" Self " Remembering...

It all begins with simply reclaiming your attention, so the first step is to bring yourself back into the present moment. Be quietly aware of your own breathing and the feeling of your feet on the floor. Notice the sounds in the room and the tension in your shoulders. See that even as life goes on all around you, it's going on within you as well. Be aware that not only do you have a body, but that you are in it!

Can you feel the shift of energy? This small action feels so new and different because it connects us to our true nature. Now, instead of relating to the world through our limited thoughts and feelings about it, we are in direct contact with what's Real -- no more middleman means no more confusion, no more conflict over what's best and brightest for you and everyone else.

Next, as you keep your attention in your body and on the present moment, be aware that you are alive -- quietly know that you exist and rest there in this understanding: that who you really are is beyond thought, above imagination, outside time... an instrument of the Divine. To know and act on this understanding is what it means to remember yourself. This is the true "practicing of the Presence," because you enter into that Presence each time you remember to make this shift in your attention.

This shift in consciousness opens the door to a whole new vibrant and extraordinary world. However, even though the exercise itself may seem easy and straightforward, don't be fooled. Remembering yourself every once in a while may be easy, but it won't change your life.

You must learn how to make self-remembering part of your moment-to-moment experience, so that you begin to live within this higher level of conscious awareness. And so while it's fair to say that remembering yourself is simple and easy, it can also be said that remembering to remember yourself consistently is one of the hardest things for a human being to do.

I can't stress this point enough...

In fact, you could say that the difference between a person who has an important and enlightened life, and someone who lives out an ordinary, unimportant one, is determined by how often and how deeply a person remembers to remember him- or herself.

You instinctively know the truth of this fact. After all, we've all experienced the energy and enthusiasm of a great book, movie, or motivational seminar. I know that when I left the theater after watching the movie Braveheart, I could feel that there was greatness inside me -- and I told myself that I would never again compromise my principles to gain the approval of another person. Yet, after moments like these, what happens a day, or a week later?

Nothing. The book or the movie is forgotten, the New Year's resolution is broken, the new diet gives way to Ben & Jerry's, and life is back to "normal."

Why?

Because we forget.

The power of any idea -- no matter how grand -- is only as good as our ability to remember it. Self-remembering is not exempt from this law of self success. Its power and beauty is only as good as our ability to remember and be in relationship with it............. Guy Finlay