What is Presence – Living in the backward flow of time
What does it mean to be “present”? Many mindful practices speak of being present, but they do not define what that is.
Did you know it takes a little over 8 minutes for the light of the sun to reach earth? That means if you look up at the sun, what you are seeing is the sun 8 minutes ago… you are literally looking into the past… what you are seeing happened 8 minutes ago (well actually the photons sensed by your eyes are actually thousands of years old because it took that long for them to be released from the surface of the sun… but that’s a whole different story). The light from our closest star takes about 4 years to reach us, so when you gaze up at the stars, you are looking into the distant past.
When you look at objects in your environment, you are seeing the light they are reflecting. What I am saying is that it takes time for light from anything you look at (speed of light) to reach your eyes and be interpreted as something. Same with sound, only it takes even longer (speed of sound) for sound to reach you and be processed. Even taste and touch “take time” to be processed as they need to be assimilated by the peripheral nervous system before being logged as a sensory experience. Because this is the case, none of our sensory experiences are in the present; all information we processed is based on data which comes from the past.
It is interesting that our society is structured more around sight and sound (further in the past), rather than taste and touch (closer to the present). As children we are always told not to touch this or put that in our mouths, we learn early that being intimate with our environment is wrong (that’s a whole different discussion).
You may be thinking that it may only take seconds or even nanoseconds for us to receive light from objects close by (as opposed to the 8 minutes from the sun), but is the past not the past, whether a thousand years or 10 seconds? Can you change the past? What are the ramifications of knowing that your sensory experience has already happened before you even know it?
We are alive, so we exist. I AM. It’s all we know. Because we exist, we know we are present. So if everything we perceive falls into the past, we must assume that it is a byproduct of our actual interaction with the present. Our interactions in the moment are instantaneous and all encompassing (particle entanglement in quantum physics). Being present means living through your intentions and then experiencing those intentions through your sensory system as a byproduct/ creation of your interaction with the present. In the present lives a universal and bidirectional flow of communication, perfectly still, perfectly alive. It is who we are and also what our creations are born from. Being present means to recognize this eternal moment and be with it.
In that eternal moment, intentions are dreamed (universal knowledge), from these intentions emotional awareness is spawned (wisdom), from this awareness expands the experience (idea), from this experience we choose how we perceive it (our sensory experience).
Because of the bidirectional flow of information within consciousness, it all happens simultaneously as each energy expands into the other, the other contracts into it… giving themselves to each other so that creation is born.
But we must choose. So this is what presence is, it is awareness of our universal consciousness and choosing to experience it.
So the next time you look at your sensory reality, remember that this is what you have chosen; let it reflect (literally) back to you the choices you have made to experience yourself and be grateful for the light show which emanates from deep within your own consciousness.
