This is not so much a question as a topic of exploration. I think it is worth exploring because, in this world, our concern with location seems to touch most of what we do. These days we have GPS to help us pinpoint exactly where we are on planet earth. With the push of a button we can know precisely where we are. And with Twitter and similar social networking tools, we can share our location instantly with our entire network of friends.
So, we have these great gizmos that can tell us and everyone else precisely where we are, but the question remains – how do we know this is where we are?
When we consider location in three-dimensional space, our location is defined in terms relative to other things in three-dimensional space. Our location in any space is usually described in terms of where our body is. I’m here, you’re there. I’m in front of you. The chair is to the left of me. The ceiling is above me.
Some of the reasons our location seems so important: we can tell others where we are, where we have been and we can often use that to help us get to where we want to be.
It’s the same in the spiritual dimension only different. For one thing, it’s oriented more toward the internal than the external. It’s more about our subjective sense of location within our experience than our body’s location in our world experience.
If we examine our sense of where we are subjectively we almost always drill it down to – I am here. Here seems to be the only word that can accurately reflect where it is we really are. Oh, we can give all kinds of relative descriptors, but when we really boil it down, we are simply Here. So where is Here?
Well, Here is Here. It’s not there or elsewhere – it is Here. Here is where we are. We are always Here.
Here seems to reflect the nexus of our experience. Here seems to be at the core of our experience.
Spiritual teachers, mystics and masters seem to think Here has real significance. They continually encourage us to – Be Here Now (three words that mean the same thing). Be, Be, Be. Here, Here, Here, Now, Now, Now. These sound repetitive. Be Here Now sounds profound – is profound.
When certain people invoke us to, Be Here Now, it seems to draw more of us into Here, into Now, into Being. Most of us have had some experience of that – being more Here at times. For many of us those times when we seem more Here, appear to substantially outnumber all of the other times when we’re – not so much Here. We’re here in the ordinary way, but when we’re really Being Here Now – the experience seems extraordinary – beyond the ordinary.
Are you getting a sense of the significance of Here to our experience The more we are Here, the richer our experience is. The deeper the sense of Here, the more profound our experience. The more palpable Here is, the more intimate our experience.
I have yet to meet one person who experienced Here in a deeper, more profound, more intimate way that did not long to Be Here Now more.
Why is that? Simply put: It is more enjoyable than our normal experience. It is more pleasurable than our ordinary experience. It is more satisfying than our normal experience. It is more fulfilling than our normal experience. It is more integrating and complete than our ordinary experience. In short – it is more positive in many, many ways than our ordinary experience.
In comparison our ordinary experience seems – ordinary – dull, lifeless, pedestrian and plain. Being Here Now – is more real to us.
So, if being more Here is a good desirable thing – how do we do it? How do we get more Here, deeper into Here, closer to Here?
It’s simple. First, we start with where we are. And where are we? Well, we’re all Here. This really shortens the journey! We don’t have to go anywhere to be Here, we’re already Here! But our experience of Here right now, might seem ordinary, might not seem like that deeper Here, that intimate Here, that profound Here that we long for. So how does that happen?
Well, we don’t go there to get Here. Going there means we leave Here. Doing that takes us away from Here so there is no hope of experiencing the extraordinary Here if we go there.
No, we start Here, right Here where we are AND we get closer to Here right Here where we are. We do that by getting to know Here more intimately and the easy way to do that is to explore our experience Here and Now. We do that by learning how to BE our experience.
Most of us, in this culture, have a deep conditioning that leaves us thinking more about our experience rather than experiencing our experience. So, we want to deepen and expand our experience beyond just thinking. The Here deepens and expands as our experience does. Bringing in our feelings and sensations deepens and expands our experience.
As more of us opens to our experience, the more we feel in touch with our experience. The more in-touch, the more intimacy. The more intimacy, the more we feel Here.
I am going to leave this exploration right Here, for NOW.
