How to Be Here Now and Live in Stillness

It seems like you wouldn’t need instructions to just be, and yet, just being is one of the hardest things for people to do. Your default is to do—to do almost anything rather than just be. Being is anathema to the ego, because the ego cannot exist when you are just being. That could even be the definition of just being: It’s a state in which the ego is surrendered. What creates and maintains the ego—activity, particularly mental activity—is no longer in play.

There is a strong tie between the ego and activity. The voice in your head not only keeps you involved in mental activity but is also largely involved in directing your physical activities. So, by stopping these activities, the ego is disempowered and taken offline.

Few people even realize that the ego is what is directing their activities. They think they are choosing what they do, when in fact, the ego is making their choices for them. They go along with the voice in their head without questioning it.

People have free will, but it isn’t really very free until you see this great truth: The voice in your head is the ego’s voice. It is running the show, while you think you are. But, instead, the most primitive aspect of yourself is orchestrating your life. This is why there is so much pain and difficulty in the world. Most people are marching to an unkind and unwise master.

You are so much more than this! Those who are leading happy and fulfilling lives have learned to not indulge the basest instincts and impulses of their ego. They have learned to be kind by incorporating positive beliefs and attitudes, which have helped them overcome the negative influences of the voice in their head. They have learned to listen to another wiser, “still, small voice” much of the time. However, they still aren’t necessarily free of the voice in their head. They still think this voice reflects who they are, and they still often believe it.

There is another state of consciousness beyond this where you recognize that the voice in your head is not who you are, that most of what it says is untrustworthy, and that nothing it says is needed for you to function. This becomes obvious to those who have achieved enough distance from it, usually due to a shift in consciousness that has allowed them to experience who they really are. Without such Grace, the best you can do is develop enough rationality and self-control to override the voice in your head some, if not most, of the time. But to become free of this voice, you will need a little Grace.

Grace comes in its own time. You are unfolding in perfect timing for your soul. Nevertheless, there are some things you can do to hasten the arrival of Grace. One of the most important things you can do is to just be: “Be still and know that I am God.” This doesn’t refer to some external God, but to the Divine within you. Be still, stop all activity, and discover that God resides within you (and within everything). Look for the Stillness within you—turn toward it and tune in to it—and you will eventually come to know it.

When all activity is stopped, both physical and mental, it is possible to experience what underpins and is beyond this human life. You are meant to be human and meant to be active in the world, but you are not only human. Your divinity—who you really are—is experienced in the silence of just being. For this, actual silence isn’t necessary, but mental silence is. To experience who you really are, mental activity is what most needs to stop, especially the thoughts that continually resurrect the false self—all of your “I” thoughts.

“I” thoughts don’t actually have to stop, nor likely can they; all you need to do is stop listening to them. Just as there can be sounds in your environment that you don’t notice because you aren’t focused on them, there can be a voice in your head that you don’t notice because you aren’t focused on it.

Just being is a state in which you are no longer focused on the thoughts going through your mind or even on the sensations you might be having, but on the more subtle, spiritual dimension of life in which your divine self could be said to reside. This spiritual dimension lies beneath the sensory world and is accessed through the senses, but it is a more subtle, energetic experience than the senses.

If you want to experience who you really are, your divine self, you have to shift your focus from your thoughts and even from sensory experience and tune in to something that is beyond these. Words can only point to this, but you can find your way to the Stillness within your being easily enough, which is not really all that still.

The subtle realm is familiar to most of you, even if you touch it only briefly throughout your day. And those of you who meditate surely know it. Because the subtle realm is overlooked and underrated by the mind, few take the time to cultivate just being. This is what is cultivated in meditation. As you learn to observe your mind in meditation and thereby gain distance from it, you fall into just being, or Stillness.

Stillness is always there and can be tuned in to anytime, although it seems to disappear when you are active in in the world or lost in thought. This doesn’t have to be the case. You can learn to experience the Stillness at the core of your being even in the midst of activity. However, for this to happen, your relationship to activity has to shift.

Usually activity, as I said, is directed by the ego, and when that’s the case, you will probably not experience Stillness. Once the ego has you in its grasp, its pushing, hurrying, judging, and other negativity are bound to keep you from Stillness. Another possibility exists, and that is for activity to come out of the flow—out of the Stillness itself. This is a very different experience than having your activities be directed by the ego.

So, how do you get from one way of living your life to the other? That is the key question. A number of things are involved in this shift of consciousness. First, you must become aware of your thoughts. Then, you must gain enough distance from them to have some choice around them—whether to believe them and follow them or not. And third, you have to have some experience of Stillness and the reward that comes from that, or why would you even try to release yourself from the voice in your head?

To make the effort that it takes to detach from your mind, you have to be sufficiently motivated. Suffering is a big motivator, but suffering isn’t enough to get you outside the pull of the voice in your head. You have to have had a taste of what is possible. There is another way to live, but you need to experience that, not just have someone tell you about it. You have to have an experience of Stillness, and not just one.

Fortunately, experiencing Stillness doesn’t require that much. A willingness and an intention are crucial, as is a practice of meditation. If you aren’t willing to practice meditation, that’s fine, but your spiritual progress will be so much faster if you meditate daily. I can’t say this enough.

Meditation will give you the experience of Stillness, and then you will know where you are headed and what is possible spiritually, beyond any ideas you might have about this. Practicing meditation will also help you experience Stillness in the midst of your daily life more often.

You are learning a new way of being, and that doesn’t happen overnight. And as with all learning, learning to be in Stillness takes willingness, choice, and effort. You are training your brain to be different from the default. For your state of consciousness to change, there are physical changes that must take place in your brain. These changes come about through repetition—practice. Just as all bad habits are created through repetition, fortunately, so are good ones.

Guided meditations are an excellent way to get started with meditation, especially if you find sitting quietly or even meditating to sound too difficult. Anyone can listen to a guided meditation and find it enjoyable. This way of meditating is effortless, as you are talked into the experience of Stillness.

Now, I will take the last few moments to help you experience Stillness in a kind of guided meditation.

As you are sitting or lying wherever you are, notice how your body feels as it touches whatever it’s touching. Notice everywhere on your body where it is in contact with whatever you are resting on: all along your back, your seat, your legs, your feet. Just rest a moment, holding your attention on these simple sensations of contact.

Now, notice how naturally you sink into these sensations more deeply, simply by intending this and staying with them for a while. Notice what is happening even as I suggest this, for you have likely already gone deeper into these sensations than when we began.

As long as you are listening to these words, you are not thinking, so let your Awareness move between listening to these words and experiencing what I am suggesting. Notice what is happening now as you sink more deeply into the simple sensations of your body touching whatever it is touching. There is nothing else in the world to attend to but my voice and the sensations you are feeling in this moment.

What are these sensations like? You don’t need to describe them mentally, just experience them. What is that experience like? It is pleasurable, isn’t it? What is that pleasure like? It is the love of the universe! It is Stillness. You have entered the subtle, spiritual world simply by attending fully to sensation.

The longer you stay with the subtle pleasure that accompanies your divine nature, the more it will deepen and open up to you as an experience of aliveness, vibrancy, love, peace, and contentment, which are all signs that you are Home, in the arms of the Divine.

Focus on this subtle experience of Stillness whenever you experience it, including when you are going about your day. You can learn to be in Stillness even during your day. Like being in the eye of a hurricane, you can learn to remain still and connected to love and untouched by the comings and goings of life.

Thank you for being here. I am with you always.