The Axis of Presence

Bare intention is not an intention to do something, nor an intention to not do something. It is intention without an object, an intransitive intention: the bare intention simply to be. Our usual mode of being is weak and wobbly, flimsy, fragile, and fleeting. To be means experiencing oneself as here and now, as oneself, as the immediate core of experience, as I Am. We all have that from time to time.

The issue is how often and for how long we are in that mode, as well as how strong and vivid it is, how strong and vivid we are. This is our center of being. Bare intention brings us into that. Bare intention makes us strong and vivid, alive in and as ourselves.

But life offers so many distractions that the duration of bare intention, like its cousin bare attention, can typically be measured in seconds. There are two wings, two sides of being that enable that vivid center of experience to last longer, while bringing new dimensions to it. There is the side of active intention: active toward establishing a foothold, establishing our place in time and space by being fully in contact with and unifying our whole body, mind, and heart. Active intention makes us whole and creates our I.

The other wing is receptive intention: receptive toward the within, toward the Sacred, toward the eternal and spiritual. This is the side of openness and inclusiveness, breadth and depth, love and compassion. Receptive intention connects us with the greater whole, of which we are a part, moving us toward our Personal Individuality [1]. Receptive intention is directed toward the inner, toward what is beyond ordinary experience, while active intention, working with our senses of body, mind, and emotion, is relatively more external, more outward.

These two sides, active and receptive intention, active and receptive being, simultaneously engaged, form between them an axis of presence, a stabilizing field of being. The active side creates us and the receptive side creates an opening through which a third force, a Sacred force, a benevolent and loving force, can enter us. A flow of will, the will to be, becomes established along the axis of presence, from the within toward the more external. We are in the center of that axis of presence, in the center of being, in bare intention.

And where is that? What is the medium, the substance of that center? We, our bare intention, our presence, our will, our I, are in consciousness, in the field of conscious energy. From the field of consciousness, we engage active intention toward the more external, active being to make us whole. From the field of consciousness, we also engage receptive intention, an act of opening ourselves to the higher will, to the Sacred.

All these descriptions of active, receptive, bare intention, and being, can be taken as prescriptions for the actual practice of presence and being. This is the essence of how to be, how to be ourselves, our I Am, not just in theory but in practice. It is a process of discovery.

To understand what it means to be actively in contact with and unify our whole body, mind, and heart, takes direct experimentation and actual effort.

To understand what it means to be receptive toward the inside, toward the Sacred, toward the eternal and spiritual, takes direct experimentation and actual attempts to open one's core, one's innermost self.

To understand and experience the axis of presence that arises between these two wings of being, takes simultaneous efforts in both directions and noticing the substantive polarity and flow that arises between them.

To understand bare intention takes direct experimentation and actual attempts to be here in the middle of that flow of will along the axis of presence, attempts to subsume both poles of intention within the central bare intention of one's own being, being oneself here and now, robustly, in total, unified presence.

In the full axis of presence, not only do we create our place in time and space, but so does the Sacred, through us, as us. The net effect of being active toward the outside and receptive toward the within is that the Sacred becomes active through us; the axis of presence becomes a Sacred axis, a greater Presence. We merge into that Presence, so that everything just is, so that the bare intention of the Sacred becomes our core.

For this week, please practice the axis of presence.