Nihil - Or Wholly Other

When I was a kid, I used to do a thought experiment. I would start with myself, continue to the earth, on to the moon, mercury, venus, sun, and the rest of the solar system, pass some asteroids along the way to the galaxy, continue on to the fixed stars, and keep going on into space, going back, back, back in time as I went, and what was there? I would always draw a blank. The best term I could use to describe what was there was 'nothing'. If there is something that is transcendent, that is so great it causes all of this we see, surely, to the untrained eye, it would be a blind spot and wholly unrecognizable, as there would be no environment, no frame of reference within which to grasp it as something. From this side of eternity, it would surely be 'nothing'. In mysticism, this 'nothing' is the center of the spiritual universe, termed the 'Ain Sof'. That unintelligible no-thing, the unmoved mover, that is beyond even the first cause. This principle is wholly self sufficient, so none of it, without 'accident' , leaks out so as to be perceived. So, how can we even dream up such an idea, if it cannot be perceived? Something went drastically wrong somewhere. There was a breaking of the vessels, a cosmological fall, and emanations of this no-thing took on form and matter, becoming part of the intelligible matrix of things. So we do experience nothingness. We try to remember something at the opportune time, and draw a 'blank'. We have some new experience that shakes us so that we can't put the thing into words. We have deep, dreamless sleep, and feel completely refreshed upon waking. Each of these, though physical in nature, point to this 'nothing' at the center of everything that really is 'something'.

A Mystery that drives all mysteries.