A Great Philosophical View of Our Entire Universe and Beyond - Stephen King

Here is an exept from my favorite epic series The Dark Tower. This is what really got my mind going when I was younger to think on a whole different level. Hopefully you will enjoy it as much as me.

Written by: Stephen King, The Dark Tower (part 1), The Gunslinger, Published by: The Penguin Group

“The greatest mystery the universe offers is not life but size. Size encompasses life, and the Tower encompasses size. The child, who is most at home with wonder, says: Daddy, what is above the sky? And the father says: The darkness of space. The child: What is beyond space? The father: The galaxy. The child: Beyond the galaxy? The father: Another galaxy. The child: Beyond the other galaxies? The father: No one knows.

“You see? Size defeats us. For the fish, the lake in which he lives is the universe. What does the fish think when he is jerked up by the mouth through the silver limits of existence and into a new universe where the air drowns him and the light is blue madness? Where huge bipeds with no gills stuff it into a suffocating box and cover it with wet weeds to die?

“Or one might take the tip of the pencil and magnify it. One reaches the point where a stunning realization strikes home: The pencil tip is not solid; it is composed of atoms which whirl and revolve like a trillion demon planets. What seems solid to us is actually only a loose net held together by gravity. Viewed at their actual size, the distances between these atoms might become league, gulfs, aeons. The atoms themselves are composed of nuclei and revolving protons and electrons. One may step down further to subatomic particles. And then to what? Tachyons? Nothing? Of course not. Everything in the universe denies nothing; to suggest an ending is the one absurdity.

“If you fell outward to the limit of the universe, would you find a board fence and signs reading DEAD END? No. You might find something hard and rounded, as the chick must see the egg from the inside. And if you should peck through the shell (or find a door), what great and torrential light might shine through your opening at the end of space? Might you look through and discover our entire universe is but part of one atom on a blade of grass? Might you be forced to think that by burning a twig you incinerate an eternity of eternities? That existence rises not to one infinite but to an infinity of them?

“Perhaps you saw what place our universe plays in the scheme of things - as no more than an atom in a blade of grass. Could it be that everything we can perceive, from the microscopic virus to the distant Horsehead Nebula, is contained in one blade of grass that may have existed for only a single season in an alien time-flow? What if that blade should be cut off by a scythe? When it begins to die, would the rot seep into our universe and our own lives, turning everything yellow and brown and desiccated? Perhaps it’s already begun to happen. We say the world has moved on; maybe we really mean that it has begun to dry up.

“Think how small such a concept of things make us, gunslinger! If a God watches over it all, does He actually mete out justice for such a race of gnats? Does His eye see the sparrow fall when the sparrow is less than a speck of hydrogen floating disconnected in the depth of space? And if He does see… what must the nature of such a God be? Where does He live? How is it possible to live beyond infinity?

“Imagine the sand of the Mohaine Desert, which you crossed to find me, and imagine a trillion universes - not worlds by universes - encapsulated in each grain of that desert; and within each universe an infinity of others. We tower over these universes from our pitiful grass vantage point; with one swing of your boot you may knock a billion billion worlds flying off into darkness, a chain never to be completed.

“Size, gunslinger… size.”

reply to post by ohiotim2112


Stephen King defiantly has a way with words. A true master of his craft.
His words actually take you away. you see it happening, you feel what they feel, any way a brilliant man.

Off topic but have you read StephenKing.com Dolores Claiborn. If you love his work i recommend this read

I have not read Delores Claiborne. It is on my list.

If you have not read the Dark Tower series, I highly suggest it.

The story travels through multiple dimensions and is written in about every genre there is (Western, Horror, Sci-Fi, Romance, Drama, etc.). There are characters from some of his other books that make their way into the Dark Tower world and even a part where the main characters in the story travel into a different dimension and meet Stephen King himself! There are many references and similarities to other books and stories as well including The Wizard of OZ, The Lord of the Rings, Salem’s Lot, The Stand, The Magnificent Seven, Alice in Wonderland and more...

They are very deep, involved books that take a while to read. Seven books in all with a possible eighth on the way. Ron Howard is directing the 3 major motion pictures and the 2 seasons of TV series to link the movies together.

Epic.

I have to agree with him. The World has moved on, not just physically but sociologically and culturally as well. Another dark age is coming, the population of the world is about to undergo a severe adjustment downward with a corresponding adjustment of social mores, values, and government structure.

reply to post by ohiotim2112


Awesome Read Op!

I love Stephen King, and I enjoyed that book as well. I read it though when I was pretty young. (My older brother had a well stocked bookshelf filled with books much more interesting than the silly books my age group was reading.) Though perhaps I shouldn’t have read those books so early!
I remember when I was about 9 or 10, I read “It” and for almost a year afterwards I was scared to run the taps alone in the washroom for fear something would be coming up the sink. And of course I still am petrified of Clowns!

But I definitely will have to check out the Dark Tower Series again. That was a beautiful passage, imho quite profound and I want to thank-you so much for taking the time to share it with us!

Edit to add:

I agree with Whateva69 --- if you get a chance --- Dolores Cannon is a very interesting author. She's a past life regressionist and her findings are absolutely fascinating. My only conclusion after reading her books (because there "nonfiction") is that either she is outright lying or there is much to our history that we are not aware of. I honestly don't think she is lying --- she comes across as very intelligent and sincere.

If your into torrents you can actually download 6 of her books for free over at Demonoid.com and also googlebooks offers free previews of alot of her books. (The previews are quite interesting...but very very incomplete!) If you like her stuff after you read the free stuff you can find online, you can get some good deals on her books at Amazon as well.

In my mind, the dark tower series was his great masterpiece. I love the way he ties a bunch of his earlier stories, and then even himself and his life into the series. All his books that I have read have been great, but none have come close to that body of work.

reply to post by ohiotim2112


Thank you for this, ill start looking for these books asap.
I cant wait to read them

reply to post by Phedreus

Agreed!



reply to post by OwenandNoelle

Delores Claiborn is a book by Stephen King.
Delores Cannon, the author, I don't know those works but will look into it.



reply to post by Whateva69

You can download all the books in PDF format online for free. Just got to poke around for them.

Originally posted by TKDRL
In my mind, the dark tower series was his great masterpiece. I love the way he ties a bunch of his earlier stories, and then even himself and his life into the series. All his books that I have read have been great, but none have come close to that body of work.

I agree 100%. I think he's an amazing writer and I really like most of his work (although a few of his books seemed to miss the mark for me), but the Dark Tower series really stands alone.

It's a masterpiece. Incredible story - sucks you in and never lets go.

I read it years ago and still think of it all the time. It really sticks with you.

I agree also. The Dark Tower series is his magnum opus and the thought that there may be another book is both disturbing (the ending of the last seemed right to me) and exciting as I might be able to move into that world again as I read it. I hope the movies and series translate better to film than many of his other works. I hope there is a great screenwriter and better director and producers involved because it has the potential to be a magnificent thing to see. Kudos to you OP for remembering that piece and then sharing it with us. Most poignant and effective!

I have not read the Dark Tower series but I do love Stephen King.

My absolute favorite book by him though so far is The Stand. If you have not read that book yet you need to as soon as possible!

Interestingly, the Huayan School of Buddhism, popular in East Asia during the early middle ages, makes use of a similar image: a mysterious tower that is the final destinastion of a hero's long quest, a kind of metaphor for a cosmos that self-reflectively contains itself (among, perhaps, other things) in a fractal-like manner.

The following is one description from the school's central text, the Avatamsaka Sutra. I''m guessing that Stephen King was unaware of this Sutra when writing his magnum opus, but you never know.

"...Sixth is the contemplation of the net of Indra, where principal and satellites reflect one another. This means that with self as principal, one looks to others as satellites or companions; or else one thing or principle is taken as principal and all things or principles become satellites or companions; or one body is taken as principal and all bodies become satelllites. Whatever single thing is brought up, immediately principal and satellite are equally contained, multiplying infinitely— this represents the nature of things manifesting reflections multiplied and remultiplied in all phenomena, all infinitely. This is also the infinite doubling and redoubling of compassion and wisdom. It is like when the boy Sudhana gradually traveled south from the Jeta grove until he reached the great tower of Vairocana's ornaments. For a while he concentrated, then said to Maitreya, "O please, Great Sage, open the door of the tower and let me enter." Maitreya snapped his fingers and the door opened. When Sudhana had entered, it closed as before. He saw that inside the tower were hundreds and thousands of towers, and in front of each tower was a Maitreya Bodhisattva, and before each Maitreya Bodhisattva was a boy Sudhana, each Sudhana joining his palms before Maitreya. This represents the multiple levels of the cosmos of reality, like the net of Indra, principal and satellites reflecting each other. This is also the contemplation of noninterference among all phenomena..."

Source:
www.wisdomportal.com...

Originally posted by theUNKNOWNawaits
I have not read the Dark Tower series but I do love Stephen King.

My absolute favorite book by him though so far is The Stand. If you have not read that book yet you need to as soon as possible!

I have read The Stand and it is a fantastic book! Like I mentioned earlier in a post, The Stand and The Dark Tower intertwine with each other. During thier quest they end up in a dimension that was the setting for The Stand and maybe Randall Flagg shows up?


reply to post by silent thunder


King got the idea for the story from the poem "Childe Roland to the Dark Tower Came" written by Robert Browning.

Your comparison to the Avatamsaka Sutra is very interesting. (I like King's version better. ) I will have to check that out. Cool indeed! I also like how you compared it to fractals. That is something I had not thought about until you brought it up. Very good observation.

To say the man has a way with words is an understatement that is almost an insult to the man's genius. He has way with far more than words; it's more like he has a way with the collective subconscious. When the man is in the zone he says everything in just the right way, in just the right sequence, with just enough flare to make it all seem like self-evident truth even though we know that most of it is fiction. It's that bit of truth he weaves into the tales in such a way that it hides in plain sight, making us look over the scenes again and again, that keeps us falling further into the fiction while we search for that truth.

Stephen King, with the Dark Tower Saga as his instrument, was responsible for my spiritual awakening. In my opinion he fathered a brand new style of American literature and is surely a national treasure.