Lesson From Infinity

In my elder years, I’ve developed the regrettable habit of waking up at 3:30 AM, not refreshed, but too awake to go back to sleep. Rather than doomscrolling, I lie in bed and think. On a recent morning, my thoughts returned to a solitary beach stroll. 

The location was Neskowin, OR, where we rented a house on a beach that stretched for miles. Just beyond the edge of the low tide, I stooped down, scooped up a handful of dry sand, and watched the grains slip through my fingers.

I remembered reading somewhere that there are more stars in the universe than grains of sand on all the world’s beaches. I picked up another handful of sand and watched the grains slide away. In the distance, I could see Haystack Rock, 8 miles away in Pacific City. I wondered how many handfuls of sand there were between where I stood and there. 

I started to doubt the claim that stars outnumber grains of sand. How could they? Surprisingly, I had a cell signal, so I asked AI for the answer.

It turns out the claim was wrong. Based on conservative assumptions of sand volumes, grain sizing, and the number of galaxies and stars, Claude 3.7 estimated that stars outnumber grains of sand by at least a factor of 10 and possibly by a factor of 100. 

I was stunned!

Scooping up another handful of sand, I tried to conceptualize the size of the universe. The closest star to Earth is Proxima Centauri, 4.25 light years away—a long way given that light travels at 186,000 miles per second!

It was impossible to imagine the size of the universe, so I scaled my thoughts down to the Milky Way.  I asked Claude another question: If the stars of the Milky Way were grains of sand, what volume of sand are we talking about?

The answer: A sandbox measuring fifteen by fifteen feet filled to a depth of two feet. Wow! That’s it? Again, I looked up at Haystack Rock and tried to imagine the universe’s immensity. It takes light 100,000 years to traverse the Milky Way—one of an estimated 200 billion galaxies. 

What can we know about the true nature of reality from our small vantage point, a speck floating in a sea of infinity? Yet, how quick we are to express our certainties!

I am not a fan of certainties; they are the seed stock of violence. For centuries, humankind persecuted blasphemous mavericks who dared to advocate contrarian views. Things don’t feel too different today.

For the remainder of my beach walk, I pondered the purported certainties in our lives. I thought about the erroneous certainties of scholars who came before us. Are we any different? Is there anything we can know for certain? 

I searched for an answer and finally came up with one: The universal pull to union.

Tiny packets of energy are pulled together to form atoms, which are pulled into molecules to create soil, sea, rocks, and life. On a larger scale, stars collect planets; galaxies collect stars. Even galaxies cluster together. The universe ubiquitously pulls things together. In our lives, this is beautifully manifested in the miracle of we, the most sublime experience of which is love.

Rather than a meaningless speck in a sea of infinity, we are participants; a consequence and a progenitor of union. The ideologies we attach to that are superfluous. Union is the essence of existence.

Loneliness is a devastating problem for many people today. But, it’s a Self-inflicted wound. Loneliness originates from an illusion of separation, but nothing in the universe is, in fact, independent or separated. Loneliness is sadly a byproduct of self-absorption. The solution is to broaden one’s focus beyond the Self, which, for some reason, is devilishly difficult. 

The universal pull to union is the ready-made solution to many of our most intractable issues–discrimination, violence, war, and isolation. 

Union is the foundation of joy, meaning, and belonging. It is present everywhere we look, waiting for our embrace. 

The universal pull to union—What a beautiful lesson from infinity! 

—————————————————————

Installments of The Secret Within can be found here. 

Former blog posts can be found here by subject category and here chronologically. 

You can subscribe to my latest posts by filling out your email address at the bottom of this page.  

My first book, Towards A Life Well-Lived, can be purchased by clicking this link. Proceeds from sales are donated to Peace In Schools, a Portland, Oregon-based organization that supports mindfulness training in high schools.