Power and Perspective from Pure Conscious Presence

Updated: Oct 30, 2022

A friend and I realized, very recently, that our first-born sons share the same birthday. My son Ethan is grown, and hers graduating from high school. She felt called to journal about becoming a mother, and encouraged me to, saying that the power of her perspective changing from this new awareness was momentous. Challenge accepted!

In my last share, we remembered the key points of Eckhart Tolle’s book, The Power of Now. The upshot was that finding the gap between our thoughts and inner commentary, the “no mind” allows us to drop into the deep peace, to realize that "the deep holy, inner essence and our presence are the same." I’m positive that we have all had such moments, if only briefly, or occasionally. As a child, I would be broken from a spell-binding moment gazing into space by the words, “…what’s wrong Shawn, what are you doing?” Was there something wrong with me? “Are you daydreaming, or thinking about something?” Then I would realize, no, I wasn’t. Somehow, I had slipped into “idle” and was just feeling myself hanging out, being present.

We’ve heard stories, and maybe you have experience in athletic activities, dancing, or cooking when the game or activity is “playing you.” It’s been called “being in the zone,” where there is no “thinking” or planning or judgment, just pure organic movement in such fluid precision and grace that the awareness – or spirit - transcends to a dimension where the connection, unity of the place, people, and activity we are experiencing blend as one. Our goal then is to allow this perception to expand through us constantly, or a least when sitting and attempting to be centered in peace through various forms of focus or meditation. Like any ability or skill, we will improve with practice.

Realizing I was pregnant with my son was just one of these moments. No, it wasn’t during the ultrasound when I first heard his heartbeat, nor when the timer went off for the at-home pregnancy test, showing a positive result. It was when the union first began, and I realized, I’m not just me anymore. But the transcendental moment of awareness, with my son, sharing our secret of new life was atop Mt. Hood in Oregon – a pristine place for a “peak” experience.

Poised on downhill skis, I rested alone at the crest of a powdered ski run, before the safety of the weekly group ski class participants gathered. I noticed the sharp cool flow of my inhalation leading to the soft warm exhalation as a continuous state of being. No separation. Deep profound silence, white cushioning in all directions – East, South, West, North, above, and below – nestling into every crevice of the landscape and of my awareness. Silence muffled and padded everything, with accents of the flickering sound of snowflakes landing on the trees.

I realize I am filled with such warmth despite the frigid landscape, a campfire from within, the tiny crackling of the ever-changing flames - the sound of the snowflakes landing. I am aware of the possible pathway of the ski run below, but it doesn’t register as thoughts, or decisions, or analysis. I breathe in the landscape like waves, invitations to become the whole ocean. No boundaries, just overlaying films of softness. Endless, timeless, and eternal simultaneously.

A tiny warm smile reaching through the silence in the depths of my core bursts into my awareness. Sharing the exact bliss of the moment, this other consciousness joins my attention from within. Self, and “not self” co-exist in the same present consciousness, then disappear as one. My son gave me a glimpse of samadhi. It felt like remembering as I blended with everything around me, and his consciousness – which had not yet forgotten the Oneness!

This tearful blissful reunion flooded me with a deep sense of knowing. Speaking a joyful “hello” to my unborn baby, I realized I was not pregnant, hosting, or carrying life, but symbiotically co-existing – just as I was with the Universe, and eternity.

Way to go Ethan! That was some e-mail! Feeling inconceivably free, my boundaries blended through my soft ski mittens and the hard ski poles deep into the earth, and from my heart into the steadily falling snow. The rush of the wind, the initial slip of skis, and the sudden movement of my surroundings notified my body I had begun my descent, and I became the snow drifts that I bounded out of with each turn – everything synchronized to the silent song of celebration echoing through all like the deep resonant Aum.

Thank you, Ethan, for the opportunity to remember this blissful moment, and for helping me at that moment to glimpse into the I AM with your knowing consciousness. I claim this for all of us, as we continue to practice finding the gap between thoughts. “Hamsa,” as described in Sanskrit – I AM. Now, be gentle, kind, and playful with yourself as you get curious about this process, and how it can change your perception of and existence in the world. It is a constantly renewing process, and we begin again with each decision and application of our will. I am realizing that Jesus said, “man does live by bread alone, but by the word of God.” And we were told, “in the beginning was the word, and the word … was God.” In the beginning, was the word of God – Aum, and it is our life source. The eternal vibration of creative potential. Get curious, … it’s just beyond your thoughts.

Power and Perspective from Pure Conscious Presence

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SHAWN D. AXTEN
PT, CST-D