Seeing the bigger picture is a phrase that can have several meanings, depending on when and by whom it is used. It is sometimes a bland explanation for a change to a previous decision that now looks unwise. But it can also be an expression of what is often seen as the highest motive: seeing beyond our ‘self’ or personal ego. In such a case, it can take us on a train of reasoning that is potentially disquieting because that same ‘self’ is reduced to unimportance or even no longer in the picture. However, it can also help to clarify what can be achieved in our temporary human life.
Our daily world of bodily senses is constantly changing and not the place to start if you are looking for some permanence or solid foundation from which to view your surroundings. Humanity has already discovered how limited our senses are, even in the areas that they can perceive let alone the other ranges of vibration (to use an inadequate word) that our technology has allowed us to begin exploring.
So, what do we know? Energy is neither created nor destroyed but changes form. We, as physical individuals, are a bundle of changing energy that has a starting point about which there is dispute (is it conception or birth or even before birth?) and an end that some see as not an end. The whole body of energy, of which we are a very small part and which is apparently eternal and infinite, is definitely more permanent than we are both as individuals and a species. Is it conscious? Well it contains consciousness, such as our own, and many people believe that they have experienced a greater consciousness, including me. If you share this experience or believe in the potential for sharing it then our individuality should be seen as an incident in the bigger picture or an idea within the greater consciousness or the mind of a greater being for which you may have a name that you use.
What I find remarkable is that during our life we can express ideas in word and deed that others can understand and use and that gives us the potential for a life beyond the time-bound physical one.
Paul Newman
June 2014