In this Pulse of Spirit blog, I’ve been writing about the seven-dimensional reality in which we live and how the higher vibrational ranges of it activate and empower the lower ranges. Without that activation, our thinking suffers, emotions turn dark, and the human spirit deflates and loses hope.

Here are three names for what is at a higher vibrational level: Power, Presence, and Wisdom.

What is Presence? We are talking about more than the existence of a thing and more than the existence of an energy. We are referring to the Presence of Being. We are naming the existence and nearness of a higher state of Self. We are speaking of Divine Presence.

We could refer to Divine Presence using more familiar religious-sounding words. However, it might then seem that we are speaking about religious belief or dogma. But we’re not. We are referring to Reality. And how do you know it is real? When you experience it.

What stops people from experiencing Presence?

There are so many ways that people have explained the answer to that question. Here is a simple word for the answer: self-activity.

Here is how Merriam-Webster defines self-activity:

…independent and especially self-determined activity.

What is a self-active presence? It is human personality devoid of a higher Presence. It is selfhood that is self-created. It might be funny or entertaining. It might be charismatic and compelling or attractive and seductive. But if it is motivated by what is within the four walls of the immediate human experience, if it is not bringing a Presence that transcends human personality, it is a self-active presence, and something is missing.

The essence of who we are lives in the higher vibrational ranges of human experience. So, when a person’s experience of themselves leaves that out, they are not being who they are. None of us truly are the self-active human personality devoid of Higher Presence.

This is not a statement of moral judgment. It is a compassionate recognition of what happens for us as human beings if self-activity takes over.

The formula for the solution to this problem is simple and effective.

The first step is to turn down the volume on the self-active personality. How the self-active personality manifests is different for each person. We each have our own personality tendencies. And it is not a question of judging which aspects of personality are good and which are bad, then turning up the good ones and turning down the bad. That is all part of the self-active experience of self.

As long as the human personality is self-active, it is dominated by a vibrational pattern that interferes with the vibrations of the Higher Self. That interference pattern makes it impossible for those higher vibrations to fully activate and influence the person’s experience. So, the person has to be willing to let the sense of self become neutral, not attempting to be good or to eliminate the bad. They just have to allow the personality to come to a place of stillness from the standpoint of self-activation.

Nature abhors a vacuum, and so does human experience. So I am not suggesting that a person attempt to stay blank. I am not suggesting that we should have a personal presence that is a void. It is just that the self-activity of personality has to subside so that the interference pattern diminishes enough for the individual to tune in to a Higher Presence. Then the vibrations of Higher Presence can resonate in and through the person. Once that process begins, it can increase over time to the point that the personality is animated by Higher Presence. It is no longer self-active. The person knows who they are, and their Presence fills their world.

Times of heightened Attunement with Higher Presence are sacred. We can feel the holiness of what we are touching and knowing. And there are times of intensified Attunement with Higher Presence we share with others. In such times, there can be a heightened stillness of self-activity so that the activation of Higher Presence can intensify and descend deeply into a person and emanate through them to their world. This is the principle behind the Attunement process.

But most of our lives don’t involve such intensified experiences. Having opened ourselves to Higher Presence, it abides in us and flows through us in the living of our life.

There is a passage in the Bible that addresses this process.

Much of the original translation of the Bible from Hebrew and Greek into English was done by the English scholar William Tyndale in the 16^th century. His translation showed up in the King James Version of the Bible that is common today and is reflected in other translations as well. It was William Tyndale who originally translated the words from the Creation Story, Let there be light. 

It was Tyndale’s hope that his translation into English would be so clear that the Bible would be known by the common people, including the boy behind the plow. So he translated in the clear, simple language of his day.

We speak the English of today, about 500 years after William Tyndale completed his translation. So, what was modern and current to the people of his day might sound antiquated and obscure to us. If we are able to correct for that in our own mind and appreciate Elizabethan English, it comes alive.

In this case, to amplify this consideration of Higher Presence, I am taking the liberty of translating a verse from the Book of Isaiah (55:6) into the English of today.

Seek the Presence while it may be found. Call upon the Presence while it is near.

We could think of these words as an instruction to the seeker, someone seeking the Presence and longing to know it. Actively seek it. Call upon it.

Here at Sunrise Ranch, where I live, that is our invitation. You do have to look for it. You could be in the kitchen or garden, or any place on Sunrise Ranch, and you might not seek it or call upon it. You might walk around, oblivious to the Presence.

The same is true wherever you are on the planet. And that is the experience for many people. They can be so absorbed in a self-active personality that they ignore the Presence. And there is something active they must do if they are to know it.

That is one perspective from which to understand what Isaiah was saying, the perspective of the seeker. But what would it look like if you saw it from Isaiah’s perspective?

What did he mean by saying “…while it may be found”? What did he mean when he said, “…while it is near”?

Divine Presence is eternal. It is infinite. It is omnipresent. So, isn’t it always available? Isn’t it always near?

The Presence is always near, always closer than breathing. So, was he an ignorant man that he should say such a thing?

I will give you my take. He was saying that people could find the Presence at the time he said those words because he was there, bringing the Presence. Not that it is impossible to find it any other time. But the Presence becomes immediately available when someone knows the Presence and it is emanating through them. This is someone who is saying, It can be found because of me.

Call upon the Presence while it is near. Why was it near? It was near because he was near. He was bringing the Presence.

So how about us? Is that what we say?

You can find the Presence because of me. You can call upon it and seek it and find it. It is near to you because I am near to you.

If we are lost in self-activity, the Presence is not shining through. But if it dawns on us that if we tune down our self-activity and tune in to the Presence ourselves, we convey the Presence and make it available. We bring it close to the people in our life and the world where we live. I would think that if that dawned on a person, it would make them ecstatic over the possibility of doing so.

It excites and inspires me. How about you?

Perhaps you would like to speak these words with me, owning them for yourself:

Seek the Presence while it may be found. Call upon the Presence while it is near because of me.