Seek and You Shall Seek

I’m coming to the end of my month-long stay at Namaste Village in Ajijic, MX. It has been wonderful in many aspects, most notably the near-perfect weather, the laid-back vibe, the $5.00 burritos, and the ease of keeping company and conversation with like-hearted souls in this intentional spiritual community. And, unexpectedly, I have been moved at depth by the insightful weekly sharing of a remarkable guest presenter, by the name of Neil Rogin. Neil is a multi-award-winning writer, filmmaker, poet, and social philosopher who has chosen to live here in his “retirement.” I stole the title of this article from an excerpt in his pithy little book, entitled, “Delightenment: Escaping the Solitary Confinement of Your Prisonality.” Neil is gifted with an extraordinary facility with language that is at once elegant, eloquent, profound, and economical. In the very short span of 73 pages, he illuminates the human condition and the path to liberation and “delightenment.” I highly commend it for your reading pleasure and its exceptional power to move you inward and upward.

As you may have noticed, I’ve skipped a few weeks in posting articles. I’ve really tried to honor the intention to let go of any regular commitments and give myself unfettered space and time to simply be here. I could have revived and reposted old articles from the archives, but of course, you could dig into that space yourself if so inclined, so I just let it remain silent for a while.

As I have been posting in recent articles, there is the human impulse to seek, to strive, to pursue, and satisfy an ineffable longing for who-knows-what that keeps us from abiding peacefully in the present moment. While I have been here, and my dance card virtually blank, and with little to distract my attention I have been focusing on where I am placing my attention. In other words, I’ve been paying attention to attention itself. You don’t need to be a spiritual adept to recognize that most of the time our attention is constantly drawn outward to the multiplicity and diversity of things that appear within our awareness, and rarely on the pure capacity to be aware, that lies silently in the background of all perception.

While nearly everybody pretty much agrees that mindfulness is immensely beneficial to the body, mind, and spirit, few take the time to pay attention to this innate capacity and develop it as an ever-present lens of awareness that illuminates Presence itself.

Presence is full awareness of our Being; our divine essence, experienced through the portal of the present moment. The awareness of Presence will bring us back into the fold of equanimity for all manner of life's distractions, small or great, for there are no levels of difficulty in the healing power of Presence. Presence is closer than hands or feet, nearer than our breath. And that is the very irony of our default behavior which sends us backward and forwards, hither and yon, to find the place that is imminently close. Never mind that the past is gone, and we can't change it, and the future hasn't taken place, we nonetheless seek to dwell in those imagined places in mind, rather than occupying the only moment we do occupy - the moment that is now.

When we call off the search, stop resisting with mind and body, and bring our whole being into the fold of the present moment, we are back in the abode of wholeness and peace - even when life derails our plans. This is good news - we can get there from here.

You and I are here for a reason. The reason is, to Be here. Being here is the clarion call of infinite Presence calling us back to life, to wholeness, to peace and harmonious relationship with all that is. The present moment is the portal to the life we have been seeking over there, someday and somewhere. That life has arrived. It is with us when we are getting what we want, and it is with us when we aren't getting what we want. But if we stay present with whatever arises, we will discover that Life is what we want...and it'll be there for us.

Some years ago, while contemplating this tendency, this little epigram came through me.

Since you are here, be here

If you think about being there, while you are here

There will be nothing here for you

And most likely, there will be nothing there for you either

Because the tendency to not be here

Will follow you there…

So be here now

Let your awareness be here

Expand into the present moment, and

Find your self where you

Most want to Be

Namaste, Rev. Larry