Living Presence

In our modern world, countless individuals find themselves trapped in cycles of anxiety, emptiness, and disconnection, despite having achieved material success. We live in an age where external achievements often mask internal poverty, where busyness replaces presence, and where the pursuit of more has left many feeling spiritually bankrupt. Recent studies reveal that rates of depression and anxiety continue to climb, even as our technological capabilities expand exponentially.

This profound disconnection from our essential nature stems from our identification with what could be called the "false self" - that collection of fears, desires, and social conditioning that we mistake for our true identity. Yet within each person lies a deeper reality, an essential Self that remains untouched by external circumstances and capable of experiencing authentic presence, love, and wisdom. The ancient Sufi tradition offers a time-tested pathway for awakening this dormant potential, transforming not just individual lives but our relationships with others and the world itself. Through understanding presence as both practice and way of being, we discover that the very challenges that seem to separate us from fulfillment can become doorways to profound spiritual awakening.

There once lived a man who found himself in a dark city covered by clouds, where people lived in shadows and could barely see one another. The city was filled with great buildings and busy streets, yet despite all the activity, the inhabitants suffered from loneliness, fear, and an endless variety of ailments. People passed each other suspiciously, withholding much even from those they called friends. When asked who was in charge, they would say, "We are all free here; we follow our own selves. No one controls us. This is just the way things are."

The man initially found this city interesting and walked its dark streets at all hours, wishing to be an observer. But increasingly, he became more a part of it. Eventually, he began to wish for some other life or to change something inside himself, but as often as he thought about it, nothing ever changed. One day, by some chance, he found his way out of the city to a village called Sharing, where he met Ms. Affection and discovered people who lived in genuine togetherness, celebrating life with songs and dances, welcoming strangers, and caring for their elderly and sick with joy rather than obligation.

Yet even in this beautiful village, something unsettled remained in his heart. An old man with a radiant face told him of four types of people he might encounter beyond the village: the Pretenders, who practice the forms of truth without full understanding; the Warriors, who struggle with their egos and have learned patience; the People of Remembrance, who maintain constant awareness of the Divine; and finally, the People of Total Submission, who have dissolved all sense of separation between themselves and the Creative Power.

This ancient tale illuminates our own journey from the unconscious sleep of ego-driven existence to the awakening of authentic presence. Most of us begin our lives in that clouded city, mistaking our fears and desires for reality itself, believing that our separate, defended selves represent the fullness of who we are. The progression from one level of being to another requires not just intellectual understanding, but a fundamental transformation in how we experience ourselves and our relationship to life itself.

A young seeker once approached his teacher, troubled by the constant stream of strange and unknown thoughts that arose in his mind during meditation. "I have little control over what appears," he confessed. "I see my mind like a pond where thoughts surface and disappear like fish coming up from the depths." The teacher listened carefully, then replied, "This observation should be maintained, but there is something more you can do. You can gather positive thought and direct it anywhere you like. You can visualize people who need your positive thought and simply direct it to them."

Later that day, the seeker was chopping wood, struggling with a particularly stubborn piece of elm. He had struck it once and could barely pull the axe free from the gnarled grain. The teacher approached and said quietly, "Here is an example of what we were talking about. You have struck the wood once. Can you gather your mind and put the axe exactly into the first cut?" The young man tried twice, missing the mark each time. Then the teacher took the axe and, despite his advanced age, struck the wood precisely in the center cut. When the seeker tried again, this time with complete presence and focused intention, the axe split the elm cleanly in two.

This story reveals the transformative power of what Sufis call "polishing the mirror of awareness." Our consciousness is like a sensitive mirror that can reflect the light of Being itself, but it becomes obscured by layers of conditioning, compulsive thoughts, and emotional reactions. Fear, perhaps more than any other force, clouds this mirror and keeps us trapped in patterns of reactivity and separation. The practice of presence offers a way to gradually clear these accumulations, allowing our natural clarity and wisdom to shine forth.

The most profound fears we carry are often invisible to us, operating beneath the threshold of consciousness while shaping our every response to life. These fears of rejection, abandonment, and loss create a false sense of who we are, leading us to construct elaborate defenses that ultimately separate us from the very love and connection we seek. Through cultivating conscious awareness and the courage to face what we have been avoiding, we discover that presence itself has the power to transform fear into understanding, separation into unity, and suffering into compassion.

A master craftsman in Bali once explained to a student that a true performer must consciously become a channel between the inner and outer worlds. "If the ego gets in the way," he said, "this channeling is reduced." He described how a ball of energy forms between performers and their audience, which the performers can consciously expand through their skill and pure intention. By becoming an empty channel rather than seeking ego gratification, the performer creates a sacred alchemy where everyone's attention is transformed and elevated, and the offering to the Divine returns as grace to all present.

This same principle applies to every relationship and creative act in our lives. When we approach others from our essential Self rather than our conditioned personality, we create space for genuine meeting and mutual transformation. A publisher once witnessed Orthodox Christians prostrating endlessly in prayer, using their entire bodies in worship. Though his New England Protestant background had given him no preparation for such physical devotion, the experience touched his soul so deeply that he abandoned his career to enter seminary. The integration of body, heart, and spirit in authentic spiritual practice awakens capacities that remain dormant in purely intellectual approaches.

The sacred dances and movements found in various traditions, from the whirling of Mevlevi Sufis to the martial arts of the Far East, demonstrate how consciousness can work through physical form to create profound transformation. These practices require not just physical precision but complete presence, groundedness in the moment, and surrender to something greater than personal will. The whirling dervish becomes a transformer of cosmic energies through conscious intention and the electrodynamic effects of the human nervous system in motion.

Love operates as the unifying force that brings together all the scattered aspects of our being. What begins as attraction or desire gradually evolves through the love of sharing with others, ultimately flowering into unconditional love that recognizes the same Spirit moving through all beings. This progression from fragmentation to wholeness happens not through effort alone, but through opening our hearts to the electromagnetic field of love that surrounds and interpenetrates all existence. As we learn to live from this unified awareness, our very presence becomes a gift that helps others remember their own essential nature.

A Sufi once arrived in a remote village where the inhabitants showed an unusual hunger for spiritual knowledge. They invited him to share his wisdom at a gathering, and though he wasn't entirely confident in his ability to teach, he accepted. That evening, many people attended, and the Sufi found his audience extremely receptive. Most significantly, he discovered he could express the teachings with an eloquence he had never before experienced. He went to sleep feeling very pleased with himself, beginning to think he had been specially guided to this village to impart his accumulated wisdom.

The next day, an elder from the village expressed gratitude for the previous evening, which made the Sufi feel even more special. Perhaps these sincere people deserved his extended instruction in the Way of Love and Remembrance. That evening, however, the villagers assembled again, but this time someone was chosen at random to address the gathering. This person, too, gave an eloquent discourse full of wisdom and love. Afterward, the elder approached the visiting Sufi and said gently, "As you can see, the Friend speaks through many forms. We are all special here, and because we are receptive to Truth, Truth easily expresses itself. The 'you' who felt special last night and the 'you' who feels diminished tonight are neither real. Prostrate them both before the inner Friend if you want wisdom and freedom."

This story illuminates the crucial spiritual principle of "dying before death" - the dissolution of the false self that imagines it is the source of wisdom, love, or creative power. True spiritual maturity comes not through building up the personality or accumulating experiences, but through recognizing our complete dependence on the Source of all qualities and gifts. The ego's dreams of specialness and attainment must be sacrificed for the reality of being transparent channels for the Divine.

The process of dying before death involves recognizing how self-importance and greed corrupt even our sincere efforts toward truth and service. When we think of ourselves too often or in the wrong way, we separate ourselves from the natural flow of grace and guidance that seeks to move through us. The remedy lies in shifting from getting to giving, from self-improvement to selfless service, always remembering that any qualities or capacities we possess are not our own but gifts to be shared for the benefit of all beings.

Suleyman Dede, an elderly Sufi master from Turkey, once traveled to visit students in America. Though he was a small man who could have been anyone's grandfather, something extraordinary happened wherever he went. At the Washington airport, his simple presence seemed to quiet the entire bustling terminal. Strangers approached him in the waiting area, spontaneously sharing their life stories or asking profound questions. Later, when he visited Rumi's tomb in Konya, crowds of people began gathering around him, drawn by an inexplicable magnetism. This was the power of a human being who had become a pure mirror for the light of Being.

Throughout his visit, Dede demonstrated the natural generosity that flows from those who have transcended the limited self. When American hosts tried to give him gifts, they invariably left with far more than they brought. If they brought oranges, they departed with watermelons. When someone needed laundry done but couldn't find affordable service, the eighty-year-old master immediately volunteered to take it home, despite having no washing machine. His spontaneous goodness arose not from obligation or even conscious choice, but from the natural overflow of a heart that had found its home in Divine Love.

One morning, Dede rose before dawn to prepare Asura, a special mixture requiring twenty-six different ingredients of dried fruits, nuts, and grains, traditionally the food Noah prepared when he first sighted land after the flood. This act of service, given freely to a departing guest, exemplified the essential nature of one who has died to the false self. Someone watching Dede leave a room once observed him becoming so small and humble that he seemed to become nothing in order to pass through the doorway, calling to mind the teaching that "God is so humble, He totally hides Himself within creation."

The religion of love transcends all forms and doctrines, recognizing that the same Spirit breathes through every authentic spiritual tradition. Those who have awakened to this love need no external laws to guide their behavior, for they are guided from within by an awareness of unity that makes harming others as impossible as harming oneself. This is not mere sentiment or philosophy, but the lived reality of human beings who have become transparent to the light of their essential nature, serving as divine reflectors in a world that desperately needs to remember its own sacred foundation.

These stories and teachings point toward a fundamental truth that our age desperately needs to remember: we are not the isolated, fearful, acquisitive beings that modern culture assumes us to be. Beneath the layers of conditioning, beyond the false self constructed from fears and desires, lies an essential Self that is naturally connected to the Source of all wisdom, love, and creative power. The journey from separation to union, from the sleep of ego to the awakening of presence, is not merely possible but represents our deepest calling as human beings.

The path forward requires both profound inner work and genuine engagement with others, for we cannot awaken in isolation. Through practices that cultivate presence, through relationships that call forth our essential qualities, and through service that moves beyond personal agenda, we gradually polish the mirror of awareness until it becomes transparent to the light that has always been shining within us. This is not about perfecting the personality or achieving some special state, but about recognizing what we have always been and learning to live from that recognition with increasing consistency and grace. In a world hungry for meaning and authentic connection, such transformed human beings become beacons of hope, living demonstrations that love is not merely an emotion but the very foundation of existence itself.