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Monday, August 8, 2011

How Big is the Finite? - Prose of Ramadhan Part 27

How Big is the Finite? (Ramadhan Verses #15)
Two man was sitting in a room,
And between them, on the table
Was a glass of water.

One man asked the other,
“How big is infinity?”
To which the second man replied,

“Before I answer you that question,
You must first be able to supply
Me with the correct answer
To my own question.
Only once you have satisfied
Me with your answer shall I
Reply your own question.”

Then he pointed to the
Glass of water between them
And said, “How big is the finite?”

This is not a prose but a story, of which there is no end that I am aware of. How big is the finite? Is it correct for the first man to pick up the glass of water, and say "Well, this finite glass is slightly bigger than my hand..."?

But the point is that, only from the mortal perspective of our minds do size matter. The very essence of our existence, the oxygen that we breath, the water that we drink - all of them needs to be quantified for the sole reason that too little and we will die, but too much and we can become ill. We need the shoes at our feet to be just so, so we can wear them. Carpenters build their closets and cabinets of the right size, so it would be easy for us to store our goods, and retrieve them. 

But once we have laid to rest the superficiality of our mortality, and listen to our hearts more, then the rules change. What is once applicable to you, as a human being with reason, becomes an unacceptable hindrance in your understanding of not just infinity, but the finite itself. And therein lies the lethal ideal that God Himself has mentioned to those of His servants who would listen to Him - that All of Creation Cannot Contain Me, but the Heart of a True Believer can. People like to quote this in the context of God's Unquestioned and All-Loving Nature of Man, and how God has raised Man in the highest firmament of Creation. But to believe this is also to say goodbye to the simple idea of the right size and the right fit, the very basis of the space-time continuum that we exist in.

It is the beginning of a journey into the nature of the finite and infinite, of which the only safe guide is God. Upon this path, the Love of God must be felt with absolute certainty, otherwise you may find yourself wandering in the valley of confusion, where the Angels shall come to you but be of no help, asking instead... "Who let you in??"

Or alternatively, you can be like me - a coward and a sinner (with poor mathematical skills), clinging to the number One(aka God) with the desperation of a man floundering in a fog of incomprehensibly infinite numbers...

Pax Taufiqa.

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