**Session #1787**:
ONGELIC: Could you explain being present?
ELIAS: Yes. You may be holding your attention in the now, and you may even somewhat focus your attention upon yourself in moments, but being present with yourself in the now, especially in association with other individuals, is that action of interacting with other individuals and paying attention to their energy and what they are expressing and how you are sharing in the interaction with the other individuals, but also being aware of all that you are doing in that interaction, being aware of how you are assessing whatever you are receiving from the other individual, being aware of what YOU are doing with your energy, what YOU are evaluating, what you are actually DOING in each moment, what you generate in responses, what influences are occurring within you. This is being present with yourself. It is an allowance of yourself to interact and share with other individuals, but not allowing that to distract you from your own presence, your own being, your own participation, your own existence.
I have expressed many times to individuals that, generally speaking, most individuals move through their day in the position of the copilot of their plane, and the position of the pilot is empty. Therefore, they move through their day generating actions that are so automatic that they are not paying attention to what they are actually doing. They are not even aware of their own presence, their own existence.
It becomes so automatic that when you notice your own existence and your own presence is when you are generating some type of strong emotional communication. Generally speaking, I may say to you when you are most aware of your presence, of yourself and your existence, is if you are offering yourself an emotional communication that is uncomfortable, if you are anxious or if you are sad or if you are depressed. These are emotional signals with emotional communications that trigger you to be present with yourself. You are aware of yourself; you are aware of your existence; you are aware of your own presence.
But many times within your day, if you are not offering yourself that type of an emotional communication, you are not necessarily aware of your own presence. You are not present with yourself. You are projecting futurely or pastly, or your attention is focused upon some outside element or upon another individual and their expressions or their behaviors, or a situation or a circumstance that is occurring within your environment physically. Which, the key is not to exclude all of these outside expressions, for they are all extensions of you, but to simultaneously be aware of your own presence with them. That is the challenge.
You are quite proficient at focusing your attention outside of yourself in relation to a situation or a circumstance or another individual to the point of the exclusion of yourself. You are familiar with focusing your attention so strongly upon some outside element that you become unaware objectively of yourself. Therefore, you are excluding yourself from your attention.
Conversely, it is unfamiliar and somewhat challenging to offer yourself that kind of focus of attention. Which, the point is not to focus your attention upon yourself to the exclusion of your world or to the exclusion of all that you create within your environment — that also is an extreme — but to generate a balance in which you are aware and present with yourself. You are aware of the now and you are also aware of your interactions and what you are creating within your individual environment. Which, as it is an unfamiliar action, it does somewhat require practice. (Laughs)
**Session #1799**:
ELIAS: Presence is an awareness objectively of you, that you exist. Presence is your awareness that you are a being and that you exist in this moment. It is an awareness of the entirety of you in the now. Presence is not necessarily listening to your communications. Presence is not necessarily being aware of your environment. Presence is not necessarily being aware of what you are doing. Presence is not even necessarily being aware of what type of energy you are projecting.
(Speaking very clearly and slowly) Presence is being aware that you actually exist and experiencing the existence of yourself. This is a very significant subject. It is one that is quite unfamiliar to most individuals throughout your reality. But in shifting and in the movement that is occurring in this time framework and the ease in which opposition is being expressed, it is important to be aware of your own presence.
Excerpt from unpublished session:
Syl: …just recently, and sometimes when I'm in my 'quiet space'….when I register these deep feelings of what I call 'recognition' or 'communication'…recently, there has been even more of a ….almost like….ummm…you know, I don't like to use the word 'intelligence' because that implies intelligence the way they think of it here in this reality. But, there's been something added….like 'presence'.
ELIAS: I am quite aware of what your are expressing.
Syl: Can you expound on it just a little so I can understand it a little bit more?
ELIAS: That is much more of your own recognition of yourself as essence…..and, the expansion of that and that and the vastness of that. And, in this, you are allowing yourself to become more intimately familiar with your own expression as essence. And, I'm understanding your statement…your statement of 'intelligence', and I'm understanding the difference in which you are incorporating that term, as to the comparision of the accepted definition of intelligence. It is a vastness of essence and of consciousness that expands far beyond one attention.