[Arktwo] Where we are.

[Bruce Beach]

Great week at Ark Two.
We had ten people working
all day on Wednesday.

Hard to say -
what is happening
on the world scene.
A year ago January -
the world seemed ready
to rock and roll.
Bush and Blair -
and Sharon and his sidekick Olmert -
were at the peak of their power.
Now - all four are ineffectual.
How things change.

I contribute it all
to Divine Destiny -
and in this and all things
I try to comprehend the Divine Reality.

We all comprehend
but a small part of
the Divine Reality.
Since the Divine Reality
is the only True Reality -
this means that most of what we the perceive
is illusion.

Illusion is not delusion.
Illusion is based upon reality -
while delusion is entirely unreal.
Our apparatus of perception
determines the illusion
of how reality appears to us.
It is sort of like looking
through rose colored glasses.

Because we all have been created
with similar apparatus -
most of us perceive the illusion
in much the same way.

Time, space, matter -
the three illusions of reality.
The psychiatrist determines
whether someone is sane or not
based upon whether they share
the general illusion.

Do you know
who you are
where you are
when you are.

Looking today -
at where we are.
I have a book that I have read
a couple of times over the years -
called the Discoverers (Daniel Boorstein) -
that tells about such famous people
as Columbus and Magellan,
but today, with some hard choices,
I made up my personal list of who
I think were the greatest discovers
of where we are -
in the illusion of space.
While I won't go into the details
for my reasons,
they are:

1. Claudius Ptolemaeus (Ptolemy)(120-180)
2. Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543)
3. Tycho Brahe (1546–1601)
4. Johannes Kepler (1571-1630)
5. Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)
6. Isaac Newton (1643-1727)
7. Edmond Halley (1656-1742)
8. George Ellery Hale (1868–1938)
9. Harlow Shapley (1885–1972)
10. Edwin Hubble (1889-1953)

I, like many people,
consider Newton
to have been the greatest scientist
of all time -
and it would be too lengthy
for me list the reasons
why I am so impressed with each of the above -
but four names on that list
particularly interest me:

Copernicus 1514 - first in Western Science
	to formulate a heliocentric
	view of the universe
Galileo 1609
	defended the heliocentric view
	and made telescopic observations
Shapley 1920
	first to hold that the sun
	was not the central point of the galaxy
	but held in the Great Debate of 1920
	that all galaxies
	were within our galaxy
Hubble 1925
	showed that other galaxies
	consisted of stars
	and that they lay outside our galaxy

The pictures of the Hubble telescope,
(named of course after Hubble)
are fantastic,
and undoubtedly,
you have seen a number of them.

The thing that astounds me here -
is that it was only a little over
80 years ago -
that humanity became aware
that there are billions of galaxies
made up of billions of stars -
(something that probably most people on the planet -
still do not know).

It was only 400 years ago
that a few people were able to see
the possibility that other stars
were like our sun -
and that some of them that moved
(called planets)
might be like our earth.

Much of humanity
still has not absorbed
these very recent ideas,
about the immensity
of the universe.
That is true
of astronomers also.

While astronomers recognize
that there are billions of galaxies
with billions of stars -
and are beginning to recognize
that many of the stars have planets -
they still hold to the idea of
a Great Bang and a finite universe.

They really don't grasp
the idea of Infinite -
not that any human mind can.
But still -
a great many people that I know
still work on a paradigm
that has been around for many centuries.

The paradigm was not wrong.
It just needs to be expanded
into a more inclusive one.
Yes,
God created the heavens and the earth -
but we need an expanding consciousness
of the immensity of God's creation.

The whole of God's creation
does not revolve around this planet
or a specific event that happened on it
two thousand years ago,
although that was important to all of us.

All of us start life -
hanging onto the rail of our cribs
and looking at what is out there.
We see our mommas and papas -
and we seem to be the center
of the world.

Later we begin to realize
that there is more beyond
our rooms and houses
and the towns that we live in.
It takes years -
but we grasp something
of the abstract ideas of distance
that we see in maps and globes.

As we mature
we begin to realize
that we individually
are not the center of the universe.
HOWEVER -
the same cannot yet be said collectively
for most people that you know.

Most people in our culture
still think of humans on this planet
as being the purpose
or center of creation.
They probably hold
an even more limited view than that.
They see their race,
their country,
their culture,
their religion,
as being all important.

They may be able to speak
of billions of galaxies -
but they have 'interiorised'
in their thinking
that they are
the center of the universe -
just in the same way
that the child in the crib
does not think beyond its own thoughts.

If you were to ask such a child
where it is -
and if it could reply -
it would say -
"I am with my momma."

Later with expanding consciousness
a child will write its return address -
house number
street
city
state
country
planet earth
solar system
galaxy.

But still -
they don't know 'where' they are.
The maturing mind
as it looks about space
realizes that it is an illusion.
Illusion not delusion.
Based upon reality -
but not reality.

When we look out at the stars
we do not see what is really there.
What we see is NOT really there.
It isn't now -
and it hasn't ever been.

What you see is the light from one star
that left that star 10 million years ago.
It shows where that star WAS -
10 million years ago -
not where it is now.

You also see the light from some other star
that left that star 100 million years ago.
It shows where that star WAS -
100 million years ago -
not where it is now -
nor even where it was 10 million years ago.

What you see then -
is a pattern of stars that NEVER existed.
Not now -
because the one star was there
10 million years ago -
but the other star had moved away
from its position ninety million years
before that.

This every changed relationship
is multiplied by whatever number
of stars that you see -
showing you something that never was -
nor ever shall be.

This same illusion of reality -
applies to all of your visual sense.
Galileo turned his lenses not only outwards -
but inwards.
Structures that seem solid to us
are made up of smaller structures still.
With expanding instrumentation
we have come to realize that these too
are in motion -
and are made up largely of empty space.

We stand suspended between
billions of galaxies
in the macrocosm
and billions of atoms
in the microcosm.

Between astrophysics and nanophysics -
all of reality -
presenting itself as an illusion
to our senses.
We sense but a small part
of the electromagnetic spectrum
and the color, texture, depth and fineness
or reality is but an illusion
determined by our instruments
(ears, eyes, touch).

Increasingly,
evidence comes to us
of a much more sophisticated universe
of black holes
white holes
dark matter
dark energy.

Will we ever penetrate
the secrets of reality?
The answer is no -
because reality is infinite
and we are finite.

The only capacities that we have
are those with which we were created -
and while we create instruments
to enhance those capacities -
we cannot go beyond the bounds
that the Creator has set for us.

Those bounds, however,
are much greater
than most people have an inkling.
Those who are willing
to look, examine, and think -
beyond what has been the custom of centuries -
can see the evidences of where they are.

They need to take a broader and broader view.
To see that the coincidence
of the house, town, state, country
in which they were born -
is but a coincidence.

That they are actually
a part of a planet
a solar system, galaxy, and cosmos.
That actually they reside
in the Infinite -
in the Creation of God -
and they are a part of that Creation.

The maturing mind
has a growing allegiance.
Not just to its parents and siblings,
but then to classmates,
the community
and country.
Today,
many have never gotten beyond that
and for most of humanity
the next step is to realize
that they are citizens of the world.

As children
it is important to learn
to be obedient to one's parents
and to get along with one's siblings.
Later to learn to cooperate
with one's teachers and classmates -
and as maturing individuals
to participate in one's community and country.

Now,
it is important for the progress of humanity
that people continue to expand their horizons
and to recognize that their service
must be to the whole of humanity.
Anything less,
remains but the stunted growth
of the immature individual
as reflected in the behaviour
of the school ground bully.

Sadly, where we are -
is living on a planet
with great numbers of people
who have not passed beyond
the bully mentality.

Our job, duty, responsibility,
is to educate them beyond that
bully mentality.
To do so,
may require an effort of centuries -
but those who have the insight
must begin now.

Where we are -
is not in America,
Palestine, Israel,
Russia or China.
But on one small planet of the
uncountable numbers of planets -
of what we call the visible universe -
that is but one part of
the Infinite World's of God.

The inhabitants
of this small planet
also have the responsibility
to mature to God's universal laws of
harmony and love
as have been taught by
all the Prophets of God.

Peace and love,
Bruce
DawnSayer@webpal.org