Quest Magazine

Printed in the  Summer 2017 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Boyd, Tim, "Viewpoint: Final Thoughts" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 6-7

Tim Boyd, President

A billion stars go spinning through the night

Blazing high above your head

But in you is the presence that will be

When all the stars are dead.

—Rainer Maria Rilke

My father lived to the ripe old age of ninety-two. Except for his hearing, which eventually required him to turn up the television volume to the maximum and use a phone device that both flashed a light and made the phone ring loudly, he was in full possession of all his faculties. Toward the end of his life, he developed a habit which caused my almost equally aged, but totally active, mother some annoyance. After reading the daily newspaper or fiddling with one thing or another, he would sit for periods of time simply looking off into space. My mother is a great believer that the precious gift of time should be properly used, so when she would see him sitting idly, she frequently told him that he should get up and do something. True to the dynamics of a couple who had been married for more than sixty years, my father on more than one occasion complained to me that my mother did not understand. He was not just sitting idly, looking off into empty space. At the close of a rich life, filled with accomplishments, trials, failures, and friendships that spanned the globe and nine decades, in these apparently idle moments he said he was “remembering,” and that it was hard for my mom to realize how intensely active he was at those moments. He talked about the pleasure, the understanding, and the sometimes painful but purifying experience that flowed from calling up and reliving these memories with the benefit of the clarifying distance that time provides. For him it was joyful inner activity.

When cycles close and an extended period of effort comes to an end, it is a good time to look back and remember. Without even thinking about it, this is something we all do at birthdays, New Years, anniversaries, and, of course, at the close of a life. Having come to the end of my time as president of the Theosophical Society in America, in my few “idle” moments I too find myself looking back and remembering—looking for patterns of meaning in the intense activity of the past six years.

During H.P. Blavatsky’s time there was much talk about the siddhis and higher senses. At one point she made the witty, but accurate, comment that for people perhaps the rarest, but most necessary, sense of all was common sense, and that common sense is no lowly thing. It is the product of two things: intuition combined with experience. The great Muslim-Hindu mystic and poet Kabir said this: “What Kabir talks of is only what he has lived through. If you have not lived through something, it is not true.” In this, my last “Viewpoint” article, without being preachy, I would like to share two of the hard-won insights that have emerged over this time.

May of 2011, when I first took on the position of TSA president, was one of the most overwhelmingly active periods of my life. In addition to the details of winding up my business affairs, moving out of my home of thirty-plus years and settling my family in a new home at the Olcott national headquarters, I was completely absorbed in the preparations for the visit of His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who had been invited by us to give a public program in Chicago. A year earlier, then-president Betty Bland, her husband, David, my wife, Lily, and I had traveled to Iowa for an audience with him. A great deal of effort and preparation had been put into arriving at that moment. His Holiness is a busy man, with all manner of celebrities, politicians, spiritual luminaries, and common folk clamoring for his time. We had been given ten minutes. The meeting ended up lasting more than a half hour, during which he suggested that instead of the one-day event, which was all we felt we could hope for, his visit should extend over two days, with separate programs each day.

I remember the feeling of elation we all shared when we walked out of that meeting, and the sense that something of major importance was in store for the TS. When the initial high of our meeting and His Holiness’s wholehearted embrace of the TS started to die down (as such surges of emotion always do), we settled into a realization of the enormity of the task ahead. To us the Dalai Lama was a spiritual giant and a longtime friend of the TS, but this event would require more than appreciation and a warm glow. Gradually it became clear that in hosting a public event for 10,000 people with a man who is probably the most recognized person in the world, and who also required security arrangements equivalent to those for a head of state, we had moved into a realm where we had no experience. In the words of meditation teacher Jack Kornfield, “After the ecstasy, the laundry.”

Theosophist Clara Codd wrote a beautifully titled little book called Trust Yourself to Life. In it she elaborates on the simple but foundational quality of a trust born out of experience in the workings of the laws of life. Her basic message is that one of the fruits of genuine spiritual practice is an ever-growing sense of connection with the Self, the inner or higher self. In At the Feet of the Master, J. Krishnamurti had this to say: “You must trust yourself. You say you know yourself too well? If you feel so, you do not know yourself; you know only the weak outer husk, which has fallen often into the mire. But you—the real you—you are a spark of God’s own fire, and God, who is almighty, is in you, and because of that there is nothing that you cannot do if you will.”

Our studies and our deepest experiences confirm to us that, although our understanding of it is limited, the universe within which we live and move has an order. Whether it is the physical universe with its laws of gravity, electromagnetism, and thermodynamics, or the greater unseen universe with its laws of karma, cycles, and compassion, its function is unerring. For someone who truly understands this, the response of the mind and heart is cooperation and trust—the open, relaxed recognition that causes have effects, and that balance and limitless unfoldment are the nature of things.

These concepts came to life as experience in our Dalai Lama experiment. Because the requirements of the moment exceeded our known resources and capacity, we had to move beyond what we knew. The one thing that we did know was that our intention, the focus of our motive and will, was constant. We intended for the TS to be the agent for bringing a blessing to as many people as possible in the Chicago area. We also intended for all of the money that we received from the event to be donated for the use of the Tibetan people, particularly for the education of Tibetan medical professionals, who could service the health care needs of the Tibetan community in exile. The result was that all of the resources needed to accomplish our goal at the highest level invariably appeared. Every day, people, ideas, opportunities, and finances sought us out in order to make the vision a reality.

The principle that came to life during this time was “Trust yourself; trust others; the one is not different from the other.” Such a mindset leads to a sense of openness and ease in our daily lives. In practice, there will necessarily be times when our trust is misplaced and the inner reality we see and rely on is overshadowed by the force of habit. Occasional disappointment comes with the territory, but ultimately the optimist is always right. Spirit reveals itself when conditions allow.

In the spring of 2012, TS international president Radha Burnier came to the U.S. and spent a few days visiting with us at  Olcott. At the time she had been president for more than thirty years. Throughout that time she had been a regular visitor to the U.S., but for a number of years we had not seen her at Olcott. On my first trip to the international headquarters in Adyar in 2011, I had invited her to come. Although we did not know it at the time, it was to be her last trip outside of India. As it turned out, an important part of her reason for the visit was to talk to me about considering the possibility of succeeding her in office. For me it was a very unexpected suggestion. At that time I had been serving as TSA president for a grand total of one year and had a very limited exposure to Adyar, or to the people and functioning of the international body.

Often when we engage in a line of thought, it has a clarifying effect. However, the more I allowed myself to consider Radha’s suggestion, the more unclear and unsettled I became. I had joined the TSA in 1974, and during the years that followed, at critical junctures in my Theosophical life I had sought out the counsel of Joy Mills, another past TSA president. Sometimes she would be positive, specific, and direct. At other times, while speaking, she would get a far-off look in her eyes, her voice would become soft, and the words emphatic. At those times the things she would say had an inscrutable quality and required time and a shift in perspective to grasp. When I shared my concerns about my conversation with Radha, Joy said a number of things, but finished with the enigmatic statement that what I must do is “Look for the open door.” Although it was not the advice I was expecting, it was exactly the reminder that I needed.

The obligatory pilgrimage that we call our life is an unscripted, infinitely creative process. There are overarching laws that define the range of choice available to us at any given moment. A fish swimming in a river can go in any direction—with the current, against the current, up or down—but it can’t move beyond the water. A human being can swim in water, walk on land, even fly, but is equally limited by the scope of his vision. As part of the lawful process, there is an ongoing process of unfoldment of consciousness, revealing previously unfathomed latent powers within us and continually extending our capacities and range of choice.

At every moment new possibilities are presenting themselves to us. Mostly we miss them because our habits and conditioning so limit our awareness that these possibilities pass unnoticed, like a stranger in the street. But there are times when, because of our own attention and effort, or our crisis and need, we become more sensitive to our inner environment. At times like these, we can become aware of the continually open door through which the renewing energies of the Higher Life are constantly streaming.

There are other less exalted but equally significant doors that open for us during the course of a life. Choosing a life partner, changing jobs, having children, embracing a new religion or life direction—in fact any act of profound commitment unveils an opening to a new world that has always been with us, but only becomes revealed as we commit.

Trust and always keep looking. It has been a good run.

Printed in the  Summer 2017 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Boyd, Tim, "President’s Diary" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 42-43

The annual international convention at the TS’s world headquarters in Adyar, held each December, is a hyperbusy time, but the activities don’t end with the closing of the convention. Every year, immediately after, we have a meeting with some of the new members. It is an event that I have come to love. The new members gather in the main hall of the headquarters building. They are seated together in the front row. Behind them and on both sides are longtime members, family, and well-wishers. The program is focused completely on these newest members of the TS and involves an address by the international president (me), the awarding of their diplomas of membership, expressions of goodwill from the members gathered, and always some photos. Coming as it does at the close of the convention, with its accumulated energies, the welcoming of new members is always a powerful and uplifting occasion. It is also a special moment for me. The opportunity to talk to these members at this fresh and open moment of idealism and hope, to remember with them the unclouded vistas of my own introduction to the TS, to talk about the road ahead—its joys, its obstacles, and its future possibilities—and to bless them on their journey has been one of the peak experiences for me year after year.

This year there was a twelve-year-old girl who joined. I had been seeing her and her family at convention every year since I first started attending. As a little kid she was so cute and so friendly. I have photos of her from my first visit to Adyar. To see her sitting in the front row, feet dangling, not yet long enough to touch the floor, with her proud family arrayed behind her, was a beautiful moment. In India it is not at all unusual to have third-, fourth-, and even fifth-generation Theosophists.

After the close of convention, the cleanup following Cyclone Vardah continued. The cyclone had struck Chennai just three weeks before the start of convention, and the devastation to the city and our campus was intense. Our first job was to clear the fallen trees from the impassable roads and from the convention areas—in such a short time, that was the best we could do. Since then, every couple of days another truckload of wood has been loaded and taken out. Our estimate is that, at this writing, there are another thirty truckloads still to be cut and carted. We lost a lot of trees.

At the beginning of February it was back to the U.S. for my last board of directors meeting as TSA president. With this dual presidency, which I have been juggling for the past three years, the level of activity has been constant, with meetings and communication spread across twelve time zones. While it has been great for enhancing a sense of global citizenship, the sheer busyness of it all has made it difficult to reflect on the culmination of this phase of service. While it will certainly be good to go from two more than full-time jobs to one, I will miss the creative routines of planning, meeting, and working with the exceptional staff, directors, and members that make the American Section function so well. Over the last six years we have done a lot together. The beauty is that there is always more.

	A circle at the closing of a public program at the International Theosophical Centre in Naarden, the Netherlands.

The beginning of March found me feeling a little conflicted. I had called for a meeting of the General Council of the international TS and other invited members to be held at the International Theosophical Centre (ITC) in Naarden, the Netherlands. It was to be a meeting to brainstorm and plan for the TS’s future—not just administratively or financially, but in regard to the propagation of the teachings, the health of the Society, and our impact on society at large. The meeting was to begin on March 4 and was to last for five days.

But back in November we had met with a contingent from the Women’s Indian Association (WIA) to arrange for the celebration of their hundredth anniversary at Adyar. The WIA had been founded there, and Annie Besant and a number of other TS women were prominent in its founding. At that time we had agreed to have the event in March. During the meeting the WIA president, Padma Venkataraman, commented that they intended to invite the president of India, Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, as the special guest. It seemed like a nice idea. Who wouldn’t like to have the nation’s president to attend their event? When I first heard it, it sounded like a noble, if slightly unrealistic, wish. It was only as the conversation progressed that I came to know that Padma’s father was a past president of India, and that for her the current one was just a phone call away.

Padma very much wanted for me to be on hand for the occasion, as did I. Having already scheduled the Naarden meeting, we decided to invite Mr. Mukherjee for the second half of March. In my work for the TS, when events, meetings, and appointments are scheduled, the timing has to conform to my availability. Somehow those who schedule the president of India failed to realize how important I and my schedule are. Mr. Mukherjee was available on the exact day that I was scheduled to be in Naarden. Because that was when he was available, that was the date that the event would occur. So the question for me was whether to be in Adyar for the president’s visit, or to be in Naarden for the meeting I had called, to which twenty TS members from around the world were coming. To be or not to be. That was the question. Of course I chose Naarden. The president and I will meet another time.

Pranab Mukherjee, president of India, speaks at the TS’s Adyar headquarters

The preparations for Mr. Mukherjee’s visit were intense. Every level of Indian security force, from the local police to the president’s secret service, were involved. Numerous meetings and walk-throughs had to be staged; the roads and staging had to be altered; new phone lines direct to the Delhi capital had to be installed; and bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors were brought in.

Initially Padma and her board had planned on having around 500 invitees gather in our Headquarters Hall. After being informed that the space between the president and the audience had to be a minimum of fifteen to twenty meters, the potential audience size dropped to a hundred. When we found this out we switched the venue to our Adyar Theatre, where the convention is held. During our convention we seat around 1000 comfortably. Security requirements meant that 350 would be the limit for Mr. Mukherjee’s visit.

The event went off without a hitch. The security people commented that they had never had such a low-stress, beautiful setting for their work. Our residents and staff, who had been involved in the planning and execution of it were tired, but proud.

Meanwhile, back at Naarden, twenty-one members from thirteen countries had gathered for our brainstorming and planning meeting. The reason for holding the meeting was that each year the TS General Council meets for one day before convention to go over the administration and activities of the international organization. In such a brief time the focus is always on informing the council about international activities and the administration of the Adyar headquarters. Very little attention is given to planning for the future, propagating the teachings, or impacting the world at large. In Naarden, our time was solely focused on these things. For five days we explored a variety of avenues. It was more than an idea session, because teams of members had taken on the responsibility for developing and implementing the projects.

	A School of the Wisdom group poses in front of the historic Blavatsky Bungalow at Adyar.

The planning had two broad areas of focus—matters that are internal to the TS and matters that are external. Under these two headings a number of priorities were determined for initial attention. They included such things as harmonizing the core Theosophical teachings (the HPB, Sinnett, Besant, and Leadbeater systems); developing training centers in Sections; holding more frequent meetings of the General Council; giving more attention to younger members; finding avenues for applying the teachings; increasing TS membership; and exploring Theosophy as an university academic discipline.  Look for more to come.

In April a new vice-president for the international TS was selected. The way the process works is that the president nominates and the General Council votes to approve the VP. I nominated Dr. Deepa Padhi, an educator who has been extremely active in the Theosophical Order of Service in India. She has founded and promoted numerous projects focused on women’s education, care, and protection; orphanages; mental-health facilities; and shelters for abused women. Some of you will remember her from 2012, when she addressed the international TOS conference, which we hosted at Olcott. The General Council was unanimous in their vote of approval.

And finally, the long-awaited beginning of the Adyar Renovation project kicked off in May. The first building to tackle is Blavatsky Bungalow—an Indian Heritage (landmark) building that is the regular home to our School of the Wisdom. Look for more in days to come.

Tim Boyd

Printed in the  Summer 2017 issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Pateros, Christina, "Earthkeepers: Nurturing the Earth the Andean Way" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 26-29 

By Christina Pateros

Light-headed, I was struck by the intense energy that came up under my foot, through my leg, and up to my head. I stayed standing, mostly steady, while the teacher’s arms caught my neighbor before she collapsed. I felt the heat. The three of us, with one foot each on the bundle of flowers and leaves beneath, were called from the class of eighty, gathered in a room in Utah’s Wasatch Range of the western Rockies, to cleanse more deeply. I, along with the others, had blown my prayers into a set of three dried bay leaves as our teacher guided us in this earthkeepers’ ceremony, known as kuti despacho, born long ago in the Andes Mountains of South America.

That ceremony in December 2010 was my seminal experience not only of the power of intention, but of the intensity with which Mother Earth can cleanse hoocha (heavy energy) away, revealing lighter, brighter, empowering energy. I became a believer in the magic of the unseen that night. And the clearing and the healing—they continued.

This intense cleansing ceremony, which we practiced for what felt like hours, is part of the traditions of the earthkeepers of the Andes, in Peru and Bolivia primarily. The Peruvian regions are the home of the quiet, gentle Quechua people, whose spirits exude kindness, love, generosity, and innate strength.

Fundamentally simple, the Quechua traditions and way of life focus on Pachamama, Mother Earth, whom they feed with respect and love. Eating a meal with Quechua friends always begins with the first sip of the drink poured out in gratitude to Pachamama.

As direct descendants of the Inca, the Quechua people are proud to be Pachamama’s children. “It is seeing through the heart; more heart, less brain,” Odon (Medina Calsin) reminds me as the energy of his words enters my heart space and quiets my busy head. His message vibrates with the deep love he has for his land, his country, Pachamama, his family, and the paqos (healers) with whom he is closely connected. It’s genuine. It’s passionate. In the sacred valley of Peru, it’s simply the Quechua way—to love Pachamama, Mother Earth, first, with all your heart. “The rest follows and flows,” says Odon.

To be an earthkeeper is to know that everything has a spirit and that all is sacred. Animated. With energy. This is the shaman’s way of being and knowing—seeing the beauty in life. Odon speaks of directing energy with intention and following the heart: conscious action with love.

With square Incan features, and a face revealing his age—he is in his forties—Odon is a native of Cusco, the center of the former Incan empire. We met on an Appalachian mountaintop in North Carolina in November 2016, as he worked side by side with Don Mariano Quispé, interpreting Don Mariano’s  Quechua language for the thirty-eight of us gathered in community to learn and pray. Don Mariano was guiding ceremony in his heavy, fringed alpaca poncho of black and red and pink and orange, an item of clothing that reflected his place in the tribe and in our allyu (community) as medicine man.

The Quechua words flowed from Don Mariano’s tongue as his  sun-drenched, leathery face spoke volumes of compassion and his eyes expressed a connection to unseen worlds. This mentor of Odon and so many others is a humble, slightly-framed farmer with the wisdom of an elder and the heart of a child.

A seventy-something (no birth records are kept in that region) paqo from the high Andes, Don Mariano is a special earthkeeper. He is Q’ero, one of the Quechua people who live in mountain villages so high that in the 1500s the Spanish conquistadors, who decimated the Inca royalty and the Quechuas at lower altitudes, could not find his ancestors. He is also  a seer, a kurak akullak.

The Q’ero are an indigenous tribe numbering in the hundreds: farmers, weavers, and healers. They are family people who revere and honor Pachamama with all their hearts. They live simply in sync with the earth, growing papas (potatoes) and choklo (corn), in ayni: sacred reciprocity, giving before taking, in right relation and in harmony with all living things. And Pachamama is at the heart of all of their life.

Pachamama is so honored and revered in Peru and Bolivia that every day is truly Earth Day. But there’s an annual bonus of a month-long August birthday party in her honor, with parades, performances, and fireworks-filled celebrations.

Pachamama could be translated as “earth mother” or “cosmic mother.” Asking for permission first and conveying deep gratitude to the animated mother is the Quechua way of life. The Andean vision holds that when we leave our physical vessel, our bodies return to Mother Earth, our wisdom to the mountains, and our souls to the stars.

Pachamama’s children include the animals: two-leggeds, four-leggeds, creepy crawlies, finned, furred, winged, stone people, tree people, and plant people. The willka mayu, or sacred rivers, flow, reflecting the cosmos, planets, and stars: as above, so below. A powerful force in her own right, Mamacocha is the mother of the waters, the oceans. There is a seductive dance of nature that takes place as the waters fertilize the seeds planted in Pachamama’s belly.

Andean cosmology calls the mountain spirits by name. These apukuna are like powerful ancestors, and are prayed to loyally for protection and guidance. As I hiked, in my first meeting with the mountain Apu Salkantay in the Peruvian highlands just months following the Wasatch ceremony, I found myself nearly breathless, hands frozen and face barely visible around my insulating alpaca chullo (knit hat). This mountain seemed to speak to me with each icy step I took. The rocky path was sleet-drenched before me, high above me, and far below me. The messages I received were supportive and loving, and at nearly 16,000 feet, you wish for that to be the case.

“Trust” was a big one. “Breathe” another. Simple, but the messages resonated. I felt well, but with an oxygen-deprived brain, the whole landscape looks different, and when you receive silent messages, your reality shifts. Was it that I had truly been graced with meeting an ancestor who longed not only to guide me but also to provide a strong foundation beneath me? Perhaps this mountain, with her collective wisdom, was offering me support to find the courage to ask, with my heart, what my soul was longing for. One thing was clear: when walking alongside glaciers on steep, slippery paths with long drops one step off, you learn to trust yourself, the others around you, those leading you, and the earth below you. Even if you never did before.

In those days on the mountain, I learned to ask for guidance from this powerful apukuna. Asking this mountain spirit was akin to asking a grandparent whom I had never had gotten to know as a young one.

Having the honor of being led on the mountain by my Western teacher, and by paqos Don Francisco, Don Pablo Cruz, and Don Pasquale, was extraordinary. It was these three with whom I immersed into the gift of the ayni despacho ceremonial practice, the sacred ceremony honoring reciprocity and gratitude to Mother Earth.

These Q’ero brothers, caretakers of the earth’s animals, plants, people, mountains, and waters, practice as ceremonialists. While working with the earth entities, they also align with the energy of long-past ancestors. The earth spirits and helpful ancestral spirits inform them as they blow their prayers of gratitude into coca leaves, the most sacred of plants in Quechua culture. They ask Wyra (wind), Inti (the fatherly sun and fire element), and Mamakilla (the silvery, grandmotherly moon) for guidance and wisdom, but only after thanking them first, always giving and offering before asking or taking.

These Q’ero earthkeepers, also known as pampamesayok, called the condor for connection to the hanakpacha (shamanic upper world), where the stars dance with the moon and the sun and the clouds. The sacred condors answered the call, appearing in the skies above us as we trekked to our base camp at 13,000 feet altitude. The majestic death-eating vultures circled high in the updrafts above us, winged omens leading us on our way.

In the daily ayni despachos with the Q’ero paqos, we prayed together for right relation to all that is, to Creator, Great Spirit and to the mountain spirits. The paqos called them by name, especially thanking Apu Salkantay for protecting us on our journey. The three led us in prayers of thanks to Pachamama and prayers to ask our hearts to be open, to feel balance, and, in the ultimate act of love, to offer our gratitude for our connection to all that is.

With tears streaming down my cheeks, I cried at every despacho ceremony, and still do today. In years past, the tears revealed sadness and shame. These ceremonies of ayni and honor, on Apu Salkantay’s belly, taught me that after I have cleared out old stories and old ways of being, my tears flow when my heart is open to love. These paqos see the tears, welcoming them, as they know in their own hearts that not only are we connected to Mother Earth, Pachamama, but we are truly connected soul to soul to each other and to every living thing.

So with each step up and down that Andean mountain, I asked the rocks to show me the way, to give me guidance. And I held a stone in my hand, blowing my prayers into it as I gasped for oxygen to fill my lungs. I learned the beginnings of simple lessons that I practice to this moment: give before taking, express gratitude before asking, and say thank you to Mother Earth for all that she provides to support life on our planet and in our world. Thank the air, the water, and the fire. And ask for guidance and protection and for the wisdom and presence to live as purely, with grace and love, as do my teachers, the Quechua earthkeepers.

And I’m reminded to lose my mind, as I had on the mountain, so that I can come to my senses, letting my heart lead.

Christina Pateros is an earthkeeper, journeyer, teacher, guide and artist in shamanic practice with clients and students in Chicago, in sessions at the Quest Book Shop in Wheaton, and in Boulder, Colorado. As a painter, her goal is to reflect the beauty of the world around her and through her, creating art as good medicine for the soul. She is currently writing her first book, The Amazon and the Vine, a memoir chronicling her dance with death. See more at christinapateros.com, whispering-stones.com, and Spirit-Filled Journeys.

Printed in the  Summer 2017   issue of Quest magazine. 
Citation: Swimme, Brian, "A Multiplicity of Centers" Quest 105:3(Summer 2017) pg. 34-35

It turns out that the earth is the center of the universe after all. So is everyplace else.

By Brian Swimme 

When the twentieth-century astronomer Edwin Hubble began watching the galaxies, he discovered that the galaxy clusters were moving away from us in all directions. This leads us to the startling conclusion that, in terms of cosmic expansion, we find ourselves at the center of the cosmos. This is indeed a strange and most unexpected development.

If such a discovery had been made during the medieval period of Europe, it would have caused no surprise at all, for the presiding worldview at that time put the earth at the center of the universe. To extend the earth’s centrality to the center of expansion of all the galaxy clusters would have made no great demands on the medieval mind.

But, of course, when Hubble made his discovery, we no longer lived within the medieval worldview. We had already learned from Copernicus that earth is not a fixed point at the center of the universe. Earth is one planet moving around one star, which itself is one of the three hundred billion stars of the Milky Way Galaxy, which in turn is one of a trillion galaxies in the wide universe. If we have learned anything over the last four hundred years since Copernicus initiated this great search, we have certainly learned that the earth is not a fixed center around which all the planets and stars revolved.

And yet here was this new revelation placing us at the center of the cosmic expansion of the galaxy clusters. Our Virgo Supercluster was not moving at all, and all of the other superclusters were moving away from us. What were we supposed to make of it?

Complicating our challenge is the consternation of the scientists who discovered the expansion. For if we could convince ourselves that it was Einstein’s secret hope to put us at the center of the universe, we could dismiss his and similar work as an ideological imposition upon the universe. On the contrary, for both Einstein and other scientists as well, the very discoverers of the cosmic expansion were repulsed by the idea, and they did everything they could to avoid accepting it. Disturbed by the implications of his theory, which suggested that the universe was either expanding or contracting, Einstein had introduced a “cosmological constant” into his equations to eliminate this problem, a decision he later called “the biggest blunder of my life.”

Had the cultural and personal biases of these scientists determined what they saw, they would not have found all the clusters of galaxies moving away from us so symmetrically that we were placed at the very center of this cosmic expansion. If they had been free to distort the data to fit their own preconceived notions about the large-scale nature of the universe, they would have announced that all the galaxies were fixed with respect to each other, which is what Einstein’s doctored equations suggested. Or, if they couldn’t have an unchanging universe, they might have preferred one in which all the galaxies were moving in the same direction, a Great River of galaxies. Then at least we would not be in any special place. Such a discovery would then fit into modern culture, for it would suggest we were insignificant, without cosmic meaning, just as Friedrich Nietzsche and Jean-Paul Sartre and Bertrand Russell and so many other modern philosophers taught. Earth would be just one bit of bark swept along with the Great Current.

What Hubble discovered did not fit modern culture’s preconceptions but in fact disrupted them. But instead of altering the data, he published it. He offered no philosophical justification for or against the data. He simply made public what he had discovered there at the cutting edge of human awareness: in terms of the universe as a whole and its fifteen­-billion-year expansion, we happen to find ourselves at the very center.

Hubble’s discovery is not a contradiction of what Coperni cus learned; Hubble’s discovery is instead the completion of the cosmological exploration that Copernicus started. Copernicus initiated an investigation that removed the earth from the center of the universe, then removed the sun from the center, and then removed everything from the center. But after 400 years of empirical inquiry, a great reversal has taken place, one that shows us the center in a universe vastly huger than the solar system and nearby stars Copernicus and Galileo were aware of. We do not return to the cozy medieval geocentric world but enter an immense evolutionary cosmos, a cosmos that is centered on its own expansion. In order to fully appreciate this new understanding of the cosmic center, we must now deal with the seeming paradox at the heart of the data.

I’ve presented two discoveries that seem in conflict with each other. First, in terms of the light from the beginning of time, which was first detected by Penzias and Wilson, the birthplace of the universe is fifteen billion light-years away from us. Second, in terms of the expansion of the galaxies, which is Hubble’s discovery, we are at the very center of the universe. We need to consider this strange situation, where we are simultaneously at the center of the cosmic expansion and fifteen billion light-years away from the origin of the cosmic explosion. The paradox is this: how can we be both at the center and fifteen billion light-years away from the center?

We have such difficulties with this discovery because our minds have been shaped and educated in a culture firmly rooted in the Newtonian worldview. Even though we now know Newtonian physics is not adequate for complete understanding of the vast evolutionary universe that was discovered after Newton’s death, we are nevertheless stuck with Newtonian consciousness because it forms the foundation of our major institutions—including our educational systems. The challenge of understanding an Einsteinian universe is a real challenge indeed. We need to reinvent our very minds so that we do not distort the discoveries by holding them in Newtonian categories that are unable to touch the truth we have discovered.

To give a single example that bears on our discussion of the center: When we hear that the universe began in a great explosion fifteen billion years ago, we picture this as something like a Fourth of July fireworks explosion. First there is just empty space, then there’s this great explosion of colors in all directions. We are forced into picturing the birth of the universe in this way, because Newtonian cosmology regarded the universe as a giant fixed space inside of which things move about and gather together and so forth. The shaping of our minds in childhood already compels us to pic ture the birth of the universe as an explosion taking place in an already existing space.

But this understanding of the universe’s beginning is both false and utterly misleading. The birth of the universe means not only the birth of all the elementary particles of the universe and not only the birth of all the light and energy of the universe, it also means the birth of the space and time of the universe. There is no preexisting Newtonian space into which the universe explodes forth. There is no external Newtonian timepiece clicking away outside the universe. Space and time erupt together with mass and energy in the primordial mystery of the universe’s flaring forth.

The simplest way to see the inadequacy of our mind’s Newtonian assumptions concerning the universe’s beginning is to ask a simple question. When I picture the cosmic birth as some kind of explosion that is taking place off in the distance, away from me, away from where I am observing it, just where am I standing? What provides the platform for my feet? How is it that I can stand outside the universe and watch its birth if I myself, from the beginning, am woven into this birth?

A reeducation of the mind is necessary to make sense of what we have discovered. The central archetypal pattern for understanding the nature of the universe’s birth and development is omnicentricity. The large-scale structure of the universe is qualitatively more complex than either the geocentric picture of medieval cultures or the fixed Newtonian space of modem culture. For we have discovered an omnicentric, evolutionary universe, a developing reality which from the beginning is centered upon itself at each place of its existence. In this universe of ours, to be in existence is to be at the cosmic center of the complexifying whole.

If there are Hubble-like beings in the Hercules Cluster of galaxies seven hundred million light-years away, and such creatures are pondering the universe from that perspective, they will also discover that the galaxies in the universe are moving away from them. They will thus conclude on the basis of this evidence that they are at the center of the universe’s expansion, and they will be correct. Our Newtonian minds might experience discomfort in the task of appropriating this knowledge, but our personal difficulties do not change the nature of this universe. Just as Einstein’s first reaction, when he was given a glimpse of our omnicentric evolutionary cosmos, was to pull back and insist the universe could not be like that, so too in our own struggle we sometimes wish that the universe were not so complex, not so mysterious. But the universe will be what it will be regardless of whether or not we humans accept it as it is.

There is one image in the scientific literature that can give some assistance in the journey into an omnicentric universe. I offer it with some misgivings because the image, however helpful in some ways, is also inadequate in others, as I will point out. My hope is that it can help us take a first step out of the false view of the universe as a fixed space. And perhaps it might help awaken in others more adequate images of the nature of the universe that will become a regular part of our cosmological education in the future.

Imagine you are inside a loaf of raisin bread as it is being baked. The crucial point is to begin your imaginal work from within the process rather than outside of it. So we have to forget the nagging Newtonian questions concerning the oven, or the loaf’s crust, or any other concern that arises when we attempt to understand the process from outside. We are inside a cosmic process; even our thoughts about this process are simply yet another interesting current of microevents taking place inside the great macroevent of the fifteen-billion-year development.

So in this particular raisin bread image, we need to focus our imaginations on being in the very midst of the baking raisin bread. In particular, imagine yourself on a raisin and just look around. You will see that all the other raisins are moving away from you as the bread bakes, so that in terms of the bread’s expansion you find yourself at the very center. And anyone else on any other raisin throughout the loaf would come to a similar conclusion. Hence we have in this raisin loaf a model for an omnicentric reality.

But there’s more. Suppose you now try to determine whether or not you and your raisin are moving with respect to the bread itself. What you will find of course is that you’re frozen in place, for your raisin sits stationary with respect to the surrounding bread. And when you think about it a bit you realize that the very reason the raisins are moving away from you is because of the expansion of the bread. You and your raisin are not even moving; it’s the space in between the raisins that is growing larger.

And that, precisely, is how we understand the cosmic expansion. Not as the movement of galaxies through an already existing, fixed, Newtonian space. No, it’s much more interesting than that. The cause of the expansion of the universe is the space rushing into existence and flinging the clusters apart from each other. The size of each galaxy cluster stays the same, but the space in between the clusters expands in each instant, which results in an ever larger universe. That is our new understanding of the cosmos as a whole. A wild spirit breathes forth billowing chasms of space that explode the primeval fireball into a great growing immensity, at whose center we find ourselves.

In terms of the large-scale expansion of the universe, we are not moving. We are at the stable and unmoving center of this expansion. To be in the universe is to be at its center.

We are now in a position to show how the seeming paradox of being at the center and fifteen billion light-years from the center is in fact simply a counterintuitive feature of existence within an expanding universe. To see this, imagine we are back near the beginning of time, in fact imagine we are right at the moment when the fireball begins to break apart and release its light in all directions.

Now let’s follow the adventure of a photon, a particle of light, that is released very near to us. If the universe were not expanding, such a particle would fly across the distance separating us in a matter of moments. But since the universe is not just expanding, but is expanding extremely rapidly, the particle of light has to travel a much greater distance as time passes. It’s as if we were waiting at the top of the “down” escalator, and someone on the second step wants to reach us. The escalator begins moving very rapidly downward so that our friend, whose velocity never varies, is at first carried away from us. But as time passes, the escalator begins to slow down so that eventually our friend makes it all the way back up the stairs and joins us at the top.

Just this happened with the photons of light released at the early moments of the universe. Those photons that were traveling in our direction were carried away from us by the rapid expansion of the universe. But as with a ball thrown up toward the sky, whose initial speed upward slows down with every passing second, so too with the expansion of the universe, which began very rapidly but has been slowing down now for fifteen billion years. Those photons that were initially swept away from us kept traveling in our direction and eventually completed the journey to us.

In 1965, astronomers Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson detected photons that had been set in motion fifteen billion years ago, when the universe erupted into existence. These particles had been traveling toward us for fifteen billion years. So we can say that their place of origin now is fifteen billion light-years away from us. On the other hand, if we go back in time, we find that their place of origin back then is very close to where we are now.

Our own place here on Earth in the Virgo Supercluster was also an origin point of some of this primordial light, but we in the twentieth century do not see those particular photons. The matter we are composed of stayed here as the primordial light emanated away from us fifteen billion years ago. If there are intelligent beings elsewhere in the universe, they may be detecting those very photons of light that left from right here and that now arrive in their own distant planetary system with news of our place as the origin of the light from the beginning of time. We exist then at the very origin point of the universe, because every place in the universe is that place where the universe flared forth into existence.

Brian Swimme received his Ph.D. from the department of mathematics at the University of Oregon in 1978 for work in gravitational dynamics. He is the author of The Universe Is a Green Dragon, and coauthor of several books: Manifesto for a Global Civilization,  with Matthew Fox; The Universe Story, with Thomas Berry; and The Journey of the Universe, with Mary Evelyn Tucker. He is presently on the faculty of the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. The material here has been excerpted from his book The Hidden Heart of the Cosmos: Humanity and the New Story, published by Orbis Books in 1996; www.orbisbooks.com .