‘The Presence’ has many names and is experienced by people in many different ways. Yet what is common in peoples’ references to these indescribable moments is the overwhelming sense of awareness at a deep, ‘soul level’. This can be of peace and ‘at-oneness’, or a jarring and painful experience.
We all experience these moments; they usually seem like an eternity at the time but on reflection were momentary. We are never able fully remember or re-create the essence of that moment.
It could be found in the sight of a beautiful natural vista, in facing the destruction caused by war, in hearing a moving piece of music, in experiencing a loving relationship, in loss felt at the death of one loved , or the awe inspired by gazing at the stars in the night sky. Many moments can bring us to this point of awareness; into ‘The Presence’.
These moments profoundly affect us and we have the choice to either engage with them, or pass them by and forget. I believe it is in these epiphanies that we brush up against ‘The Presence’; the essence and meaning of everything that is and it is through engaging with these experiences that we progress in our spiritual journey of development.
Many of us are so busy with ‘everyday’ things that we lose perspective on what it really means to ‘exist’. We become shut off to a broader awareness of what is beyond ourselves. Mindfulness and meditation can serve us well in opening ourselves up again to ‘The Presence’.
For at the fringes of our perception are expansive open spaces that we rarely tread, places where intuition and perception are our guides. These spaces can seem wild and foreign but at the same time familiar. This is where we will find and rest in ‘The Presence’.
“He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end.”
Ecclesiastes 3:11
WIDE OPEN PLANES 