Don't look for any other state than the one you are in now; otherwise, you will set up inner conflict and unconscious resistance. Forgive yourself for not being at peace. The moment you completely accept your non-peace, your non-peace becomes transmuted into peace. Anything you accept fully will get you there, will take you into peace. This is the miracle of surrender.

To listen to the silence, wherever you are, is an easy and direct way of becoming present. Even if there is noise, there is always some silence underneath and in between the sounds. Listening to the silence immediately creates stillness inside you.

In the stillness of your presence, you can feel your own formless and timeless reality as the unmanifested life that animates your physical form. You can then feel the same life deep within every other human and every other creature. You look beyond the veil of form and separation. This is the realization of oneness. This is love.

The ego is just waiting to identify with anything. Whether it's your misery or being a great meditator, it seeks some identification.

The way I feel is that there is a balance in my life between being alone and interacting with people, between Being and doing.

My mind cannot know you, only labels, judgments, facts, and opinions about you. Being alone knows directly.

You can't think about presence, and the mind can't understand it. Understanding presence is being present.