This imbued moment
Dear All,
I share these words with you in love, in the hope that they may serve as a loving and gentle reminder to remember what is truly important in life, in your life.
On behalf of life I would like to welcome you to this moment. A moment so big that no word could ever point to it, a moment so ubiquitous that it encompasses us all, welcome, welcome dear friend to this moment. A moment imbued with all the beauty, all the sadness, all the anger, all the joy, all the amazement, all the wonder, all the violence, all the peace. A moment when one will stumble while the other learns to get up, a moment when one flower will blossom and display its colors while the other withers and fades away. It is a moment when the Sun rises somewhere in the world while it sets for someone else, a moment when somewhere in the world a rainbow appears after a heavy rain while elsewhere in the world the first snowflakes will fall. It is a moment in which many people experience the happiness of welcoming their first child, while at the same time many other children are going through the painful process of saying goodbye to their deceased parents. A moment when billions of beings breathe in while billions of other beings breathe out. It is a moment when someone will dance the blisters under their feet in pure joy while someone else will hit the blisters on their fists in pure anger. A moment when someone is acquitted of a guilty act while someone else is imprisoned despite being innocent. It is a moment when somewhere in the world the heavy bass sounds of a large-scale festival can be heard in the distance, while at the same moment the soft melodies of a classical performance will be heard elsewhere. It is a moment when many people experience the horrific consequences of war while at the same moment many other people enjoy a state of peace. It is a moment when someone begs for food while someone else throws away yet another food item because it has expired. It is a moment when something happens that will determine the foundation of one person's faith while someone else renounces it at that moment. It is a moment when many will experience love, for their partner, their children or family while many others will question whether love even exists?
This moment, is quite a moment, completely imbued with all life and yet just this one moment. The moment I write these words and then publish them weeks later is also the same moment that after months you may think about these same words again, all of this is really just this one moment. If anything is all about the moment, it is this moment par excellence, this moment in which our lives - in which all life - may unfold. A completely new moment in which life takes on a form it has never taken before, read that carefully, never before has life experienced a moment like this moment and yet it has never known another moment. Isn't that wonderful? Surely that fact alone can lock us in pure amazement for life? It is therefore a moment that cannot be captured in words and although I nevertheless try to make a tender attempt, no word will ever truly be able to express how rich, how great and how ubiquitous this moment is. A moment like this, or actually par excellence like this, is so imbued with everything that even writing about 'everything' could barely name a single part of it. It is a moment that tastes like more moments, but we will have to be very careful with this experience because we can't taste anything other than the taste of this moment.
“Most humans are never fully present in the now, because unconsciously they believe that the next moment must be more important than this one. But then you miss your whole life, which is never not now.”
Our entire life is dedicated to this moment, this moment contains all the moments you have experienced so far, the specific moment when you read these words as well as all the moments that are yet to unfold. Might sound confusing and somewhat paradoxical? Well, I outline it in this specific way because we mainly deal with time conceptually. For us, time is an adopted idea, an assumption that it can pass and come rather than that time, although we experience it in that way, is actually omnipresent. My intention in writing this is not to come up with a scientifically substantiated theory, on the contrary, my wish is mainly to provide a different view through which our everyday experience of life can be lived in more wonder. To further illustrate our dealing with time I will use the following example. We actually try to divide time into what I call “the three piggy banks”, of which the piggy bank of the past is filled with all our saved memories and the piggy bank of the future is filled with all our saved dreams. The piggy bank of the present moment often remains empty because we base our experience on the piggy bank of both the lived memories and the promise of all that we’re saving for. This means that the present moment is sometimes not such an abundant experience because it cannot cope with the multitude of those other savings. As wonderful as it is to indulge in the colourful memories or dreams that life offers, it is also good to realise that this can fragment our experience of life. Because we divide time, we also divide our experience within the three categories (piggy banks) within which we divide the time. How we then deal with the past or the future is often in flux, we either run away from the past because it frightens us because of something that has happened or we run in nostalgia for the memories of the past because of the desire for a pleasant time. The same can be said of the future, we can rush towards it because we can't wait to “get there” or we can run away from it (towards our past memories) because the promise of the future (e.g. old age) scares us. Whatever we run away from or towards, we run away from the only moment in which life can truly be experienced. This is actually a great shame because it drastically reduces the quality of our human experience when we do not fully experience life as it presents itself to us 'now'. The true fullness is in the moment that unfolds to us in the now, in this moment. Not as it “used to be” or as it will be “someday”, no, now, this moment in its fullness. It is here and there is no way to find it elsewhere other than experiencing it now, bringing it home, welcoming it into your presence.
Dear friend, if you wish to seek life, do not try to find it in the memories of the past or the promise of the future, but try to find it where it is present. Know that wherever we go in the hope of finding ourselves there, whatever we undertake, what we are looking for is already here, in this moment, within ourselves and therein lies the encounter with everything. We cannot go anywhere and find it there other than we may discover it in the present moment. And, when the present moment speaks of a period of inner storm, do not flee into the memory of the past or the promise of the future, but find your hope in the idea that somewhere in this very moment the Sun is rising, somewhere in this very moment a new baby is taking its first breath, somewhere in this very moment someone is dancing the blisters under their feet out of pure joy. And, when the present moment makes your inner petals bloom, enjoy that splendour to the fullest as there will be people at this very moment who experience that their inner flower is withering. This moment is completely imbued with literally everything and therefore, this moment makes you part of it all. Yes, part of it all captured in just one moment, that's quite something.
Welcome, welcome sweet friend! Embrace the invitation of life as it welcomes you every moment in just this one moment.
In love and reverence, sven
