God does not repeat itself, as a sufi said. As usual, we can explore this in two ways, first in immediate experience and then within the world of stories.
In immedicacy, I first find that experience just is. There are sensations, sounds, sights, smell, taste, a world of images creating boundaries, interpretations, a sense of past, future, and present and so on. It is independent of any ideas of freshness or newness.
Then, I find that when I use images of past, future, and present, and I compare those with each other, I compare images of the present with images of a past and future. Depending on what stories I use, I may tell myself these images of a present are the same as those of the past or future (and likely get a little bored), or that they are different and new (and likely make myself a little more interested).
These stories of difference can be informed by science. I may tell myself that all matter is in flux, even if it appears solid and steady to my senses. And also that the evolution of the universe provides uninterrupted novelty. At the micro- and macro-levels, existence is inherently and inevitably creative, and always appears new, fresh, and different.
Note: During the opening experience (aka unstable awakening) in my teens, one of the most amazing discoveries was that existence is always new, fresh, and different, and very obviously so. God is inherently fresh. And that is still very much in the foreground of experience.
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- new and fresh
- experience, always new and fresh (or the universe, existence)
- two ways
- immediacy
- always new and fresh here and now
- past/future only in images, different in type and content from what is here now
- “out there”
- also, always new and fresh “out there” – movement, dynamic
- and evolution of universe etc. provide obvious novelty/creativity
- immediacy