“Why do you care whether there is a God, extraterrestrial life, reincarnation, or any of those things? What relevance does it have to your life?”

We’ve all heard this question, if you’re reading this blog you’re probably one who does think about these things. Personally, I have always found the mysteries of the universe irresistible, so this question has always been somewhat baffling to me. How could you really not care whether there is a God, afterlife, or extraterrestrial life? Such apathy toward the large questions of life seems unfathomable, to me. 

So, like a fish trying to describe the ocean, for a long time it was difficult for me to articulate why these things mattered to me so much, when this question arose. However, simple questions like this can often lead us to reflect on our own assumptions, so I would like to share some of the realizations I came to trying to answer this question. Perhaps by reading this, you will have a better answer, or even a better understanding yourself of why these things matter to you.

The short version is: I care about the mystery because the mystery is the ultimate context of my existence, and context is absolutely everything; the context of a thing defines that thing, and gives it meaning. Furthermore, it exists entirely in our imagination, and it has to, by the very structure of our existence.

The Universal Existential Constant

The reason this is so has to do with the human condition, which is defined by an ordinary conscious existence centered on direct bodily perceptions, and then gradients of mystery beyond it. In fact, this is almost certainly the condition of not just humans, but any conscious entity, since any finite mind is always limited, by definition. 

For instance, you directly experience the room you’re in, and then in your mind you have a mental map of the world around that room (if you think about it), and your placement in that world. This extends out as far as you choose to imagine, or feel you have knowledge sufficient to be justified in doing so, such as the country you are in, the planet you are on, etc.

In other words, there are things each individual directly experiences, and there are things beyond that which are completely unknown, with a gradient of knowledge/mystery between them. It’s a simple fact of our existence.

It naturally follows that regardless of how far your awareness may expand, there is, a priori, always a boundary to it, and always something beyond that boundary, which from your perspective is a mystery. Every time your knowledge and awareness expands, the outer boundary of what mystery lies beyond it likewise expands.

The only possible exception to this would be if our awareness became infinite, perhaps, but we can’t really imagine that, although some claim to have experienced it. Barring the exception of the state of infinite consciousness claimed by the mystics, there is always a boundary to our conscious existence, and degrees of mystery beyond it.

This would presumably also be true for any self-aware finite entity, from the lowliest worm to the most vast super-intelligent species, or even advanced spiritual beings, if you believe such beings exist. If they are not infinite, then it seems to me that their existence must have this structure, the known core, the unknown beyond, and the gradients of knowledge/mystery in-between. 

The Existential Island in a Sea of Imagination

One helpful metaphor is to think of our individual existence as an island. That island has its relatively solid ground, which for us is our direct sensory awareness. These are the things we are most certain of, because we directly experience them, and in this metaphor they are our ground or earth, which also relates to our colloquial sayings about being “grounded” in reality. This is the reality to which this saying refers, our most certain, sensory reality, the bedrock of our understanding of the world. 

Then, there is another layer which is beyond the ground of sensory experience, but which is near enough to be relatively certain; you can liken this to the shore of our metaphorical “island” of existence, and even the shallow waters beyond, where you can still wade out. For us, this boundary would be facts outside of our senses, but nevertheless trustworthy, thanks to evidence and logic.

For instance, I can be relatively certain that oxygen exists, a faraway country like Russia is really there, and that I have a liver, even though I’ve never truly seen or experienced any of those things. Thus, there are things I do not directly experience, yet of which I am relatively certain. Then, there are also things of which I am less certain, but still may believe to exist, such as ghosts, or what someone I’m talking to is really thinking.

Finally, beyond that of which we are relatively certain, there is the larger Mystery, about which we ponder, and upon which we weave the fabric of our beliefs, by combining reason with imagination. To continue our island metaphor, this would be the vast expanse of ocean beyond our shore. Just as the ocean is the context of an island, the backdrop in which it dwells, whatever is beyond the boundaries of the ground and shore of our conscious experience forms the context of it. 

It also exists purely in the realm of imagination, hopefully tempered by reason. Regardless of what is actually “out there” beyond our shore of knowledge, our experiential existence floats in a cosmos of mind and imagination, because we can always only imagine and reason about what is beyond the boundary of our experience and knowledge. 

Not only that, but no matter how far we expand our knowledge and experience, it always will float in an ocean of imagination, because that seems to be the inherent structure of any finite, experiential entity. No matter how big our island of knowledge gets, we will always be left to imagine what lies beyond it. How else could it be?

Context is Everything

So, “Fine,” you might say, “the mystery is the context; why does context matter?” My answer to this is: the meaning of pretty much anything is derived from its context. Let’s take a very concrete example: a bar fight. 

Let’s say that you witness a fight break out between two men in a bar. If you know absolutely nothing about the context of this fight, it will mean very little to you; you may have some thoughts about the volatility of alcohol and testosterone when combined in too great a quantity. In other words, to you, it is a relatively meaningless occurrence. 

Let’s say that you now expand your knowledge when someone tells you that the reason they fought is that one man was sleeping with the other’s wife. Notice that when this happens, you imagine these circumstances which were told to you verbally by this person.

Now, to you, this is a somewhat different bar fight, is it not? Yet, it is the same bar fight; it is the context of it in your own mind and imagination that has changed.

Let’s say that you hear from yet another person that the reason the affair occurred in the first place is that the husband was abusing her; yet again, an even more different bar fight. 

Let’s say, somewhat more hypothetically, that your spiritual “third eye” suddenly opened, and you were able to see that this bar fight was an unfolding of karmic patterns through time that had been in motion for thousands of years between these two souls, as they weave a pattern of flesh-bound experiences in and out of various bodies and lifetimes, trying to find a balance and transcend the illusory nature of this physical reality, for their ultimate mutual enlightenment. Yet again, an even more vastly different bar fight, with a totally different meaning. 

Why? Because with every expansion of your knowledge of the context of the fight, your experience of the fight transforms, and the same is true of your entire experiential existence, your very life. 

That, friends, is why the mystery matters, to me.