Present-centered stillness

Short answer: yes — with an important qualification.

Longer answer: present-centered stillness is a shared core move across many contemplative traditions, but each tradition means something slightly different by “present,” “stillness,” and “liberation.”

Let’s unpack this cleanly and comparatively.

1. What Dādū means by

present-centered stillness

When I said Dādū emphasizes present-centered stillness, I did not mean simple mindfulness or relaxation.

For Dādū:

• Past = karmic memory

• Future = desire, fear, postponement

• Time = Kāl’s operating system

So “the present” is not a moment in time; it is:

the suspension of time-based identity

Stillness (sthiti, thir) means:

• mind not chasing

• attention not fragmenting

• self not narrating itself

This is ontological stillness, not merely psychological calm.

2. Is this the core of most meditation systems?

Yes — at the

method

level

No — at the

metaphysical endpoint

level

That distinction matters.

3. Zen (Chan) — radical presentness

What’s the same

• Absolute emphasis on now

• Cutting past/future thinking

• Direct seeing without conceptual mediation

Zen “present”:

• no memory

• no anticipation

• no metaphysical speculation

Famous Zen move:

“Just this.”

Difference from Dādū

• Zen refuses a vertical cosmology

• No explicit “beyond time” realm

• Liberation = awakening to emptiness here

Zen stillness:

• non-grasping awareness

• not ascent, not escape

4. Patañjali Yoga — stillness as cessation

Yoga Sūtra I.2:

Yogaś citta-vṛtti-nirodhaḥ

“Yoga is the cessation of mental fluctuations.”

Here:

• Time is produced by vṛttis (thought-waves)

• Stillness = silence of sequence

This aligns very closely with Dādū.

But classical Yoga says:

• the Self (puruṣa) is timeless

• liberation = resting as that Self

Difference:

• Yoga is dualistic (puruṣa / prakṛti)

• Sant Mat is devotional + vertical

5. Advaita Vedānta — present as non-time

Advaita agrees strongly:

• Past/future belong to mithyā

• The Self is ever-present (nitya)

• Liberation is recognition, not attainment

Present-centered stillness here means:

Abiding as that which witnesses time

This is philosophically the closest cousin to Dādū’s insight, minus the devotional cosmology.

6. Buddhism (Vipassanā) — momentariness, not eternity

Buddhist mindfulness:

• attends to present sensations

• sees impermanence (anicca)

• dissolves self-illusion

But crucial difference:

• no eternal Self

• no timeless essence

• liberation = cessation of craving, not transcendence of time as a metaphysical ruler

Stillness here is diagnostic, not ontological.

7. Christian hesychasm & Sufism (briefly)

• Hesychasm: stillness (hesychia) + Jesus Prayer → presence of God

• Sufism: waqt (the moment), fanā (annihilation of ego)

Both:

• distrust mental time

• emphasize heart-presence

• but maintain devotional relationship, not metaphysical escape

Very close to Sant ethos in practice, different in map.

8. The unifying insight (very important)

Across traditions:

Time is not neutral — it is the medium of ego.

Present-centered stillness works because:

• ego narrates itself in time

• silence interrupts narration

• awareness reveals itself when sequence collapses

This is why stillness works everywhere.

9. The crucial difference Sant Mat keeps alive

Sant traditions say:

• Stillness is necessary but not sufficient

• One must pass through stillness

• Then ascend beyond the domain where time even exists

Zen stops at this moment

Yoga stops at puruṣa

Advaita stops at Brahman

Sant Mat says:

“Even Brahman is within time.”

That’s the distinctive claim.

One-sentence synthesis

Present-centered stillness is the shared doorway of contemplative practice across Zen, Yoga, Advaita, Buddhism, Sufism, and Dādū’s Sant lineage, but only Sant cosmology interprets this stillness not merely as awakening in time, but as the first loosening of time itself (Kāl), preparatory to a transcendence beyond it.

If you want, next we can:

• map stillness → sound (Nāma) step by step

• compare Zen emptiness vs Sant anāmī

• or test whether “timeless awareness” survives modern philosophy of mind