Four years old;
I’m dig, dig, digging a giant hole
In our sandy, sod-less yard
(Last year a field of Long Island potatoes.)
My brother jokes that I will dig all the way to China.
Really, I only want to get half way through—
To the center of the universe.
That must be where the magic is.
Two feet down, the dirt turns cool and golden
…I must be getting close.
Copernicus shifted the center of the universe from the earth beneath our feet to the core of the dazzling sun. It made a great deal of sense that the source of light and life should be at the center of things. But now we know that the sun itself whirls in an arm of the swirling Milky Way, one of a myriad of galaxies that are embedded in the fabric of an ever-expanding universe. So where IS the center of the universe?
The Big Bang is now the generally accepted model for the birth of the cosmos. Most people hold in their minds a simple picture of the Big Bang event—from a single point, all the substance of creation radiating outward into nothingness, gradually thinning and coalescing into the galaxies, stars, and planets. So isn’t that single starting point the center of the universe?
On these clear winter nights,
The metal of the telescope freezes my fingertips.
I sacrifice comfort for the sake of science.
While my parents are watching Ed Sullivan,
My stars perform in front of a curtain of black velvet sky.
But after a time, the specks of light all look the same,
And the field of view drifts to the empty spaces between
Where I can imagine clusters of galaxies
Incredibly vast and unfathomably far.
And somewhere beyond that
The singularity from which the Big Bang sprang—
The center of the universe.
Time’s elusive essence both enables us to look for the center of the universe and prevents us from finding it, sustaining the envelope of paradox that surrounds us like some unknown pre-Columbian sea. Because of the finite speed of light, our telescopic exploration of the far reaches of space is also a look back into the past. Point your perception in any direction, and if you could look out far enough, you would detect light coming from the moment of the inception of the universe. Herein lies the paradox, for we find that the center of the universe surrounds us! The single central point we have been seeking turns out to be the farthest we can look in any direction. This defies common sense, and the circuits of our brains begin to fry.
A simple model is often used as an aid in understanding the concept of an expanding universe without a center or an outer boundary. We are asked to imagine the universe as the surface of an expanding balloon, with all the galaxies represented by dots painted on its skin. As the balloon inflates, the dots spread apart, but the curved two-dimensional surface of the balloon has no center and no edge. Now take a leap of intellect—imagine our universe as the three-dimensional equivalent of this self-contained curved arrangement. This is the structure of the cosmos that modern science accepts, one in which the original center is at the same time everywhere and nowhere.
Perhaps it is time to seek a new perspective. Let’s take another look at the Big Bang, using the idea of relativity associated with Einstein. Relativity refers to the fact that the perception of motion depends on which frame of reference you choose. With yourself as the frame of reference, the sun does indeed revolve around a stationary earth. In thinking about the Big Bang, we invariably place ourselves somewhere at a distance, and in our minds’ eyes observe a conventional explosion. But at the moment of the Big Bang, there was no such thing as space, so such a vantage point is impossible. We can only choose as frame of reference that single point from which the Big Bang sprang.
Once our perception is established at this unique frame of reference, we can observe the unfolding of the universe, moment by moment. With infinitesimal click of the cosmological clock, a new universe is created at the center, pushing all the previous ones away from us and further into the past, expanding the envelope of what has been. We already have a name for this point of continual creation. We call it “NOW,” and it is the true center of the universe that we have been seeking.
There is no such thing as the future.
The engine Now exhales a vapor trail;
jettisons debris of history
(amongst which we reside,
swirled in the spreading patterns,
thinning, fragmenting, disappearing.)
Tied to Now by a tether of light
I try to pull myself forward
to the center of the universe,
But always I lag a little behind,
deafened by the chatter
of chafing brain buffeted
by a turbulence of mind.
Our rational minds tend to view time as a stream flowing from past through present to future, linking cause and effect and making free will seem like so much wishful thinking. But if we maintain NOW as our frame of reference, the chains of the past are broken. Envision NOW as a soaring jet, leaving in its wake a vapor trail. The trail is played with by the wind; it spreads and dissipates. At any given moment, the pattern of the trail seems to be a consequence of what was there previously. But follow the trail to its origin and you will find the jet and its pilot, the agent of free will, flying crazy loop-the-loops. The vapor trail does not control the jet—it’s the other way around. We have ultimate freedom to the extent that we reside at this center, in this NOW. “BE HERE NOW” was the admonition of Ram Das, a leading interpreter of Eastern thought for Western audiences. Spiritual practices such as meditation, yoga, and prayer that quiet the mind help us to reach this place, to Be Here Now.
It seems that in our ordinary lives, we mainly exist as part of the vapor trail and not as the pilot of the jet. We reside at a little distance from the NOW, our minds busily chattering away, oblivious to the fact that we are living in our own pasts, as every happenstance triggers a cascade of images and emotions from our psychic reservoir.
And for the most part, we live in each other’s pasts as well. Even if we stand only a few feet apart, the experience we have of each other is an image in the past, because light takes time to travel between us. And then there is the nervous system circuitry that slightly delays our perception of every sensation. The only common ground we really share is our ability to perceive and function in the NOW. Most of us rarely attain this level, but when we do, it is a magical moment of union with all of God’s creation. Meister Eckhart, a Christian mystic of the thirteenth century, reflected: “The NOW in which God created the first man and the NOW in which the last man will disappear and the NOW in which I am speaking—all are the same in God, and there is only one NOW.”
Our unconventional analysis of the Big Bang illuminates the ultimate source of one of the core confusions of existence—the question of determinism vs. free will. It all depends on which frame of reference we choose: the site of continual creation (the NOW) or the vantage of the created, constantly being impelled into the past. Determinism and free will are mutually exclusive but still equally valid, somewhat akin to the dual images (vase and faces in profile, crone and beautiful girl) found in compilations of optical illusions. But ultimately the jury must find for free will, for ultimately there is a choice of frame of reference. The ignorance from which the samsara of suffering springs is the illusion that we do not each of us have this choice of frame of reference. For who, given the choice, would not select the freedom of NOW over the bondage of cause and effect?
I hear everybody say it—
“I’m so busy all the time.”
I haven’t reached peace and contentment yet,
But I’m tryin’, hey, I’m tryin’!
The center of my universe?
An after-work cold beer,
And every year two busy weeks
With you somewhere not here.
Bizzie, bizzie, bizzie, bizzie,
Busy all the time.
Am I busy being born,
Or am I busy dyin’? (4)
Attaining a presence of mind in the eternal NOW may allow the possibility of human achievements that seem almost miraculous. Feats of athletic performance and artistic expression, manifestations of advanced yogis and divine healers, leaps of scientific insight—these all may relate to the ability to reach the center, the site of creation. The batter, the bat, and the ball become one. The home run may sometimes not be just a matter of skill and strength, a case of cause and effect, but something more akin to Jung’s notion of synchronicity. This may also be what is behind peak experiences of intimacy. I have shared moments when there seemed to be a perfect coordination with my partner, as if we were a unity. The scientist in me wondered, (afterwards, of course,) what linkages of biochemistry or brain waves could have been responsible for this amazing connection. But perhaps a more plausible explanation is that we shared a fleeting union with the eternal NOW.
I wasn’t looking for you;
I was looking for a female me I suppose,
A perfect partner to dance with in the mirror.
But you exploded into my life out of nothingness,
And made me think there could be an other
Without a separation,
A single stillness in this swirling,
A center to my universe.
If now is where new time-space continually comes into being, our ability to be present there gives us the potential to participate in its creation as a cause and not as an effect. This is the basis for the power of ritual in pre-scientific cultures. If a pattern is placed at the Center, it will act as an extrusion die, establishing the shape of the clay-like substance as it emerges into the realm of perception. The ritual enactments of the triumphant hunt, the bountiful harvest, the fruitful multiplication of the tribe, were necessarily tied to shamanistic practices that made the connection with the Center.
The future is not immutable. Although the configuration at the place of continual creation determines a specific future, that pattern may be altered. We can change the mind of God, but to do so we must reach His presence.
Springtime ritual, the planting of the seed.
Repeat the mantra every inch along the row.
And with each burial, I conceive
The center of another universe.
An engine ignites, a turbine churns
A trail of roots and stem, leaves and flower.
I am the pilot of Now.
Every created thing comes into being at the Center, at the NOW, and recedes at the speed of light. If we truly experience our lives in the NOW, if we see by the light within us, that illumination will maintain the connection with the Center. Like a spider’s silk, a thread of light directed back to the true source attaches, stretches, and will not release. Radiant beams radiate to the Center, a web to hold it all together.
Toward the end of his brilliant career, Isaac Newton devoted himself increasingly to the esoteric and now disreputable discipline of alchemy. A key principle of alchemy was “As below, so above,” the notion that phenomena in the physical cosmos have a correspondence in the higher realm of spirit. Consistent with such scriptures as “God is light” (1John1:5) and “I am the light of the world,” (John8:12) Newton sought to connect God’s activity in the created universe to the behavior of light. This phase of Newton’s work is generally regarded as an aberration, the manifestation of an aging, degrading mind. But perhaps Newton was on the right track after all. Light is the principle that allows us an apprehension of the absolute frame of reference—God’s frame of reference—in the physical cosmos. Perhaps the passage through the “tunnel of light” described in many near-death experiences is an image of the crossing of the barrier that blocks our constant experience of the NOW, the true Center of the Universe. Maybe that’s where heaven is—smaller than a mustard seed, the source of all creation, from which the universe grew and grows.
Once I was a gatherer—of image, idea, emotion;
Time was a magically stretching sack
That somehow held them all.
Once I hunted experience;
Time was the track my quarry trod.
Now I feel like a rock,
Ground by a few bits of happening:
Roll and rumble, crack and crumble.
The dead have one thought only—
Resurrection.
Time must pass swiftly for rocks and the dead.
A tunnel of light awaits me,
So say those who have passed and returned.
But words cannot describe what’s on the other side.
The center of the universe?
That must be where the magic is…
The Magic, yes! THE MAGIC.
