It Is We That Become Present

"Thus the Supreme as containing no otherness is ever present with us; we with it when we put otherness away. It is not that the Supreme reaches out to us seeking our communion; we reach towards the Supreme; it is we that become present"

- Plotinus (emphasis mine)

Typically, we think of a spiritual experience as apprehending the presence of God, and this is true. However, it is equally true to think of it as WE becoming present since out true Self is identical with God's spirit and when we are "dead" to our true Self, it is not because God is absent, but that we are not present.

Waiting for God to pick us up and throw us up against the wall to wake us up, or visiting us in an apparition or knocking us down from our horse on the road to Damascus is foolish and belies an ignorance on the presence of God. For God is never more present now than He has ever been and ever will be; God is perfect Being and thus is at rest and immanent in the present moment.

So if we are not present it is because we are not Being but Becoming, straddling the sands of time between the past and the future, and navigating the narrow strait of movement between Scylla and Charybdis. There is only the Eternal Now - all else is shifting sand and full of terror.

But what is meant by not being present? Where are we then? We are in shadows; immersed in form and flux. You could no more say "here I am" then step in the same river twice. Each passing moment you are different.

When there is not Presence, there is Change: constant, merciless, irrevocable change. When we are absent, we deceive ourselves that we are, that we think, that we love, and that we are good. When we are absent, we are nothing: a Will O' The Wisp, a mayfly, a character actor in a brief skit. Either God is Present through you or you are absent and your life is but a fitful dream. In the end, as in the beginning, there is only The One.