What do I know? I’d approach this differently than I did just last month. A lot has changed in this past month. So now, what do I know?
I know that I exist “here”. But where exactly is here? The fact that I don’t know where I am tells me I’m lost. Being lost, I seek a way out. I must first orient myself, which I can do by identifying the most significant landmark around me; the unchanging north star of my life. With that, I can create a map and get out. That is my circumstance and my plan.
After many years of looking, I have found the landmark: it is now. While everything else in my existence changes, the present moment never does. The present moment is the most significant and concrete landmark in my existence. Many times I have felt the ineffable Force of what I could only describe as “God”. I know now that God is now.
I know that what I characterize as “myself”, as my person, is everything else. All of my memories and qualities, relationships, accomplishments, and aspirations, fears, pains, preferences, and the wider world I experience and imagine in both the past and future. All of these things have accumulated on Now like so many layers of decay and dirt. I am out here, lost among these layers, seeking the way out.
These are the two aspects of existence: the now; and everything else, what I call the manifestation. The now does not move or change; the manifestation is in constant flux.
I know that, despite my imaginings, only the present exists. The past and future are conceptual constructs beyond the horizon of now. Despite this, the past and future still feel very real to me and all of my movement and the change I experience is tied to them.
The further away I get from my present, the more I suffer, and the less I know God. My person is the measurement of my distance from now. My person is what separates me from God.
I also know that I know everything, and the notion that I do not is instrumental in transforming me from the state of creation to the reduced state of observation.
As an observer, I am anchored to what moves, rather than what is immutable. I “ascend” deeper into the manifestation, sending out tentacles into the imagined past and future. Chaos and uncertainty are the defining characteristics of my existence as everything around me moves. I value what the manifestation offers and seek comfort externally.
When I turn around to rediscover the creator, I rediscover my true desire: peace. I “descend” from the heights of the manifestation, retracting my tentacles anchored into the past and future and developing my relationship with the God of now. The chaos of existence decreases as my existential desires die and I draw strength from the knowledge that, while lost, I am getting out.
Together, these are the the keys to the framework because it is where it all starts with the question of “what is real”. By “real” I mean that which I can directly experience and certify myself.
