Being

Yesterday I wrote about being present--being fully where we are when we are there.  As I've continued to ponder "being present," I am brought back to one of my favorite topics: being.  Leading from the Heart, my first book, was about our being: who each of us is, stripped away from the "having" and "doing."

Sometimes I have waves of "knowing" when something seems perfectly clear for the first time, and then I realize I had known that before.  So it is with "being" today.  I had this realization that "being" is looking inwardly to listen, feel, and hear who we are.  Earlier I spoke  (Beginning Again, 9/22/13) about the message, etched on the back of each of our hearts, that we brought into this life.  When we are "being," we are attuned to that message.  We may not be able to articulate what it is, but we "know" who we are and why we are here.  It is the internal of "being present," except that this "being present" is being present to this moment on the inside.

Then, I realized that is what I wrote in Leading from the Heart.  I've known it for at least 20 years.  But I also knew it 15 years ago when I wrote Choice Point and 11 years ago when I was writing The Game Called Life.  Why does it suddenly seem like such a spiritual breakthrough?  Because I am writing again?  When I am writing, what I know in my heart pours onto the page without passing through my brain.  I think what is different this time is that I seemed to really "get it" without my keyboard.  It was just there when I was making a salad for lunch, and it was there when I was watching something on TV, and it was still there when I awakened from my nap.

When I am present to what I know in my heart, I am perfectly attuned to the larger "I Am," a knowing of what we all know when we are in the ribbon of love that connects us, heart to heart, across time and space.  I suspect that it is part of the universal message that we all know in our hearts, but maybe it is my message to bring to the world.  Or maybe when I bring it to the world, others will awaken to that universal message. 

There is a line in the Hindu sacred text The Upanishads about "the sleeping state that men call waking."  I was struck speechless when I read it for the first time.  We autopilot through life, moving about as if we are awake, but really we are in some kind of trance.  It is only in the moments when we choose to "be present" to the world around us or "be" present to our hearts that we are really awake.  We re-member our purpose, and we find the courage to be it. Now. Being...in the present.