So I picked up Eck's PON book about a year ago. Went through it, really liked it as it kind offered a 'fix all solution' to lifes drama. I'm a person, with an ego and body pain so of course I thought it was an attractive idea. I flirted it with it a bit, even felt what I thought was presence a couple times, but eventually due to never reaching happy nirvanna land went back to normal life.
Well recently I went back to the book, and I would again say I felt what I thought was presence, perhaps even more so this second round, but now I am once again on the roller coaster ride back down (it comes and goes, eh!), and I'm having one major road block:
SKEPTICISM! I ask myself all the time "Is this feeling real? What am I feeling?? Is that just not the feeling of holding my breath, or breathing slower? Isn't just my muscles contracting?. Are we all just coping and fooling ourselves like fools like any other religion?
I REALLY like Eck's ideas, A part of me REALLY feels it's real, it makes sense and it is the truth in the world, but this skepticism that it's all fake/etc. is really keeping me from continuing on devoted . Perhaps I just haven't felt enough presence *(so far it's a warm feeling in my chest and tummy, once or twice in the lower back I believe)* but even then I've just been rationalizing what I felt with skepticism.
So, if there are some posters who basically have went through the same thing, can acknowledge, that yes, presence is real, they do feel it, and I'm just 'not quite there yet' or whatever, let me know...so I can basically continue where I left off.
I hope this all makes sense. I kinda wanna just know "God is real and I have seen him" (in the power of presence/now point of view) so I can continue on without questioning it.
And I guess it's impossible to confirm if what I do feel is presence so we'll just skip that.
