So, where or what exactly, is the present moment? What is this thing going around, like a rash, that we have got to be totally present now all the time and we feel like a failure if we are not?
Surely, it is often very beneficial to be in different moments, letting your thoughts wander, picking up useful insights and realizations here and there, as you wander through the avenues of your consciousness (just don't do it while you're crossing the road!).
Going by the usual sense of the phrase, if I was totally focussed on this moment, now, typing this in, I would be totally bored! If I totally focussed on a moment that occurred, say, 10 years ago, I would be there experiencing it as if it was the present moment.
I like the idea that we are like twinkling stars, pulsating on and off. When it is on, we are here, now, in this moment. Then it goes off, but where does it go? Well, it goes on again, but in another lifetime (past, present or future) or dimension or universe, and there we are equally as conscious as here.
Without any apparent separation in space or time, you twinkle on again here, into this present moment. You just don't remember where else you have been 'twinkling'!
Perhaps, integration of the self means finally becoming aware of all your different, twinkling states of consciousness.
Is there a parallel with quantum physics here - qarks, leptons and all that stuff, with sub-atomic particles strangely disappearing and reappearing somewhere else?
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