Presence

When we can finally be ourselves fully, we recognize ourselves as Presence, and apprehend that this Presence is nothing but the ontological reality of consciousness. We feel our Presence as a medium, like a material medium, such as water or clear fluid. This medium is homogeneous, unified, whole and undivided, exactly like a body of water. This homogeneous medium is consciousness. The medium is conscious and aware of itself. It is not aware of itself by reflecting on itself, but by being itself. In other words, its very existence is the same as awareness of its existence. To continue the physical metaphor, it is as if the atoms of this medium are self-aware. Presence is aware of itself through self-pervasive consciousness, where this self-pervasive consciousness is the very substance or medium of the presence itself, not an element added to it. (The Point of Existence, pg 22)

The self can experience itself either purely and immediately, or through memories and structures created by past experiences. When it is seeing itself directly, it is aware of itself as primordial purity, without veils, without obscurations. It recognizes this pure condition as its ontological nature. This primordial purity or ontological nature is recognized as the self’s ultimate truth. So we say that the self has an Essence. The central property of this Essence, or true nature, is that it is an ontological Presence. Presence is the Essence of the self, just as protoplasm is the Essence of the body. (The Point of Existence, pg 25)

So there is a place for trying to be present. But in time, the more you become present, you see that there is tension; there is a me trying to do something and there is the Presence. You see that actually the Presence doesn’t want anything, doesn’t try anything. You start wondering: what’s this? How can I try to be present? Who is trying to be present? And that’s when you allow yourself to be influenced and affected by Presence. That’s when you learn to be vulnerable. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 209)

It is particularly this experience of the self as a flow of Presence in a dynamic unfoldment that we call the soul, the ancient western term for the self. (The Point of Existence, pg 34)

Presence is more like feeling than like thought, which makes it possible to mistake it for the felt aliveness of the body. The unconscious components of the self-representation (like those involved in the primitive body sense), coupled with the assumption that the physical body is the most fundamental level of the self, tend to prevent one from discriminating Presence in experience. (The Point of Existence, pg 77)

Presence and completeness

Presence is completeness. When you finally understand what Presence is, when you're completely present, you are complete. There is the valuing of Presence: there is the perception of completeness. When you're complete you're content with being present. There's no need for anything else. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 99)

Completeness is the experience of "I am" without mind, without anybody reflecting on it and saying, "I am," without subjectivity. It is just the actual "I am-ness," without the mind conceptualizing it. "I am" is the same thing as Presence, as the "I," as the true identity, except there is no need to conceptualize. (Diamond Heart Book 3, pg 100)

Presence levels of

Presence can be experienced on many levels of subtlety and refinement. It can be experienced as the presence of light, the presence of consciousness, the presence of awareness, the presence of love, the presence of clear light, or the Presence that is the nonduality (coemergence) of consciousness (or light) and emptiness. (The Point of Existence, pg 467)

Presence and the cosmos

... the totality of the cosmos is pure existence, pure Being. This means recognizing not only that presence is essence inside of you, but recognizing that everything is presence. This is what is meant by stating that reality is existence, is Being, is presence. Presence is directly experiential; this presence in the present, in the now, is the meaning of Being. This presence in the now is not the juncture between the past and future; the present moment is the entry into the presence of Being, but it is not time. Presence exists only in the moment and not in the past or the future. Even physical reality is presence, but we do not ordinarily perceive this because we are looking only at the surface without perceiving its other levels. It is like perceiving only the skin of an onion and eliminating the rest of it, so you can take an onion to be brittle and stiff and believe that it has no soft and juicy part. (Facets of Unity, pg 169)

Brilliancy and presence

To arrive at that all-inclusive experience of presence, where everything is one unified presence, we first have to understand what presence is in our own personal experience, and that means understanding the experience of presence as Essence in its various aspects. The aspect of Brilliancy brings in a very precise, specific experience of presence as completely in the now. Brilliancy is a presence that slows time to a standstill. As time slows down, we experience it as the flow of presence. When time stops, we experience timelessness, and the presence is pure and complete. There is purity now because experience is completely untouched by thinking. In place of thought there is radiance and brilliance. The luminosity and magnificence of Brilliancy is the exquisite perfection of presence without time. That is why the full experience of Brilliancy is the experience of timelessness. Before differentiation and conceptualization, before there is memory of the past or thoughts of the future, there is just the pure fact, the pure actuality, of presence with its complete radiance. Here the consciousness is aware of itself completely outside of time—consciousness and presence as the same thing. Timelessness, which is the full and complete experience of Brilliancy, becomes the entry into the now, which is universal presence. (Essence of Intelligence, pg 62)