In the book A Forever Place, I discuss two connected experiences where I found myself in a place of infinity —

I was in a place with no boundaries.
No walls.
No floor.
No ceiling.
Nothing gives me a point of reference to measure distance.
It seems to have no ending.
I stare at infinity.
Infinity stares back at me.
    A Forever Place, pp. 1-2

What if we removed the points of reference from our daily lives?

As humans, we have established various methods for measuring things. We don’t think of them as measurements because they are commonplace and routine. These points of reference include things like a house, a car, a city, a mountain, a river, an ocean…. We define all of these things in our minds as if they have “size” but they have “size” defined only by finite, human perspective that we, as physical beings, have established.

What if we remove ourselves from the physical role and consider “size” from a different perspective? The movie plot for Men In Black is based on a few humans in New York City attempting to find a galaxy. It takes them awhile, but eventually they discover the galaxy is contained in a marble-size globe hanging on the collar of a cat. At the end of the movie, the camera pans away from the city into space. As the camera moves away from earth, it reveals our solar system, then a nebula and eventually our entire Milky Way Galaxy. Then the camera moves further away and reveals the Milky Way is contained inside a marble-size globe.

MIB I ending:

“Size” is an interesting concept; so is “time.” If we remove our limiting, human perspective, “size” becomes something that is relative — relative only to the concept of association we have created in our finite human brains.

Inquisitively,
David

On January 29 I asked: How Big Is The Universe? In that blog I wondered, “What are the things I currently believe to be THE TRUTH, but given more time, will discover to be false?” Today’s guest blogger, Zac Wine (Cambridge, MA), follows my questions with a few of his own —

—————————
It’s ironic that we are still constantly looking and finding perfect guardians of health. A few hundred years ago, man was in search of the fountain of youth. You know, the actual fountain that springs up from the ground that grants eternal youth to whomever drinks from it. Little did we know that we would still be looking for it now, in this century, in this time of awakening, in different physical forms like heroine … or Prozac.

On top of the food chain of things we do not know is death. Or not so much death itself. You really only have a few choices when it comes to death itself: going quietly into the light or going out extravagantly (and maybe painfully). The great unknown really is what happens after death. There are so many ideas that man can choose from. Most men I know (yes, and women, I know some of them too) see all the ideas and pick and choose their beliefs like it was a buffet table. But what is the truth? What actually happens? Is one right? Are many right? Are any right? What would be the great unknown if we knew for certain about what did happen after death?

And somewhere during this search we forget to wonder about the glory of a short life, a short life often wasted on things we do not want or like to do. Instead of describing blue to someone that cannot see, try instead to describe it to someone that can see. Can you do it without using examples of blue? Can you do it without using science (or religion, for that matter)? Now instead of trying to unlock the great unknown, try to unlock the things you think you already know. Where do we come from? And I don’t mean from your mother.

Let’s all take risks and possibly be jailed, ostracized, forced to drink hemlock, beheaded, or maybe just be dead wrong from time to time. It’s from heavy failure but strong determination that great success comes.

Enjoying this glorious life!
Zac Wine

When I recently wondered about How Big Is The Universe, I mentioned The Ant’s perspective. I wondered if there are beings who perceive humans in the same way we perceive the ant.

What if an ant could expand its awareness so it could see AND understand humans? I wonder if it would try to communicate with us. Or if it would try to become more human-like by taking on our behaviors or values so as to fit into our culture or understand us better.

From our current human perspective, we have speculated that angels exist; some even say they have seen angels. We speculate that they have wings. We talk of having guardian angels, “assigned” to each of us to protect and guide us. Some of the books I’ve read recently discuss certain tasks angels perform like Healing, Teaching, Guiding, Delivering messages from/to God

In my human finite-ness I don’t personally know much about angels yet, but I wonder if the human-angel connection is similar to the ant-human relationship. If it were possible, would I choose to expand my awareness so that I could perceive and understand angels on an everyday basis?

Inquisitively,
David Wine

The human perspective of our universe is small, and until I was given the dream experiences in my book A Forever Place, I didn’t think too much about the possibility of other Universes.

Ponder these ideas…

• A few thousand years ago, conventional wisdom said the world was flat.
• A few hundred years ago, it was commonly believed that Earth was the center of the universe.
• A couple hundred years ago, air travel was considered impossible.
• About a century ago heroin was available over the counter at the corner drugstore, and was touted as a wonder drug that clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, calms the stomach, and is a perfect guardian of health.

Back when these concepts were “the truth,” a person would likely face despair, misfortune or death if they happened to be the first to suggest “the truth” might actually be false. For instance, when Galileo began promoting Copernicus’ notion that perhaps the earth DID revolve around the sun, he was convicted of heresy and ordered to house arrest.

I’ll take the risk of being tossed in the slammer and make some wild suggestions:

• The world is round,
• The earth is not the center of the universe,
• I can hop on an airplane and fly from New York to L.A. in less than 6 hours, and
• Heroin may give buoyancy to the mind but is probably not a perfect guardian of health.

(There may be an occasional exception to such definitive announcements. My old boss thinks he’s the Center of the Universe. By extrapolating I could conclude that Earth is an approximation for the center of the universe if I use the boss-is-the-center-of-the-universe theory!)

For now, my challenge is to consider this: What are the things I currently believe to be THE TRUTH, but given more time, will discover to be false? The more I ponder this question, the more I discover about our Universe and things beyond the four dimensions I commonly take for granted: length, width, height, and time.

Recently I read a story about an ant’s perspective: An ant’s knowledge includes the surface of the ground to and from its nest. It also knows about finding food and defending its home. But the ant knows nothing about human love, or…the international space station, or…the color blue. What if the ant was able to move out of its dimension into ours? Think what the ant would learn! And what if we were able to move out of our current dimension into the next? We know of the ant’s existence and can study and describe it to other humans. Who (or what) knows of our existence and can study it and describe it to others of its kind? [paraphrased from a story told by Osho]

What are the things I believe to be true, but really are not?

Oh, the things I don’t know…yet.

Inquisitively,
David Wine

My name is David Wine. I am 48. At my other job I am an accountant. I enjoy learning new things and my mind is in constant motion. Read more about me in ABOUT.

I wrote a book called A Forever Place and it is almost finished. It’s about two very profound dream experiences I had a couple years ago. Please consider buying a copy of the book for you and another for a friend.

One of the people helping me with this project suggested I start blogging about those dream experiences, maybe some spiritual transformation stuff and other related topics. At first I thought blogging would be difficult. I’m an accountant, not a writer! But now I’m discovering I actually have a lot to say. I think if I focus only on Spiritual Transformation, I’ll probably get bored, so I plan to discuss other related topics like meditation, the concept of God, my thoughts about learning new things, how big is the Universe, and other similar things.

The dream experiences I wrote about in A Forever Place actually happened to me. They were overwhelming (like when I delivered my youngest son when he was born). When I woke up from each of the dream experiences, my heart was pounding, my skin was prickling from goose bumps and I was breathing heavily. In each of the dreams “…I stared at Infinity and Infinity stared back at me.” –Very intense!– Also, “…I was not alone. Someone was there behind me and to my right, but I knew that if I turned to look I would see nothing with these finite human eyes.”

I wanted to write about these experiences in a way that was so descriptive you could be there with me in A Forever Place. I hired professionals to help me write in an appealing and descriptive manner and I very much want for you to experience the intensity of those experiences as much as I did.

I will try to stay on appropriate topics from week to week, but I may wander a bit now and then.

Join me in my life’s journey.

David Wine