The Living Universe - Duane Elgin [12]
We can infer the presence of additional dimensions in the expansion of the universe. The popular image of the Big Bang is that of an explosion hurling matter out in all directions. This is misleading because it evokes the image of a pre-existing empty space into which matter is expanding. A more accurate image is that our universe is growing from the inside out, everywhere at once, with galactic islands using their gravitation to hold themselves together against the opening flow. It is the growing “roominess” of the universe, as the fabric of space-time expands, that produces the growing separation of galaxies. Because the fabric of space-time seems able to expand indefinitely, it points to the presence of even more spacious dimensions to accommodate this elasticity.
Assuming cosmologists are correct that there are an enormous number of additional dimensions, it is both important—and humbling—to recognize that we are not living in the 3,000th dimension or 300th dimension or even 30th dimension. We live in the third and fourth dimensions, at the very beginnings of existence, just a few steps above a black hole, or the collapse of reality into a single dimension. We live in a highly constricted reality, with an immensity of freedom and evolutionary opportunity beckoning us from more spacious dimensions. We thought we were at the culmination of evolution, and we are now discovering that we are only at the beginning. We are just moving out of the zone of collapse of matter into a black hole, and moving into the zone where life can encounter itself, know itself, and evolve itself. Vastly larger ecologies of life and learning likely exist in the spaciousness beyond our few contracted dimensions. Instead of the end of our journey, we seem to be at the very beginning of a voyage into infinity. It is a theme we will explore throughout this book.
Our Intuitive Connection with the Cosmos
Another remarkable discovery emerging from science is that we are not cut off from the rest of the universe. A core theme throughout this book is the idea that we each have an intuitive connection with the cosmos, even though it may be largely unrecognized and undeveloped. The respected author and researcher Dean Radin did an exhaustive analysis of psi research involving more than eight hundred studies and sixty investigators over nearly three decades.9 After weighing the collective evidence from all these studies, he concluded that we do participate in a subtle field, or ecology, of consciousness where we can both “send” and “receive.” These results are borne out in people’s everyday experience. For example, surveys of the American adult population show that two-thirds say they have had an experience of extrasensory perception such as an accurate intuition about the well-being of someone who is far away.10 In addition, about 40 percent report having had a “mystical” experience such as seeing the universe as alive and feeling a sense of great peace and safety within that aliveness.11 In keeping with these findings, a recurring theme of this book is that consciousness is not confined within the brain but is an infusing presence throughout the universe that enables us, in cooperation with the brain, to connect meaningfully with the world beyond our physical body.
Bringing these four areas of insight together already begins to awaken the possibility of a new sense of ourselves, the universe, and the