Inspirational Articles by Kristopher

If there is nobody home, who is going to answer the door? If there is no one present how are you going to grow and evolve? When we begin a spiritual path one of the most important things to do is to expand our awareness. What is the most important thing to be aware of? Self. Self must be present in all that we do. We call this self-presence.

As we go about our day we need to keep our awareness engaged. When we do we find that times of self-presence are really very rare. Most of our awareness is lost. It is either carried away by what is going on in our heads (our inner dialog) or it is captured by something outside ourselves. In either case we have lost the awareness of self. We, self, are not present.

Have you ever been so engrossed in a television program that you don’t realize someone else has come into the room? The television has completely devoured our attention. We have lost awareness of everything but the television. Not only are we unaware of someone entering the room, in that moment we are unaware that we, self, even exist. This is the lack of self-presence. This is our most common state. It doesn’t matter whether it is a television or a thought, when our attention is absorbed in it we (self) no longer exist. To truly be self-present requires that in each now moment we are fully aware of the “I” that is talking, thinking, feeling or taking physical action.

It is very easy to fool ourselves into believing that we are self-present. If someone asks us, “are you self-present?” We, in that moment, become aware of self and answer yes. Then in the next moment we forget to be self-present and lose the awareness of self. We may go for hours, days, even weeks without being self-present. Then, something reminds us to be aware of self and we become self-present again.

Where we fool ourselves is that it seems we were self-present all along. This is because when we are not self-present we are not aware of the fact that we are not self-present. As with the television example we have lost awareness. While engrossed in a television show, if someone asks us if someone walked into the room, we say no even though someone had walked into the room just moments before. This happens because our awareness is completely consumed by the television. If someone asks us if we forgot to be self-present, we say no. We are not aware that we forgot to be self-present. Because, the only time you can know that you are self-present is when you are actually self-present. A piece of our awareness must be on self. Without being self-present we have no awareness on whether we are self-present or not. We are simply unaware.

Why does this matter? In order to make movement in our personal growth and transformation we must grow our awareness. The average man and woman’s awareness is continually lost to things other than self. This includes being lost in the thoughts in our inner world, as well as people and things in our outer world. Without awareness we cannot grow and evolve. We need all the awareness we can get.

How do we increase our self-presence? In the beginning just ask yourself, as often as you can remember, “Am I aware of the “I” who is eating, talking, thinking, feeling?” and so on. It is actually very simple. But just because it is simple doesn’t mean it is easy. When first practicing self-presence we are lucky to be able to maintain it for even a couple of minutes before our awareness is stolen away by something other than self and we forget. A thought pops up and we lose ourselves in it. Or, someone walks into the room, our attention goes to them we forget to be aware of self. It may be hours or days before we remember to be self-present again.

It takes consistency and constancy but eventually you will be able to stretch out the periods of self-presence. In the state of self-presence personal transformation speeds up. In extended states of self-presence the world looks very different. As we go about the living of life, self-presence brings clarity to our experience and moves our experience into personal transformation.

When Spirit knocks on your door, make certain you are home. Be self-present.

Love and Light,

Kristopher
http://masteryofawareness.com