Why Is There Not Nothing?
Op-Ed by Neenah Payne
When I was about 8 years old, my brother David who was 5 years older asked the most profound question I have ever heard. He simply said, “Why is there not nothing?!”
For thousands of years, scientists, mathematicians, philosophers and other pundits have explored our reality. They have discovered a great deal about the universe, the Earth, how our bodies work, the creatures of the sea, past civilizations, etc. However, they all seem to take for granted the existence of everything – this vastly complex universe whose laws are so profound and beautiful.
So, to my knowledge, no one other than my young brother has ever asked why anything at all exists. Even the wisest among us just take for granted that since there is a universe (or multiverses), that its existence is a given. It HAD to exist. How could there be nothing? It’s kind of hard to even imagine not only that we never existed – but that nothing ever did! Just NOTHING!
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It’s possible to take my brother’s question a step further. Given that there is a universe, why is there SO much variety? For example, we would probably all have appreciated having one kind of tree. So, why are there SO many kinds of trees? Of course, it is wonderful that some trees are good for building ships, homes, furniture, etc. Other trees bear a wide variety of delicious fruits or a range of nourishing nuts. Some are beautiful flowering trees like the Japanese cherry blossom that grace the Mall in Washington, DC. Some survive for hundreds of years like the mighty redwoods of California.
Why Is There So Much Variety?
Einstein said, “I want to know the mind of God. Everything else is just details.” Perhaps part of knowing the mind of the Creator is just taking the time to appreciate creation – that there is ANYTHING and in SUCH wonderful multiplicity! Why are there so MANY kinds of fish and creatures of the sea – from the shrimp to Blue Whale? Why are there so MANY kinds of birds from chickens that can’t fly but feed us by laying eggs daily to mighty eagles that inspire nations as they soar of over mountains and oceans?
Wouldn’t one kind of flower have been enough? We probably would have been happy with red roses. So, why are there pink, white, and yellow roses? Why are there also tulips, daffodils, lilies, and countless other flowers? Why are there so many kinds of healing herbs? Why are there SO MANY kinds of animals from dinosaurs to lions? Why are there so many kinds of people? Why have there been so many varied civilizations from the enlightened ancient Egyptians to the modern world?
Survival Value of Biodiversity vs. Monoculture
Nature hedges its bets with a wide variety of every plant and animal species to increase the odds of its survival. Variety is Nature’s Life Insurance Policy! When people mimic Nature in that way, they minimize the risk of crop failure and famine.
The Inca, who first cultivated the potato, plant a wide variety of the tuber on various parts of their terrain. Some strains thrive in wet hot climates, others prefer dry cold climates. Some like the high mountains others prefer lowlands. The potatoes they plant vary widely in color, size, shape, etc.
However, when the Irish adopted the potato, they made what proved to be a fatal mistake. They cultivated only one strain. When that variety failed, it led to the Irish Famine, the mass starvation of millions of people — and many Irish had to emigrate to survive. Had the Irish just planted several varieties of potato, perhaps that tragedy could have been easily avoided.
Unfortunately, the world has not learned this lesson. In the video Monsanto’s Roundup Herbicide May Be Most Important Factor in Development of Autism and Other Chronic Disease, Dr. Stephanie Seneff a research scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), reports that glyphosate is possibly
the most important factor in the development of multiple chronic diseases and conditions that have become prevalent in Westernized societies, including but not limited to: autism, obesity, diabetes, gastrointestinal diseases such as inflammatory bowel disease, chronic diarrhea, colitis, and Crohn’s disease, allergies, cardiovascular disease, depression, cancer, infertility, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Multiple Sclerosis, ALS, and more.
GMO crops can contaminate nearby fields — leading to a monoculture of GMO crops. If those fail, the world could face mass starvation. In the article The Seeds of Suicide: How Monsanto Destroys Farming, Dr. Vandana Shiva, author and international environmental activist, warns:
Control over seed is the first link in the food chain because seed is the source of life. When a corporation controls seed, it controls life, especially the life of farmers. Monsanto’s concentrated control over the seed sector in India as well as across the world is very worrying.
We Are Caretakers In The Garden of Eden Now!
On this Earth, we have been provided with everything we need to thrive. The nutrients our bodies and brains need to function optionally are available in the multiplicity of foods – animals, fruits, berries, nuts, seeds, vegetables, herbs, mushrooms, etc. The nutrients in some foods optimize our memory, others protect our heart, make our bones strong, or enhance our vision, etc. We are in a paradise.
Native American cultures do not have the concept that humanity was expelled from the Garden of Eden. They see the Earth today as that garden. They view each generation as caretakers responsible for maintaining the Garden for the next seven generations. For that reason, when the Europeans arrived in this hemisphere, they could drink from any river or stream because all the water was pure.
Understanding the elegance and simplicity of design hidden behind the astounding variety of Nature helps foster a reverence for creation that is often taken so much for granted. Understanding of that sacred design was encoded in the architecture of ancient Egypt and in the Gothic cathedrals of Europe. It is embodied in our very numbering system and The Periodic Table of Elements.
Elegant Simplicity Behind Diversity
Clearly, the Creator loves to create – in great variety! The goal seems to be to express an infinite number of forms. However, the Creator was not content just to manifest great diversity — as splendid as that is. Hidden within the complexity is an elegant simplicity that makes the diversity ever more astounding.
The Periodic Table of Elements, first published by Russian chemist Dmitri Mendeleev in 1869, shows the relationships of the building blocks of all matter. There are 92 naturally-occurring elements, one for each kind of atom. The elements are arranged according to their relative weights in rows and groups containing elements with similar properties, like members of a family. Mendeleev documented the simple yet flexible order inherent in nature that makes the mind-blowing diversity possible.
The Numbers Behind Creation
“Nature’s great book is written in mathematical symbols.” – Galileo
Living in the world without insight into the hidden laws of nature is like not knowing the language of the country in which one was born.” Hazarat Inayat Khan (1882-1927) Sufi
The Egyptian Miracle: An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Temple by Rene A. Schwaller de Lubicz discusses the elegant way in which numbers define all of creation. A Study of Numbers: A Guide to the Constant Creation of the Universe is also by Schwaller Amazon says: “Starting from the irreducible one, Schwaller deals with the unfolding of the science of numbers. This most wonderful guide to the constant creation of the universe can awaken in us the higher consciousness of a universal order. By deepened knowledge of things and their process of becoming, we must come to recognize Numbers as a truth.”
Schwaller’s books are difficult because his revolutionary insights rest on a profound understanding of the hidden role of numbers. Schwaller shows that the universe is built from the Number 1 dividing into Number 2 and creating Number 3 which is celebrated in many religions as The Trinity.
The Ancient Secret of the Flower of Life: Volume 1 by Drunvalo Melchizedek says that the universe is built on two instructions. Spirit expresses itself as a sphere. To create reality, it just moves to the edge of the sphere (circle) and creates another one! When the 13 major circles of the Flower of Life are connected by all possible straight lines, Metatron’s Cube is formed.
The Profound Sacred Geometry site shows how the five Platonic Solids that define the physical world come from Metatron’s Cube. Note: Each element in the Periodic Table is related to one of the Platonic Solids. For more information, see the article “Why Sacred Geometry Matters So Much”.
Rediscovering The Wisdom of Ancient Egypt
Alsatian mathematician, scientist, alchemist, and Hermetic scholar Rene A. Schwaller de Lubicz was a student of Sacred Geometry and spent 12-15 years studying on site the Temple of Luxor in Egypt whose significance he documented in several books. He was the author of Sacred Science: The King of Pharaonic Theocracy.
Amazon says:
R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz (1887-1961), one of the most important Egyptologists of this (20th) century, links the sacred science of the Ancients to its rediscovery in our own time. Sacred Science represents the first major breakthrough in understanding ancient Egypt and identifies Egypt, not Greece, as the cradle of Western thought, theology, and science.
Schwaller also wrote The Temple of Man.
Amazon says:
The monumental Temple of Man represents the most important breakthrough in our understanding of Ancient Egypt since the discovery of the Rosetta stone. This exhaustive and authoritative study reveals the depths of the mathematical, medical, and metaphysical sophistication of Ancient Egypt. Schwaller de Lubicz’s stone-by-stone survey of the temple of Amun-Mut-Khonsu at Luxor allows us to step into the mentality of Ancient Egypt and experience the Egyptian way of thinking within the context of their own worldview.
His study finds the temple to be an eloquent expression and summary — an architectural encyclopedia –of what the Egyptians knew of humanity and the universe….Schwaller de Lubicz demonstrates how advanced the civilization of Ancient Egypt was, a civilization that possessed exalted knowledge and achievements both materially and spiritually. In so doing, Schwaller de Lubicz effectively demonstrates that Ancient Egypt, not Greece, is at the base of Western science, civilization, and culture…
The Temple of Man is a monument to inspired insight, conscientious scholarship, and exacting archaeological groundwork that represents a major contribution to humanity’s perennial search for self-knowledge and the prehistoric origins of its culture and science.
Sacred Architecture of Ancient Egypt
The Luxor Temple Discoveries That Show Everything You Know About Ancient Egypt is Wrong is a video by alternative Egyptologist and author John Anthony West which helps make Schwaller’s discoveries at the Temple in Luxor easier to understand.
The video description says:
You won’t find this in the history books. R.A.Schwaller de Lubicz began a fifteen year, on-site study of the great temple complex of Luxor….His findings, published in The Temple of Man, call for a total reexamination and reinterpretation of the entire body of Egyptological theory.
West explains that Schwaller discovered that Phi (aka “The Golden Mean”) was encoded in the ancient temple built around 1300 BC. The Greeks are credited now with this and other mathematic principles. However, Egypt was already several thousand years old by the time of Pythagoras, Socrates, Aristotle, Plato, etc. Schwaller also found that the musical scales had been embodied in the architecture.
West shows the human skeleton overlaying the temple because Schwaller found that the temple’s architecture corresponds to the human body. The temple was designed to represent not just physical man, but enlightened man. In addition, Schwaller discovered that the temple contained a model of the universe!
Schwaller said the reason for the creation of the universe is our beyond our ability to ever understand. That will remain an eternal mystery. So, we can never know why there is not nothing! However, we can learn to understand and marvel at the elegance of the simple design behind all the complexity.
Ancient Egypt: Key to 21st Century Renaissance
We are led to focus on the Greeks and to ignore ancient Egypt. Schwaller de Lubicz believed that is a costly mistake that we must correct now. He showed in The Egyptian Miracle: An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Temple that the Greeks could not fully understand Egyptian wisdom because they were rationalists (left-brain thinkers) while the Egyptians were devoted to a profound right-brain philosophy. The back cover says: “Schwaller de Lubicz’ great work…opens the way to complete reappraisal of Egyptian civilization, revolutionizing our view of history. In the first Renaissance, the Florentines went back to the knowledge of the ancient Greeks. In this, our planetary Renaissance, we return to the esoteric knowledge of the ancient Egyptians.”
Amazon says about Schwaller:
His elucidation of the temple at Luxor and his presentation of the Egyptian understanding of a special quality of innate consciousness form a bridge that links the sacred science of the Ancients to its rediscovery in our own time.
Schwaller says:
To the Pharaonic mind, man is Anthropocosmos, a whole…. The West, led astray by Greek thinking which is concerned with appearance only, must once again learn the meaning of a ‘natural symbol’ which is never deceptive. Egyptology can be a profession for gravediggers and tomb vandals, or else the most marvelous source of knowledge for the world to come. This depends on the courage of the young.
Schwaller was author of Esotericism and Symbol about which Amazon says:
This is an initiation into the tone, structure, and mentality of Egyptian knowledge, the basis of all Western theology and science. It is a redefinition of those concepts which are basic to the pharaonic transmission — the glory of ancient Egypt. The author explores the mystery of the formation of substance into matter.
The introduction to The Egyptian Miracle: An Introduction to the Wisdom of the Temple says:
The monumental opus of Le temple de l’homme [The Temple of Man] is considered to be the most valuable testimony to the Pharaonic wisdom bequeathed by the philosopher R. A. Schwaller de Lubicz. His innate knowledge of the doctrine of the sages is confirmed in the revelation of the superhuman science expressed by the architecture, the texts, and the proportions of the monuments, the initiatory temple of Luxor offering him the perfect model thereof….these Masters “made the stones speak” to the inheritors of their cosmogonic and geodesic knowledge. Above all was placed the most esteemed branch of their sacred science, the science of Man.
The preface of the book points out:
In 1957, Schwaller de Lubicz published the essence of his work on Pharaonic philosophy and mathematics together with the results of his research on the temple of Luxor. …This achievement is all the more astonishing in the light of claims that philosophy and science as we know them were invented by the Greeks. Indeed, it is easy to forget that Moses and Pythagoras, among others, received their entire culture from the Egyptian temple, but much more difficult, it seems to me, is categorically to deny this fact. Schwaller de Lubicz reestablished the truth.
Schwaller shows that understanding ancient Egypt is the key to a 21st century renaissance!
Top image credit: Ryan Smith “Eye of the Universe”
