As a human, I have somewhere between 2 and 20 seconds of semi-guaranteed* living to do.
That is the time it takes for the brain to use up the available oxygen it has in the blood in my head. Without the heart pumping a fresh supply with every beat, I would black out within 2-20 seconds.
One doesn’t have to imagine an esoteric “moment” , or even consider a universal “now”, a metaphor of a knife’s edge of “now” in eternity.
One has a flesh and blood counter of the only moment a human ever has; the space between one heart beat and the next!
*semi-guaranteed because one could make the decision to illegally ride one’s motorbike, at night, in the rain, and kill oneself. Or fall in the bathroom because one didn’t clean it. Or die of a chest infection because one thought one was still 30 years old. Or electrocute oneself because one chooses to fix old battery chargers rather than buy a new one… Talking about a friend…
You’re thinking of a ‘moment’ as the ‘present’, thinly and impossibly sandwiched between the ‘future’ and the ‘past’. As something with a very short duration.
But this moment doesn’t have any duration at all! Not even the space between two heartbeats. Time lies immaculately still all the while your heart is beating.
I always struggled with understanding why it is not just the ‘past’ and ‘future’ that are illusions but also the ‘present’, it took a long time to click that this moment which is happening right now is not the same as the ‘present’.
The ‘present’ is something sandwiched between the ‘past’ and ‘future’, between 2 illusions. The ‘present’ requires the ‘past’ and the ‘future’ to exist (to be sandwiched in between) so it is equally an illusion. All 3 come as a package of ‘real time’ and the whole package is locked out of actual time.
When that package of ‘real time’ disappears (including the present) then time as it actually is can be experienced.
This has been becoming clearer for me experientially, that time itself does not move and as such there is only this moment. The normal understanding of infinity and eternity would be that it is just a very long line of time, so from this viewpoint time is still moving but it just never runs out. This fundamental error is what allows this understanding of - past/present/future.
But the actual state of affairs is different, what I am getting glimpses of lately is that the inevitable result/character of an actually infinite and eternal universe is a complete stillness (it cannot be expressed as a line at all). This universe is so ridiculously immense both spatially and temporally that the result is a complete and utter stillness. Yet that stillness is forever dynamic, many tingles writing this!
Yeah I find this bit especially interesting because the normal understanding of stillness would be like a very large box that has a certain size and as such it’s contents do not increase/decrease, they are still but in a static/stagnant way.
The stillness of infinitude is due to its utter limitlessness, a limitlessness which is all encompassing - Absolute. Which means it is both utterly still and forever dynamic at the same time.
Very interesting. Would it be that there isn’t a centre? Only the relative centre of the observer always being here? As in wherever one is, apperceptively aware, the relative centre, oneself, doesn’t move. But because one is always here, the stillness “follows” one around. It’s always here. Any point in infinity, with apperceptive awareness, is experienced as also here. One can’t be anywhere but here. In your box analogy, one here, isn’t the same as another here. One moves closer to a wall. There, and here are obviously two things.
No it’s the other way around. The stillness always is, unmoving. And you are moving around through the stillness (both space and time are still/unmoving).
No there’s only here . Did you ever notice you aren’t anywhere but here? And if you go “over there”… on your way to “over there” you’re also here. And once you finally arrive at “over there”… … you’re still “here”!
Of course you can measure relative distance from where you currently are to something else. But you only ever experience it as “here”.
Ya, it’s like it flips. EE can also get close to this
You have to be careful though to distinguish the actually-existing, unmoving time/space from the viscerally-felt-to-be-unmoving timeless/spaceless affectively-sourced Absolute. The latter can seem like the former, until pure intent shines through and shows you it is all a massive self-centered delusion that doesn’t actually exist.
Talking about a friend…
. Did you ever notice you aren’t anywhere but here? And if you go “over there”… on your way to “over there” you’re also here. And once you finally arrive at “over there”… … you’re still “here”!