A Series of Lessons in Gnani Yoga

As Radenhausen Paul von Radenhausen (1813–1889) was a German philosopher and scientist who wrote about the relationship between humanity and the cosmos. has said: “The idea of Space is only an unavoidable illusion of our consciousness, or of our finite nature, and does not exist outside of ourselves; the universe is both infinitely small and infinitely great.”

The telescope has introduced us to ideas of magnificent vastness and grandeur, while the perfected microscope has revealed to us a world of incredible smallness and detail. The microscope has shown us that a single drop of water is a world filled with tiny living forms that live, eat, fight, reproduce, and die. The mind is capable of imagining a universe occupying no more space than one trillionth of the tiniest speck visible under the most powerful microscope. We can then imagine such a universe containing millions of suns and worlds similar to our own, inhabited by living beings akin to us—living, thinking men and women, identical in every respect to ourselves.

Indeed, as some philosophers have noted, if our universe were suddenly reduced to such a size—provided the relative proportions of everything were preserved—we would not be aware of any change. Life would continue exactly the same, and we would be of the same importance to ourselves and to the Absolute In this context, the "Absolute" refers to the ultimate, infinite reality or the divine consciousness that underlies all existence. as we are at this moment. The same would be true if the universe were suddenly enlarged a trillion times. These changes would make no difference in reality. Compared with each other, the tiniest speck and the largest sun are practically the same size when viewed from the perspective of the Absolute.