What Does it Mean to Be a Part of the Universe?

When you watch a wave crashing onto the shores of a beach do you separate the wave from the ocean just because it is performing a separate action? The wave is part of the ocean acting as an individual. Though it is moving while the depths of the sea lie still, the wave is still connected to the vast harmony of the water.

Where should this connection end? A wave is also part of the thing we call a beach. A beach is also part of the thing we call a shore. The shore is part of the thing we call land. And so it goes.

The same logic is applied to human beings. Though we may move through life more erratically than a wave, that does not mean we aren’t part of a larger entity.

To put it another way, think of the building blocks of all the structures of Earth and even cosmic matter. Atoms combine to form elements and elements combine to form compounds. The more complex a compound becomes, the more of the original identity of an atom is lost in the creation. A new identity is formed, but its origins can’t disappear.

Humans are the most complex combination of atoms. But, there is no denying that we originate from atoms just like any other structure of the universe. These are the same atoms that blasted from supernovas, explosive stars, that created the universe.