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"This consciousness shows the cosmos to consist not of dead matter governed by unconscious, rigid, and unintending law; it shows it on the contrary as entirely immaterial, entirely spiritual and entirely alive; it shows that death is an absurdity, that everyone and everything has eternal life; it shows that the universe is God and that God is the universe, and that no evil ever did or ever will enter into it; a great deal of this is, of course, from the point of view of self consciousness, absurd; it is nevertheless undoubtedly true...."
In the far reaches of space, there are wonders you wouldn't dream of. Creatures with more mouths than eyes, a color spectrum human eyes cannot parse, more star systems than you could count on every finger and every toe of every human alive.
One asteroid of many floats aimlessly in the empty silence of the corner of its galaxy, a breakoff of a little planet made of carbon. A star many times hotter than the future Earth’s sun explodes, a white giant shattering to smithereens. The asteroid is spared, pushed into the galaxy over by the force of the star’s death, and careens its way into a planet that bursts on impact.
A perfect white diamond floats alone among the rubble, seemingly another piece of space junk. It’s another millenia before light pressure finally condenses her into something new, before she’s forming into something functional: two arms, two legs. Hands, feet. A head with eyes to see, ears to hear, a mouth to speak. There’s nothing to smell out here; a nose has not been created. She forms, and when her eyes open they sparkle with the light of a million distant stars.
“I am… alone.” Her first words are cautious, and she feels something in herself that she decides to name sorrow. You don’t have to be alone, something tells her, and it isn’t long before she’s making her way through the universe in search of another dying sun.
First comes Blue, born of a blue giant smaller than White’s own star. “You are my sorrow,” White tells her, staring at her diamond in the silence, and no sooner than she’s formed is Blue crying, weeping tears that make even the nearest planet quake with grief. White lays a hand on her shoulder, feeling something she decides to name pride as her sorrow washes from her body. It’s not long before White hears another whisper; all Blue does is cry, and White’s own tears mimic her constantly. You need to reign her in, something tells her, and she and Blue are both still crying as they wander the galaxy together in search of a new death.
Yellow is born of a yellow giant about the same size as Blue’s. “You are my pride,” White tells her, wiping tears from her eyes with Blue weeping on her shoulder as they wait for Yellow to emerge. Yellow forms with a bang, a snap of her fingers, and a disdainful gaze to Blue.
“Quit that crying,” Yellow demands, and for once Blue sniffs and mops at her eyes. “Have you no pride?” White feels a mix of something now, things she decides to give names to: Joy. Shame. She’s no longer alone, but doesn’t Blue cry for being her sorrow? Wasn’t she, too, lacking pride before Blue? Almost instantaneously, sick of the shame, she beckons Yellow and Blue to follow her. She’ll make one more; a diamond has four sides, and together the four of them will rule the cosmos.
She nudges a white giant of joy toward Blue and Yellow, who work together to meet her with a red dwarf of shame. In the middle is another carbon asteroid, smaller than any of theirs, but the first one to be found in White’s hurry to rid herself of this feeling. Their forms obliterate in the light, but in the end four perfect diamonds float together. White reforms first, and she holds her perfect creations in her hands. Next comes Blue, too curious to weep, then Yellow, too curious to glare. The three of them wait there for Pink, staring intently until she starts to glow.
When Pink finally forms, she looks around at the three of them in what White decides to call wonder. “Oh, starlight,” White says, all vestiges of shame and joy leaving her as she stares at her perfect creations, hands held in front of her. “We’ve waited so very long for you.”
"Mysticism, then, is the perception of the universe and all of its seemingly disparate entities existing in a unified whole bound together by love."
-Richard Maurice Bucke, Cosmic Consciousness