Dear Tim and anybody interested,
Actually I wasn't thinking at all about "what is man", in the philosophical sense you suggest when I wrote "You are star dust I am star dust", Tim. I was awing myself with wonders.
Sure, many other things are made of "star-stuff, as you said. That doesn't make this vast eternal unity any less breath-taking to me. Maybe it only makes it more so.
But when I think about it in regards to my own body which is so close to me, and how it is made mostly of water and some constantly recycled star dust which has been who-knows-where already, both on this planet and in many other places in creation, I rouse in myself feelings of the most lovely wonder at the marvellous plan of physical creation.
I also rouse in myself a feeling of kinship forever with it all. What you and I have used to live here, will be star-stuff again some day. Who knows when, where, and how far it will travel in its eternal journey, and who and what else will use it?
I get a similar uplifted feeling when I contemplate the air I breath and the water I drink, and remember that it has been used by everyone and everything else that has ever lived here. We are breathing atoms of air Jesus used, the air Confucius used, the air the Han emperors used, the air robins have used, the air thepharoahs used. The oceans are continually recycling water which is reused eternally on this planet by everything and everybody.
At first, I thought that probably we only occasionally received these blessed particles from such as Buddha, but then I read some calculations that proved that we all get all of this. That boggles my mind! I love to have my mind boggled.
This daily world we plod through seems often so prosaic. It is easy to lose track of reality and become mired in the usual. I wake myself up to greater amazement and wonder at the Creator, and it feels like lightning inside, and the fluffing up of my mind, and making everything fresh and new again.
I love history, and through it I have come to love many former peoples, many ancestors, many thinkers and others, and I feel that it is literally true that I, and we all, are part of a great and wonderful eternal project, and I know I am sharing directly in it physically, right now, through star dust, breathing air and drinking water.
That is really why I talk about, write about, read about these things. In fact, if my science is sometimes a little old it still takes me to these places I want to go and understand, and I end up in unity with everything, forever. And that is only in this world. The next world is the reality and this world is like the reflected image of that world in water, Baha'u'llah says. Clearly the next world is going to be even more amazing! We are preparing ourselves for life therejust as we prepared ourselves while still in the wombs of our mothers for life here. Baha'is have been advised to contemplate leaving and the next world, and although we can never really understand how vast and incredible the next world is, we can catch little glimpses.
Aside from Ben, who is seven years older than I am, I guess I am the second oldest person on this forum. It is natural to begin to think of the next condition that will come along one of these fine days. Younger people usually don't think much about it but I think it is quite usual to do so for people who have entered the youth of old age, as I have. :-) I'm in no hurry, but I'm looking forward to more awe and wonder.
Warmly, as ever, Mary
