THANK YOU – A LETTER OF COMPLETION

Seven years ago I was sitting on a beach in Mexico. I could not imagine any reason for leaving the place I was in – nor the space I was in. I had traveled through an intense 14-year experience to reach some semblance of peace.

The first seven years of that journey had been filled with excruciating pain, much confusion, and suffering on many levels.

The next seven years had been an adventure to say the least - a sometimes frantic and incoherent search for resolution to my predicament – but a great adventure into self-discovery. I had been successful in my quest. I had discovered the roots of my discomfort and gained enough clarity to begin resolving them.

As I sat there on the beach I felt as if I could truly rest for the first time – possibly for the first time ever. And so, I rested. I swam in the ocean, ate simply but well, and enjoyed the resonance of having no destination. This resonance of tranquility, however, only lasted about three months…

One gorgeous evening as I sat enraptured by yet another magnificent sunset, I received a profound insight. It was as if pieces of a broken mechanism effortlessly clicked into place and started humming in perfect precision.

I saw The Pathway Of Awareness – not only as a representation of the journey into our human experience – but also as the journey required to consciously return us into authenticity, integrity, and intimacy.

I saw the energetic mechanics of the repetitive The Seven Year Cycle and how we lived unconsciously and robotically like programmed hard drives with our imprinted software.

I saw all the various not-doing practices I had explored in the past seven years that had been efficient in assisting me to commence restoring balance into my own life.

I saw how these individual pieces fit perfectly together as a means to facilitate conscious movement into emotional integration.

Basically, I saw The Presence Process procedure, whole and complete, framed in my mind’s eye as a precise technology for gradually extracting consciousness from the hypnotic trance of our programmed, time-based paradigm.

From that moment my awareness of the peace around me began to subside and withdraw. It was not long before I realized that seeing this vision came hand-in-hand with a responsibility. It was shown to me because I had asked for it.

I had intended to acquire this awareness years before.

In 1995 I had declared to the universe that my path through self-healing become something of value to others.

‘Ask, and you shall receive.’

Eventually it became clear that I had to leave that beautiful Mexican beach and complete my task, or else be haunted by the relentless, un-itch-able scratch of incompleteness.

That was seven years ago. As I now look back along the road I have traveled since then I am able to appreciate the power of intent.

In 2001 I left Mexico and returned to South Africa. During the first six months I methodically put together the self-facilitating technology I had perceived on the beach. Then, when I felt ready, I placed a flyer at a venue in Johannesburg and committed to sharing an awareness of this work.

During that presentation – which drew a sizeable gathering – I only spent all of ten minutes within the three hour delivery explaining that I had put together ‘an as yet untested procedure to activate present moment awareness’.

The rest of the presentation was on the necessity for us to now begin consciously integrating our physical, mental, and emotional experience – and on the various perceptual tools useful within such an adventure.

Afterward, 12 people approached me and asked about ‘the procedure’ I had mentioned. They wanted to enter it.

Those 12 people are truly brave Souls! I still feel the impact of their bravery everyday and know I always will.

The entry of those 12 into the work marked the experiential birth of The Presence Process procedure. From that moment I did not advertise this work. I allowed the consequences of the work to lead the way. I honored word-of-mouth as the vehicle for its organic growth.

During the next three years I worked fulltime facilitating individuals through the procedure – as well as testing it out on myself. Soon I was busy facilitating six days a week. I again let consequence be the barometer for improving the efficiency of the technology. Gradually, each person showed me what it would take to turn this into a tool of authentic self-facilitation.

After three years I had a procedure that accomplished something real.

It then took me another year to place this technology in the format of a book. This was no easy task. I had to write a book that not only presented the procedure – but that also trained the reader in an entire experiential vocabulary that empowered them to facilitate themselves responsibly.

My intent was and has always been self-facilitation and self-healing.

I wanted The Presence Process procedure to run free of the greedy grasps of the profiteering agendas of this world and the organizations posing as ‘spiritual’, but which are actually camouflaged businesses using spirituality as another commodity.

I knew if I could really place this work in the hands of the individuals who were ready for it - without it being diluted by the virus of this organizational mentality - I would succeed in launching the first real anti-virus program into the matrix – an anti-virus program that would commence dismantling the hypnotic perceptual imprinting maintaining time-based mentality.

I had to launch it into the matrix in a way that enabled it to run freely so that once initiated, it would become unstoppable. The only way to accomplish this was to imbed it into the hearts of individuals, and not into any time-based organizational matrix.

By their very nature of defining themselves, organizations are inherently limited and limiting. However, individuals are able to move in and out of a multiple variety of organizations within their daily experience.

I knew therefore that if I could transmit this technology in a way that the people doing it became it, then it would automatically be carried into every aspect of our human experience.

My intent was to seed this anti-virus software into all aspects of religion, politics, and commerce. To accomplish this I had to design it in a way that its application not inhibit entry into these various fabrics of our human experience.

The Presence Process procedure had to appeal to the heart of the human, then enter the heart of the human, and so be carried within the heart of the human. It had to take on its own life.

I knew there would be many challenges in placing a self-facilitation technology into a world that unconsciously worshiped being facilitated by somebody or something seemingly outside of ones personal experience.

The whole premise of The Presence Process procedure is that its efficiency is hinged on ‘the validation of our own experience’.

Validating our own experience is alien to most of humanity.

Most of humanity is indoctrinated through politics, commerce, and religion into robotically denying our own experience in favor of a more superior one being offered to us by another. 

Whoever offers us an experience other than the one we are currently having becomes our point of worship. The moment we bow down in obedience or compliance to this point of worship we are lost to the validity of our own lives. We then wander unconsciously into the wilderness of another's illusions. This subsequent state of hypnosis is accepted as normal human behavior.

I also knew – and I know this sounds crazy – that one of the biggest obstacles facing me was that The Presence Process procedure actually works. It impacts our state of hypnosis by reintroducing us to authenticity, integrity, and intimacy, and so gradually assists in toppling the false gods we worship.

Because it really works, others would want to bake it into a big pie so they could sell off the pieces for profit.

Others would want to form ‘Presence Process Groups’ so they could appear qualified and competent in something.

Individuals would attempt to use it as a means to project their unintegrated emotional condition upon others.

Hell, I may even get swept up in the tide of its impact and want to use it ‘to become somebody who is doing something special’! I am after all a Leo.

If this was truly to be an anti-virus program that worked – then wherever possible - the stickiness of unnecessary organizational mentality had to be circumvented. I had to protect it from this mentality with as much vigilance as I had to protect it from myself.

In 2005 I was fortunate to have The Presence Process published by Constance Kellough of Namaste Publishing Inc. She saw what this technology is and honored my approach to the work. She not only chose to be a vehicle to bring this work into the world – but she also entered the work experientially herself. Because of this, I knew the work was protected under her watch – and always shall be.

Upon publishing the book, Constance asked me if I – when the time came - would be prepared to personally seed this work in the world through traveling and delivering presentations.

I agreed – but not without careful inner scrutiny.

I realized that because the impact of The Presence Process is real – and because I was choosing to be the initial vehicle for delivering it into human awareness – people may make the common perceptual mistake of identifying with me, and not the work.

Most of us human beings, especially when we are emotionally undeveloped, are looking for ‘a guru’ - or at least someone to fix us - or at least someone to tell us what to do.

Only priests, politicians, pharmaceutical reps, advertising agencies, egomaniacal radio and television hosts, and cult leaders invite the opportunity at this point of our evolutionary experience to stand up in front of a crowd and behave as if they know what to do. And, only our hypnotic trance leads us into believing such individuals.

This unconsciously driven I-am-willing-to-following-anybody-but-me-mentality is counterproductive to any authentic intent for self-empowerment or self-facilitation.

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The bottom line is that I had to be clear about what I was doing and what my part in this is. And, I had to keep reminding myself of this intent daily, especially when around those full of praise.

Most vigilance had to be applied whenever compliments are paid to me and not to the work.

People who paid me compliments obviously needed or wanted something. People who pay the work compliments are vulnerable to receiving something real from it. It is important to know the difference.

My role in this journey had to be purpose-driven and not career-orientated. In other words – I had a job to get done – as opposed to trying to turn this work into ‘my job’.

I had to recognize when to get out so that I did not become a caricature of myself flogging ‘the Presence Process catalogue of products’ on some public television station.

If I kept doing what I was doing just because I was successful at doing it – I would miss the point – and the boat! I would end up using The Presence Process to maintain a standard of living – which would dilute the integrity of the work.

And so, just over two years ago I left my comfortable home in South Africa, the wonderful company of my family, the cats I love, my facilitation practice, and headed for The United States and Canada. This kicked off both my presentation work and another level of one-on-one facilitation experiences.

Along the way I had to face myself over and over again. I had to make many seeming mistakes.

And, I consistently made many seeming mistakes. They were all valid. They served as my teachers - as my instructors in 'how to' and 'how not to'.

I often lost my way, forgot my task, and behaved unconsciously.

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Fortunately, the universe brought me one person I could trust to keep my feet on the ground – Elizabeth McManus.

Her intent is so impeccable that she would cringe at the mention of her name in this piece of writing. But to acknowledge that I have now successfully accomplished my task in seeding The Presence Process procedure in the world and not mention her name is unthinkable.

Elizabeth walked quietly and invisibly with me almost from the start of my journey through The United States and Canada, and when the point of completion began to show itself, she had the courage and conviction to continue her journey beyond this work – as I must now continue mine.

Many of the insights and expressions now commonly used by me in the presentations came through her. She also taught me that intimacy - the pivotal resonance of this work - is not about developing yet another structural paradigm for caging love in this world – that it is instead about setting love free in all respects.

She set me free and patiently, through example, showed me how to set another free.

I know myself enough to know that keeping my intent clear, my feet on the ground, and my eyes on the prize would have been 1000 times more challenging had I not had her as my intimacy companion.

To say that the seeding experience of this work has been fun is an understatement. And, as fun as it has been, and still is as I now bring it to completion, it has also been extremely uncomfortable.

To get this job done I have had to grow quickly in many areas of my life. I have had to learn to walk with compassion and care.

Along the way my many emotional obstacles and consequent resistances to being consistently available to others surfaced for resolution. I am by nature a solitary flyer as I love my own company.

At times I tried to push this presentation experience away. Fortunately, the universe always embraced the impact of my reactive behavior and continued to remain compassionately open so that I may continue and complete the task.

Through such experiences it became clear to me that although I was responsible for the way I portrayed myself and hence the work, I was definitely not alone in bringing it into accessibility.

In fact, it became obvious that every aspect of my journey had nothing to do with ‘teaching others’. That was just what it appeared to be on the surface. Rather, it was a rare and transient opportunity to become a full-time student in a very intense life-university.

Everyone proved to be my teacher!

It shall always be this way.

Right from the start, it became clear that my presentation experience was not only to be a transient one – that it had a purpose which would at some point arrive at a moment of completion – but that it was a rare opportunity to create a resource center for anyone entering this work.

Consequently, with the assistance of Dr. Paul Bahder, The Presence Portal was created – and we now have a website dedicated to the art form of self-facilitation. It is truly a remarkable website in what it contains and offers. This compilation of insight too has been a collective effort.

As the presentation experience unfolded and took me from community to community, those who arrived taught me through their attention how to present this work in a manner that is efficient.

Those who came to the one-on-one sessions taught me how to slice through ‘the mental story’ and directly into the heart of the matter.

These accumulated insights were then digested and delivered to others as written works via The Presence Portal website. Each one of you who came to any of the encounters added something to this collective resource.

There has also been another great prize to the presentation experience: Through realizing how to present this body of work efficiently came another book, Alchemy Of The Heart.

Although this is only the second book I have had published, it is actually the seventh written or compiled to support this work in as many years. The others are now placed as free downloads on the website.

Out of the presentation experience I also learnt how to pace myself upon this journey – and out of this came The 2008 Alchemy Of The Heart Tour.

In commencing this particular leg of the journey I simultaneously intended it to be the completion of the seeding of this work in The United States. Although - as with all intents - I only realized what this meant as I journeyed through the consequential experience.

It is also impossible to write about the task of seeding this work without mentioning Kathy Cholod (and her son Gregg) of Namaste Publishing Inc. She sits quietly behind the scenes but the impact of her intent to get this work out into the world is incalculable. Many of you found this work through Kathy's relentless submitting of books where required. Not enough can be said about her role here. She watched over my traveling experience like a hawk and took care of the small details that allowed me to journey with greater ease. 

People may wonder why this work is primarily seeded into the regions of The United States and Canada? I cannot say I know for sure what the answer to this question is. What many of you may not real eyes is the much of the initial exploration that brought about The Presence Process procedure took place in The United States.

Mexico has also played a crucial role in all of this and that is why I am elated that The Presence Process is now available in Spanish.

It is from the indigenous communities of Mexico and the Southwest of The United States that much of the insight about extracting consciousness from a time-based paradigm comes.

It is my insight that the seeding of the work upon the Northern America is required for fertilizing its growth throughout the entire planet.

This was not my personal will – this is what is unfolded – and therefore is what is required.

It is also important to not that the roots of this seeding began in South Africa. Without the bravery of many South Africans this procedure would not be as efficient as it now is.

Today, as I scan the horizon of the last seven years, of the period that unfolded since leaving that beautiful beach in Mexico in 2001, I am saturated with deep satisfaction and inexpressible gratitude. Not only have I written seven books, but through Namaste Publishing Inc. there is also a complete audio library on CD and DVD.

On the website we have many useful articles, all written from the resonance of personal experience, most of which offer some sensible practical application of the insights they share. There are also many free audio recordings covering every aspect of this work – six comprehensive video interviews – and a body of work translated into Spanish.

I can now declare with certainty that everything required for any individual who sincerely seeks authentic self-empowerment is available – and most of it is free.

Now, I only have three presentations left – in Connecticut, Colorado, and Aspen. These are a trinity of final completion and celebration for me. I am going to enjoy every second of them and am interested to experience whatever final insights arise for digestion.

I know that dessert is served last – yum-yum! I look forward to these final encounters with you.

I can now honestly stand in front of the mirror, look myself in the eyes and say: "Job exceedingly well done Michael. Thank you." I still have my integrity and so I have everything.

My primary task in it all has been to maintain its authenticity and integrity so that this body of work contains the capacity to assist anyone to real eyes intimacy within themselves, and consequently with others.

I feel successful in this regard.

I was also fortunate to realize along the way that by giving as much of it away freely in the best way I knew how – by making it as freely accessible to others as is possible in such a world as this – I guaranteed my own freedom from it.

Due to this approach I can get up and leave without turning back. This work now runs free of my needing to oversee anything. It truly is self-facilitating and self-empowering. It has empowered me. It has transformed me into a free agent.

The Presence Process procedure set me free.

One of my greatest accomplishments is that this work has not become organized through the matrix of any group hierarchy. There are no ‘Presence Process Groups’ that I know of.

Some will however still try to bring it into some specialized group-mentality – and then defend their intent to do so with much mental justification.

This is because they still have something to learn through such endeavors.

This is because they have not yet realized what alchemy is.

The resonance and radiance of The Presence Process procedure belongs to no one. It is not confined to any Sangat-mentality,. It requires no specially trained instructors. There are no costly courses of hierarchical qualification. It has spurned no individual or group co-dependency mentality.

It truly has side-stepped the spiritual cul-de-sac of ‘follower co-dependency’. It has also liberated many from their entrapment in this predicament.

The Presence Process procedure truly belongs to those who enter it.

It truly becomes those who apply it.

It is not confined to a book – but through the experience of the procedure – leaps from the pages of the book and into the hearts of those to have journeyed through it.

Because it is at its core 'an experience' - it now walks, lives, and breathes as humans upon planet earth.

It is free.

In the two years I have traveled the US and Canada I have not dis-empowered one Soul by turning them into ‘a student’ or ‘a follower’. And, if any of you in any way perceive yourselves to be ‘my student’ – my response to you is this: "Snap out of it – you’re delusional!"

Come mid-August I can walk away and the work continues without me. No one needs me. This is a marvelous accomplishment! I have freed myself of any attachments and so caused no others to be attached to me.

I am still a student – I did not fall for or into the New Age egomania of becoming ‘a spiritual teacher’, or for trying to ‘save the world’ from itself.

This work is now available to you.

You have to be the one within your experience to care whether you enter it or not – not me.

I don’t care whether you enter it or not. I really cannot care about this aspect of it because I know emotional growth is only authentic when sourced from within.

Conversion-mentality has no place within authentic self-empowerment.

You are responsible for the quality of your experience – not me or anyone else. Your experience is valid.

Responding or reacting to it is your Soul choice.

Personally, I am done with all things ‘spiritual’ – and those who truly explore this work experientially may become fortunate enough to share the same fate – to be liberated from the kitchen of mental metaphysics. The kitchen is great for cooking but is no place to live.

This work gradually liberates us from thinking about, talking about, and explaining life to ourselves and others. It instead births us into the resonance of simply living it - and living it simply.

When we truly live life we do not have some compartments of our human experience that are spiritual and others that are not.

This work liberates us from all the co-dependency of specialized groups by empowering us to become intimate within our authentic group: All of the humanity that touches our life in each given moment of our daily encounters.

The Presence Process procedure frees us from siding only with those who agree with and think like us.

It ends our approaching God as a reaction to our lives.

Along the way many have asked me a particular question – especially in direct relation to the challenging experience of emotional cleansing: "Is there any end to this work?"

This is my answer: "Yes. I am complete and when you truly validate your experience and embrace it as your Teacher, as your Truth, as The Light Of Your World, you too will accomplish completion."

‘Completion’ within The Presence Process does not mean enlightenment. Personally, I have no interest in the concept of enlightenment.

Nor does completion mean becoming comfortably numb again. I have no interest in manipulating my experience so that I feel happy all the time.

Completion in the context of this work requires shifting perceptually from thinking and talking about living - from ‘practicing living’ - into fully living life. Completion means the dress-rehearsal is over.

It means arriving within the resonance of a journey in which all experience is responded to as valid.

It means entering 'the journey' as the only destination.

It means jumping off the edge of ‘the understood’ - beyond the mental body’s five-year-plan for success and accomplishment - and into the arms of the unfamiliar.

In other words – we reach completion when we trust that each moment is valid.

It is this simple and this powerful.

Yet, this cannot be understood – only experienced.

So, I share all these thoughts and insights with you primarily for one purpose: To tell you that I am now reaching completion within my task of seeding this work in the world – and that I could not have accomplished it without you.

If you hosted a presentation, came to a presentation, did a one-on-one session with me, gave me a lift to a venue or the airport, fed me or allowed me to buy you a meal, gave me a place to stay in your home, asked me a question on email or sent me your insights, and encouraged others in their heart-work – thank you.

And, most importantly, if you entered this work experientially yourself in any way – thank you. You are heroic. You have chosen to be ‘a warrior’ as opposed to ‘a worrier’.

By entering this work experientially you contribute to it eternally.

You showed up in a way that counts. You are part of adding something real to the human experience that is now paving the way for others to awaken from generations of imprinted programming. Whether they awaken or not is not our business – but that they now have yet another opportunity to do so is worthy of great celebration.

Is there any greater accomplishment for humanity at this juncture?

You have been part of initiating the resonance of authenticity, integrity, and intimacy into the human experience. And, what has been accomplished is now largely free to all.

Even if people do not buy The Presence Process or Alchemy Of The Heart, or any of the CD’s – there is still a massive body of work freely available on The Presence Portal that is undeniably self-facilitating, self-empowering, and irreversibly transformational.

And, through the vehicle of The Presence Portal, this work lives and breathes free of corporate logos, profit margins, organizational ego-mania, and any sort of interference.

It is clean, clear, and efficient. It is truly a lighthouse and I am honored to have been associated with it and with you in establishing it in this way.

Now I can go back to the beach. I have, for the most part completed my intent. There are still one or two pieces to be added – but these tasks too will soon reach completion.

I now personally dismantle all the structures built unconsciously from my childhood emotional signature. The world I unconsciously built to keep me safe from my fear, anger, and grief is gradually disintegrating. The structures built to keep God out are dissolving.

Consequently, the awareness of the peaceful resonance that is already given to us all is returning increasingly into my awareness.

Who knows what will happen now? I have no plans other than to make my way consciously back to that beach in Mexico. My guitar has been sitting patiently in the corner. My child-self is visioning sandcastles. The adult in me is almost completely RIP. What a trip! Groovy…

Onward, inward, upward…

Thank you – from the center of my heart – thank for your love and participation.

Kindest regards,

Michael.

July 2008.

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