What is necessary, in us and around us, is the creation of a certain level of energy, an attention that resists surrounding influences and does not let itself deteriorate. Then it has to receive a force that is more active, that will allow it not only to resist but to have an action and find a stable place between two currents of different levels. This possibility of equilibrium is the continuing challenge, the interval to be faced at every moment in the work for consciousness.
Yet even though it is in me, this force is not mine. And in affirming it as my own, I do not see that I separate myself from it. In wanting to attribute its power to myself I cut off its action. I create an inner world that is deprived of this life force.
The child wants to have, the adult wants to be. We need to develop an attention in us that would relate the whole of ourselves to a higher force.
Usually I look to the attitude of others in order to be convinced of my being. If they reject or ignore me, I doubt myself, if they accept me, I believe in myself.
My effort to awaken cannot be forced. We are afraid of emptiness, afraid to be nothing, and so we make an effort to be otherwise. But who makes this effort? I must see that this too comes from my ordinary “I”. All forcing comes from the ego. I must no longer be fooled by an image or an ideal that is imposed by my mind. I need to accept emptiness, accept to be nothing, accept “what is.” In this state, the possibility of a new perception of myself appears.
This requires a definite feeling, a feeling of love for being, for being present. We must respond to impressions no longer from the vantage point of personality but from love for being present. This will transform our whole way of thinking and feeling.
In order to wish to be present, I must see that I am asleep. “I” am not here. I am enclosed in a circle of petty interests and avidity in which my “I” is lost. And it will remain so unless I can relate to something higher. The first condition is to know in myself a different quality, higher that what I ordinarily am. Then my life will take on a new meaning. I must remember there is another life and at the same time experience the life that I am leading. This is awakening. I awake to these two realities.
I must feel the need to relate myself to something higher, to open to another quality.
-Jeanne de Salzmann, Reality of Being