THE DIVINE EQUATION: THE MATHEMATICS OF BEING

In my quest to find out how all reality fits together, I have had some help to give me additional assumptions that get me closer to solving the Mystery of Faith. Some of these ideas I have written down for you to try to make sense from them. I am in a state of wonder right now, a sense of excitement that happens to the scientist when she is almost on the brink of a discovery that is just out of range, but very close. Mathematics is a language, a discipline to look at reality both as applied and theoretical dimensions. Can mathematics (theoretical physics, chemistry, cosmology, logic) not define but describe that which cannot be measured by the languages we now use? Can there be mathematics of being? Depends.

When trying to decipher the complexity of how all reality fits together, I have determined three universes, which I call the Rule of Threes (three separate and distinct universes, each with separate functions, each with their own rules of existence, yet one reality). The ideas came from my Lectio Divina meditations, not at all scientific but real for me. I use this Rule of Threes to help my limited human reasoning to approach those ideas that are just beyond mathematics, physics, chemistry, philosophy, religion, but, taken together, make up the totality of all that is or will be. I asked myself, “Do we know all these is to know about mathematics and science?” My answer is, of course not, all of these languages are dynamic and we will know more about all of the reality the more we uncover how to perceive it in all its complexities. Like the James Webb space telescope, our ability to observe what is has been extended, but one would be wrong to think that where we are not in our understanding of the physical universe is where we will be a year, a hundred years, or more. You get the point, don’t you?

THE PHYSICAL UNIVERSE — Right now, the physical universe is our laboratory for reality. This is everything that has a beginning and an end. It is all that we can see. Its laws are based on matter, time, space, energy, and the compilation of change or deterioration due to time itself. Humans, indeed all life on earth, are subject to this universe because we have roots in everything that ever lived. We even have roots in the cosmos in the makeup of stars and their movement from simplicity to complexity. Why is it that baboons and ants can’t ask, “Why is that?” and “How does all of this fit together?” They follow an invisible rule based on the reality of the physical universe that everything is, lives, procreates, and then dies. That is the way, as the popular series, the Mandalorian, keeps telling us over and over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LaiN63o_BxA This universe is good. How could a butterfly be evil? As long as it acts consistent with its nature, it has resonance and not dissonance. The way in this universe, in which humans live as Spiritual Apes, is nature, the default. The truth exists in how nature moves from simplicity to complexity. The life is one that has a beginning and an ending. That which has no beginning nor ending lifted up all of physical reality into having a beginning and an ending. That power is one of resonance, of self completeness, of producing pure energy by its energy. This pure energy left its DNA (to use an imperfect description) on matter, one that moves inexorably to it cosmic end. Is that all there is?

THE MENTAL UNIVERSE — This is a universe where only humans exist? How do you know that there is a universe with only humans? Is all this stuff fantasy? You judge that, and by the way, ask yourself the questions: “Why is it that you can know that Stephenson 2-18 is the largest star in the observable universe (so far) but it can’t know that you know about it?” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPV–iHy1oQ Also, why is it that you can design languages that probe the physical and mental universes to search out why how, when, and what is outside of yourself, but your pet dog or cat can’t? Why is that? One of the things that the individual and the collective mind can do is reason and make choices that determine their own destiny, choices that may even be bad for them and for which they are unaware? Humans have reason for a reason and also the ability to choose against any religion, philosophy, or mental paradigms that seek to explain how all of this fit together. The mental universe, through acquired knowledge, moves towards an unseen future, not just the Physical Universe alone. In the future, I suspect that the languages that are come from human reasoning alone will be evolved enough to even probe the mathematics of being itself, right now a seeming contradiction. This combination of physical and mental universes we call The World because the way, the truth, and the life all come from the human mind, both individually and collectively. If you use the wrong assumptions in this universe, nothing outside of it makes any sense. By itself, science seems to provide the answers to the physical universe (which it does) but doesn’t do well with that next universe, the spiritual universe. Why? There is nothing to measure? Right? I suggest that you are using the wrong assumptions and measuring tools.

If everything was perfect, there would be no problem with the world, but there is indeed a problem. It is dissonance, it is the imperfection and the bad behavior of some of us by murder, rape, pedophilia, stealing, lying and cheating, coveting the goods and the wives of others. This is a condition of Original Sin, one of dissonance in terms of what humans should be but are not. There is no cure for bad behavior or the choices that hurt others to the exclusion of oneself. Humans come from what is good (the physical universe) but, because they don’t know how to use reason and the gift of freedom to choose their own good, they make poor choices, hence the need for God to become human to show us the way.

Right now, I see three distinct universes of reality, one physical, our base of existence, the other the mental universe, our base of knowledge, and our spiritual universe, the fulfillment of our human destiny and containing the answer to the divine equation. We are not quite there yet but are approaching an integrated view.

THE SPIRITUAL UNIVERSE — Spirituality is one of those amorphous concepts that any true scientist worth their salt will rebel against by ridicule or simply denial. There are no atoms, nor matter, nor time in this universe. It is the universe that makes sense of the other two (physical and mental). Where science looks at what is using the technology they have today then makes statements and deductions, the spiritual universe looks at what is from the viewpoint of our next step in human evolution, from rationality to spirituality. This spiritual universe focuses on the present, learning from the past to see the future, one beyond death.

I hold that the Spiritual Universe is the answer to the Divine Equation for several reasons. In this universe, people only enter because of their free will and choice. It is a choice for goodness and not evil or remaining under the control of evil. We humans still have reason and the ability to choose good or evil, but now there is an option that takes away Original Sin while still leaving its effects. This is the Christ Principle, the pivotal change of time itself to add another universe, one we enter by choice but also one that has no beginning and no end. Our life is spent learning how to live in this rarified condition and prepare to do so for all eternity. We learn how to do it because God became one of us to show us. (Philippians 2:5-12)

THE ABILITY TO CHOOSE IS NOT THE SAME AS CHOOSING WHAT IS RIGHT

The fact that we humans all have the ability to say “No” or “Yes” to our own inclinations, which may or may not be authentic, is not the same as what we choose as good or evil. Genesis 2-3 is an incredible story of human nature and why some of us are seduced by evil while some of us make the choice for the reason and choice of another’s will to guide us. This power outside of ourselves we call God (with all the baggage that that entails for each of us when we say that word).

The archetypal choices of Adam and Eve come down to only two options, with the snake being the wild card of Original Sin in which we live out our seventy or eighty years, if we are lucky.

OPTION ONE: This choice is at the core of my being, that which I think makes me happy, fulfilled, have a purpose, and the reason I find myself able to know that I know. This choice originates within me and my reason plus my ability to choose what I think is good for me (using the environment of the world and its values of what it means to be human). In this option, I am the only one in the whole universe that can say “Yes” or “No” to what I think is my destiny. This approach is consistent with my human nature and is as it should be. So why is this dissonance? It is dissonance not because I am free to choose this or that. It is dissonance or Original Sin, because of what I place as the center of my life — my false self, in the words of Cistercian (and many other) authors ask, “Is that all there is?” In the physical and mental universes alone, I am able to choose only what I select as meaningful as the world sees it.

OPTION TWO: This choice is at the core of my being, that which I think makes me happy, fulfilled, has a purpose, and the reason I find myself able to know that I know. Are these two options the same? My ability to choose is the same in each option. It is my reason as I view reality with three universes (physical, mental, and spiritual) that are different. This is a universe where I must ask to enter. This asking depends on my being humble of heart and renouncing my false self (I am the center of the world) in favor of obedience to the will of someone outside of myself as the kingdom, the power, and the glory.

Here is the conundrum. I am the center of the world but being that center, I am the only one who can say “No” or “Yes” to God with no recrimination. Obedience means I recognize that the spiritual universe, in which I want to play, is God’s playground, not mind, and so the rules are also His. Although I am the center of all reality in the universe, I pledge that God’s will be done each day and not my own. The consequences of this choice are far reaching (beginning with my Baptism and ending in Heaven, forever.)

Read what St. John has to say in his Gospel.

The Prayer of Jesus.^*1When Jesus had said this, he raised his eyes to heaven^* and said, “Father, the hour has come. Give glory to your son, so that your son may glorify you,^a2^* just as you gave him authority over all people,^b so that he may give eternal life to all you gave him.3^* Now this is eternal life,^c that they should know you, the only true God, and the one whom you sent, Jesus Christ.4I glorified you on earth by accomplishing the work that you gave me to do.5Now glorify me, Father, with you, with the glory that I had with you before the world began.^d6“I revealed your name^* to those whom you gave me out of the world. They belonged to you, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.7 Now they know that everything you gave me is from you,8 because the words you gave to me I have given to them, and they accepted them and truly understood that I came from you, and they have believed that you sent me.9 I pray for them. I do not pray for the world but for the ones you have given me, because they are yours,^e10 and everything of mine is yours and everything of yours is mine, and I have been glorified in them.^f11 And now I will no longer be in the world, but they are in the world, while I am coming to you. Holy Father, keep them in your name that you have given me, so that they may be one just as we are.12 When I was with them I protected them in your name that you gave me, and I guarded them, and none of them was lost except the son of destruction, in order that the scripture might be fulfilled.^g13 But now I am coming to you. I speak this in the world so that they may share my joy completely.^h14 I gave them your word, and the world hated them, because they do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.ⁱ15^* I do not ask that you take them out of the world^j but that you keep them from the evil one.16They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world.17 Consecrate them in the truth. Your word is truth.^k18 As you sent me into the world, so I sent them into the world.^l19 And I consecrate myself for them, so that they also may be consecrated in truth.20 “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word,21 so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me.^m22 And I have given them the glory you gave me, so that they may be one, as we are one,23 I in them and you in me, that they may be brought to perfection as one, that the world may know that you sent me, and that you loved them even as you loved me.24 Father, they are your gift to me. I wish that where I am^* they also may be with me, that they may see my glory that you gave me, because you loved me before the foundation of the world.ⁿ25 Righteous Father, the world also does not know you, but I know you, and they know that you sent me.^o26 I made known to them your name and I will make it known,^* that the love with which you loved me may be in them and I in them.”

https://bible.usccb.org/bible/john/17

THE INTENDED CONSEQUENCES OF CHOICE TWO

One of the characteristics of the spiritual universe is that it turns everything upside down. I liken it to a polar shift, when what was North is not South. This actually happened to the earth.

My Lectio Divina meditations presented me with this notion that, once the Christ Principle became human, things change, or there was a change in spiritual time. In terms of the Divine Equation, you won’t be able to solve it with just the knowledge, experiences, sciences, philosophies of the World (physical and mental universes alone). God had to leave the comfort of the Trinity to send His Only Begotten Son to become one of us (Philippians 2:5-12) because we needed help to decipher the formula. This formula has six parts, six awarenesses of questions that must be answered before our hearts can approach God through Christ.

• What is the purpose of life?
• What is the purpose of my life within that purpose of life?
• What does reality look like?
• How does it all fit together?
• What does it mean to love fiercely?
• You know you are going to die, now what?

In the Old Testament, God spoke through the Word and the Prophets (e.g., to Moses in the burning bush). We still did not get how to achieve resonance with God, so Jesus took on human nature to bring us the way, the truth, and the life. Jesus actually showed us how to walk the walk and not just talk the talk. The Christ Principle is the answer to each of these six questions. The answers do not come from me but from Christ. I recognize that God is God (humility) and that God’s will needs to be done and not my own.

The Lay Cistercian way of life (there are others out there, too) seek to choose Christ as their center and to do the practices and charisms that sustain our resolve to have Christ increase in me while I decrease. This does not mean I am less human. Far from it, it means I fulfill my destiny as an adopted son (or daughter) of the Father by seeking to be what I am, by acting my nature.

Everything in the spiritual universe is the opposite of the physical and mental universes. That is why it is so difficult to grasp, in terms of logic. As fox suggests to the Little Prince, “…it is only with the heart that one sees rightly, what is essential is invisible to the eye.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d33AQNo8H6U When the mathematics of being has evolved to include the heart as well as the power of the physical and mental universes, then we will have true resonance.

Christ gave each person the solution to the Divine Equation and it has always been right in front of us. Because of Original Sin and the influence of dissonance, I must struggle to put resonance where the default is dissonance. All the while, Satan tries to dissuade me from loving others as Christ loved us. This is a daily battle of my will trying to conquer God’s will. It is only by renouncing self to follow Christ that I can answer each of those six questions authentically. The late Father Aidan Kavanaugh, O.S.B. taught me sacramental theology back in ’63 or so. He mentioned a little ole lady who used to sit in the back of a darkened church with eyes lowered and just smiling because her heart touched the heart of Christ. He told us that Mrs. Murphy, as he called her, knew more that all the theologians and wise men and women who study about God and use things like The Divine Equation to explain what is so far beyond us to be a sign of contradiction, a paradox of reason that the world advocates.

This is the mathematics of being. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Y4xacvLUXo This Divine Equation is not to be solved as to be lived in order to fulfill our destiny.

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