The Center of the Universe
Baffled by a maze of my own making
Some people talk about the moment they discovered that they were not the center of the universe as if it were a single point in time, a moment that clearly delineates a “before” and an “after.” It comes as if it were a great awakening — a lightning-strike of revealed truth.
Maybe it was ushered in by one or more traumas. Maybe it was a wise teacher that led them to a new perspective.
Whatever the case, they talk as if all subsequent experience has been lived through a new perspective — one that gives them peace and freedom.
A testimony may sound something like this:
The moment I realized that I was not the center of the universe was both painful and joyous. Ever since, I have felt deeply connected to the world around me. It's funny how the discovery of one's insignificance can open up colorful new perspectives on life.
I used to interpret everything through the lens of my own experience. But now I see things from multiple perspectives. I have great empathy. I feel like I'm an important piece of a jigsaw puzzle that would still exist without me, yet to which I contribute an important piece.
My life has been blessed since I saw I was not the center of everything.
It did not really play out that way for me.
While I realize that the universe is a vast enterprise of which I am only a minuscule part, how can I not ultimately be the center of my own experience?
I know I am not the center of the universe, but it seems to me that I am the center of MY universe.
My experience of the world revolves around me.
Everything I do points back to myself in the end — no matter how the outside world may interpret any action (or, lack of action). I can’t escape the motivation of a deep desire to elevate my “self.”
Even if I were to make the ultimate sacrifice — to give my life for something that I, at least momentarily, believed were greater than myself — it seems that in the end it would be motivated by concern for my soul.
It feels like an inescapable truth.
There is a battle that wages in me, all day. I hear the whispers of the prophets that assure us that dying to self is the pathway to eternal life.
Whatever this means exactly, theologically or philosophically, it does inspire me.
Yet, I never really seem to change. Not in action, and not in thought.
At the end of each day, I’m stuck in this room, cursed with a window that allows me to look outside and see all of the other children laughing and playing, as if they don’t have a care in the world.
It's a lonely place at the center — I'm not sure how to get out.
Oddly, very many of us are also in that lonely place, unwilling to relinquish our place in the center of our world to join the party. Sometimes I like it that way.
I can't find any way to subtract myself from me -- and I have OFTEN wished to! I do love to read my favorite Zen author, Pema Chodron, who has lots to say about this. The more we are willing to really know who we are, the more connected we become. She says it better actually:
"Dogen Zen-ji said, “To know yourself is to forget yourself.” We might think that knowing ourselves is a very ego-centered thing, but by beginning to look so clearly and so honestly at ourselves—at our emotions, at our thoughts, at who we really are—we begin to dissolve the walls that separate us from others. Somehow all of these walls, these ways of feeling separate from everything else and everyone else, are made up of opinions. They are made up of dogma; they are made of prejudice. These walls come from our fear of knowing parts of ourselves."
I suppose I am becoming a little Buddhist myself as I how important the ideas are that Chodron teaches: about working through our fears, about groundlessness, about suffering, about what different people and things have to teach us. Pema goes on:
"Then Dogen Zen-ji goes on to say, “To forget yourself is to become enlightened by all things.” When we are not so self-involved, we begin to realize that the world is speaking to us all of the time."
For me, the teachings I learned from the Bible, from Jesus -- about the Spirit and the nature of God -- became much more meaningful when I released them back to the Spirit, got uncomfortable with the idea of not knowing, and set them aside.