Be a Child of the Universe

Be a Child of the Universe – June 2020

Most of us have this impaired vision. Even highly learned people have it too, and maybe even more so. We have no peripheral vision, perspective and farsightedness. It is as if someone gave us near-sighted glasses and eye blows.

Of course I mean vision in a broader sense than  seeing – vision almost as an epiphany. We cannot train our eyes to see farther, but we can train our brains and minds to see into infinity.

Apart from not being able to see the greater picture or the scheme of things, it makes us so provincial. I mean, not being able to see beyond our self imposed boundaries and borders.

It is this self-inflicted impediment that cramps and warps our understanding of the place of mankind on this planet and in the Universe, and by implication our view of our self. We are truly free and valued children of this universe, but in our minds we remain slaves of our idiosyncrasies. In our conduct we act as if in bondage to convention, culture, self-doubt and inferiority.

Many of us have travelled the globe by jets flying in the stratosphere. Have we ever looked down and saw any of the borders we are told do exist on the ground? Well … I have never.

The more naive of us may argue that there is a river which is the border between two provinces or countries, but that is not so in a real sense. A river is just a river and the border exists only in our minds, not in reality.

Similarly we persist with having rivers and borders in our minds - things which prevent us from seeing the obvious, the truth or the meaning of things.

I am reminded by the words of the Bellman in ‘Hunting of the Snark’ by Lewis Carroll, fittingly dubbed a poem of Victorian persistence:

He had bought a large map representing the sea,

Without the least vestige of land:

And the crew were much pleased when they found it to be

A map they could all understand.

"What's the good of Mercator's North Poles and Equators,

Tropics, Zones, and Meridian Lines?"

So the Bellman would cry: and the crew would reply

"They are merely conventional signs!

"Other maps are such shapes, with their islands and capes!

 But we've got our brave Captain to thank

(So the crew would protest) "that he's bought us the best—

A perfect and absolute blank!"

We have this idiosyncrasy that we do not know a place until we have been there physically, and that is one of the reasons why we want to send excursions and spaceships into heaven. Just how far do we want to go?

It reminds me of someone on his way to the oculist, being asked by his friend why he wanted to go there. He replied that he could not see far. His friend, pointing to the sun, asked: what is that? He replied: It’s the sun. So his friend asked him: ‘Now, how far do you want to see?’

Our scientists want to restrict our vision or reality to the finite speed of light waves, whilst we all have brainwaves which travel at infinite speed.

Provincialism kills people. Neighbours are the best natural enemies you can find. The world's biggest slaughterhouses of people were skirmishes over these imaginary boundaries and borders. Even social, emotional and philosophical borders can bring on enmity and destruction.

We can become a peaceful planet if we demolish boundaries and borders of any kind.

We talk so easily of drawing a line in the sand or a red line, which is supposed to bring disaster to the party on the other side of the line, but we forget that a line in the sand and a red line are pure figments of the mind. They are really what they say ... sand and a red colour. That is all. There is no more to it.

Our story of drawing lines is based on our delusion that we have rights. We have no rights despite what constitutions say - not even human rights. I have many times tried to sell my human rights but I got no bidders. We only have a right to be human and the implied responsibility to act humanely.

How can we ever fix our visions and dreams on stars while we stumble over stones. In fact, dreams are the stuff reality is made of.

I can labour on and on on this point from dusk to dawn, but I will spare you it this day only. Dusk and dawn are only phases of light on earth and, for us, only self imposed boundaries. Must I tell you a very well kept secret? The sun never stops shining and does not know what dusk and dawn means. The sun never saw dusk or dawn beneath it, and we as an intelligent race should understand that they are passing mirages like anything else in our lives. Grief, pain, sorrow, anger and animosity are also passing mirages.  

In the end it is what we think, what we think we are and what think we do that matters and inspires us. It can bind us forever or free us up to become children of the Universe.

I wish to turn your mind’s eye to a much bigger and worthwhile calling by quoting the words of the song from the film 'Man of La Mancha' - the story of Don Quixote, written four centuries ago by Cervantes, and which still is one of the five best books to read on the planet.

Here are the words of 'To dream the impossible dream.

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest, to follow that star

No matter how hopeless, no matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march

Into hell for a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lay peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To fight the unbeatable foe

To reach the unreachable star