The Present Moment is the extent of your attention and the coherence that you weave into events and entities. THAT is your Present Moment!
What I hear of Present Moment is often a poetic declaration, but I have not read (and not tried to read, I admit!, but that is because I protect my mind from the opinions of others and attempt to understand a matter by observing it directly rather than being told what a thing is! And yes, that makes me very unpopular with people who wish to control me!) a good, logical, tangible definition of what composes the Present Moment.
What it is?
It is time? Is it space? Is it time x space?
What is “right here, right now” when I am in the market to buy the bread that my mother told me seven minutes ago to buy promptly, or else!?
I am in the market now, though.
Why am I not overtaken by sights, sounds, and smells?
Or drift effortlessly off when a trafficker beacons to me and says, “Come hither! Take a look at what’s in the back of my van!”
That sounds fluid and present to me!?
Then why or how am I anchored in the memory of my mother, my home, my task… and have a timeline?
I will tell you something: Often when I am writing pieces like this is the first time that I am accessing my own knowing and putting it in words, even assembling the pieces of data that I have available. I often have a synthesizing insight as I go along, and I return for edits. In some time, that may span from a few hours to a few years, that insight becomes something. (Such as my model The Salaam Matrix which started as a spontaneous diagram on a whiteboard, and is now an entire, evolving system with a dedicated codex! The work just keeps growing like sourdough!)
Which is to confess that as I am writing this, I do not know which way this post will go. I simply heard in my heard the title of this post, it was “What is the Present Moment?” but expanded as I was writing it, and then I wrote the first sentence, “The Present Moment is the extent of your attention and the coherence that you weave into events and entities.” And thereafter, I am writing!
Which means that we are piecing this together. You are reading this in real time exactly as I am trying to figure out what the fabled Present Moment really is!
My hypothesis is that the Present Moment is a composition of what a human can retain and obtain at any given instance, how it is mapped in their attention, and how close it is to their agency. A human can observe events that are, historically, apart or far ahead or behind. They can think of place that are near and far. But they can shrink or expand these distances of time & space in their mind, as well as change the location and placement of what they are holding in their attention. In doing so, they can leap from one event and place to another at the same ease or difficulty with which they hold this map, without revealing aspects of it to another who can alter this map in their own head and attach a different sequence and meaning!
Yes! Keeping the map in your own headspace is vital to having power over the map. Otherwise, another being can alter that map for you simply be holding different thoughts or inserting a different belief in you.
Sometimes we can hold some very detailed information at great density, centered at one point. In that case, we can at least access that data virtually (in memory) if not master somatic transportation. The art of somatic transportation involves being invisible and hidden, and doing the minimal with the world. It means being immaculate with your words and conduct and not have debts or lingering debts. Because when you engage excessively, when you are acting out of integrity, and when you are in debt, you get anchored in space and time and cannot move swiftly. Having assets and accumulations has the same effect; though we can intentionally root and ground ourselves in space and time by building home and relations in a place. That is fair enough. We may get somatically grounded and yet have spiritual and virtual freedom when we have lived in integrity and accumulated no debt.
Debt means that a piece of you is held by someone.
Acting out of integrity means that your own soul has got bent out of shape and cannot travel easily in the tunnels of space and time in the Unseen. (Yes, they exist.)
Engaging excessively means that too many people have memories and parts of you, and your soul is scattered over your parts. Their memories of you, and their narratives about you will keep altering what is you in an Unseen dimension, which is a serious issue. If you think of yourself as a cloud or a river, then your interactions with people are akin to them taking parts of your vapor or water. Not only do you get reduced, but you are connected to those parts of you that they hold or keep. This is why you should not interact with every random person in your life, nor engage in activities that are out of your lane. What gives cohesion to parts of you in various places (sometimes you have to seed and invest parts of you, and that is also for good!) is you having intention and purpose. Then what you leave of you is an extension of your spirit, story, impact and reach. The key is that you are integrated and that you did what is correct and right. That said, there are environments and encounters that will categorically degrade you, and others that will uplift and cleanse you.
Attention to one’s environment is key.
There are also parts of you that you categorically evolve out of and drop behind, and you transform into a new being. It is important to cut old memories off, and occupy your new role and position as fully as you can.
“Wherever you are, be the soul of that place.”
Said Mevlana Rumi, the poet of Love.
Many of the ethics and even “moral codes” of humanity emerge out of this need to keep what is your Self, very compact, centered and integrated.
They are also ordained so that your moments can remain within your control and reach, which is vital if you want to go from place to place, and time to time. When you do so, you are able to alter place and time from where you are, with your intent. And you use that power not only for yourself, but for the world around you. You have reach backwards, forward and sideways in time. You may not always want to use it. Sometimes it is best to let things be.
In fact, the best strategy is to let the Master of the World handle things and await Hu’s invitation and provocation to do work in realms beyond what is immediate to your sight and senses. When you gain mastery over your Self and your mind, you will note that you will obtain invites to work with your abilities.
Every day people have this gift and skill and do not realize it because it is second nature to them. But some have extraordinary mastery over events and places and move with the minimal of earthly resources and spend. Some try to obtain these skills through magic and manipulation.
I do not.
I seek more cleaner and debt-free doors, such as surrendering to reality, surrendering your internal conflicts, dialogs and agenda and becoming more available to the energetic currents of Reality (given that you are in a safe space, this is not for contaminated and evil environments where you must keep your energy close at hand and not expand around). I prefer good deeds and dealings, which speed up time for you. I prefer good and clear intentions, because they remove heaviness of the mind and the psyche. I prefer reading energy to understand the Cosmic mood and temperament. I prefer reflection and contemplation that will get you to the depth of the matter. I prefer kindness, and giving people their rights and dues, that will catapult your Spirit into higher realms and order, reducing time and space journeying for you as you move towards spiritual stratosphere. And, above all, I recommend the remembrance of Allah aka Zikr, which will collapse the hurdles in your path, cleanse you, forgive you, grow you, and bless you.
What I do not like and recommend is doing deliberate evil to oneself or to others or to the unspecific reality in the hope and knowing that you will cleanse or absolve yourself in the future. This is a ghoulish manipulation, and while it may work out for you, it will do so at some cost where you will have to undertake a project on behalf of Creator while the Creator goes ahead and helps and heals those whom you injured. It works out, but it is clumsy. If it happens regardless of your effort, fair enough, forgive yourself and move quickly and pray often for those who you injured. If you injured them because you feared them, seek Allah’s protection; and Allah knows everything.
So yes, that is the Present Moment, and it takes, in my view, work to maintain and keep it cleansed.
Human beings! We always have to be intentional and mindful, especially as we reach maturity and the once spontaneous gifts of God are traded for your intentional responsibilities as part of a process of maturation of your soul!
And this is the end of this stream-of-consciousness writing! Make of it what you will!
