Live, Monthly Classes at Spirit Matters on Patreon
Raymond Ziemkowski
May – June 2025 • Vol 4, No 16
I would like to share an exercise that is an analogy of our spirit coming into incarnation and experiencing life—our thoughts and feelings, and the material world. Imagine that your spirit is a rock or pebble that drops into a body of water, a small pond, or mountain lake, perhaps into a larger ocean-like body. Water is feminine and receptive. We know that water is a medium that receives and holds the subtle vibration of thought and feeling. So, this rock drops into the water and sets into motion waves of concentric circles moving outwards.
Waves are interesting. We have all experienced a beach or lake shore scene where wave after wave appears to be moving towards a shore line until they run out of water and splash on the shore.
When I was about 19 and lived in Seattle, there was a beach on Puget Sound near downtown Seattle, WA, where I enjoyed watching the waves come in. I enjoyed watching the vertical, up-and-down motion of the seaweed in the water maybe 25 yards out. I would pick a single wave oscillation, then two, then three, etc. until the illusion of motion towards the beach took over my perception, and I lost the perception of the seaweed and the water’s vertical, up-and-down movement.
I enjoyed playing with this exercise to be able to hold larger and larger areas until the horizontal movement of the water towards the beach took over my perception.
Back to the body of water and the concentric waves created when we (the rock) dropped in. As these waves begin to reach the diverse topography of the shoreline, some landscapes create beautiful shorelines that you might surf right up onto the sand. Some landscapes might be rough and treacherous, with tide pools or rock faces that pummel the water back upon itself. You might say that some of these waves were pleasant or pleasing to experience and others were much less so.
Let’s add to this picture numerous rocks dropped into the pool or even the image of raindrops, each creating concentric rings and overlapping interference patterns and interactions. Energetically, all of these rings are interacting and sharing information. Often creating dangerous currents or even riptides.
Does this sound a bit like life?
Suppose that, instead of being taken over by the excitement and activity of the surface waves we are experiencing in life, we remember the rock, the part of spirit within us that dropped in and fell into the body of water. Imagine holding and ensouling the entire pond or lake or ocean. Imagine being the observer within, a witnessing presence that is aware of it all happening. What a different experience! From that perspective, we are not the experience—we are an observer of what is happening. This is the Witnessing Presence—our seat of self in spirit.
Just like we can visualize and imagine ensouling the activity of raindrops in a body of water, we can make the same analogy with groups of people, family, and community, nations, and even a planet.
If we choose, we can hold a spiritual balance in this equation of life and amplify the unity, the beauty, and the magic of life instead of identifying with the likes and dislikes and the personal preferences that interfere with each other on the surface.
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This short essay is part of a Spirit Matters class I guest hosted on the Hearts Center’s Patreon platform on Thursday, April 17th titled: How Discovering The “Witness Seat” of Presence Helps Us Resolve and Unwind the Egoic Mind.
I began this class with a quick review of Eckhart Tolle’s teachings on Presence that originated in his two famous books, The Power of Now—A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment, and A New Earth—Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose. Tolle taught that we experience a deep, transcendental, spiritual state of Presence when we center our being fully in the present moment—the Now.
He taught that we step out of the vertical/centered, higher consciousness states and into what he termed our “pain body”—a horizontal state, when we begin to process our experiences through labels and judgments, based on past experiences. This horizontal, self-created, egoic structure, based on a pain body that originated in the past, works tirelessly to calculate, manipulate and project a future that either shelters us from past pain or brings to us pleasant experiences. Rediscovering the Power of Now and centering in Presence, the Witness Seat, is a profound short cut to self-realization. That’s it—that is the core of Elkhart Tolle’s teachings in a nutshell.
In this class, I explore the teachings of Michael A. Singer based on his two books, Untethered Soul—The Journey Beyond Yourself, and Living Untethered—Beyond the Human Predicament. I consider these books and teachings as equal companions to Elkhart Tolle’s teachings and worthy of our study to complement and go deeper into our spiritual practices.
Like Eckhart Tolle, Michael Singer’s profound and direct experience through meditation and mindfulness anchors a transmission teaching that is transforming millions of lives. Both spiritual teachers explore the nature of mind and offer a way out of suffering.
In Michael Singer’s books, he reveals and helps us unravel the physiology of our mind. He shows us how pure consciousness, the simple awareness of being—The Witness that is inside us experiencing life—is forgotten, which leads to a subsequent cascade of reactions that result in the birth of our personal mind/psyche and separate ego.
In this class, I unfold and outline from Singer’s books just what is going on in our heads that keeps us from experiencing reality and higher states of consciousness—and how to get beyond that.
I invite you to subscribe to Spirit Matters on Patreon for live, monthly classes from David Christopher Lewis, myself, and other presenters. There are various subscription options from Free, to $4, to $11, to $25/month, including replays of past classes. Check us out on Patreon HERE.
Raymond Ziemkowski is a native Montanan. He has been a student of many spiritual teachings since he was a teenager, often experiencing visionary dreams and insights. For most of his adult life, he has sold crystals, gems, and books spanning the esoteric teachings of the world religions. “Over the years,” he says, “I’ve listened deeply to the customers in my store. I consider the highest teaching and path, and the best book for them, to be the one that guides them to the next steps on their spiritual path.” Raymond is a long-time member of HeartsCenter.org.
