Think for a moment about a time before we were born. Where were we? Now think ahead to a time after our death. Where will we be? The brutal answer is: NOWHERE.
Before we were born, there was nothing. After we die, there will be nothing
(Quote by Alan Watts)
Our life is a brief stay on Earth that started one day for no reason and will inevitably end. But what a foray. In between, in our life, like the whole universe, our consciousness popped into existence out of nothingness and has evolved into a rich and complex entity full of wonder and mystery.
All the species and humans are all deeply connected, which is no longer a spiritual preaching, but also scientifically proven.
Think about the under sea bacteria who produced oxygen over billions of years to make this planet habitable, and in turn relied on carbon dioxide to survive and grow into plants eventually.
Imagine the iron running in blood that carries oxygen to different parts of the body; the iron which was originally formed due to supernova explosions in our galaxies after the big bang.
There are several Ted Talks which elaborate and take this line of reasoning further.
We have consciousness (our subjective lens of reality), which is very personal and is driven by our thoughts, feelings, and reactions, within 80bn+ neurons of our brain. The neurons that store massive amounts of information as part of our evolution, Dna passed along the generations, as well as our own collective and individual conscious experiences.
Comparing Life with a Game
Arguably, life is like the Temple Run game (or Snakes & Ladders) we are playing; which most of us,
do not realize that we are playing (given the lack of bigger step back and perspective),
why we are playing
and above all where we have to reach
Everyone wants to grow, earn and learn, but never reach the finish line
Life is a single player game, as far as every individual is concerned. While the universe is a multiplayer game where our consciousness evolves by interacting with other conscious beings.
One might find it strange to compare life with a game, so let’s see how it is comparable at different stages.
Setting goals
To keep us going in life,
we do need something to do, a purpose to keep us going (like day job, family, short term goals etc.)
as well as a higher purpose as a long term goal where we connect with the universe seamlessly and become flow of energy and actions, and lose track of time
Similar to a game where our focus remains on clearing the level we are playing and while playing the game we build interest and try to reach the highest level of the game.
Life tokens
If we again consider our analogy game Temple Run, while running towards our goal we keep on accumulating gold coins or tokens of appreciation, similarly in our life we accumulate tokens which help us in living the kind of life that we expect and wish to live.
These tokens might be in the form of money or blessings of the people whom we have touched in our lives. Although, unlike games, we don’t have fixed tokens in life, we define our own tokens depending upon the things we care for.
Unfortunately, in today’s society, money seems the most important token. Measurement of society to assess success is by assessing the bank balance. On the contrary, if we look within ourselves, count our blessings, evaluate inner peace and ability to achieve the bigger goals of happiness with our loved ones, that could be the most satisfying and true wealth one can accumulate and strive for.
We look for peace and satisfaction outside, in the society, via external validations; how likely will we find it there?
If you lose something inside your house, and you don’t have electricity in the house and it’s dark, and you search for it outside the house because it’s bright there, will you find what you are looking for? Good luck.
Best way to find inner peace is to connect with yourself more (away from mobiles, screens, etc.), and try to find what you are meant to do and then follow that path. Become more self aware and enlighten yourself.
Lucky charm
We all work hard and whatever we have learned from our elders also says that hard work is the key to success but at the same time we all experience instances when we forget to appreciate the factor of luck.
At times we do unexpectedly achieve a lot without much hard work. Similar to the game of Snake and Ladders, where if you are lucky you get a ladder and whenever the luck is not in your favor you get bitten by a snake and lose a lot.
Complex and Interesting
If we compare life with a game, undoubtedly it is the most complex one, having billions of players, probably trillions of possibilities and outcomes of conscious and unconscious connections.
As a player of the game our role in life is to experience the different levels of the game, evolve, come up with the best suited strategy and pass on our evolved experiences, learnings, teachings and genes to other players of this game in the form of conscious communication.
The Indian Mythological Epic Gita elaborates this point very beautifully, “Our job is to play the game and not to worry about the result, because the results or outcomes are codependent on several other interconnected players“.
Truly complex and way more engaging than any known game made by us humans, so engaging that nobody wants to leave this game, noone wants to die!!
Multiverse
One more concept that firmly advocates the concept of interdependence is Multiverse. The universe we live in may not be the only one out there. In fact, our universe could be just one of an infinite number of universes making up a “multiverse.”
Our universe is unimaginably big. Hundreds of billions, if not trillions, of galaxies spin through space, each containing billions or trillions of stars.
Science fiction loves the idea of a parallel universe, and the thought that we might be living just one of an infinite number of possible lives.
Multiverses aren’t reserved for “Star Trek,” “Spiderman” and “Doctor Who,” though.
Real scientific theory explores, and in some cases supports, the case for universes outside, parallel to, or distant from but mirroring our own.
We all are stuck in the space time interface, like the user interface of a desktop computer. Scientist Donald Hoffman has been working on for decades to prove this mathematically.
Even our free will is not really free, as Oracle quotes in the movie Matrix , the actions have been decided, you are here to just witness them. Maybe the permutation combinations possible with our consciousness and all other species are predictable and already decided, just not understandable for us yet.
If you see the image of the universe and the human brain, it looks remarkably similar.
So, is the universe a reflection of our mind? After all, whatever happens in the world, is led by someone imagining and the rest of the universe conspiring to make it happen.