The Facts of Life

   When we think of the facts of life, the first thing that comes to mind is sex. So lets get that out of the way.

[I'm going to slide this big, wonderful idea, throbbing and ready to burst with ripe concepts, all the way into your eager, quivering intellect. And then I'll give you more and more until you're satisfied.
   Are you ready?]

   Everything has two sides.

   (It's been said that everything has an inside and an outside. In what follows, you decide what's the 'inside' and what's the 'outside'.)
   One side of reality is physicality.
   The other side is the observation, contemplation and manipulation of the physical. That's the broadest definition of spirituality, as well as of life. (As well, those words together describe just one aspect of what most people call "God.")

   These two sides of reality are each contingent upon the other, because each is the other, just seen from the opposite perspective.
   The beginning of physicality was the 'Big Bang', which was the primary and rudimentary act of universal life, and which became the evolving realization of physical potential. But spirit (the same as spirituality, or consciousness, or life) had no beginning. It was - and is - what science calls the 'initial state' of the universe.
   At that 'moment', (which was pretty much the same, eternal moment as this one, now) the only 'thing' that existed was a state of pure potentiality and possibility. (The only possible observation was "I am.") But that state must have existed 'forever' prior to the Big Bang, which was the 'first event' ever. (The dimensionality of the Big Bang and the physical universe is not the same as the dimensionality of 'forever'.)

[Had enough of my ripe concepts yet? 'Cause baby, I wanna give you more!]

   Physical reality as it is at the (still) present moment is the encoding and repository of the knowledge and memory of everything that has ever existed and happened until now. That's why science can learn about the past just by observing the present.
   Life is consciousness, spirit, energy. It is the Observer and Prime Mover. Life itself is 'God'. It is not something other or elsewhere, or an 'epiphenomenon' of matter, or something supernatural. It is the ultimate awareness and expression of being, and the complement of physical reality. (In scientific terms, P + S = R, where physical reality + spiritual reality = the sum of all aspects of reality).
   The ego is physical. It arises in the brain, and is doomed to die.
   The self is spiritual, that spark of universal life within each of us which comes more alive as our bodies develop.
   The physical body with its ego eventually dies, but true self without body, ego or unique personality is identical to universal self, so it continues on as it always has and ever will.

   It is difficult to grasp the concept of the basic duality of the one, whole reality - unless you can abandon the preconception that everything must be explained only in terms of physical particles.
   Take away our egos and our physical bodies, and my self is exactly the same as your self. That which lives within each of us is exactly the same as that which lives everywhere and in everything, though it lives in varying degrees of awareness, sensation, intensity, and complexity, depending on if it's living in a given place and time as an elementary particle, an organic entity, you, or the apex of evolution and consciousness.
   That which lives within us consists of the processes of conception, creation, organization, and development, which add up to evolution, which is a spiritual function. It's opposite is described in terms such as decay, entropy, dissembling, decomposition, destruction and death. Those are the functions of the physical aspect of reality.

   The current worldview and zeitgeist have been based on an entropic view, rather than one that is holistic. Its proponents believe that entropy overcomes life, but actually it's the other way around. Life overcomes entropy. Entropy is just one process of life. (Nihilism, like any other 'ism', is a narrow-minded and even myopic misconception of the holistic picture.)
   The purpose of life is, simply, to live; that is, to experience, to learn and to evolve.
   The meaning of life is in the living. The goal of life is to keep on evolving and see what happens.

[Hey babe, let me tickle your intellect a bit more:]

If there is any life outside our little earthly realm, then surely it has as much meaning as it does here on earth. If life exists only on our planet then the question of its meaning elsewhere is moot.

   But the universe is a very, very large place, and not only is it likely that other planets harbor life forms similar to ours, but I believe that life operates on much greater scales and levels of complexity than we see on our relatively tiny speck of a planet. The universe as a whole is alive, and always has been, because life is the matrix of physical reality. Without an observer, i.e. life, infinite sets of probabilities and possibilities cannot be 'collapsed' into observable realities. This must have been true right from day one (and 'before').
   (Despite what some theoretical physicists claim, Instruments and meters don't count as observers because without living beings to design and then read and record them there can be no observation, only mechanical reaction.)
   To complicate things, life, like energy, (because life is energy), can be either kinetic or potential.

   You can learn to feel the life inside you, and to sense that it is an inseparable part of the sea of life which is all around you, and which permeates the universe. It is a lot harder to grasp this if you live in a city, because concrete, steel, asphalt and glass are not as visibly alive as trees, birds, squirrels and rabbits.
   Contemplation, reflection and meditation, and not just observation and measurement, are the learning tools required to gain this (or any other) insight.

[Ooh, Baby, That was fantastic! Was it good for you too?]

- image by geralt on Pixabay -