As some of you may know physicists at the Large Hadron Collider recently discovered probable proof of the Higgs-Boson!
Great news, any scientific discovery is an important one but this one ties together so many things about the universe... Except it doesn't. The discovery wasn't a perfect one because there were some slight differences between what was seen and what was expected. In a nutshell, we cannot explain the entirety of the universe(s) yet. This may also mean that there may be more than one universe... An interesting concept.
Why talk about this here? Well, religion tells us that the true scope of creation lies far beyond anything we could even begin to imagine... and that refers to only the creation of God, not the Creator.
We will never fully understand and transmit everything, we are probably incapable of it - partially because we are limited in our abilities to articulate and understand and partially because of our innate curiosity and inability to stop. Human beings will never stop trying to grow and because of this, God shall not stop creating.
This leads to the crux of this message today. Some believe that when we discover some phenomena, that moment is when God has created it. Others feel this idea is ludicrous, but it may hold some weight.
Looking at the Higgs-Boson, it is almost like an author saw an opportunity to add a plot twist into a perfectly convenient story. It was perfect. Einstein discusses relativity, if we believe the universe follows a set of laws, that will lead us to the truth, we keep following this path making amazing discoveries... only to find that the set of laws are not fixed. There are a vast multitude of laws and ours...? Ours is an extremely unlikely, rare possibility. One of an almost infinite number. Every law we followed wasn't the truth because the real truth lies beyond all laws, all belief, all understanding.
The truth is beauty. An incomprehensible concept, one that we can't sandbox into the rules of science or religion or even of the universe. The truth is art. Something purely creative, chaotic and ordered at once.
Wednesday, June 19, 2013
Sunday, June 9, 2013
My memories
I was recently thinking about my earliest confirmed memory.
It's an odd one. I now know that I was about 3.5 years old. Prior to this moment I had three small, short scenes I recall, however whether those were a dream, false memories or real ones I don't know. This memory is different, from this time onwards I have a steady, unbroken stream of memories.
I was standing in front of the mirror in my parents room looking at myself... That's it.
That's my first memory, while looking at a mirror and seeing myself, I suddenly realized that I was looking at "me."
It's an odd thing to really think about, at that specific moment, I believe I was first able to truly comprehend what an "identity" was, at least in my simplistic way. I realized that there were discrete pieces of existence in the universe and that I represented one of these discrete bits.
Looking back at it, it may also have been one of the saddest moments of my existence...
Some mystics have claimed that God is separated from the human soul by an infinite number of veils. They go on to say that God has allowed the veils to come up, but He has not created them - we have.
Through our sense of self, through our ability to discern that there is a difference between "I" and "we" we find a double edged sword. On the one had, this ability lets us fulfill an important role, as the Qur'an says, we are all "vicegerents of God on Earth" which means we are here to represent God and care for all creation. On the other hand, this role we have taken on grants both intellect and separation.
As Rumi says, we are like reeds separated from the reed bed - we long for the source. If we are separated for long enough, we continue to feel incomplete, but we no longer truly know what to do to feel complete. We lose that connection to the reed bed until eventually, our mournful cry becomes less mournful, we begin to forget what we have lost and look to the world around us to fill the separation within our souls... unsuccessfully.
Coming back to my first memory, this moment was my moment of personal attainment. I began to become a person, I became an individual, but my longing for my reed bed continued and continues to this day... This was the moment (as close as I can tell), when I was looking into that mirror, when I realized who I was, that I forgot who God was.
It's an odd one. I now know that I was about 3.5 years old. Prior to this moment I had three small, short scenes I recall, however whether those were a dream, false memories or real ones I don't know. This memory is different, from this time onwards I have a steady, unbroken stream of memories.
I was standing in front of the mirror in my parents room looking at myself... That's it.
That's my first memory, while looking at a mirror and seeing myself, I suddenly realized that I was looking at "me."
It's an odd thing to really think about, at that specific moment, I believe I was first able to truly comprehend what an "identity" was, at least in my simplistic way. I realized that there were discrete pieces of existence in the universe and that I represented one of these discrete bits.
Looking back at it, it may also have been one of the saddest moments of my existence...
Some mystics have claimed that God is separated from the human soul by an infinite number of veils. They go on to say that God has allowed the veils to come up, but He has not created them - we have.
Through our sense of self, through our ability to discern that there is a difference between "I" and "we" we find a double edged sword. On the one had, this ability lets us fulfill an important role, as the Qur'an says, we are all "vicegerents of God on Earth" which means we are here to represent God and care for all creation. On the other hand, this role we have taken on grants both intellect and separation.
As Rumi says, we are like reeds separated from the reed bed - we long for the source. If we are separated for long enough, we continue to feel incomplete, but we no longer truly know what to do to feel complete. We lose that connection to the reed bed until eventually, our mournful cry becomes less mournful, we begin to forget what we have lost and look to the world around us to fill the separation within our souls... unsuccessfully.
Coming back to my first memory, this moment was my moment of personal attainment. I began to become a person, I became an individual, but my longing for my reed bed continued and continues to this day... This was the moment (as close as I can tell), when I was looking into that mirror, when I realized who I was, that I forgot who God was.