Inner Work

For the week of May 18, 2009

The Wonderful Gravity of Being

Where am I? We take this question not in the physical sense of our bodily location in space, but in the inner sense of “where am I centered now?” Usually our center is either someplace other than in our self or it is non-existent. Something or someone attracts our attention and we fly out of our self to that thing or person. Our center shifts outside of us and we abdicate our presence to its opposite, to absence from our self, to being at the mercy of each passing attraction, each ephemeral whim. Our body becomes an empty shell with no one at home.

Notice, for example, whether you are drained of energy when you go shopping at a large store or mall, or go to a museum or a fair. All that you see continually draws you out of yourself. How different might it be to stay centered and let the visual impressions come to you rather that you going out to lose yourself in them.

When your thoughts automatically range into past or future or to some other place, your center goes with them, out of the here and now, out of your presence which quickly evaporates along with your inner energies of sensation and consciousness. How different might it be to stay centered in yourself and let the thoughts and images pass through your awareness rather than you going out to disappear with them?

Sensing your body reminds you of where to be — here in this body. Though the deeper levels of the spirit lie beyond where and when, time and space, we would do very well indeed to live most of our time present in our body. Staying present within our body, being in our self creates in us the wonderful gravity of being.

Our developing inner body gives weight to our presence, though not in the sense of heaviness. Like a planet or a star, presence bends our inner space into a center of stability, a center that can maintain itself, our center of gravity. Being in yourself, being present creates a local sphere of influence that stabilizes your energies, your being. Then you can perceive, act, and interact from yourself. This being in your self is not a matter of holding, of holding back, of holding together. It is a matter of opening into presence, opening into being here. Residing in your inner home, in your own stable center of gravity, you live each moment fully. And without holding them back, your energies no longer spill out wastefully — they just naturally gravitate to the center of your being.

For this week, live in your center of gravity, in the center of your being.

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