“Don't talk to me about past and future. They exist only in your mind”. Nisargadatta Maharaj
This quote as an opening unsettles the mind. It goes so much against our good old common sense that with a bit of luck it makes it explode!
If anything at all, our meeting was not about cultivating common sense but venturing into the senseless, into the timeless distanceless borderless that we are when the concepts of past, present and future disintegrate to allow the recognition of the timesless as Presence itself; and where the concepts of here and there, and you and others vanish to allow the recognition of the spacelessness as Presence itself. What we are is not some thing we can possibly imagine, define and label, but the inexpressible immediacy and intimacy that only wait... for our recognition.
Granted, the concepts of time and space are absolutely practical as tools to lead a human life, but utterly useless when it comes to our divine life that knows better.
We started with an exploration lead by Didier based on Rupert Spira experiment. Try it again for yourself!
... and went on watching 2 precious short extracts from:
“When we say we hear, see, smell, taste, touch the world, our only knowledge is the five sense perceptions. There is hearing. There is seeing. There is smelling. There is tasting. There is touching. Nobody has ever found a world that exists in its own right independent of the experience of the senses. We can't even say there is hearing, smelling, tasting, touching OF the world. We can legitimately say there is hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching. It is not OF anything."
.../...
“The intuition there is one thing out there called a flower that we are seeing, smelling, tasting, touching is not completely ignorant. It is based on the intuition that, although hearing, seeing, smelling, tasting, touching are five experiences, what is truly being experienced is one.”
“Can we agree as to the definition of time as the duration between 2 events? Let's take an event in the past and now: now and the diner last night. Now is present, we have no doubt. But what about the diner last night? Where is the diner last night in terms of experience? Where is it now? It is in the memory. And where is the memory taking place? Memory takes place now. That is the current event ..../...
“Time means past and future. We can't have time without past and future. Step out of the now and try and experience the past or future. Just a couple of seconds in the past or a couple of seconds into the future. Can you go there? Have you ever experienced the past and the future? Could you ever experience the past and the future? What kind of other experience apart from present experience?”
On this same theme, here is a passage from Perfect Brilliant Stillness by David Carse - pages 277 to 280.
“The idea of discreet separate moments in time is like the belief in discreet separate individuals in space. Just as the separate entities in space are seen not to exist as such, as separate entities, but rather simply as appearances in Consciousness, or as the way Presence manifests, so the separate moments in time can be seen not to exist as such, as sequential moments, but rather simply as appearances in Consciousness, or as the way Present manifests."
.../...
"There are no separate entities: only what can be called This. There are no separate moments: only what can be called Now. There are no individual entities relating to one another: there is only One Presence, and it is All. There are no individual moments following one another: there is only One Present. And it is Eternal. Just as there is only one Presence Present, so too there is only one Present Presence.
I'm not sure this can be arrived at intellectually. With the Understanding, the conundrum of time finally simply folds in on itself; the clear understanding that there is no time, of how there is no time, of how time is not, is blindingly simple and obvious: just as there is One Presence, so there is One Present.
Where else can I possibly be but here, now? Even if there is being lost in a memory of the past, that 'past' exists only as that memory, that thought, happening now, here. Even when there is worrying about the future or daydreaming happening in a body/mind organism, that worrying or daydreaming is what is happening in that organism, here, now.
There can never be anything other than being, here, now. There is only here, and it is all, unbounded, undivided. There is only now, and it is eternal, unbounded, undivided.
As a bonus to make sure that we don't get caught into being serious about non duality, laugh with Dan: Dating and the Non-Duality Scene – YouTube
PS: For those who can spare some time this summer, do get yourself a copy of “Perfect Brilliant Stillness” by David Carse, or download it here.
The first third of the book relates to his experience in the jungle. The 2 other thirds are a beautiful review of Presence. Worth the time spent on reading.