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Richard

Peter

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The universe

Infinitude

infinite –– Having no limit or end; boundless, endless; immeasurably great in extent, duration, degree. Oxford Dictionary

Seems pretty clear to me, but in the dictionary there was also the following quote from a leading cosmologist, Paul Davies – ‘Measuring the infinite must rank as one of the greatest enterprises of the human intellect.’ So the scientists are busy trying to measure infinity, but if it can be measured, surely then it is not infinite. No wonder they get their ‘knickers in a twist’. If the universe is not infinite, then it must have an edge – or a hole – and what lies beyond the edge? Is ‘what is beyond the universe’ then infinite or does that, in turn, have an edge. To follow the theories, imaginations and fairy-tales of the theoretical cosmologists clearly involves leaving fact and common sense behind and indulging in eastern mysticism.

To contemplate the fact that the physical universe is indeed infinite and that there is no ‘outside’ to it, neither physically nor metaphysically, has profound implications for us as human beings. To accept the unerring challenge that facticity offers, results in the most thrilling journey of discovering ‘what’ one is as a human being, rather than blindly accepting the imaginations, illusions, myths, beliefs, deceptions and biological programming that form ‘who’ one thinks and feels oneself to be.

infinitude –– The quality or attribute of being infinite or having no limit, extent, amount; boundlessness. A boundless expanse; an unlimited time, immensity, vastness, indefinitely great amount, unrestricted, lasting for ever, never-ending,; infinite in past and future duration. Limitless, illimitable, unbounded, endless, unending, never-ending, without end; inexhaustible, unceasing, everlasting; immeasurable, measureless, incalculable, unfathomable, fathomless, indeterminable, inestimable, extensive, innumerable, countless, numberless, inexhaustible, bottomless. Eternal, perpetual, abiding, enduring, non-stop, incessant, ceaseless, constant, continual, continuous, uninterrupted, enduring, permanent, immutable, indestructible, imperishable, persistent, perpetual. Oxford Dictionary

Richard: Being here now as this flesh and blood body only – sans identity – enables the infinitude of the universe to be apparent. This physical universe’s time is eternal and its space is infinite ... this is what ‘infinitude’ means. As time is eternal – just as space is infinite – to be here now as this flesh and blood body only is to be living an ongoing experiencing of this infinitude of this very material universe (using the word ‘infinitude’ in its ‘a boundless expanse and an unlimited time’ meaning).

Therefore, infinitude – having no opposite and thus being perfection itself – is personified as a human being ... a flesh and blood body only. Hence: ‘I am the material universe experiencing itself as a sensate and reflective human being’ or ‘I am the experience of infinitude’. The infinite character of physical space, coupled with the eternal character of time, produces a here and now infinitude that can be understood experientially by one who is apperceptive.

To grasp the character of infinitude with certainty, the reasoning mind must forsake its favoured process of intellectual understanding through logical and/or intuitive imagination and enter into the realm of a pure consciousness experience (apperception). In a PCE – which is where there is no ‘I’ or ‘me’ extant – the essential characteristics of infinitude are transparently obvious, lucidly self-evident, clearly apparent and open to view.

There is a distinct difference between the word ‘eternal’ and the word ‘timeless’. The word ‘timeless’ is very explicit ... no time (just like ‘selfless’ means no self) as in not subject to time, not affected by the passage of time, out of time, without reference to time and independent of the passage of time. The word ‘eternal’ means all time, as in that which will always exist, that which has always existed, that which is without a beginning or an end in time, that which is everlasting, permanent, enduring, persistent, recurring, incessant, indestructible, imperishable, constant, continuous, continual, unbroken and thus interminable and valid for all time. However, just as there are those who corrupt ‘selfless’ into meaning ‘a not selfish self’, there are those who corrupt ‘timeless’ into meaning ageless, ceaseless, changeless ... which are time-words more applicable to ‘eternal’. Even dictionaries do this. However, when viewed honestly, the word ‘timeless’ selfishly means ‘undying and immutable’ as in ‘immortal and deathless’. Take the modern physicists, for an example of honesty, when they posit their ‘nothingness’ prior to their mathematical ‘Big Bang’. Even though influenced by the pervasive eastern mysticism, they still have enough intellectual rigour to mostly resist using the word ‘eternal’ to refer to that ‘before time began’ fantasy ... they usually say ‘timeless’.

Thus by being here now as-this-body one finds that this moment in time has no duration as in now and then – because the immediate is the ultimate – and that this place in space has no distance as in here and there – for the relative is the absolute. One always here and it is already now.

Freedom from the Human Condition – Happy and Harmless

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