PHOTO by Kim Peart of the Ross Bridge and the Uniting Church on the hill.

One of the most amazing finds in science was made in 1929, when the astronomer, Edwin Hubble, found that the Universe was expanding.

Hubble observed that galaxies were moving away from the Milky Way, and the further away they were, the faster they were moving away.

This effect was not due to the movement of the galaxies, but to the expansion of space, an expansion that continues and is currently accelerating.

Following the obvious trail, cosmologists wondered how small the Universe could have once been.

The conclusion was that our cosmos began as an infinitely small point 13.8 billion years ago, that then began stretching to infinity in an event called the Big Bang.

Another astronomer, Fred Hoyle, favoured his theory for a steady-state Universe, and called the exploding singularity the Big Bang, as a joke, in a BBC radio interview on 28 March 1949.

Maybe one day the science creation event of the Universe will be revisited and granted a more poetic name, but for now we are stuck with Fred Hoyle’s joke.

The stretching of space means that everything in the cosmos is within a primal expanding cosmic singularity.

To understand the Universe, is to appreciate that there is a cosmic oneness that is primal to existence.

In life we can see ourselves as separate, but that is an illusion of the cosmic play that we are in.

Our underlying reality is that we are part of the oneness of the primal singularity that stretched to infinity.

On the one hand this property of space and time may permit instant communications between the stars.

On the other hand, we each have a primal connection to all space and time, where space and time are two sides of the same coin, as there cannot be space without time, nor time without space.

In the practice of meditation there is an appreciation of the primal cosmic oneness, with the meditator’s aim to be in harmony with the oneness of everything.

The mind must be still and calm, like the water of a pond that reflects the Moon and stars above.

This calmness leads to peace of mind and a mental state of equanimity.

In meditative cosmic oneness, there is an embracing of the infinitely small beginning of the Universe that expands to infinity.

The meditator seeks to be in harmony with cosmic expansion, to be part of all space and time, and also in the singularity at the birth of the cosmos, in the heart of the Universe.

In cosmic oneness, there can be an appreciation of a transcendent realm beyond space and time.

Cosmologists refer to the transcendent environment as the multiverse, where there may be an infinite number of other universes, floating like bubbles in the ocean.

This has long been a view of the meditator, seeing the transcendent realm as an ocean of bliss, in which the Universe exists as a bubble, taking form for a time like a womb for life.

The transcendent reality is the ocean multiverse, which is where we really are.

To answer that prime question “Who am I?” it helps to let go of all that is known, to be empty and wonder about cosmic origins.

To wonder, where did the Universe begin?

In a stretched cosmic oneness, we each occupy the space where time and space began.

Being in cosmic oneness, it is possible to realise that we are also in the transcendent realm, though it may not be seen with our womb eyes, and from within the cosmic womb.

Ultimately, the meditator sees the need to be born from the illusion cosmic womb, to be in the reality of the ocean multiverse, the ocean of bliss.

Being open to an existence that is vaster than the Universe, is to begin to find “Who am I?”

If happiness is the highest quality that we can experience in life, then happiness may be the beginning quality that transcends the Universe.

In happiness we may find “Who am I?”

In a meditative journey based on science, the proof of the experiment will be in the experience.

Happiness can happen when we let go of all that is not happiness, and allow ourselves to be happy.

If happiness is a natural experience of the transcendent realm, then we can allow ourselves to be happy as a natural experience.

The qualities of the transcendent realm fill the cosmos, which we can rise to in meditative experience, and in being alive.

We can seek to be loved, and we can give our love, as we must when raising a child, but we can allow ourselves to be happy as a natural experience.

Excitement, love and the experience of beauty in nature, music and art, are agitations of energy.

Only by attuning to the cosmic oneness, is it possible to be in the happiness that transcends cosmic oneness.

Being in cosmic oneness, and in happiness, is to capture the spirit of equanimity.

In equanimity, serendipity can reveal unexpected discoveries.

Sometimes, it helps to stop thinking, to see what is real.

And discover “Who am I?”

AN EARLIER VERSION of this article first appeared in Star Challenger, the Space Pioneers newsletter.

ABOUT KIM PEART ~
*Kim Peart was raised in Howrah from 1952 and had a safe childhood in a loving home, building sandcastles on the beach, playing in the bush of the hills above, making bonfires for cracker night, visiting the mysterious Fort in Bellerive, riding the old ferries across the river and going to the movies in old theatres. After an inner experience of happiness at age 24 in Chequer’s Coffee Lounge in Hobart, Kim explored Eastern meditation in the 1980s, made a journey to India and after some years behind bars with a studio in the Salamanca Arts Centre, moved to Murdunna where a sense of being in Nature was found; like a rediscovered childhood, Kim came to feel the life-force of the Earth flowing like blood, of being part of the body of Mother Nature. In a transcendent view of life, Kim now pursues art and history in Ross, where he lives with his wife Jennifer, seeks ways that we may live in harmony with the Earth, and sees the need for human civilization to expand beyond our birth planet, if we are keen on basic survival. Meditation is natural, whether on Earth, or in deep space, when in harmony with the cosmic ocean, where stars are islands.