In the ABC’s of Relativity, Bertrand Russell explains the strange world of Einstein’s general relativity. One of the most interesting aspects of the theory is not that “everything is relative” in the sense of there being no way to be certain of anything or to discuss anything concretely, it is that everything is relative to a well defined frame of reference. In general relativity there are not separate dimensions of space and time but rather one has to consider a combined fabric of spacetime. A frame of reference in spacetime is a particular here and a particular now, which we could think of as “here-now”. I think this concept coincides very well with Douglas Harding’s concept of the “centre”. The center of our experience is a particular here-now. As persons, I have a here-now and you have a here-now. They are so similar that we can agree on what is “there” and “then” but this is just relative to our frame of reference moving together on this earth. You could say that, as Earth, we all have the same here-now and in that way we are all one at center.

“There” and “then” are relative to a certain “here-now”. Douglas Harding talks about an object of our awareness being “there” from “here”. In Harding’s language, the “view out” is unique to each center, to each “here-now” while the “view in” is what we share since there is nothing (no-thing) here to compare to any other view in. The unique “view out” also implies that we are, as some spiritual traditions believe, co-creators of our own universes. When I look out at the world, “there” and “then”, I am really looking at “my” world. I am looking at the ever changing world as seen from the never changing here-now that I Am. As Ram Das says, “Be here-now”.

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Bertrand Russell - The ABC's of Relativity

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