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Originally Posted by Joe Mc
...the distances of everything and the entire vastness of it all. And when I acquired the Telescope I felt on some level at least I was trying to fit the Universe inside of the Telescope...
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Your post reminded me of the ideas of contraction and expansion, of limited and unlimited, of the known and unknown. I think that's what mystical experiences are built of. Expansion, unlimited, and the unknown.
I think using things like thought, contemplation, looking inward, mindfulness, meditation, wonder, imagination, seeing beyond the known, awareness of mysteries, expands our perception and experience and awareness.
Like that telescope shows a small part of what is. A limited view. The more one "zooms in" the more the awareness narrows. It sees more detail in the view, but excludes more around it's narrowing view.
That's like our awareness. If we are in a room arguing with someone. Our view has narrowed to just these feelings and emotions and thoughts in us. If we are angry we are again contracting down to that emotion in us. It narrows our view. If we expand our view to include everything in that room, and don't narrow it down by giving our awareness over to our thoughts or mind, then our awareness expands outward.
Looking up at the night sky, all those billions of stars, can be boring. We might think, "who cares I got money problems." Or it can be the most wonderous thing and experience. Mind blowing really. Depends if we are narrowed or expanded. Perceiving limited or unlimited. Stuck in the "known" or willing to look and experience outside that.
That well known exercise where we are told to go look at a tree without any concept about it. Some might think that narrows things. Limits them. But really it does the opposite. The limiting factor is the concepts we have about trees. It is this or that species, this or that color, it's wood and whatever. It has no effect on me. But then without all of those thoughts and concepts and ideas about "tree" what is it? Looking without those, it becomes a living thing, a life, a vibrant mysterious thing. One enters into a sense of wonder.
It would be nice I think to always walk around with a sense of wonder at everything we are perceiving.
This beginning of the movie Contact zooms out on the universe a lot:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWwhQB3TKXA
This trippy video zooms out and then in!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Are9dDbW24
What's even more mind blowing is these videos stop zooming out and in at some point but there is no "stopping point" one could literally zoom out or in forever. No end point is known either direction. What limits us is our instruments.