The World, What Is It?

"Celestial Portrait: Catia and Sergio"
by Patricia Lee Nicholls,
(c) 2003, oil on canvas, 12"x12" (30x30 cm)

The World, The World, WHAT Is It?

I, the “Me” that “I” SEEM to KNOW.

Who Am I?

Where Am I?

Where Am I going?

At what point am I now, in this moment,

In the Illusion of Time and Space,

On my Voyage with all my Brothers and Sisters,

In the Visible and Invisible Universe?

I find it useful sometimes to check the dictionary to help me to examine the roots of concepts that I often take for granted. An examination of the word “universe” according to The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, describes in part:

Universe =            All existing things, including the earth, the heavens, the galaxies, and all therein, regarded as a whole; the cosmos; macrocosm.

Uni- =                        Indicates the state of being single or of having or consisting of only one.

Verse =            (?Ahhhh! “Verse” can hold several meanings in our linear language.):

            •  noun -            a line or verse in a song or poem

            •  verb –             to write poetry (from Latin versus, “a turning of the plow”,

from past participle of vertere , “to turn”.

            •  verb -             to make familiar, knowledgeable, or skilled, to school.

Which definitions lead me on to reflect:

Linear Language:

            We express ourselves every day using the words of a language, usually without being aware of how much Time and Space affects our perception of “Reality”.

Questions:

  •  HOW many years have I spent learning to use, and to refine my use of, a particular “Mother Tongue” – a language that cannot be understood by EVERY ONE on "Mother" Earth?

•           HOW can so many people in our modern, industrialized culture practically ignore the awesome discoveries of Quantum Physics –

--           That "time" is not linear, as was once believed, but that “time” functions more like a foam – every action within every moment multiplying upon itself in:

MULTIPLE DIMENSIONS.

--           That some Quantum Physics experiments (whether considered “the final word” or not) suggest that the Speed of Light, once believed to be a fixed constant, may actually speed up when sub-atomic particles are propelled at what was once believed to be the limit of the speed of light.

                        IF science can discover

--            that Time and Space are relative,

--           that the world is round, and not flat, as was once believed,

--           that once Humankind has developed the physical capacity to create a machine that can propel an “element” at the once-believed “speed of light”, then LIGHT shows Itself to us as able to change its speed so as not to permit a physical object to reach it,

                        THEN, why do we continue to feel so strongly that what we believe is so important?

Words and Language are by their very nature LINEAR. To me, the theory that Time is not linear may  demonstrate that it may be the moment for humankind to learn to DOUBT the convictions we have learned through our limited and limiting linear languages.

Good and evil are human terms for learned concepts based on human judgments: I am good, and my neighbor, another race, another country … anyone who is different from me or thinks in a way different from me threatens my values, is thus evil, or bad, and so must be feared.” When we fear, we respond by trying to control, creating a vicious cycle of fear-control-frustration-anger-more fear-more control-more frustration-more anger-etc-etc, which can multiply and accelerate to the point that we are more at war with ourselves than with our “neighbors”.

Here it may be useful to point out that, although I express the following thoughts mostly in Christian terms, I feel that every spiritual tradition, in its pure, unadulterated form, deserves to be respected, whether or not we succeed in understanding or accepting its validity, its expression or its roots. In fact, due to the fact that - even within various Christian traditions - so much conflict and controversy exists dealing with Christ’s name and life, I often find it difficult, myself, to use the name of Christ, being sensitive to the great possibility of being misinterpreted.

I THINK             -That Christ tried to teach us to exit from our linear concepts and perceptions. That Christ tried to help us to see beyond Time and Space as CHILDREN, accepting that we can learn to live by clearing our minds of all our prejudices and fixed opinions, softening our minds and hearts so that they will be able to return to their origins in LOVE.

            That Love Is:

            --            One of the most misused terms in practically every language.

            --            A principle, not an emotion that may change according to whether “you” give “me” what I perceive as what I desire or need.

            --            A constant, and that it is our True Nature.

            --            Revealed when we learn to DOUBT the endless rationalizations of our judging minds, and accept that we, and everyone and everything are interacting in an ever-changing perfect matrix of elements evolving together, and that despite our perception of some things being good and some things being evil, every circumstance serves in some way to lead us to being able to “live in the world without being of the world”….

            --            The Fruit of The Tree of Life that comes to us when we finally learn how to surrender our minds to LOVE, and truly ask that the Will of Love Be Done, rather than that our interpretation of our desires be done.

From personal experience due to an especially traumatic life-event and thus having to learn how to exit from panic and anxiety attacks, it seems that the most difficult thing for a human mind to surrender is its tendency to judge some things as good and others as evil. In fact, when you read this phrase, your mind might respond instinctively: “Eeek! How on earth can I let my guard down in this competitive world for one minute without risking being assaulted by ‘crooks‘ ‘the bureaucracy‘, etc. etc.!” … especially due to the fears that confront us each and every day through news reports from the mass media!

Don’t worry. You don’t have to go “cold turkey” and live without judgment and fear all at once. But just try, for just a few minutes each day, to doubt in your belief in the validity of good and evil, in the need for fear, in the belief that Love or God has anything at all to do with judging either events, or you and your perceived “errors”. Asking yourself, without allowing your own my to answer you back: “If God is Love, then how does Love judge?”

To me, Christ’s lesson to the Children of the Earth was not intended to make us concentrate on the pain and suffering that we “saw” him endure. Instead, that we should reflect on the possibility that the real “He” or “Me” or “I” is eternal and can neither be harmed nor die, even though the “I” in this body must exist in the Illusion of Time and Space. When one begins to feel that the real “I” cannot be either touched or harmed by any perceived evil, and that we are all learning and evolving together, then everything, without exception, whether inside or outside oneself, becomes ONE integral part of a harmonious Universe.

©Patricia Lee Nicholls, February 12, 2003