Living Presence

Living Presence Plot Summary

Introduction

I first encountered the teachings of Sufism on a crisp autumn evening when a friend invited me to a gathering where ancient wisdom was shared through poetry, music, and contemplative silence. As we sat in a circle, I felt an inexplicable sense of homecoming—as if some dormant part of me had been waiting for this moment. The facilitator spoke not of abstract theology but of presence—that elusive quality of being fully aware in each moment. "Most people," he said gently, "are everywhere except where they actually are." This journey toward presence lies at the heart of spiritual awakening across traditions. In our modern world of constant distraction and fragmentation, we often live divided lives—our bodies in one place, our minds elsewhere, our hearts closed off from both. The practices and wisdom of mindful presence offer a path back to wholeness, connecting our scattered parts into an integrated self capable of experiencing life's full richness. Whether through meditation, conscious breathing, or the cultivation of awareness in daily activities, presence transforms our relationship with ourselves and the world around us. The journey is not about adding something new but removing the veils that obscure what has always been there—our essential Self, connected to the creative energy of the universe.

Chapter 1: The Journey from Separation to Unity: Tales of Transformation

There was once a city covered by clouds. In it were great office buildings, schools, stores, and factories. This city was a place where raw materials, both physical and human, flowed. It was where you had to be to be an important, successful person, but also a place where terrible things happened. The majority of people considered themselves failures; no person or place was secure; and the conditions produced an infinite variety of illnesses. Energy was limited and little light was available. People passed one another in shadows, unable to see each other clearly. In this place, people lived in fear and suspicion, with everyone following their own desires, claiming this was freedom. At first I found this city interesting, drawn to walking its dark streets. Initially an observer, I gradually became part of it. Eventually, I wished to find another life or change something inside myself, but nothing ever changed despite my thoughts. When I asked if I was alone in feeling something was wrong, someone directed me to the neighborhood of Remorse, where people felt regret over their actions but still lived like others in the city. By chance, a few people found their way out to the village of Sharing, whose sign read "Spirit in Us All." This village was home to Ms. Affection. People here enjoyed togetherness, celebrated often, sang and danced. Children were respected, travelers welcomed, and the elderly not feared. What kept people happy was their immeasurable love for Ms. Affection. Unlike the city dwellers who acted from self-interest, these people were unpredictable, giving away their best and expecting nothing in return. I felt relaxed and joyous here, but eventually sensed something unsettled in my heart. When I confided in a radiant old man, he told me of another place beyond the village where I might meet four kinds of people: the Pretenders who practice love's ways though their minds wander; the Warriors who struggle with ego through prayer and service; the People of Remembrance who remember the One in all they do; and the People of Total Submission who undertake no unnecessary action but have no obstacle to their great Self. This tale, from an unpublished nineteenth-century Sufi source, serves as a metaphor for our spiritual journey from the darkness of ego-centered existence toward unity. The city of clouds represents our modern condition—a place of separation where despite material advancement, we remain spiritually impoverished. The journey outward is actually a journey inward, leading us through stages of awakening until we recognize that our essential nature is not separate from the divine reality that permeates all existence.

Chapter 2: Awakening Presence: The Mirror of Awareness

Mevlana Jelaluddin Rumi once said, "Let go of your worries and be completely clear-hearted, like the face of a mirror that contains no images. When it is empty of forms, all forms are contained within it. No face would be ashamed to be so clear." These words remind us that we can be clear-hearted only when we have polished the mirror of awareness, freeing it of all images, especially images of ourselves. The spiritual process can be understood as consciously polishing this mirror of awareness. Our mirror is normally filled with the contents of sensory and psychological experience. Because it is habitually filled with experience, and because our attention is absorbed in these contents, the mirror itself is overlooked. Unlike a physical mirror, human awareness can reflect many levels of reality beyond the physical—emotions, thoughts, intuition—either selectively or simultaneously. In meditation, we learn to focus attention on the screen of awareness rather than becoming absorbed in its contents. Thoughts and feelings are contents of the mirror, not the mirror itself. To the extent we are collected and awake, we can see them as images reflected rather than reality itself. By learning to clear the mirror of superficial contents, we discover deeper levels of ourselves. The most obvious layer of rust contains our compulsions and negative feeling states—the demands of ego. We release these by recognizing them, and each surrender is a small death. Through letting go with each breath, we become free of the compulsive mind to experience new freedom, depth, and height. We notice the continuous presence of like and dislike, the grinding clash of opposites that keeps us in unconscious slavery. Sometimes the mirror is obscured by compulsive neediness. There are people who constantly seek attention from others, telling them about their problems, experiences, and opinions. Preoccupied with their personality's neediness, they are not receptive to what reality offers. Sometimes unconscious needs obscure objective perception—like someone strongly attracted to a certain physical feature who becomes blind to obvious personality flaws in its possessor. As we polish away conditioning, concepts, and the false reacting self, reality becomes increasingly transparent. "There is a polish for everything," said Muhammad, "and the polish for the heart is the remembrance of God." This remembrance transforms the mirror of awareness from a cloudy, distorted surface to a clear reflection of the divine presence that surrounds and permeates all existence.

Chapter 3: Creative Energy and Human Potential: The Power of Being

There is something nonexistent, something that cannot be touched, seen, or even thought, and yet this nothing is more important than anything else—the fathomless source of all qualities and possibilities. We look for happiness, beauty, or pleasure in existing things, convinced that things will satisfy us. We hope to find well-being in a new car, a home, or a relationship. But the happiness produced by these things cannot be counted on, and we need to find yet other things to stimulate further states. What we have within ourselves we project outward onto things, thinking the things themselves are responsible for the states we experience. Yet every state is nevertheless within us. If we truly come to know ourselves and what we carry within, if we can make contact with ourselves directly, we will be less dependent on things. The well-being, beauty, and love we seek outside ourselves is truly within. Everything that seems to exist derives its qualities from a single source of Being. Everything we desire, everything that motivates us is in reality without existence of its own and depends on this single source. All things receive their qualities from this one Essence and are only reflectors of it. Furthermore, what attracts us in the outer world is only putting us in touch with the hidden treasure within ourselves. Paradoxically, what is needed is an ability to reserve some attention for Being itself, for what is not existent in the world of things. We can give attention to that dimension that allows all things to exist. Within the heart of each human being is a point of contact with the immeasurable dimension outside of all existing things. God, the Absolute, is not another thing among things, but the dimension that makes all existences possible. Being is like a finer energy that has the power to organize coarser energies; it is more energized than any activity and larger than life itself. It is a creative energy behind our actions. Whatever we do with Being embodies qualities and attributes more purely and intensely. We can bring quality into the details of life if we remember to be and act with precision. When Suleyman Dede, a Sufi teacher, visited Washington National Airport, something unusual happened. Despite his ordinary appearance as a small man in a three-piece suit, the entire airport seemed silenced by his presence. In a lounge area, strangers approached him telling about their lives or asking important questions. His presence carried a quality of Being that attracted others without effort—the natural radiance of someone who had polished the mirror of awareness to reflect the divine light within.

Chapter 4: Taming the False Self: Befriending the Ego

For many years my focus within spiritual work was on conscious awareness and will. This moment-by-moment presence could be achieved through efforts to remember, to be conscious. I understood that without this discipline of conscious awareness we lived partly like animals, partly like machines, but not yet as human beings able to exercise choice, able to respond clearly rather than reacting from blind habit and expectation. The ego might prefer to wallow in unconscious ways, but something within could struggle with that. Anyone who has worked long enough eventually faces a subtle but essential question: Can the ego be transformed by its own efforts? Is there danger of merely being at war within ourselves, one part of the ego clashing with another, building tension and frustration? Will this ever free us from the separate ego? The sole tamer of the ego is love. We must learn to love even the ego; then the ego can submit to that love. The ego is formed through trying to hold a place for ourselves in a world of contrary forces. As we grow, we face challenges and demands, attempting to establish a position from which to act. The ego has fundamentally positive qualities: aspiration, diligence, responsibility, self-respect, discipline, and integrity. These qualities belong to the Source and are reflected through us. As we develop these qualities, we see how the ego can be supported by spiritual intelligence and act as its instrument rather than pursuing self-interest. What is positive in us is much greater than what is negative. Whatever exists is essentially good—if there were not some good in it, it would not exist. Sometimes, however, these positive qualities can stand between us and Reality if appropriated by self-importance. The false self can ruin anything it touches. The tyrannical ego needs to be brought to proper size and become a useful servant, not our master. The only force that can transform this tyrant comes through the essential Self. The only effective efforts are those supported by greater wisdom within us. Transforming the ego is not just a struggle on one level but an opening to a higher level: the choice of surrender, of submission to greater will and intelligence. Submission is not an attribute of ego; we cannot say we are getting good at submission. Submission is being actively receptive to intelligence greater than ourselves—an intention of gracefulness and surrender. We need to recognize our faults, for they can keep us humble and aware of our dependence on higher Reality. As we refresh our spiritual intentions, cultivating patience, gratitude, humbleness, and love, we come to trust Beneficence. In this process, we dissolve our deepest fears and tensions, and the positive attributes of the ego—aspiration, diligence, responsibility, self-respect, discipline, and integrity—will emerge naturally, in service to something greater than themselves.

Chapter 5: Love as the Transformer: The Religion of Oneness

"Never think of love as the goal of anything," a teacher once said, "always think of it as the cause." At all levels of existence, a single cosmic energy is active. The whole universe is alive with intelligence, creativity, and constant evolution. Another name for this cosmic energy is Spirit, and we experience Spirit as love. We prize Spirit wherever we find it—in a spirited horse or in anything with life and energy. Because it is both attracting and creative, Spirit can also be described as fundamentally sexual. Any creative act is an act of love. Attraction operates at all levels within the electromagnetic field of existence. Electromagnetic forces exist at the subatomic level. At the chemical level, elements form substances that enable organic life. Love is that fundamental creative and unifying power, an all-inclusive field. At the human level, there is eros, or love of the lovable. In its commonest form, it is desire, wanting to possess. We want to make something our own, to consume it. This represents a very limited kind of love, but love nevertheless. Love is the tamer of ego because it makes it possible for us to acknowledge for another the same significance we first attributed only to ourselves. The egoism that shaped our whole life encounters in love a living power that rescues it from isolation. The love of sharing, or philos, is less restrictive and limiting. We see this when people come together at weddings, meals, theaters, cultural clubs—in all ways people choose to share themselves. Through sharing love, we experience ourselves as independent yet necessary organs of the whole of life. Holistic, unconditional love, agape, is the unity in which duality disappears. It is as if an internal boundary has disappeared. With agape, what we love is ourselves, the way a mother loves her child as herself. This is loving another as oneself—transcending phenomenal borders and experiencing ourselves in another and the other in us. Eventually, if love is comprehensive, it unites us with everything and allows us to know that we are everything. Love can be an act of will. People often ask, "But what if I don't feel it?" Because everything in cosmic existence is a two-way street, we can practice the fruits of love and through this invoke its reality. If we manifest kindness, generosity, and patience, we will eventually discover the reality of love within ourselves. Engendering a vibration of love can be our moment-by-moment conscious choice. Love transforms copper into gold. The mistakes of lovers are better than righteous actions of the loveless. Even a bitter fruit from the hand of a beloved tastes sweet. Lovers see what others do not because being in love changes our state of consciousness, affecting how we feel, think, and perceive. Love begets beauty, and beauty is our point of contact with love. Nothing of value is accomplished without love, because it is the power that causes the heart to expand and embrace more. Love is not the goal of anything; it is the cause of everything, including our own final transformation.

Chapter 6: Refining the Psyche: Service Within the Divine Unknown

My wife, Camille, and I had been traveling with our friend Don through Turkey for some weeks together, and we would frequently end our day with a late-night piece of baklava. We had spent our last night in Turkey at the home of Oruj Bey, where we sang Sufi ilahis and various people played instruments until early morning. On our way back to our hotel, we were feeling light and energized as we almost floated through the back streets of Istanbul. The city was quiet with only occasional soldiers on patrol. I was carrying a copy of "The Ruins of the Heart," which I had intended to give to Mehmet, a rug dealer near the Istanbul bazaar who had expressed interest in the book. We would be leaving for the airport in the morning, before Mehmet's shop would open. I still wanted to give him the book but didn't know how this would be possible. The three of us were walking down a broad avenue not far from the bazaar when I saw a lone figure standing about a block ahead, his back toward us. From a distance, it looked like Mehmet. As we drew near, the figure turned around, and it was indeed him. "Salaam Aleikhoum," I said. "Here is a book that I wanted you to have." "Thank you, brother, I am pleased to have it. Would you care to join me at my uncle's shop? The shop is closed, but he has just finished baking tomorrow's baklava." When we are aware of the abundance of life, synchronous events unfold in the continuum of time; love brings together what needs to be brought together. Often in the Middle East, my companions and I would find ourselves more clearly in that space of imminent meaning and grace. The psyche's refinement toward deeper presence results in being able to meet more manifestations of Life with unconditional Love. We overcome separation to such an extent that we feel at one with more and more. Our awareness of connection with Life increases sensitivity to our environment and awakens us to more opportunities for service, interaction, and cross-fertilization. We find that our needs are met as well, and the circle continues. In every moment, our environment presents us with needs. Our service is the natural outcome of our awareness of our environment as a whole and our connection with Creative Power. If we find ourselves incapable of meeting life with unconditional love, we can at least practice shifting awareness from preoccupation with ourselves to a wider field including the needs of those around us. Service without presence is sleep, and if we are identified with service, expecting thanks or reward, it becomes a demand. The service that is spiritual practice is beyond attraction and beyond the limited ego. This service depends on a shift of awareness. Through it, we are lifted out of egoism; in it, we become motivated by unconditional love of the life around us. It is the Beloved loving through us and the Generous giving through us. As the psyche opens in love to its milieu, a marriage occurs between the heart and the electromagnetic milieu of love, and a child is born: will, or conscious action. The quality of action at this level of human functioning is creative and holistic. The soul has the possibility to act from its own initiative and in the name of love, not merely to react from personal desire and insecurity. Since the refined psyche extends far beyond the phenomenal self, its actions have a magnetic, even miraculous, quality.

Chapter 7: The Essential Self: Die Before You Die

A Sufi came to a remote village where he knew no one. After meeting some people, he found they had an unusual hunger for spiritual knowledge. They invited him to share his knowledge at a gathering they would arrange. Although this Sufi was not yet fully confident that he could transmit spiritual knowledge, he accepted their invitation. Many attended the gathering and the Sufi found his audience extremely receptive, and most significantly, he was able to express the teachings with an eloquence he had never before experienced. He went to sleep feeling very pleased. The next day he met one of the village elders. They greeted each other as brothers, and the elder expressed gratitude for the previous evening. The Sufi was beginning to feel very special, reasoning that he had been guided to this village to impart his accumulated wisdom. Perhaps, if these people were sincere, he could stay with them for a while and offer extended instruction. They were certainly a deserving community. Just then, the elder invited him to another gathering that evening. The villagers assembled again, but this time one of them was chosen at random to address the gathering. He, too, gave a most eloquent discourse, full of wisdom and love. After the meeting, the Sufi again met with the elder. "As you can see," the elder began, "the Friend speaks to us in many forms. We are all special here and all receptive to the Truth, so the Truth can easily express Itself. Know that the 'you' who felt special last night and the 'you' who felt diminished tonight are neither real. Prostrate them before the inner Friend if you want to find wisdom and be free of judging yourself harshly." There is an underlying attitude that cripples and blinds us. This attitude is a perversion of the natural order created by loneliness and insecurity, by the illusion of separateness, by ignorance. The problem is simple: we think of ourselves too often and in the wrong way. The result is self-importance (or its opposite, self-hatred) and greed. Whenever we think we are better than others or think "I want," we are thinking of ourselves in the wrong way. Self-importance and greed take us out of presence and into identification. It makes no difference whether we are greedy about things harmful to us or for so-called spiritual experiences—neither is helpful. We can begin to notice when we are thinking of ourselves too much and turn from getting to giving. If we stop thinking about ourselves in a mechanical way, we can better be what we are. True service is giving of ourselves, of what we naturally are. Through taking a look at our pain, we may realize that we are always in suffering because of our attachment to ourselves and separation from the One. Our pain is the Friend's invitation to His presence; suffering is the threshold of the One. As Rumi says, "Whoever is more awake has more pain. Seek pain!" We need not resent suffering; we can accept it with knowledge that it makes us more aware of our identification with the false self and separation from Truth. Within each human being is a vast Creative Power, a hidden treasure, but this treasure is not something we can possess. By appropriating its qualities to ourselves, we short-circuit the system. When we claim no qualities as our own, we will have the qualities of Creative Power. It is said that the Friend never takes away your self without giving you Himself. "Only he who is an enemy to his own existence possesses real existence," says Rumi. Without dying, the soul cannot come to life. What you thought was your self was an isolated fragment of your mind, containing contradictory desires, conditionings, and obsessions. With awareness and love, this false self can dissolve like ice in sunlight. Submission is the lower self recognizing the essential Self and acting on its guidance. It is overcoming the resistance offered by the lower self. It is dropping the hesitations, doubts, fears, equivocations, rationalizations, resentments, and suspicions that keep us from expressing the great Self.

Summary

Living presence is the art of awakening to the extraordinary within the ordinary, a spiritual practice that transcends religious boundaries while honoring the wisdom traditions that have nurtured human consciousness for millennia. Throughout these chapters, we've explored how the journey from separation to unity begins with polishing the mirror of awareness—removing the rust of ego, desire, and conditioning that prevents us from reflecting our true nature. The transformation is not about becoming something new but unveiling what has always been there: our essential Self connected to the creative energy of the universe. The teachings offered here provide practical pathways to presence: conscious breathing, mindful attention, the refinement of perception, and perhaps most importantly, the cultivation of love. For it is love that transforms the ego from tyrant to servant, love that bridges the gap between self and other, love that dissolves the boundaries we've constructed in our minds. As Rumi reminds us, "The religion of Love is like no other"—it requires no dogma, only the courage to die before you die, to let go of the false self that keeps us imprisoned in isolation and fear. When we release our grip on who we think we are, we discover the spaciousness to become who we truly are: reflections of the divine presence that animates all life. This is not a destination but a continuous unfolding, a moment-by-moment awakening to the living presence that exists within and all around us.

About Author

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Kabir Helminski

Kabir Helminski is codirector, with his wife, Camille Helminski, of the Threshold Society, a nonprofit organization dedicated to sharing the knowledge and practice of Sufism. He is the author of Living Presence and the translator of four volumes of Rumi's poetry.Helminski has been named as one of the "500 Most Influential Muslims in the World" by the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Center. Helminski is a teacher and advisor with The Spiritual Paths Institute, a group of contemplative teachers from Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Native American, and Hindu traditions offering programs in applied inter-spirituality.

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