The key is to be in a state of permanent connectedness with your
inner body — to feel it at all times. This will rapidly deepen and
transform your life. The more consciousness you direct into the inner
body, the higher its vibrational frequency becomes, much like a light
that grows brighter as you turn up the dimmer switch and so increase
the flow of electricity. At this higher energy level, negativity cannot
affect you anymore, and you tend to attract new circumstances that
reflect this higher frequency.
If you keep your attention in the body as much as possible, you will
be anchored in the Now. You won’t lose yourself in the external world,
and you won’t lose yourself in your mind. Thoughts and emotions,
fears and desires, may still be there to some extent, but they won’t
take you over.
Please examine where your attention is at this moment. You are
listening to me, or you are reading these words in a book. That is the
focus of your attention. You are also peripherally aware of your
surroundings, other people, and so on. Furthermore, there may be
some mind activity around what you are hearing or reading, some
mental commentary. Yet there is no need for any of this to absorb all
your attention. See if you can be in touch with your inner body at the
same time. Keep some of your attention within. Don’t let it all flow
out. Feel your whole body from within, as a single field of energy. It is
almost as if you were listening or reading with your whole body. Let
this be your practice in the days and weeks to come.
Do not give all your attention away to the mind and the external
world. By all means focus on what you are doing, but feel the inner
body at the same time whenever possible. Stay rooted within. Then
observe how this changes your state of consciousness and the quality
of what you are doing.
Whenever you are waiting, wherever it may be, use that time to feel
the inner body. In this way, traffic jams and lines become very
enjoyable. Instead of mentally projecting yourself away from the Now,
go more deeply into the Now by going more deeply into the body.
The art of inner-body awareness will develop into a completely new
way of living, a state of permanent connectedness with Being, and
will add a depth to your life that you have never known before.
It is easy to stay present as the observer of your mind when you are
deeply rooted within your body. No matter what happens on the
outside, nothing can shake you anymore.
Unless you stay present — and inhabiting your body is always an
essential aspect of it — you will continue to be run by your mind. The
script in your head that you learned a long time ago, the conditioning
of your mind, will dictate your thinking and your behavior. You may be
free of it for brief intervals, but rarely for long. This is especially true
when something “goes wrong” or there is some loss or upset. Your
conditioned reaction will then be involuntary, automatic, and
predictable, fueled by the one basic emotion that underlies the mind-
identified state of consciousness: fear.
So when such challenges come, as they always do, make it a habit to
go within at once and focus as much as you can on the inner energy
field of your body. This need not take long, just a few seconds. But
you need to do it the moment that the challenge presents itself. Any
delay will allow a conditioned mental-emotional reaction to arise and
take you over. When you focus within and feel the inner body, you
immediately become still and present as you are withdrawing
consciousness from the mind. If a response is required in that
situation, it will come up from this deeper level. Just as the sun is
infinitely brighter than a candle flame, there is infinitely more
intelligence in Being than in your mind.
As long as you are in conscious contact with your inner body, you are
like a tree that is deeply rooted in the earth, or a building with a deep
and solid foundation. The latter analogy is used by Jesus in the
generally misunderstood parable of the two men who build a house.
One man builds it on the sand, without a foundation, and when the
storms and floods come, the house is swept away. The other man
digs deep until he reaches the rock, then builds his house, which is
not swept away by the floods.