Living In The Cosmos: Vignette (1): The Universe

-INTRODUCTION-

What follows is a small diversion into the nature of things, of our living in this universe as I see it. I have written a small series of vignettes, little embroideries that broach upon our experiences, our understandings, our deepest ponderings, not only from the head but the heart.

-ACCEPTING THE UNIVERSE--

In the end I suspect "accepting the universe" will be finally our only true means of happiness. Of course all our immediate universe(s) differ from one another. Some come to us ready-made, others we make ourselves. But there's larger experiences of the universe that we hold more in common, the universe which provides parameters and challenge to us all. Beyond even this is the Great Universe whose mysteries we are only beginning to tap.

Theologians long ago coined an expression: "Being at home in the universe." That's been the rub for most of us. We are *not* at home. Indeed, often we run scared in this universe of ours. Sigmund Freud picked-up on this, but likely any wise elder could tell us that this is so.

Freud said that we developed religion to ward off our horror of the universe. Well, maybe he's right to some extent. We do *use* religion, our god-imagery, to comfort and protect ourselves. We even manipulate our gods, endowing them with amenable characteristics that offer ultimate promise and hope to all of us.

Nowadays it sometimes seems that it's our inner universe that cause us the most trouble. As we arrive towards ever greater self-awareness, it seems almost proportionally that our inner universe becomes a more demanding and complex place.

So what to do? Accept or die, as they say. We well know that a person can "die" before the flesh crumbles. Smashed, they are walking tombs. They have become chaos.

Most of us, however, choose to remain in some sort of protective container. As Carl Jung put it, to paraphrase, most of us could not survive the Real Encounter (with God, with Ultimate Reality) and *must* have protection. Jung considered our religious institutions such containers--and they are necessary for most folk.

The great proportion of us are not ready squarely to face the universe in all of its dimensionality, indeed maybe none of us can! But there are some who have crawled out of their shells and taken a few steps forward--and have survived to tell about it. These are the people who have dared to probe our inner universe, the psyche. These are the people who have dared to probe our outer universe, the cosmos. And the stories they have to tell speak of great adventure and wonderment. And, yes, of danger too!

Perhaps the only way we can begin (and only begin) to be "at home in the universe" is to work towards a greater understanding of our environ. Indeed, one can discover a certain happiness working towards a finer comprehension of this, our universe in all its complexity and dimensionality. Such "work" can help take one out-of-their self, out of their smaller self. Coming to know more can make one less afraid. Coming to know more is about *learning,* learning to understand better the laws and principles--those parameters--of this universe in which we live. Such an understanding can lead to a benefit in how we choose to live, how we respond to the challenges that arise.

Perhaps indeed we must "accept" the universe before we can be at home. But there's another trick in this package. There's accepting and there's accepting. Some acceptance can seem almost a capitulation. Another form of acceptance, however, is about "growing smart."

Look around, being smart is better. No, I'm not talking about the smart-aleck nor the fellow full of hubris. I'm talking about becoming more intelligent about our universe, both the psyche side and the cosmic side. It's about becoming *wise.* If we better understood how things work, we might not have to cope with so much frustration and aggression that we well know can readily magnify from the individual to the collective.

The universe, this Great Matrix, is all we have. We live and abide and die in its arms. And how we handle this condition is up to us.

-SHADOW OF CHAOS-

The universe comes to us, in our daily living, presenting us with both the good and the bad. As Jung said about our psyche, so it is true of the universe--there's a "shadow" side, a chaos side to life. But Jung also noted that if we begin to recognize what this shadow--this chaos--might be for us, interface and come to terms with it, we might discover this shadow to be "99 percent gold."

As for those "bad" and "good" labels we give to our experience, in our encounter with the universe, for me it boils down to the issue of *chaos and order.* Modern science's Chaos Theory tells us a lot about the constant interfacing of chaos and order throughout all Nature's systems, including ours!

In Chaos Theory, Nature's systems are constantly interchanging order-and-chaos-and-order. It is a *balancing* act. One can be living in an orderly state, than something happens to throw one into a state of chaos. It is at this point that one meets the challenge to either to continue to fall further into chaos or to rise above the chaos into a new level (and usually higher level) of order.

Making "order-out-of-chaos" runs through and through the entire universe, through our more immediate inner-and-outer universe(s), all the time. There's always this constant challenge.

People employ all sorts of means and methods to rise to the challenges of our universe, to the personal and familiar challenges of our life. For example, people very often employ religions, fantasies, visions--all the storehouse of our imagination, as *means* by which to combat the chaos they encounter. Sometimes our means of combat may not seem sophisticated, but if they work (for you or for me)--they are smart!

Oft I've wondered why our universe (at all levels, and especially that portion that directly meets us) is so unrelenting in its challenge in regard to chaos and order. I can only think, as I look around, that it's a method the universe employs to make itself (and us, included) *develop.* If we weren't forced to rise to these unrelenting challenges, we wouldn't even be human beings. We would still be amoebas. If not for the challenges, we wouldn't even have that vague semblance of civilization we now possess. If not for the challenges, we wouldn't have the human mind that has produced all the disciplines. We wouldn't have even our consciousness of "God."

It would seem this constant challenge of making more and more *order*-out-of-the-chaos is about evolving ever greater awareness, greater conscious comprehension. This chaos, this "shadow" we meet, whose challenges prompt us, might truly be unawares 99 percent gold.

-WONDEROUS CREATION-

For myself, I have tried to develop a personal spirituality that allows for living more in communion with this world, this universe. It's all we really have. It's a truly fascinating place, a Living System as our scientists are now beginning to admit. It's a self-organizing system, containing further systems infinitum within itself. There's creativity and experimentation and adventure all over the place!

Some philosophers and theologians are beginning to realize that our universe includes a suggestive Subjectivity, hence Mind and Consciousness. We humans in this world would seem the proof. Think upon this, through millennia of evolution *we* represent all the living organisms (once and now) on this planet. Through groping, punctuated jumping, whatever, there's been a steady trajectory. We can trace back our ancestry up from the earlier forms of humans, from land mammals, from the amphibian, from marine creatures, indeed right from the amoeba. But it is *we* who represent the Earth's arrival into self-consciousness! As Teilhard de Chardin once expressed: "the cell has become someone!"

We have become "consciousness-points" in this Wonderous Creation.