Scientists have foretold that after five billion years, the Earth will be absorbed into the sun as the sun reaches the end of its lifespan. What they have described, by way of analogy, is in fact the absorption of the entire cosmos into the principial substance.

Titus Burckhardt describes this analogy whilst discussing Taoist painting…

“The world would appear to be made of snowflakes, quickly crystallised and just as quickly dissolved. Since he is ever conscious of the non-manifested, the less solidified physical conditions are, the nearer they would seem to be…to the Reality underlying all phenomena.”

-Taken from Sacred Art in East and West.

loops_6nov99b

It is doubtful whether many scientists are aware of this, and indeed, if they were they would not be so preoccupied with the manipulation of physical phenomena, given that no knowledge of the mechanisms of nature can bestow permanence upon any manifestation. Permanence is eternity, and eternity is possessed by God alone. We cannot overcome physical death, whether it be individual or cosmic, with technology any more than we can reach infinity by counting. Our true purpose is described by Frithjof Schuon thus:

“What matters for a man is not the diversity of the events he may experience…but perseverance in the ‘remembrance’ (prayer), which takes us outside time and raises us above our hopes and our fears. This remembrance already dwells in eternity; in it the succession of actions is only illusory, prayer being one; prayer is thereby already a death, a meeting with God, an eternity of bliss.”

-Taken from Prayer Fashions Man