The Force of Presence

 

The force of presence flows throughout the body in equal measure in all parts if it is mature.

This does not mean it has no capacity for concentration in specific parts. Rather, it can concentrate in any part according to need. The difficulty is that even if we have presence, we do not precisely understand what need there is. Because presence is composed in no small part from intuition, we can allow the energy to concentrate according to its own intelligence. It may, for example, concentrated in the hands; or in the solar plexus, or at the top of the head, or the forehead, or the soles of the feet, and so on. All of these locations, the reader will note, are part of the yogic tradition of chakras. Yet presence in the field of energy that imparts life needs to be allowed to do its own work with these parts once it is active.

More important overall is to gather the stillness that this energy imparts and concentrate that quite intimately within being. There doesn’t need to be any overall special condition for this; one can sit quite simply and quietly in relaxation in the morning without some elaborate meditation practice, and just be present to the energy of presence, which by its reflexive action and the recognition already concentrates such as is necessary.

At any given point of development, one can concentrate no more than what is necessary without bad results. So the matter is delicate. It requires a sensitivity that is not born of the mind and its plans, but the energy itself. Everything is about the relationship. God always comes to us in the right measure. It is when we decide to take that things go wrong.

I often talk about the blank spot these days. The blank spot is a place of emptiness and stillness, rather like a white canvas that is not been painted on, from which all that is intelligent and good emerges. It is hidden behind a veil, and must ever be so, because the purity and intelligence of its nature should not be violated by man. We are simply creatures that express, if we are relaxed and open, from this place. The creative arts are one of the primary places from which the results of this emptiness can be manifested; but any part of the social activities of man can be influenced by it, even the sciences or — dare I say it — politics. The point is that the blank spot, the open place within being that allows a better influence than the influence of selfishness to throw in, is a place of miracles. You never know what is going to emerge from the stillness if you allow it to do its work.

The stillness, of course, will not manifest the action of presence and being if I am busy doing everything everywhere at all times. I need to cultivate a new relationship with presence that will allow me to act at all times from within stillness, even when I’m quite busy. This is a difficult trick, because if the energy of presence is not legitimately alive, intelligently active, and I am not constantly vigilant, I will instantly become mistaken about the source both of the energy that animates me and the action I undertake. I get confused. There are some words for this, among them the Buddhist word attachment, Gurdjieff’s word identification, and the Christian word “sin.” Sin is already a falling away from grace; and the failure to be in relationship with the energy of presence is exactly that falling away from grace.

I often use the word organic sensation of being to describe presence. I’ve noticed lately working with people that almost everyone misunderstands the word “sensation” when I use it. Even when I qualify the word by saying “the organic sensation of being” or, “organic sensation,” or, “intimacy,” people get confused about what I’m talking about because they don’t seem to have an experience of this quite permanent force of presence that ought always to be active within being. Swedenborg called it the inflow; Jeanne de Salzmann called it an influence. They mean the same thing. It is the force that flows into us and creates being. This is a very active and powerful force that, once it becomes manifest, is indelible and inviolable.

It may wax and wane according mostly to solar influences, but it does not go away. It is quite different than any ordinary physical sensation, so different that it is like the contrast between darkness and light.

I don’t use the word presence to describe this most of the time because I have always chosen to use my own language, which is something else Gurdjieff asked his people to do. (Those who doubt me can refer to the 1943 wartime meetings where he makes exactly such a comment.) If we don’t make an effort to express ourselves as precisely as we can using our own language, we fail both ourselves and the work. The Gurdjieff work has fallen in to a set of habitual language conventions, I suspect no matter what group one is in. Everyone in the group is supposed to be very different in order to work together effectively; and trying to make everyone the same and have everyone say the same things in the same way is thus a great mistake. Yet it happens, because humans would rather conform than be themselves.

Anyway, the question has arisen in me whether I ought to start using the word presence so that people understand I am not talking about ordinary sensation. The usage would be exactly in keeping with the way the word presence is meant when it is slung around like cafeteria food. The difficulty with the word presence is that it comes with its own fully packed suitcases, that is, it is luggage everyone carries around. People confuse this word with lots of different things, but most especially with the idea of charisma, because they believe that presence and charisma are related.

Although this is true, charisma is a malevolent force.

True presence does not spread itself all over the toast like butter. It remains hidden in order to conserve its energy and does not broadcast itself to every Tom Dick and Harry. In fact, if it is truly concentrated, it does not broadcast itself at all through the energy fields that it has the capacity to use. That’s not how it ought to work; because when it does this, it dissipates itself in an unnecessary way.

Well perhaps I have said enough about this for one morning. I would just ask you to think carefully about it, to feel and sense it as well as think about it. To see what the relationship between this set of ideas in your own experience or presence is.

May you be well within today.

Lee

Lee van Laer is a Senior Editor at Parabola Magazine.