Hey there loyal readers...erm... loyal reader...anyone?
Whatever...
I sat down to write a simple reflection paper for one of my classes today and it turned out being what I can only concede as a transformative moment. You know, one of those moments professors are always hoping you will have in their class?
transFORMATIVE, not transFORMER
Well I had one.
We are reading this book, Encountering God, by Diana Eck, which I hope is her name otherwise I will probably fail that paper. It isn't a book that preaches about God or what people should believe. Rather, it is a book about how God exists in other faiths and cultures and one woman's journey that takes her through all of these fascinating topics and ideas. One of these ideas, which I chose to reflect on, was this idea awareness. It had a Hindu preface to it but I can't remember the exact wording and it was very wise sounding.
Like this guy
The whole concept of this awareness is that when you have this experience you suddenly are alert to some...thing that you can't comprehend and yet you know that it is everywhere all the time. Almost anybody with any kind of religious background will jump in and say, "well of course, it's God." To which I'd respond, "it's my epiphany let me tell it."
Then I'd stick my tongue out and pull their hair
Except I think I'm a little smarter than that kid so I'd come across more like this...
Yeah, take it all in
What I'm getting at are the human senses. As it turns out humans have way more than the five they were taught about as kids. For more on other things you were taught that are wrong you can click HERE. Humans have a sense of time, along with a sense of space. That is why you know how far you have to throw that book to hit the light switch and shut off the light without getting out of bed. That is also why you will be aware that you have wasted more time getting out of bed to get the book and try again than if you had just missed once and shut off the light when you got up. Now generally this works pretty standard. When you enter a room you get a basic sense of how big it is and how much time you have spent in it. This is because you can see the limits of the room (its walls and ceiling) and the time is restricted to a small scale.
Now let's put me out in an open field at night. I have a harder time telling how big the field is because its dark and its boundaries are not clearly defined. This lack of spacial awareness also affects my sense of time because space and time are part of the same fabric (says Albert Einstein)
I still haven't reached the difficult part yet because even though its dark, I can make out a horizon. Because of the horizon I still have some sense of space and therefore time. Now, I look up at the starry night sky. If I look up I lose track of the horizon and suddenly it doesn't seem like I'm standing on the earth now. It simply seems like I am surrounded by space. Now, as I look up and see the countless stars a realization comes to me. I stare at those stars and they seem so close, like if I just tried hard enough I could reach out and touch one (and then burst into flames because most stars are really freaking hot). But I know that I can't because those stars are so far away that it took millions of my lifetimes for their light to reach me. As a matter of fact, it took so long for their light to reach me that they could already be gone. I gaze up and it seems like I can see the very darkest places of space, but I can't see what is really there because I'm only human. I am not the Hubble Space telescope.
Look through all of those pictures and the Hubble story is at the end. For more on astounding space things that will give you a sense of awe click HERE.
Did that give you a sense of scale? According to the big bang theory, the universe is forever expanding. Meaning it is getting bigger forever. Now, as I am laying in that field looking up at the night sky, I try to grasp these immense distances and these incomprehensible amounts of time, and I can't, I just can't do it. I can't wrap my head around infinity. I keep trying though and slowly I am filled with this overwhelming sense. Maybe its just gas, but I try to fart and get nothing so that can't be it. The more I stare up into the infinite reaches of space and time the more aware I become of this feeling. My senses have slowly become attuned to feel this incomprehensible time and space. The reason it is overwhelming is because none of my senses know what infinity is. Sure we all know that it means something that goes on forever, but really try to grasp that concept in your head, try to picture forever.
As a human I have a sense of space and time and now my senses are trying to come to terms with infinity. Something they can't do. The interesting idea is that this infinity is always present, but we get distracted in our daily lives by so many different things. All of these things distract our senses. I can connect this to religion by using Jesus. There is a famous story when Jesus tells a rich man that he should give away all of his possessions so that he can become closer to God. Without all of his distractions he can become more attuned to God. The concept is the same. The infinity is always there, surrounding us all the time. We just have to take time adjust to it and to get in tune with it.
The second part of my transformative experience has to do with me. I am aware of this infinite but I am also aware myself on this scale. To put it bluntly, I don't even exist on this scale. I don't even matter in the tiniest bit. There are no words to accurately describe my insignificance. To compare myself to an ant would be an enormous understatement. I am so small in comparison to infinity. Many people might find this idea a little difficult to handle. After all, when was the last time you were told you didn't matter and it was actually true? That could be very depressing, to think that no matter what you do it doesn't matter. To me this is a comforting idea. It doesn't mean that I don't have to work, or that I should give up my goal of having a family and providing them with the best life possible. It just means that no matter how badly I fail at anything or how great I succeed, the universe will just keep on going.
All of this, these weird ideas, these insane distances and times, all of it doesn't stress me out, it just gives me this incredible calm.
