The Field of Our True Nature

In the past, we have been exploring the power of seeing our patterns of reaction so that we can learn how to respond to life. And we have been recognizing that the easiest place to see our patterns is around the challenges of our lives. You may ask, “Where is the joy in all of this?” Our patterns of reaction are actually floating in a vast sea of joy that is our true nature, and when we see, love and let go of our habitual patterns, we will discover that we have never left the field of joy – we just thought we had!! 

One way to describe this is to imagine a beautiful field that extends forever. I call this the field of I Am. The closest word I can use to describe this field is love, although it is truly indescribable. This is the field of our true nature, which is one with everything and shows up within us as clarity, kindness, radiance and trust. We all were born out of this field and lived in it for a least a short period of time when we were very young, before we took on, ‘I am not what I should be.’ We trusted ourselves and we trusted life. Rather than doing life we were life!  

If you look closely at what goes through your head all day long, it is mostly thoughts about wanting you and your life to be different than what they are. Without being aware of it, most of us, most of the time, think about life rather than being present for it. And this cuts us off from the field!  

How do we live in the field again rather than being immersed in struggle? It isn’t about trying to get rid of the challenges of life. That is just more struggle! It is about seeing, loving and letting go of our patterns of reaction.   

At one time, Eckhart Tolle was almost completely taken over by struggle, but instead of falling into it, he began to watch what was happening inside of him with curiosity. This curiosity moved him beyond the struggle. He then began to feel a void within him, and when intense fear showed up, he heard the words, “Resist nothing.” As he let go of the resistance, his fear left, and he fell asleep. The next morning when he woke up, he woke up in the field. As he was lying in bed, watching the first light of dawn, he says, “Without any thought, I felt, I knew that there is infinitely more to light than we realize. That soft luminosity filtering through the curtains was love itself.” He finally saw and recognized his oneness with the field, and he has been in it ever since.  

Einstein also recognized this field when he said, “To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and most radiant beauty, which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms – this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness.” 

The wondrous paradox is that we all struggle (As I said in my book The Gift of Our Compulsions, “Our core Compulsion in to struggle!”) and yet we have never left the field. May we have the courage, the commitment, the compassion and the curiosity to see through our struggle so that we can recognize the truth of the field in which we live and know that it is always with us no matter what is happening in our life.