It is not a question of the relative present moment constantly fluctuating and changing every second, modulating and fleeting. Capturing its totality through a limited egocentric mind is impossible. It is a matter of recognizing the eternal ‘presenting moment’ that your awareness is. From that perspective, every moment is the present Now.
This presenting moment occupies spaceless, timeless awareness, the constant sense of infinite being. Even though full of ever-changing content, your awareness, the Self, is steady, calm, and undefined; you can’t find it as a thing; it is everywhere and nowhere. It just is and has been from birth.
The problem arises from the progression at birth when, through constant mundane conditioning, our psyche molds our sense of being into a feeling of a separate personal body and a mind of our own, the ego. The ego, then, is quick to supply a seemingly unsatisfactory sense of well-being, of psychological and material lack, regardless of our station in life.
Ego or ownership is our false sense that we are the center of the universe and responsible for our actions, and we look towards personal outcomes that we choose but have little idea what the result will be. All the while, in the background, pure awareness, the sense of pure existence pervades and permeates all activities in life as the silent witness.
The backdrop to all feelings, thoughts, and actions is unrestricted, undisturbed, and eternally present, the actual Self. We miss it because it is so close and intimate to us. Our egoic focus of attention veils it; this sense of personal doership and separation that the ego holds onto drives us to find some framework of satisfaction and completion that will never come about. It will always and only be a becoming, lacking any true fulfillment.
We are discussing what seems to be and what is apparent here. What arises is what is seen, heard, felt, and appreciated on that level of a simple happening. It is immediate, unconditional, and impossible to understand because it is what it is. There is nothing to it unless one tries to understand and figure it out, but that also becomes the “what is.”
The other reality perspective within this unconditional arising is that it seems to be happening to someone. This is where it gets complicated because everything happening has a story. An intention, meaning, and the tale add purpose. What is happening is no longer as it is but as it is to me. It engenders a need to analyze and make it better to suit my narrative acted upon by me.
My narrative becomes separate from the appearance, and the happening is now a “becoming.” Becoming “what is” up to the separate me, identifying as a personal doer; the unconditional freedom of the happening “as it is” is lost. The paradox is that this, as it is to me, the separate reality that arises, makes no difference to the unconditional nature and immediacy of life unfolding, the presenting moment. Any notion of an independent me becomes the same and is seen only from that limited reality perspective.
A fractionalized ego will always say I am incomplete, whether driven by a depressed mind or one that is relatively satisfied. I must feel down about myself for not striving enough because I do not feel complete. Shame on me or the environment that placed me here. I must go and get rid of this incompletion by gaining approval. The ego plays judge, jury, and executioner on itself. This is complete insanity, just a constant feedback loop from an outdated software system that is limited and claims reality for itself.
By becoming the observer of this nonsense, one will see through the insanity, let it arise, witness it, and let it go with complete love and forgiveness. The fantastic nature of an actual being is that life is expressed as it does by witnessing without attachment, which is a great purifier.
It is not about changing anything. The need to become or change something is an illusion of the experience of separateness. The experience itself is separation, so the notion of a path to becoming oneness is hidden in the background, as it is to me.
Understanding “I am” is complicated because it has a protracted history of individuality. We are not going anywhere; there is nowhere to go, whether materially speaking on the relative level or spiritually, in realizing Oneness. What is, as it is, right here and now is it. And anything wanted is just an illusion of something separate from what is now. It is the “something else” outside of the now; what may be wanted? Even the holy grail of “as it is” becomes the end of the separate experience. So, wanting is a limitation that separates the reality of Oneness. Nothing is separate from “as it is.” The mere fact that you are having this so-called experience precludes any discussion about it. There may be a relative perception of the present, but it is within the timeless moment of consciousness