The beginning of the New Year is traditionally a time of renewal and reassessment. For some of us that goes deeper than boxing up old things to make way for the new, or wrapping up financial figures to prepare our taxes and budget the upcoming year. Taking a step back to witness ourselves, who we are, and how we relate, is also in order. >From the position of the witness, I can see a faceted triad of self - my self-image: my mental self portrait; my identity: the part of self formed in relation to others; and my presence: the dynamic, infinite self connecting the internal and external, beyond form yet recognizing forms such as thought and feeling as they arise and all other complexities of self that identity and self image assign. All parts of the triad are developmentally important to me, all integral to who I am.
As I contemplate this triad, I consider that self image and identity can, but don’t always, give way to doubt. Presence does not. Presence unifies. It does not hold me in separation of anyone or any event or any time because there is a flow in presence that unites the many and One. When I view myself from the position of presence, there is no need to place a value on one aspect over another because all is experienced as constant, unified flow. From the position of my self- image or identity, I find myself assigning values of good, bad, true, untrue, self, not self…and in a reassessment, doubt may arise – did “I” make a mistake? Another observation is that the relationship between cause and effect changes when I witness myself from the position of presence. Internal cause from the dynamic presence takes precedence, and external cause, like that from my worldly experience, others or even my own mental constructs of self image, become the effect. My world does not change me, I change my world by changing my view to that of presence. My DNA does not define me from birth, but changes as my consciousness changes. It must be said that this is nothing new. Mystics as old as written history have relayed these ideas to us. They can be found it all the sacred texts. But as I enter the New Year 2011, I feel an infinite gratitude, for entering in presence, surrounded by people that read what I write here, and enter with me, a large part of my smile. What do YOU think?
