The clearest image of God that we have been able to comprehend so far is the energy (E) present at the Big Bang, before the conversion to matter (MC2) took place, an event that gave birth to the very concept of Space-Time as we know it. Now, almost fourteen billion years later we have been able to discover a fraction of that universe in the forms of galaxies and countless stars and other galactic objects that comprise such galaxies and the size is beyond anything we will ever be able to comprehend. Let alone the size of the universe, the very size of our solar system is beyond what we can readily grasp with our mind, despite our mental excellence and superiority among all the species here on earth.
To start with, the distance between our planet and the sun is a staggering ninety three million miles but that puny distance pales in comparison when the distance between the sun and the last of its orbiting planets, Neptune is considered. The distance between the sun and the earth is 1 AU and Neptune lies about thirty AU from the sun. However, to make matters even worse for our comprehension, Neptune is not even close to the edge our solar system. The farthest object from the sun discovered so far in our solar system is a comet known as West, which lies about seventy thousand AU away from the sun, more than two thousand times the distance between sun and Neptune. If that is the size of our humble solar system, we cannot help but grow numb when we consider the fact that the galaxy we call home, the Milky Way is made up of hundreds of billions of solar systems like ours and the universe is made up of hundreds of billions of such galaxies, each separated by even more incomprehensible amounts of space in between. To grasp the amount of space in between two neighboring galaxies, such as the Milky Way and Andromeda, consider this – the Milky Way is about one hundred thousand light years across in diameter and we need to place twenty five Milky Ways side by side to traverse the space between our galaxy and Andromeda.
But here is the ultimate catch, despite the enormity of the observable universe; scientists now know that all these galaxies make up only fifteen percent of the universe. The remaining eighty five percent is what they call Dark matters. All these only confirm what Evelyn Underhill so eloquently phrased more than a century ago, God truly is too large to be comprehended for otherwise God would have been too small to be worshipped!
Let us shift our focus from the macrocosm to the microscopic universe, for the tale there is no less intriguing either. Courtesy of the valiant efforts by the devotees of the quantum theory around the world we have been given a glimpse inside the subatomic universe. Now we know that each and every atom is made up of hundreds of billions of tiny threads of energy known as Strings. They too are beyond sizes that human mind can readily comprehend. It is said that if an atom is sized up to be as big as the universe then each of the Strings that comprised it would have been only as large as an eight meter tall electric pole. This energy like any other is the remnant of that E at the Big Bang. So everything that we can see from microbes to Jupiter is made up of these threads of energy.
So, whether human beings are worshipping the sun or rain or fire or are practicing pantheism by worshipping various powers of Nature or the Nature in its entirety or are devotees of the monotheistic Semitism in the form of Judaism, Christianity or Islam or are followers of the ancient customs of worshipping earlier kings, they are paying homage to that omnipresent E. All these compel me to conclude that God and the universe is like a painting and all we have been doing is to aggrandize our subjective views of that painting, while fighting with our nails, teeth and bones to find flaws in others’ interpretations. I think, to justify our claim as the supreme creation, the time is nigh to stop scratching the surface that causes all kinds of mayhems and start looking deeper at the real truth.
For your patience, you have my gratitude!
Poems 