The relativistic physics of the gods

Indeed! I wasn’t trying to be precise. It was just based vaguely on the fact that a photon does not have time. When we say we observed light from a galaxy far far away that it is some 5 billion years old light, no time has passed for the photon. Light does not experience time. Time as we know and perceive exists because of relative motion of matter. If the universe only had light in it, there would be no need for time, in fact there would be no time.

that’s a lovely observation @Khemarato.bhikkhu - it reminds me of ajahn chah’s words - “a tree in the forest …”

given that our sense of self is represented neurally (i.e., the homunculus), i wonder what the effect of practicing the arupa jhanas (in particular infinite space) would be on our brain and our sense of time. does the practice of compassion, leading to infinite space, alter our sense of time?

seems like it would have to do something to our perception, and the buddha’s words on the connection between the brahmaviharas and the deva realms seem to echo some earlier aspects of this thread.

this is really quite inspiring for practice - though possibly a bit like nanda’s motivation to practice …

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Those deities, though they number ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty, or sixty, can stand on the point of a needle without bumping up against each other.

AN 2.36
I read this sutta last night before sleeping and I got so confused. And the Buddha explains that they can do this because they developed their minds in this world, not in their world. I looked it up in different languages and they all seem to imply that they are standing on a space that is as large as the point of a needle. I don’t know what any of this means. :sweat_smile:

How many angels can dance on the head of a pin? - Wikipedia

Did the ancient Christians somehow get the idea from our suttas? Or just some coincidence? Haha.

In the Eye of a Needle | Miniature Museum (theminitimemachine.org)

Anyway, let’s do some physics.

Pin Head Comparison & Scale Of Nature (palomar.edu)

It seems that the minifigures are on the order of magnitude of 100 micrometers.

Bacteria - Size, Shape and Arrangement (microscopemaster.com)

The largest bacteria seems like 2 micrometres. So if devas are single-celled beings, then they can very nicely fit onto the point of a needle even. As speculated here. Is Buddhism consistent with Science? - #8 by NgXinZhao

I still doubt this possibility. It seems to casual to suggest that devas are killed when we use hand sanitiser.

Or the other possibility mentioned above is that devas are neutrino beings, which has no issue resizing themselves due to not being subjected to electromagnetic laws.

Thank you Bhante this is very enjoyable! Maybe they could just be extremely thin. Do they have any dieting advice? :sweat_smile:

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Very interesting refection Bhante, but I wouldn’t call NASA, just in case they take it up. Given the Climate report we don’t have much time left to reverse the current trend. :slightly_smiling_face: :pray:

Just adding some other suttas:

  1. In DN 18 King Bimbisara reborn as a yakkha named Janavasabha who visited the Buddha when he was on the way delivering duty ordered by Vessavaṇa, a king of gods of Catummaharajika, to do some business in the presence of another king of gods named Virūḷhaka.

  2. In MN 143 after listening Sariputta’s discourse on his deathbed, Anathapindika died and reborn as a Tusita god then visited the Buddha.

It seems that in these suttas, the time difference between human world and heavenly realms because of time dilation or other reason doesn’t apply.

I agree, it doesn’t seem 100% consistent, and we probably shouldn’t assume that this is anything more than storytelling. What interested me was that the very idea was present at all.

That’s a really intriguing idea. It fits really well with the idea that what we think of as “supernatural” is just an extension of the natural in ways that we are not yet fully aware of.

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