The Universe in me

It has been quite some time since I spent a Sunday afternoon lazily at home, doing nothing. Today happened to be such a day in many months, when I have neither felt like nor been made to feel like visiting the market place or walking into a cinema hall. Therefore, after lunch, I lay on my bed and tucked myself underneath my cozy quilt and caught up with an old & favourite habit : thinking about the universe.

The first thought was about the unfathomable vastness of the universe. What has always fascinated me is that this vastness is both outwardly infinite & inwardly infinite. Meaning that if you begin at unity and keep multiplying it by a finite number n number of times, you could keep going on & on and still keep going; similarly, you could begin at the same unity and keep dividing it by a finite number n number of times, and you could keep going on & on and still keep going. We would never possibly arrive at an absolute infinity, neither macroscopically nor microscopically. It can always get bigger than one can fathom & it can always get smaller than one can fathom.

The second thought was about the space-time continuum. We as humans can effortlessly fathom a matrix spun by the three spatial dimensions: length, breadth & depth. As a matter of fact, we would find it almost impossible to explain anything physical in a lesser-than-three dimensional paradigm. And then there is this fourth dimension i.e. time which is a non-spatial dimension which does not naturally fit into the spatial frame-of reference that we are used to. In order to locate events by its coordinates, we take recourse to a 4D frame-of-reference spun by three spatial and one non-spatial dimension. In the world of relativity, when entities move at very high speed (comparable to the speed of light), then the same event could assume different coordinates on the frames of reference of entities moving at relatively different speeds.

The third thought was about the inter-convertibility of mass & energy (E=mc2). Mass can be converted into energy & vice-versa. That means whatever animate or inanimate objects that we can perceive are in a way manifestations of energy. As if energy gets crystallized into matter. So each human (or for that matter any material object) is ultimately composed of organic & inorganic compounds which are formed of basic elements like carbon, hydrogen, oxygen etc. which can be further broken down into molecules, atoms and even further. At the microscopically infinite core (inward infinity) of matter is nothing but energy.

This thought process on this lazy winter afternoon, induces me to picture myself in the context of this universe. And I get convinced even more than ever before, that everything that exists is an integral part of an energy continuum, matter, space & time being perceivable manifestations of this infinite continuum. I am also, therefore, a manifestation of this infinite universal energy. I am deeply connected to the history of the universe and to its future. Outwardly, I am in the universe; and inwardly the universe is in me.