Observer or participant? Lent 2024, Day 37

"In the great scheme of things, you are as insignificant as a grain of sand. And yet the Universe was made just for you." I have pondered upon this rabbinical statement for decades. Both parts of it are equally true; the first objectively true, the second subjectively true. 

Are you a humble observer of a vast unfolding Cosmos, of which our galaxy (consisting of around 200 billion stars and at least that number of planets) is but one of two trillion such galaxies, each one consisting of a similar order of magnitude of stars? 

Or is the Cosmos something that's happening to you? 

Of course, the answer is "both, at the same time". You are both object and subject. 

The Cosmos is happening to you and to every single conscious entity right across the Universe. Or put it another way; we are all being happened to by the Cosmos.

But are we just passive observers, random lumps of living, brain-managed meat, or do we influence the way Cosmos unfolds? I am minded of chaos theory and the butterfly effect, a metaphor for the principle of chaos, which describes how one tiny change in the state of a system can result in large differences in a later state – a butterfly flapping its wings in Texas can cause a tornado in China, for instance. 

Our daily activities can be likened to the flapping of that butterfly's wings. Whether pre-determined by our genes and our upbringing, or brought about by our own free will, our actions have consequences, some of which may bring about an unintended domino effect cascading through the world.

The ethical question therefore arises – do you wish the effect of those actions to be beneficial or harmful? One way or another, we are more than passive observers or subjects, we are participants, our presence is not accidental but bears a purpose. It is our duty to seek out that purpose and to fulfil our potential. And here I'll get metaphysical; that purpose is to evolve spiritually,

"So many strange things happen to me all day long" – James Brown asks the existential question, "Why Does Everything Happen To Me?" As I sit here at my kitchen table writing, I observe a deer wandering through the wood at the edge of my garden.  Never seen that in six years here. A sign!

Finally, an insight that I intuited yesterday, a statement that came to me independent of my cogitational process – hence the curly brackets: 

{{ You cannot affect that, which you do not consider }}.  

Practical magic. Example: Have I considered the prospect that the train will be late? No? Then it will be late. Have I considered that the train will be late? Yes? Then it will arrive on time.

Lent 2023, Day 37
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Lent 2022: Day 37
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Lent 2021: Day 37
Dream insights into past lives

Lent 2020: Day 37
Further thoughts on Reincarnation