Be Here Now

This page is my portal to a realm of discovery that explores the ultimate in personal fulfillment.

Be Here Now is not a directive; it’s an invitation – an invitation to shift your kosmic journey onto a path that cultivates and celebrates the ultimate in personal fulfillment.

Be Here Now is also a reminder of the only time and place when and where the ultimate in personal fulfillment can ever be encountered and experienced: here and now. By implication, it moves us to ask four basic questions with respect to the ultimate in personal fulfillment: who, what, why, and how.

My best qualification for creating this portal is my spiritual freedom: I’ve been careful to remain free of any point of view that would contain or condition my beliefs with religious or secular dogma.

This ongoing effort – this project, if you will – is fundamental in the sense that it takes me deeply into who and what I am in relation to others and the world at large.

From one perspective, I am someone whose mind, heart, soul, and spirit are presently manifested in human form, having a spiritual experience with other spiritual beings in human form.

Structure Determines Behavior

The physical structure of a chair determines its behavior: rocking chairs rock, swivel chairs swivel.

But what if a different kind of structure – a conceptual structure – could be designed and implemented to support, even determine, human behavior in directions both satisfying and fulfilling?

The conceptual structure that I have in mind is a kind of scaffolding that would guide the cultivation of contentment, improvement, discernment, enjoyment, fulfillment, and upliftment.

As with all scaffoldings, this one is temporary. Think of it as a biological scaffolding that supports the cultivation of cells to replenish biological tissue and then dissolves after its purpose has been served.

The Mandala: Its Promise, Power, and Purpose

I’ll be using a mandala of rings around a central core to express my intent.

The mandala has many uses. In various spiritual traditions, mandalas are used as spiritual teaching tools, for establishing sacred spaces, or as aids to meditation or trance induction.

Its symbolic nature reputedly allows meaningful access to deeper levels of consciousness, ultimately helping the meditator or contemplator to experience a mystical sense of harmony with ultimate unity from which the kosmos arises in all of its manifest and manifold structures and forms.

For my purposes, I’ll be using the mandala to construct an orderly and unified pattern that serves to move body, mind, heart, soul, and spirit towards the ultimate in personal fulfillment.

Its promise rests in what it represents, its power lies in its simplicity and ease of use, and its purpose is to guide a conscious, evolving humanity towards the ultimate in personal fulfillment.

The solid circle that resides at the core of this mandala has causal efficacy for the rings that surround it. The closer the ring is to the core, the more causal efficacy it has for the other rings. This circle, and the rings that surround it, represent essential aspects of a life lived well in the body human.

The Fundamentality of Presence

The most fundamental fact of life is Presence.

Presence remains dormant in consciousness until a choice is made to be present to experience – to be alive, awake, aware, and alert, to be mindful of what you think, feel, say, and do.

When a choice is made to be a conscious witness to experience, two integral modalities arise, one relating to soul, the other relating to spirit: a capacity for presence and an ability to be present.

In Presence lies absolute stillness – complete and utter stillness.

I liken Presence to the surface of a lake in the early morning hours when the air is still, when even the tiniest of insects can generate ripples after making contact with the water.

When I allow the totality of my body – both energetic and material – to relax completely from the heart of my soul, I involve my capacity for Presence (intimately), and when I take the time to be still, and observe my thoughts, feelings, urges, and impulses come and go in their own time, in their own way, like so many passing clouds in the sky, I engage my ability to be present (harmoniously).

Presence offers peace. The deeper I go into Presence, the deeper my sense of peace. For illustrative purposes, I represent Presence as a solid yellow circle against a gray field of infinite possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From this brief excursion into Presence, I now take a detour into the notion of ultimacy.

What might the ultimate in personal fulfillment mean?

The Duality in Ultimacy

On the surface, ultimacy is easy enough to grasp: the best or most achievable or imaginable.

When I speak of “best or most achievable or imaginable”, I can speak of it from my own point of view (“this is my best or most achievable or imaginable”) or I can be informed by a consensus generated by the wisdom of crowds (“this is the best or most achievable or imaginable”).

Personal comparisons in a world of relative achievement or attainment, however, are inevitable.

Your best or most achievable or imaginable might be bigger or better than my best or most achievable or imaginable, but with more practice or more insight, for example, my best or most might get bigger or better than your best or most. This is not a competitive boast; this is merely a creative possibility.

What ultimately matters is that I seek and fulfill, on my own terms, in my own way, at my own pace, the best or most achievable or imaginable for me, relative to some personal standard.

Whatever in this world is measurable or sensible in terms of quantity or quality (more or better) is subject to the ultimate in personal fulfillment – and, believe it or not, the intention to measure quantity or sense quality involves more than just food, money, entertainment, and sex.

The ultimate in personal fulfillment revolves around a series of ultimates coming to fruition, achieved or conceived and assessed in relative terms, either subjectively (a personal best), individually (a standard set by someone else), or collectively (a collective yardstick).

Which brings me to the notion of duality in ultimacy.

Ultimacy can be viewed and treated as both closed and open, reflecting both mastery in the achievable (closed) and mystery in the imaginable (open). Consequently, the ultimate in personal fulfillment reflects either “a vision of mastery realized” or expresses “a pathway of mystery followed” – a product or a process, an end or a means, an effect or a cause, a result or a method, an outcome or a system.

Going further into the ultimate scheme of things, one might ask: is ultimate mastery closed or open? Is it entirely achievable? Or forever and always achievable? Perhaps this is the ultimate mystery.

Be that as it may, we have already seen what Presence looks like inside a field of infinite possibilities.

With the imposition of a boundary, however, the reach of Presence is closed in a universe of possibility where everything is entirely and absolutely imaginable and achievable.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For some, this closure is artificial, but for those who need closure, it’s psychologically necessary.

Let us now funnel these realizations into something meaningful and useful.

Promise Resides at the Heart of Soul

Consider these statements, which I used to introduce my post, The Seven Deadly Sins:

Here and now, I am all that I can be.

I have it all: I have satisfied my every need and I have fulfilled my every desire.

In good conscience, I can be, have, and do whatever I wish, whenever, wherever, and with whomever I wish.

I have as much as I need to be who I am and I have as much as I desire to enjoy what I do.

My life is complete: I enjoy blissful continuity and I am prepared to leave a lasting legacy.

In 88 words, I spell out a vision of the ultimate in personal fulfillment (now, if you know anyone who embodies this vision, please let me know. I’d very much like to meet this person).

In the passage above, I spell out the fulfillment of a promise and the realization of a purpose in a world where we potentially have the power to create our own experience of reality in every moment.

In light of this passage, I invite you to entertain the following affirmation of the soul: with Presence, through peace, I allow myself to fulfill the promise of my soul with a purpose.

This affirmation answers the questions posed in the introduction above – who, what, why, and how.

Who am I and what do I have? A soul with a promise to fulfill. Why am I here? I’m here to fulfill my promise with a purpose. How? Essentially, through Presence, with peace and power.

And what is my promise exactly? Is it a declaration I make that I’ll actually say or do something, or an assurance I make that guarantees that something happens or gets said or done? Certainly.

But as you might have guessed, there’s more to it than this, and I provided some hints of what this might be in my very first blog post, Promise and Possibility.

Promise is a ground of expectation that I behave, practice, perform, improve, succeed, commit, and excel in certain ways at certain times with certain persons for certain reasons. The expectation that I apply myself in these ways might come from within myself or it might come from significant others.

This ground of expectation, at its best, contains fertile soil for the heart of my soul, and if the material, social, and environmental conditions around my person are optimal, then I flourish as a person.

Promise is revealed through Presence, by way of peace. This can be formally illustrated as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Again, the solid yellow circle signifies Presence, and around Presence, the green ring represents the potential for peace, while the blue ring designates the promise that resides at the heart of soul.

The Centrality of Purpose

I now invite you to consider the following two series of words, without attempting to provide a context to understand and appreciate what they actually mean (at least not yet):

witness : witness and soul : soul and spirit : spirit and witness : witness
presence (peace) promise (power) purpose (prosperity) passion (purity) possibility

Note the correspondence of these two sequences as follows:

The term ‘witness’ corresponds with ‘Presence’; ‘witness and soul’ with ‘promise’; ‘soul and spirit’ with ‘purpose’; ‘spirit and witness’ with ‘passion’; and ‘witness’ with ‘possibility’.

Note also that ‘soul and spirit’ and ‘purpose’ are centrally located within their respective series.

Purpose lies at the locus of my control, at the nexus of soul and spirit, where soul and spirit meet, in a place where soul can motivate or moderate spirit and where spirit can inspire or energize soul.

When mortals seek fulfillment, they usually make reference to what is achievable and imaginable, but even more fundamentally, they must address what is necessary and desirable.

More simply, they must talk about what they need and want.

Ensure survival, and needs are satisfied. Strive and thrive, and desires are fulfilled.

Nothing complicated here, unless we insist on making it so.

Consider this heartfelt expression: home is where the heart is. A home, or a sense of home (even if you travel the world) is a basic requirement for having or gaining a sense of fulfillment.

In this sense, home is wherever or with whomever you most love to be.

Having a home, or a sense of home, is akin to having a soulfully motivating, spiritually inspired sense of promise, but it’s also a soulfully motivated, spiritually inspiring projection of promise. More simply, having a home, or a sense of home, allows me to cultivate or celebrate my promise as a person.

Any focus on home, or a sense of home, if its wholesome, aligns with this promise of having a home, activating it with a purpose, with any one or more of the following aims: keeping it safe and/or secure and/or clean and/or spacious and/or functional and/or attractive and/or comfortable.

When I know what I need and want in a home, there’s no confusion: I have clarity of purpose that either fulfills the promise or seeks to fulfill the promise of having a home, and there’s no denying that having a home or a sense of home that I feel good about can be quite fulfilling personally.

Speaking more concretely, when I stand inside my home and survey a portion of its offerings, I am present to its promise relative to some standard, and if this standard is met, all is well and good, but even if it isn’t met, the resulting tension supplies me with energy to improve or embellish it.

Through Presence, by way of peace, I can be a witness to the promise.

When I stand on promise, I can harness the power I need to activate and actuate this promise with purpose, which I illustrate in the following diagram with rings of power (violet) and purpose (black).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Passion Links Purpose to Possibility via Prosperity and Purity

With the intent to fulfill desire, I am naturally on the outlook for possibilities, but to realize them, I need more than a little passion to engage them, to incorporate their promise into the heart of my soul.

But do I need passion to realize a purpose or do I need a purpose to ignite my passion? This question would not be an easy one to answer if I let my passions run wild or put them on automatic pilot.

Passion, by its nature in this manifest realm, attracts challenges – inadequacies, problems, difficulties – which have the beneficial effect of cracking me open to my desires. If I care about who I am, I will open myself to challenges that reveal my desires, for what is fulfillment if not the fulfillment of my desires?

When I access Presence with peace of mind, I can draw on the power of promise with purpose. In a prosperous condition, however, I can more easily apply my passion to engage and realize possibilities with a purity of intention that serves to reveal my desires and fulfill them with pleasure.

I need passion to realize a purpose, but I also need a purpose that ignites enough passion to attract challenges that I feel equipped and inclined to handle and resolve in my favor.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here, the gold ring represents the potential for prosperity. The red ring that surrounds it represents passion. With a purpose tapping into promise with power, prosperity inspires passion.

For example, in creating my mandala in Photoshop, I had a vision of the final result, which activated whatever promise I had to craft a draft (which wasn’t much at the beginning because I knew next to nothing about Photoshop), but as I persisted in actuating the promise to manifest my desired result with the possibilities at hand, the passion I required came to the fore, driving me towards completion.

Despite my ignorance, my intention to manifest a mandala in accordance with my vision was firm and pure, and my passion to manifest a desired result, inspired by a prosperous outcome and guided by a pure intention, linked my purpose with every possibility imaginable along the way to completion.

Going deep into the heart of my soul to cultivate an attitude of gratitude and a willingness to bless the objects of my desire are the most wholesome exercises I can practice along a path of fulfillment.

Wisdom comes to those who do these exercises daily until they become second nature, but what if my circumstances are not prosperous? And what exactly does it mean to have purity of intention?

In addressing these questions, let us return to the example of “having a heart with a home”.

Having a warm, secure home inside the heart of my soul essentially means having a sacred space in which to be present and at peace with the promise that rests at the heart of my soul.

It is here, at the heart of my soul, through my locus of control, that I have access to my power.

Depending on how prosperous I am or how prosperous I intend to be, I select a purpose that activates my promise, and with a firm and pure resolve, channel my passion into generating possibilities.

Controversy, however, presently swirls around the nature of possibility.

On one side are those who remain grounded when they assess their possibilities, firmly wedded to the law of cause and effect: “only realistic and reasonable possibilities have a chance of being realized”.

On the other side are those who remain open to what they call “a field of infinite possibilities”, where the “how” of method and manifestation take its cue from the “what” of intention and desire.

Regardless of which side you occupy (you might even go back and forth), the possibilities that present themselves are circulated through presence into promise with purpose and passion.

Below, the ring of white represents purity of intention, which serves to keep passion accountable and responsible for the desired results; the gray ring represents a bounded field of possibilities.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Longings and Intentions, Yearnings and Expectations

I long to be someone who … I long to be in a place where … I long to be with someone who …

When I pay attention to a longing at the heart of my soul, I tap into a heartfelt need, and when I bring such a need to light, I have a basis from which to set my intention.

For example, “I long to be in a place where I feel safe and secure. Therefore, I intend to go wherever I need to go to live and be in a place where I feel safe and secure.”

Or: “I long to be someone who can ‘be here now’, who can ‘go with the flow’, in a place where I feel safe and secure, with those with whom I can relate from the heart of my soul.”

By bringing my longings to light, my needs become apparent, serving as raw material for setting my intentions and assessing the relevance of my daily conduct and behavior.

With longings exposed and intentions formed, I can then pay some attention to my yearnings, which point to my desires, which, when consciously realized, guide my expectations.

When my needs are satisfied and I like who and where I am in my life, I have a stable ground from which to explore and express my yearnings in the midst of performance and activity.

I yearn to have … so that I can …; I yearn to … so that I can have …

When I release my yearnings, I engage desires for more – more pleasure, more fun, more stimulation, more inspiration, more productivity, more creativity, more insight, more knowledge, more wisdom.

The amounts desired vary from person to person, but the desires themselves are universal.

Intending, Manifesting: Involving the Soul, Engaging the Spirit

When I align my sense of possibility and my sense of promise with consistency, with the intention of refreshing or reforming what went before, I invariably manifest results in the process.

If I’m focused and fortunate, these results might even be desired results.

With Presence, I can be a witness. With Presence and peace, I have access to the promise that resides at the heart of my soul, allowing me to tap into my native sovereign power.

With this inherent power at my fingertips, I am free to set a purpose that would have me succeed, excel, flourish, thrive, or prosper with a passion purified to attract possibilities.

An example …

In the midst of my writing, I am a constant witness to the urges of my soul compelling me to compose one string of words and not another. When I’m present to these urges and at relative peace with them, I can receive promising urges with ease, motivating me to direct my energy around a purpose.

More generally …

I adjust my purpose by involving the heart of my soul through Presence, with peace and promise, and I realize my purpose by engaging my spirit with a purified passion inspired by the prospect of succeeding, excelling, flourishing, thriving, or prospering my way into happiness, freedom, and fulfillment.

The possibilities I attract circulate through Presence, and when I’m a witness to this circulation from a place of peace, I can incorporate their promise, access their power, and renew my purpose.

With a purpose inspired by the prospect of prosperity, I can then direct my passion with purity of intention until I’ve fulfilled my desire with a desired effect, result, or outcome.

Why This Mandala is Complete

Two vital elements are missing from this mandala: practice and performance.

I deliberately excluded them, not because they’re messy in their practicality, but because their presence or absence is uniquely and intensely personal to each and every soul and spirit.

Not everyone views practice as necessary – after all, some of us are born to do this, that, or the other thing with effortless ease – and not everyone considers performance necessary for living a full life.

For many, however, practice and performance are integral aspects of a life lived well.

Where practice is a matter of soul, performance is a matter of spirit, and they both relate to purpose; indeed, for many, they’re both integral to purpose itself for a life lived well.

If I were to include practice and performance in the mandala, I would place them within the black ring of purpose (black because … will I or will I not exercise my freedom of choice?), as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Practice draws on the soul by tapping into presence, peace, promise, and power with purpose.

Performance relies on the soul, driven by the prospect of prosperity, and does so ideally with passion, purity of intention, and a clean, clear sense of possibility at every moment.

Stripping Away the Rings of Influence

Without a boundary, in a field of infinite possibilities, the mandala could be revised as follows:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in that moment when I give up treating life as a performance, the mandala shrinks, thus:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And if I should relinquish practice to focus exclusively on peace, then the mandala gives way:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And in that moment when I am no longer conscious of being at peace or realizing my promise …

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A living or loving Presence is forever and always available. Not even the illusion of death can take it away (for those who have had an LDE – a lucid death experience – you know what I’m talking about).

Ultimately, the story of my life is the story of my happiness, freedom, and fulfillment – or lack thereof. In the ultimate scheme of things, my sphere of influence matters as much as I care to make it matter.

In view of the grand ultimate, however, I could just as easily be – just be. No practice, no performance, no peace, no promise, no purpose, no pressure. Just Presence, with no resistance to speak of.

The invitation stands: be here now, just for now.

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Published: 02-20-2011
Revised: 05.15.2016
Updated: 12.13.2020