Similarities between Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism, thousands of years old) and the Big Bang are interesting:
Quote: Kabbalah teaches that, long before creation, the Light of the Creator filled the entire cosmos, filled it beyond our conception of time and space - for it is the essential nature of the Light: to expand in every direction, and to endlessly share of itself. In order to express its giving essence, the Light created a Vessel whose nature was to receive. The Vessel was created not only for the Light, but of the Light, in the same way that a pitcher made of ice is formed from the same water that pours into it. Yet there was also something entirely "new" about the Vessel, which was its nature to receive rather than to give and share. Kabbalah teaches that the fabrication of this new energy was the only true, ex nihilo creation that has ever taken place. All the physical universe, from the most distant stars to the smallest subatomic particles, are vestiges of that original creation.
Once the primordial Vessel came into being, there existed a pure circularity - a condition of complete mutual fulfillment between the giving, sharing principle of the Light and the receiving, accepting principle of the Vessel. The Light found completion by giving endlessly of its beneficence, and the Vessel experienced total satisfaction at receiving endlessly of the Light's infinite goodness.
But then something changed. The Vessel was no longer satisfied "just" to receive. Kabbalah refers to this new negative intention, this resistance, as bread of shame. Bread of shame meant that the Vessel would no longer simply receive the unearned benevolence of the Light. Rather, the Vessel had taken on the giving intention of the Light. The Vessel's desire to actively give rather than passively receive caused the Light to withdraw -to create a space in which the Vessel's new intention could express itself. The Light, whose only desire was to share, saw fit to withdraw its illumination so that the Vessel's desire could manifest.
It is at this point that the metaphysics of Kabbalah intersects with the conclusions of modern science. Today, physicists refer to the creation of the Universe as the Big Bang. But thousands of years ago, the ancient kabbalists were already describing that same creation as the shattering of the Vessel. Into the space created by the withdrawal of the Light, the Vessel fragmented into an infinite number of entities and energies, all of which are endowed at their deepest level with desire - and not just desire to receive, but desire to receive for the purpose of sharing. In other words, not just to meet God, but to become one with God. To be as God is.
Kabbalah has much more to say about the Light and the Vessel, and kabbalists over the centuries have delved deeply into the permutations of this very elegant formulation. Today, few people who encounter this beautiful metaphor fail to be moved by it. The interesting thing is, however, that it's not just a metaphor. According to Kabbalah, the Light and the Vessel are the literal form and substance of the world we live in - and not just the world, but even the physical bodies in which our souls now reside. The primordial sequence - desire to receive for the self alone, followed by bread of shame and resistance, followed by shattering and reconstituting as desire to receive for the purpose of sharing -- is played out not only over the whole course of our lives, but in every action and every encounter. Once we understand this, we become aware that we are not distant from God in the sense that the Greeks were distant from Zeus and Athena in their palace on Mount Olympus. Instead, we are enacting what the Creator enacted. We are experiencing what the Creator experiences. We are our finite selves, and we are also the infinite Light of the Creator.
There's more at this site: The Kabbalah Center. Remember, this is mysticism. .
