Where are you?

Recently, a client sent me an e-mail with the subject line, “Where are you?”  He hadn’t heard from me in awhile and wondered if I was here, in cyberspace.

I’ve noticed lately that none of us is really “here.”

There’s been a lot of talk about “being present” through the centuries.  Eckhart Tolle’s “The Power of Now” and  “A New Earth” surely remind us to be present.  I remember Ram Dass’ directive: Be. Here. Now.

At one point this week, I was on Facebook, my husband was on Twitter and my three-year old was watching nursery rhyme videos on YouTube.  We were all in the same house, under the same roof, in different rooms, and each of us was on our own digital device of choice having some kind of interaction with something other than a human being.  In other words, none of us was having a direct-experience.  We were having a sort of second-hand experience.  Now what, exactly, is wrong with this picture?

In our home, we have the following digital/electronic devices: one huge television, one home computer (and a couple of old ones stuffed in closets or in the garage), one work computer, two lap tops, one Ipod, one ITouch, one IPhone, two toddler computers, one Blackberry, one stereo, several digital cameras, two cell phones, one video camera, satellite radio (house/car), HD (on the tv)…anyway, you get the picture…the list goes on…

I am processing out loud here (via my typing, I guess) about what we can do to have more authentic, genuine, real direct communication…to each other (as a family) and to each other as friends, clients, and so on.  Instead of communicating with digital devices or communicating with others through the filter of some techno-machine.  Being present in each moment of our lives, I believe, requires us to turn everything off and experience the stillness, solitude and quiet awareness that is alive and real and is a first-hand direct experience with the divine or reality or God or whatever you choose to name that vast, expansive, empty (yet completely whole and full) space that is our spirit or energy or consciousness.  I believe that the more we do that, the more we will actually be present for our lives and have the capacity to actually engage in real conversations with other human beings (note, we are NOT called human doings!)

And as they say, presence is a real gift.  That’s why they call it a present:)