User talk: Paine Ellsworth/Presmo

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The present moment (presmo) is a segment of time that is different and distinct from the concepts of the past and the future. The presmo is a period of time between the past and the future. It can vary in meaning from being an instant in time to a few minutes, a few hours, a day or even longer.

I like to be in the present moment!
I am in the present moment, and I like it!

It hasn't always been easy, but I have spent the vast majority of my lifetime in the present moment.

I first learned two similar practices, autohypnosis and meditation, while in Vietnam in the year 1971. My instructor Michael – Mike – was a very patient person who taught me a little stream of instructions, it turns out hardly more than a parlor trick, that set my life on a very new and different path. You may have seen this one, because I've seen it on YouTube, for example, here in this video at about 7:20. Mike sat me down one evening, fully knowing how skeptical I was, and through repetition of suggestions made my hand begin to float above my leg "as if there were a string tied to my wrist, a string tied at the other end to a large, helium-filled balloon". Like magic, my hand slowly began to rise, as if it were someone else's hand, not really attached to me. Honestly I was not consciously moving my hand, and yet there it was, rising up off my leg all on its own.

That moment stands as one of the most profoundly impressive "presmos" of my entire life!

After that I became obsessed with finding out more and more about hypnosis, the ancient arts taught in different parts of the world and similar subjects. I read book after book by such as Krishnamurti, Waitley, Maltz, Franklin, Hill, and many other instructors of varied faiths and backgrounds. Mike's teachings led me to the ways and means needed to continue searching and instructing myself to satisfy a newly insatiable desire to gather knowledge and, hopefully, wisdom. Thank you, Mike, thank you truly beyond words!

After the 'Nam

Was fortunate enough to meet Mike again after the 'Nam. I returned from Vietnam before Mike did, and several years later saw him again. I had just returned from Africa and was feeling a little unhinged, so seeing Mike again turned out to be a good thing for me. We talked about old times and how both of us survived the 'Nam while lots of our buddies hadn't. He taught me some new stuff, and then we parted ways for the last time. Mike is one of the few really great people I've known in my lifetime. Shall always miss him.

Distinction

A brief word can be said about the distinction between self-hypnosis and meditation. Hypnosis is the use of suggestive power over the body and mind, while meditation does not, in the usual sense, employ repetitive suggestion to search for answers. It may, however, employ repetitive deep breathing in a similar fashion. General forms of meditation, similar to hypnosis, rely heavily on relaxation; however, the mind becomes quieter and subjects usually just sit and hope for some breakthrough to let them know they are on the correct path. Meditation is similar to hypnosis, and it may even be said that meditation is a passive type of hypnosis. The main distinction then is that hypnosis, when structured correctly, can work to better your life faster, more effectively and more efficiently than meditation. Meditation on the other hand can be used to achieve deeper mental levels over time. And meditation trains you to live and be in the present moment, while hypnosis does not. When both meditation and self-hypnosis are used together, then your ability to improve your life and your world will encounter less and less resistance as you practice and learn more about the inner workings of your mind.

No such thing!

Technically, there is no such thing as "the present moment". Difficult to understand; just fair warning. Think of a number line:

––––|––––|––––|––––|––––|––––
       -2      -1      0      +1     +2

In calendars, for example, there is no "year zero", because 31 December -0001 instantly turned into 1 January +0001 at about midnight. So the past instantly turns into the future at each and every moment, each and every "presmo". Technically, just as there is no zeroth year, there is no zeroth moment; past moments instantly turn into future moments. There is no such thing as a present moment. So what's all the fuss about? We train ourselves using meditation to live and be in the present moment, and yet, there is no present moment!

The presmo, then, must be more than just the instant that the past turns into the future. It must be a period of time, the length of which is personally defined by each of us, between our dwelling too much on the past and our dwelling too much on the future. When we are "lost" in our memories or too focused on our future plans, then we are not "in the present moment", which is really the only period of time when we can actually make choices that are based on our past moments and that affect our future moments.

While an instantaneous presmo does not exist, we have the power to define our present so that we can live and be in it. If you haven't yet done so, then now is the time for you to unwrap your present!

This presmo

I have to tell you, this particular present moment is... is way beyond most of my present moments. I've had thoughts now that some people just wouldn't believe! Mostly thoughts about plants and higher forms of life have spewed forth from my exquisitly many-furrowed mind. You think plants are not the least bit sentient, and you're probably right. And yet, in spite of the human effort to dump our garbage into the oceans, the green and blue algae in the seas make 70% of the oxygen we breathe everyday – the other 30% of course provided to us by land plants. The really curious thing has to do with regulation. Despite the fact that our industries, wildfires and animal respirations consume a lot of oxygen everyday, those plants manage to make enough oxygen to keep the amount of it in the atmosphere of Earth right at about 21% all the time, everyday, every presmo. Who or what regulates that? I'm hard pressed to believe that the plants do, but if not the plants, then who? (or what?)

In those beloved twists and turns of my mind, that's when I again come to higher forms of life. I look at us, that many and varied form of life called "human being". After a good, long look, I confess I find it impossible to believe that humans are the highest form of life in this Universe. Scientists wonder why, if there are higher forms of life, why then is there no evidence of them? I can tell you why. They do not want us to have any knowledge of them, and they are advanced enough technologically to be able to stay out of our crosshairs. That's why! They are there, they may very well be here and we just don't or cannot sense them. This ain't a religious idea, although it's quite possible, even likely, that the existence of these higher forms of life had a profound enough effect on our ancestors to lead them to formulate today's religions. ARE they the regulators of our oxygen and perhaps other human needs? Think deeply about this, please. It might lead to your own curious mind spewing forth even more arousing, inspired waking thoughts!

This next presmo

This one is about races, no not about different skin colors and such, this one is about the kind of races we win... and we lose. We've all won them, and we've all lost them. The first race I won was when my dad's stuff made its way into my mom's body. Billions, yes billions, of tiny, tailed cells, each one genetically different, and only one of them fertilized mom's egg. Mom provided one egg each month, and each egg was genetically different. We all won that race, didn't we.(?) So the chances against that race resulting in "you" (or "me") are enormous! Yet, here we are. You and me – here we are. We've won (and lost) many races since then. And here we are.

When you win a race, mirror concern. When you lose a race, then you learn.

Next

Just listened again to Karen on the drums playing "Love Is Surrender", which remains a classic and one of her and Richard's best songs! This song has spun again and again in my head for several of my most recent presmos. It rings so true in my heart. Words of love don't always have an empty ring, because sometimes saying the words acts as reassurance to those who love us and whom we love most ardently. Too many people do use the words in emptiness, though, and that is what this song describes. Surrender is a huge part of giving love. The one who loves you surrenders certain things to you, and you surrender certain things to the one you love.

In the second verse The Carpenters flow from you specifically to the more general "you". The human past cannot be covered up, no matter how hard "the winners" try to do it. They pretend they won through their prowess rather than through sheer good fortune. They try to cover up the strengths of the beaten and downtrodden, but today's people will not be denied. "Just pretending will never last – without love you are nothing at all," not a winner, not wealthy, not the least bit powerful, nothing at all. More than word power, it is a feeling, an emotion, and without that emotion, without that passion, what else is there?

NO, not anything... nothing at all.

Oh! What a powerful presmo perceive
Whenever we practice so hard to believe!

^< * more to come * ^>

Un-article see also

• on my Philosophy – 3rd
  • Aggressiveness – 12th
  • on Cosmology – 1st
  • Creativity – 16th
  • on Death – 2nd
  • Emerald breath – 6th
  • Evolution – 13th
  • Flat Earth – 19th
  • on Good and Evil – 10th
  • Grateful! – 4th
  • Gravity – 8th
  • Hideous – 20th
  • on the Life Energy Essence – 5th
  • Light's nature – 7th
  • Math-ugh – 15th
  • Our movement through space – 18th
  • Presmo – 9th
  • Sensory perception – 11th
  • The Self – 14th
  • Smile at Death – 17th

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