Let’s say you are at the park and see a 5-year-old girl playing on a swingset.
There’s nothing special about that; you notice her and move on. Alternatively, what if that 5-year-old is your daughter or granddaughter?
The Austrian-Israeli philosopher Martin Buber contrasted such experiences, describing them as “I-It,” vs. “I-Thou” encounters. “I-Its” are dispassionately labeled and filed away in memory, whereas “I-Thous” are imbued with intimacy.
The “I-It” world is grounded in thought via a chain reaction. First, we hear, see, taste, touch, or smell something. Then, with assistance from memory, we place that experience into a context. Maybe we associate beautiful sunsets with a favorite trip or a particular song with our early twenties. From context-shaped experiences, we develop our own unique perspective.
Experience filtered through thought is the default mode of awareness. Most people assume it’s our only mode of awareness.
But that’s incorrect.
When fully present, we don’t run experiences through thought. When you see your children or grandchildren at play, you are simply in the moment! That’s a big difference, isn’t it?
Presence gives us a break from thought-constructed realities. Rather than “looking through a glass darkly,” we encounter the world directly with our whole being. Such encounters rejuvenate our souls.
Thought-controlled awareness clearly has its place. It enables an efficient interpretation of our world. But it comes at a price. Thoughts trap energy inside. You already know what happens when you mull over a disturbing event in your mind. This doesn’t happen when absorbed in the moment, like when playing a musical instrument or engaging in a favorite activity.
Experience processed with thought is analytically “objectified,” i.e., given a name and label. Once something is labeled, we stop truly seeing it; instead, we see what the label implies. Labels create a taxonomy of experiences, short-circuiting potential intimacy.
When present, relationships are infused with a felt energy. We not only hear what someone is saying or see what they are doing, but we also feel their energy. All relationships have energy; presence defines the degree to which that energy is felt. An example is seeing a random dog vs. your beloved pet, or hearing a song that transports you to a teenage summer vs. elevator muzak.
Spiritual living is being present to this connective energy. Sequestering Spirit to something believed in (or not) impoverishes its true meaning and potential. In the default thinking-mode of awareness, the connective energy of Spirit is essentially lost.
When we open ourselves to presence, we allow Spiritual energy to close the space between us and the world. Such connections are felt in nature, in music, in art, in special places, and even with a favorite sports team. Spirit illuminates the miracle of we.
There are two basic forms of awareness: An objectified egocentric awareness controlled by thoughts, and a spiritually connected awareness that arises from presence. How we meet the world is on us.
I discuss the practice of presence at length in my new book, The Secret Within.
I’ll leave you with a question to think about:
What is keeping you from becoming more present?
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