How do you define yourself?

 

Conscious Presence

“Give up defining yourself—to yourself or to others…And don’t be concerned with how others define you…Whenever you interact with people, don’t be there as a function or a role, but as a field of conscious Presence. You can only lose something that you have, but you cannot lose something that you are.”

Eckhart Tolle

          I keep this as a goal for myself. I am in no way even approaching it. I don’t know about you, but the combination of pandemic isolation and winter cold has made me strange. I’ve lived alone for a long time, but I could always call up a friend and meet for coffee or lunch, go out to dinner, see a movie. Now, when I get together with other human beings, I become a tidal wave of words--an avalanche of blather. So much for being “a field of conscious Presence.” I wonder if you are that way, too.

          I have, however, attended many meetings in which people have too much to say about their credentials. Their identity is tied up in how many letters of the alphabet are strung out behind their name. I think that is a result of missing an inner core of presence—perhaps I am wrong. One of the people who strikes me as being that field of conscious Presence is Dr. Anthony Fauci. Other people acknowledge all his superlatives, but he never does. He speaks simply and straight-forwardly to the whomever the message is aimed at—that is, to you and me. His focus is on the message, not on himself. That is an indicator of Presence—that ability to put oneself, one’s ego, in the background. In other words, to be humble.

          I wonder whether we humans can get to the place of simply being one person, with two ears and two eyes and a couple of hands and feet, with a heart that is open to the world and a mind that allows information to flow freely in and out. If we can become presence only without comparison to others, without a need to defend our individuality, without hierarchy or privilege. Where one person is the same as another regardless of who they are or what they do in the world. Where a homeless person is given the same respect as the CEO of a fortune 500 company. I wonder about that. How many eons of evolution will be required for the human species to function as one people? Do you wonder about things like that, too? Perhaps it will it begin today, with you and me.

                                                  In the Spirit,

                                                  Jane