“In the (oscillating universe), the Cosmos has no beginning and no end, and we are in the midst of an infinite cycle of cosmic deaths and rebirths(.)”
-- Carl Sagan, in “Cosmos”

The difference between a quasar and a black hole, according to Sagan, is subtle. Both seem to be different expressions of the same thought, two openings to the same wormhole. Effectively with one the universe is saying “yes.” With the other, the universe is saying “Yes!”

Such subtle differences in expressions of the universe are, well, universal, according to Sagan. For example, the Cornell astronomer says, if the universe is closed (spherical or more or less taking the form of a balloon being inflated, as Stephen Hawking suggested in “A Brief History of Time”) then no light can escape it. Meanwhile, Sagan tells us, light also cannot escape a black hole. Therefore to light the difference between the universe and a black hole is perhaps subtle. One is a way of expressing the idea of the other and vice versa.

Sagan, who comes down hard on mystics in “The Dragons of Eden,” expresses in “Cosmos” an idea of only subtle difference from one expressed by 33rd degree Freemason and scribe of the Philosophical Order of the Quest, Manly Palmer Hall, magician, in “The Secret Teachings of All Ages.”

Says Sagan: “There is an idea – strange, haunting, evocative – one of the most exquisite conjectures in science or religion. It is entirely undemonstrated; it may never be proved. But it stirs the blood. There is, we are told, an infinite hierarchy of universes, so that an elementary particle, such as an electron, in our universe, would if penetrated, reveal itself to be an entire closed universe. Within it, organized into the local equivalent of galaxies and smaller structures, an immense number of other, much tinier elementary particles, which are themselves universes at the next level, and so on forever – an infinite downward regression, universes within universes endlessly. And upward as well. Our familiar universe of galaxies and stars, planets and people, would be a single elementary particle in the next universe up, the first step of another infinite regress.”

Hall agrees.

Says Hall: “As within the nature of man is reflected the entire universe in miniature, so in each grain of sand, each drop of water, each tiny particle of cosmic dust, are concealed all the parts and elements of cosmos in the form of tiny seed germs so minute that even the most powerful microscope cannot detect them.”

A particle is a material manifestation of energy. All matter is energy condensed, light slowed. This is to say that superficially matter appears to be material when in reality it is energy. This is the consensus in the scientific community and the expression that sums up this idea, E=MC^2, is of subtle difference from expressions of a similar idea embraced by religions around the world. The material is illusory, they say. That which is material, the mystics tell us, is but an expression – material and thus dynamic and impermanent -- of God consciousness.

On thoughts, the scientific community has compared neural activity to electrical flows. Thoughts, it can be said, are bursts of energy from a particular source with a specific destination and a collection of resulting effects, or manifestations.

Similarly, Buddhists have concluded that Universal Mind is the ultimate cause, and the phenomenal, material world is the ultimate effect. Said Mind never ceases. The stream of consciousness is infinite. Thus, according to the Buddhists, attempting to embrace or grasp the material – and thus dynamic and impermanent -- manifestations arising from the thoughts of Universal Mind is to chase mirages, entertain illusions, and miss the forest for the trees. Jibe with the Mind as it is, they say, and not the products of the Mind, which are relics of past thought processes. Doing this would be living in the moment, they say.

The book “The Teaching of Buddha” reports: “The world has no substance of its own. It is simply a vast concordance of causes and conditions that have had their origin, solely and exclusively, in the activities of the mind that has been stimulated by ignorance, false imagination, desires and infatuation. It is not something external about which the mind has false conceptions; it has no substance whatever. It has come into appearance by the processes of the mind itself, manifesting its own delusions. It is founded and built up out of the desires of the mind, out of its sufferings and struggles incidental to the pain caused by its own greed, anger and foolishness.”

Sagan, in Cosmos, projects a very human characteristic onto the Universal Mind, suggesting it is dreaming of itself dreaming of itself dreaming of itself, on and on. Life for the Cosmos, he implies, is a never ending jaunt through a labyrinth of funhouse mirrors.

“There is the deep and appealing notion that the universe is but the dream of the god who, after a hundred Brahma years, dissolves himself into a dreamless sleep. The universe dissolves with him – until, after another Brahma century, he stirs, recomposes himself and begins again to dream the great cosmic dream. These great ideas are tempered by another, perhaps still greater. It is said that men may not be the dreams of gods, but rather the gods are the dreams of men.”

Whether the Universal Mind is awake or dreaming, the difference ultimately may prove to be subtle, and Sagan tells us that the least that can now be concluded is that it is likely alive and stirring and its characteristics are strangely familiar, sparking a perpetual sensation of deja vu in those studying it. “The Milky Way rotates once every quarter billion years. If we were to speed the rotation, we would see that the Galaxy is a dynamic, almost organic entity, in some ways resembling a multi-cellular organism.”

Indeed the universe is alive and must be treated as such. Lao Tzu in the Hua Hu Ching suggests "You should dissolve all discrimination of individuality and absorb all things into a harmonious oneness. All lives are one life that can be called the One Great Universal Life."