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Writer's pictureDaniel Lev Shkolnik

The Presence of "God"





Be awake. Be alert. Or you'll miss it.


Eckhart Tolle says: Be like a cat watching a mouse-hole. Be like a servant waiting for the master to return.


You never know when "God" will appear. So be alert. Watch for it.


And if you are totally present, you'll start to notice that God is appearing now, at every moment.


Now and now and now.


Ram Dass's teacher, Maharaj-ji, would write in his journal the significant events of that day. And on every page he'd write: "Ram, Ram, Ram, Ram..." which means "God, God, God, God..."


He filled notebooks this way.


Look up. It is happening now, all around you.


The wind in the tree. The light and shadow on the asphalt. That biker on the street.


But if you've got a grey glaze over your mind, it's like cataracts in the eyes.We may see the tree, but fail to notice that it is the tree of life. We may see the light and shadows on the sidewalk, but fail to see the yin yang. We may see the biker and fail to see the deity.


Quicken the blood, rip away the fog. Grab onto it like a bulldog clutches a bone. Like a cat watching a mousehole. Like a servant waiting for the master to return.


Death is a great teacher of presence. When death draws near, the blood quickens, the eyes sharpen, and the world comes into focus.


When the house is on fire, there is no future, there is no past, there is only the present moment.


If we can look death in the eyes and keep our focus—without being driven mad by fear, becoming overwhelmed and dissociating—then we are ushered immediately into the presence of God.


Stay awake. Do not go back to sleep.


Zen and Dzogchen masters sometimes like to surprise their students with surprise attacks with brooms or wooden swords. They may pull the chair out from under them and send them crashing to the floor.


But in that moment of pain, surprise, shock: pay attention! The mind goes blank. You are totally present. You are totally here.


If ever you feel pain, surprise, shock in your life: pay attention! It is a gift, wrapped in difficult packaging.


The mind does its best to protect us from being awake to the fullness of reality, just as some religions do their best to protect us from God.


The mind filters and narrows our attention and narrows our consciousness to prevent us from being overwhelmed by the mind-melting beauty, pain, bigness, smallness, speed, and eternity, that comprises the totality of existence.


Psychedelics and mystical experiences crack open the mental submarine we live in. If we're not prepared to swim, we'll drown as the cosmic ocean crashes into our little protective shell.


As children, we were born raw. Aware. Immensely sensitive.


The mind gets to work right away: learning what signals to pay attention to and which to filter out. This is very useful to our survival. It does a beautiful job of this, just as it is supposed to.


Though if we are born into a home full of suffering, danger, pain — or a world like that — the mind may shut down more and more, preventing the pain from overwhleming us, and increasing the body and mind's #1 priority: survival.


By the time we're adults, even if we survived, many of us have lost our lives. Or at least our access to the source of life.


We have become "buried alive" in a protective psychological armor that prevents the suffering, danger and pain of the world from getting to us but also prevents us from freely dancing and wiggling and bathing in the flowing river of life.


We drink alcohol, smoke weed, or watch television. We chase societal ambitions, wealth, pleasure, political or social ideals. All of this is a distraction from God, which is crashing in through the windows and flooding the streets at every moment. At the same time, all of this is itself God. But we also do not see it.


It doesn't matter if you do politics or drink whiskey—what matters is whether your eyes are open or closed.


Can you see it? Or are you sleepwalking through heaven?





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