I had a birthday yesterday, and it brings up the topic of age.
How old am I?
It’s a simple question, and if I take it seriously, it can reveal a lot about my nature.
THE AGE ON MY PASSPORT
In a conventional sense, I am the age my passport tells me. It’s the age in my official documents, and the answer most people expect if they ask the question. It’s not wrong, but it’s a small part of a much bigger picture.
MY BODY’S AGE
In another sense, my body has a certain biological age. Depending on genetics and lifestyle, it can be older or younger than my conventional age. This age has some importance in terms of my health. (And depending on how it’s measured and what criteria are used, it will likely change somewhat.)
THE AGE OF THE UNIVERSE
In yet another sense, I am the age of this universe. According to current science, I am roughly 13.7 billion years old. This can sound like an answer that’s meant to be cute or clever, but it’s far more real than that.
Everything I am as a human being is the product of 13.7 billion years of evolution of this universe.
Every molecule is the product of this evolution, most having been forged in ancient stars blowing up and reforming into this planet which formed itself into all of us and this living evolving world.
Every dynamic in me is the product of the evolution of this seamless system we call the universe.
As Carl Sagan said, and I often quote: We are the ears, eyes, thoughts and feeling of the universe. We are the universe bringing itself into consciousness.
Everything I am as a human being is the product of the evolution of this larger seamless system I am a local and temporary expression of.
In a very real sense, I am the age of this universe. Everything I am as a human is the age of this universe.
This age is important since it’s a reminder of the reality of the oneness of the universe. It’s a reminder of what current science tells us about our more fundamental identity and nature.
TIMELESS
All of that has some validity to it. And yet, am I most fundamentally this human self? Or even a local and temporary expression of this seamless and evolving larger whole?
If I look in my own first-person experience, what am I more fundamentally?
I find I am more fundamentally capacity for any and all experiences. I am capacity for the world as it appears to me, including this human self and anything connected with it. I am capacity even for any thought or sense that I am fundamentally this human self.
I find that any experience – of the wider world or this human self – happens within and as my sense fields. (Sight, sound, sensations, taste, smell, mental images and words.)
To me, the world as it appears to me, happens within and as what I am.
This is my more fundamental nature, in my own immediate experience.
Here, I find I am what any ideas or experience of time happens within and as. My nature is timeless, allowing and forming itself into ideas and experiences of time and change.
LAYERED
My age is layered.
As a human being, I am the age in my passport and my body’s biological age.
As a local and temporary expression of this larger seamless evolving system, I have the age of this universe. (And that will change somewhat depending on what science says.)
And in my own first-person experience, I find my nature is timeless. I am the timelessness any ideas and experience of age happen within and as.
I love the richness of my age. I love that there are many answers and that some change over time.
I love that each one makes sense in its own way.
WHY DON’T WE USE OUR UNIVERSE AGE MORE OFTEN?
If science tells us we all are 13.7 billion years old, why don’t we use that age more often?
It may seem a silly question, but it’s actually a very important one. Science tells us our more fundamental age is 13.7 billion years, so why don’t we collectively take it more seriously?
It may be because this story is still relatively new so it hasn’t had time to sink in yet.
Also, we are used to using our age in our passport so most people stick with that. Much in society is dependent on separating us by age. (School, tickets, pension, and so on.) And many seem to like to follow that orientation.
For me, it’s beautiful and important that this is an age we all share. Everything that exists has the same age. That’s amazing and wonderful to me. It’s a reminder of what ties us together and that we are all local and temporary expressions of the same seamless evolving whole.
That’s far more fundamental and important than the age we happen to have as local and temporary expressions of this whole.
WHY DON’T WE ACKNOWLEDGE OUR TIMELESS NATURE MORE OFTEN?
Similarly, why don’t we acknowledge our timeless nature more often?
It’s not because it’s not here to be noticed. Based on my own noticing and what I hear from others, it seems we all have this nature. (It’s the nature of the consciousness we all inevitably are to ourselves.) (1)
It’s not even because it’s difficult to find. I assume most can find it with guidance and within minutes.
So why don’t more people acknowledge this?
I assume there are many answers here too. The obvious one is that we live in a society that tells us – directly and indirectly – that we most fundamentally are this human self, an object within the field of our experience. As we grow up, we see that this is what others do so we do the same. In our innocence, which is very beautiful, we train ourselves to do as others do.
There are also many misconceptions about this. Many traditions suggest that finding our nature is difficult or takes a long time, or that it’s for special people, or that it’s about something distant, or that it gives us special powers.
In reality, it’s right here. It’s not only what we are most familiar with, it’s the only thing we are familiar with. It’s what all our experience consists of.
Since it’s about noticing what we already are, it’s for all of us.
It doesn’t give us any special powers, it’s just a noticing of our nature. (And that can be profoundly transforming for our perception and life in the world.)
And with good guidance, most of us can find it within a relatively short time.
How can we find it? The best approaches I am familiar with (so far) are the Headless experiments and the Big Mind process.
Of course, finding it is just the first step. It’s just a glimpse. If we want to continue exploring it, we need to refind it here and now. We need to explore how to live from this noticing. We need to investigate anything in us out of alignment with it, anything created and operating from separation consciousness.
And that takes dedication, passion, and a lifetime. (Or more if there are more.)
(1) Why don’t we acknowledge our timeless nature more often? It’s not even because it’s illogical. Based on logic, we find that in our own experience, we have to be consciousness. If we “have” consciousness, we inevitably and most fundamentally have to BE consciousness in our own experience. And the world, to us, happens within and as the consciousness we are.
We have all of the characteristics of consciousness, and since the world to us happens within and as the consciousness we are, that too – to us – have those characteristics.
We are what’s inherently free of time and space and that our experience of time and space happens within and as. We are the oneness any sense of distinction and separation happens within and as. And so on.
This just says something about our own nature in our own first-person experience, it doesn’t say anything about the nature of existence or the universe. And that’s more than enough. If we are led – by existence – to take it seriously, that’s profoundly transforming.
Image: A look at the distant relatives we call the “Cosmic Cliffs” in the Carina Nebula. (NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI.)