You have seen that the universe is at root a magical illusion and a fabulous game, and that there is no separate ‘you’ to get something out of it, as if life were a bank to be robbed. The only real ‘you’ is the one that comes and goes, manifests and withdraws itself eternally in and as every conscious being. For ‘you’ is the universe looking at itself from billions of points of view, points that come and go so that the vision is forever new. You do not ask what is the value, or what is the use, of this feeling. Of what use is the universe? What is the practical application of a million galaxies?
– Alan Watts
There are two ways to look at this.
One is talking about existence itself, which is more of a third person view and philosophical.
And the other is how it is in our own immediate experience, which is from noticing.
UNIVERSE STORY
We can say that the universe is existence exploring, expressing, experiencing itself in always new ways, including through and as innumerable living beings.
As Carl Sagan said: We are the local eyes, ears, thoughts, and feelings of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
Our most fundamental identity is not as this local and temporary human being, but as the whole of existence taking all of these forms and always changing itself into new forms, expressions, and experiences.
This is a view that can be deeply inspiring and meaningful, and it can deepen our sense of belonging to the universe and all of existence.
We may also find that sensing, feeling, thinking, and living becomes meaningful in itself. And the more this is felt and visceral, the deeper is the sense of belonging.
DIRECT NOTICING
We can also explore this through our own immediate noticing.
When I look, I find I am not most fundamentally this human being. I am what all these changing experiences – of this human self and the wider world – happen within and as. I am capacity for the world, and what my field of experience happens within and as.
In that sense, the world as it appears to me is a magical illusion and a fabulous game. It’s all happening within and as me. It’s all an expression of the creativity of existence and the mind. The only real “me” is capacity for all of it, and all the always-changing content of experience – whether I call this my human self or the wider self or the whole of the universe. To me, it’s all happening within and as consciousness, and it’s all – in a sense – existence looking at itself from a billion points of view.
COSMOLOGY AS A MIRROR
Here too, we find that cosmology is a mirror.
We may have ideas about the universe similar to what Alan Watts describe, and what we find in the Universe Story and the Epic of Evolution, and these may be grounded in science and what we observe.
And we can find it here and now. We can find these mental representations here and now. And we can find what these stories point to in our own immediate experience.
In that sense, cosmology is both a projection and a mirror. We place our mental representations on the universe, and can use them as pointers to what’s already here in our immediate experience.
And there is likely some truth to both. We may be onto something about existence as a whole, and also – equally or more important – about our own true nature.