Being With
Window to the
Present Moment
The ebb and flow of my personal history are not of much importance here, but there have been a few remarkable moments. One of these came with the ending of a relationship fifty years ago, which landed me in a Yogic Ashram where I met my Guru. Time dissolved for a few years, and I dedicated myself to spiritual practice, and to medical practice with seekers from all over the world.
From time to time the teacher showed me new ways to meditate, and in time there became so many that I couldn’t fit them all in. I think he was trying out different techniques to see what might give the best results with the Western mind.
After a couple of years of this he gave me a simple practice that has changed everything. But at first I was too dense to get it.
His Holiness Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
At the end of a meditation session, he said, I should stop everything and just “Be with the body.” Didn’t sound like much of a practice to me. I took his meaning as “Take a break.” I’d heard similar advice from the spiritual teacher Ram Dass in a retreat who, after hours of meditation, said, “OK, now just do nothing.” So that’s what I did. I stopped whatever mantras and mind manipulations I was doing and just sat there in my body.
It took me years to unpack the richness this gift. For the first several months I just took a break. Easy enough, and quite relaxing. Thoughts and imaginings coming and going. Then I realized that I was to “be with” the body. Aha! My attention focused on what I was feeling in my body, any aches and pains from sitting too long, any release of stress from the deep meditation, even old injuries. I sensed that this “being with” was primarily a deep healing practice for body and emotions, and having come recently from medical school and the ending of a marriage, I surely needed it! The practice still serves me well in this way, all these decades later.
And yet some years later, as I was doing this practice at the end of a long meditation, something dawned on me. “Being with the body:” who is the one who is with the body? Of course, I am. Soon I couldn’t do the “be with the body” practice without simultaneously noticing that Self, who I am, the one observing the body. A broadening and deepening of conscious began to unfold as I increasingly observed, in meditation and out, not only the object of my experience, whether my body or any other thing, but also the “I am” subject of that experience. Maharishi described this quality of awareness being spontaneously aware of itself as the “self-referral” state of consciousness.
“Be with the body” expanded to “be with the tree” or “be with the blue sky” or “be with my friend.” It increased my appreciation of the nuances of my experience. It also brought me repeatedly to the realization of my Self as the “I” who is aware. Aware of experience and aware of awareness itself.
Many years later, one more gift arose from this simple practice. I notice it most out in Nature, like in a forest or on a wild beach. I may be walking along, lost in thoughts of the day or things I need to get done. In a sense, I’m not even aware of being in the forest or on the beach at all. Eckhart Tolle uses the expression, “Lost in the world” for this half-sleeping state of consciousness. Then I bring to mind this teaching: “Be with the body.” I notice the body, then I quickly notice the “observer” who I am. The Self. And from this place of presence I realize I have entered into my perception in an astonishing new way. What’s here? What do I see? What do I hear? What do I smell? What arises spontaneously to my attention? A shift takes place, and suddenly I’m surrounded by extraordinary beauty and loving connections. When that deeper sense of relationship begins to pass, which it always does in time, I can renew it easily by beginning again, being innocently with the body.
Try it!