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Avikal Costantino

Take your time; there is no other time. Even when everything seems to accelerate beyond control – especially then – take your time.

Time does not exist as an objective thing; it depends completely on your perception and your connection with yourself. If you are present, in touch with how you experience reality and open to what you are experiencing, then you are the master of time, not its slave.

How do we do that? The method is simple: it has a few basic steps that require no particular skills, talents or techniques. It is called “practicing presence”.

I imagine that you, like me, want to live life and not just survive. I assume that you too want to experience life’s fullness and richness. I know that you too have asked yourself at least once, “Is this all there is to life?” There is an answer to that: presence.

It is the answer to all questions because it is the only quality that allows you to find your answers and those are the only answers that will satisfy your thirst and your longing.

Very often, it seems very difficult to take time for yourself, to find, even conceive, the possibility that you can live according to your rhythm. At times, nearly impossible. And yes, it’s not easy because pretty much everything in the world as we know it is there to distract us.

What is easy is getting lost in other people, in objects, in projects, in worrying, in acquiring and running after… and yet if we can just stop for a second and ask ourselves these questions: Who is getting lost? Who is running? Who is reading right now?

Just by asking this WHO, we are already a little less lost, a little less on the run, a little more present. And, then the next question is, present to who? To the only one that can be aware of the running and the getting lost and the reading and the asking… YOU!

You are the miracle, the fundamental awareness that recognizes each event, moment, potential, tendency, relation, emotion, sensation, and thought that is this life you want to live fully.

So the first step is: ask the question and take the time to feel the presence of the experiencer. You will be getting in touch, little by little, with what I call the Authentic Self: the unique manifestation that you are.

The second step is: remember your Self. Once you recognize that you exist at the very center of your every moment, then just take the time to stop in that moment and remember: I am the experiencer.

The third step is: remember when you forget. Embrace your forgetting. There is no need for guilt, no need for self judgment, just notice, “Oh, I forgot!” And you will be instantaneously back and connected.

This is a practice, my friend. Something that will take time and intention and commitment, but the passion that you will find, the joy in being present, the delight for the richness of any experience, and the gratefulness….

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Avikal is a mystic. Curiosity, passion and love for the truth guide his teaching and are transmitted in a clear and focused way. He is the founder and director of the Integral Being Institute active in Europe, Asia and Australia.

Avikal worked as an anthropologist and a free-lance photographer.

His love for Martial Arts, which he began in 1970, took him to teaching Aikido and Sword in 1987, while his love for the body produced diplomas and professional activity in Shiatsu, Yu-Ki and Seitai (healing techniques). From 1989 to 1994 he is the director of the Osho School for Centering and Zen Martial Arts in Pune, India. Being involved with Zen and Advaita for more than 25 years, he now leads retreats such as Satori and The Awareness Intensive.

Since 1997, he has developed an innovative and original approach to the work with the Inner Judge and he is a well known teacher of Essence and Ennegram. He is also a Life-coach, Management Trainer and Executives Mentor working with presence, leadership, resilience and conflict resolution in Italy and Australia.

He is the author of When the Ocean Dissolves into the Drop. Osho, Love, Truth and me (2016), Freedom to Be Yourself: Mastering the Inner Judge (2012), Without a Mask. Discovering your Authentic Self (2010) and the collection of poems Lust, Love and Prayer (2018).

For more information, please visit integralbeing.com

This Post Has 34 Comments

  1. Mi tocca affrontare la mia atavica pigrizia e imparare meglio l’inglese (oppure google translate 🙂 ). Ciao Avikal un abbraccio.

  2. Grazie dal cuore… ho appena intrapreso il mio cammino e già sono consapevole dell’ immenso privilegio nel averti al mio fianco…

  3. Grazie per il tuo sostegno e la tua preziosissima guida!
    Il tuo amore arriva come luce che fa chiarezza e sostiene nei momenti più bui.

  4. Grazie Avikal! Le tue condivisioni sono davvero preziose e per me sono state nel tempo tra le fonti principali di ispirazione. Arriva chiaramente dalle tue parole il modo diretto ed essenziale di trasmettere il tuo insegnamento.

  5. Beautifully written and indeed a good read. But life on this earth doesn’t make sense to me anymore, maybe in heaven I’ll find peace. I plan to end my life on my birthday n I hope n pray God will accept me as I have heard those who end their lives on purpose will end in hell which I often doubt. Good people shouldn’t get punished no matter how they die.

    1. dear flo, i don’t know you and i respect whatever you feel is your way…i also know out of my own experience that life has not an intrinsic meaning but that we give to it moment to moment as we create ourselves and reality…you are god and you are creating hell or heaven every moment here/now…perhaps you can take this challenge and responsibility and create a different reality for yoursel
      f that is not suffering…love, avikal

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