Analogous Realms

We live in a world that corresponds to the length and breadth and depth of our understanding and abilities. The domain in which the amoeba toils and enjoys is as rich and complex to it as ours to us.

So why assume our world to be the apex of experience? Everything that history and science teach us suggests it is not.

As I sit, a tiny bug scuttles around my feet. It could run up my leg; I would hardly notice. Perhaps there are domains of higher consciousness populated by beings of comparably greater stature, where I am the scuttling bug. Our realm overlaps that of the single-celled organisms; do they even notice? Do we? What we call thought is to them just a whisper of nourishment and safety. Why not realms and minds overlapping ours, as far beyond ours in scale and complexity as ours beyond the insect's, or the amoeba's? I think it possible. Indeed, I think it likely.

Shall I crawl up the leg of one of these titans, at what personal peril, until I gain some sense of its shape and perspective? Until at last I reach a vantage where I may look into its eye, and know that I am seen?