Cynthia Bourgeault, The Luminous Gospels (Praxis 2008)
Read the Impression introducing the Gospel of Thomas.
0 Comments