Everything Is In Everything

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower,
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand
And Eternity in an hour.
          William Blake

Mystics of all times and cultures have spoken about oneness, of all being consciousness. Physicists speak of subatomic particles once together responding to one another forever, no matter how far apart they may be. Holographic plates contain the entire picture in every speck. Much of modern science sounds like the mystics.

I've been rereading "The Holographic Universe" by Michael Talbot and finding it fascinating once again. I read it first in 1991 and got in touch with him. I asked him to be the keynote speaker at a conference I was organising. He agreed to speak at our August 1992 conferences, two weeks with 1,200 people each week. We spoke several times, and he was looking forward to meeting our group, as he'd heard a lot of good things about us.

I went to Russia in May of 1992 to lead a spiritual retreat for two weeks. While I was gone, he passed away. He was 38! I was so sad that we'd only been phone friends and that we would not get to hear him and interact with him, and his brilliant thinking would no longer get to develop and stimulate our thinking. And of course, I had to scramble to get another keynote speaker of renowned in short notice.

I was thinking this morning about the mystics and holograms. Let's say I make a holographic film of you (think Princess Leah in the first Star Wars), and if I break the holographic film or plate into pieces, shine a laser through any piece, I still get a complete three dimensional picture of you. Every speck contains all.

Mystics, some current but mostly long passed, tapped into the space where all is everywhere. They named the All with spiritual words and found within this All much the same no matter when or where they lived.

Comparing the writings and fragments of writings, we find a commonality, a consensus around many ideas. Lao Tse and Jesus and Hildegard have some similar things to say, etc. I used to do a workshop where I  compared eight or so writings of mystics on selected topics showing how any of them could say any of the ideas of the others and be in integrity.

I stumbled into an example of everything being in everything. I was teaching homiletics to a group of future ministers/pastors, and I didn't want them to give the usual sermon of a scripture, three points, a joke and a story. So I began with spontaneous sermons. I would look around the room and whatever my eye fell upon (door knob, pencil, window) they would have five minutes to put together a five minute sermon using the word I gave them. It always worked. You can tell a spiritual story with any prop. Try it.

Everything is everywhere. Look around and tell yourself a spiritual idea using whatever your eye spies.