From the great canvas of cosmos where stars swirl like sparks scattered in infinite space, the journey once again narrows its focus, drawing the gaze back toward the human form. The previous exploration had revealed how the same rhythm that patterns galaxies also structures the body, how the vast universal flow reflects itself in the miniature figure of flesh and bone. It was a movement outward, tracing the human outline until it dissolved into the map of stars. Now the path turns inward with equal wonder, asking with trembling curiosity: if the cosmos is within the body, what lies within the very atom that builds this body?
The human body is not merely made of atoms; it is the dance of atoms. There is no gap where something called “body” exists apart from them. The eyes that watch, the hands that move, the thoughts that arise, all are formations of vibrating atomic fields. To say “my body” is already a step too far, for what ownership can be claimed over trillions of particles borrowed from earth, water, air, and fire? Atoms flow through food, through breath, through the touch of the environment. They do not belong to an individual; they simply assemble for a while in the pattern that is recognized as a person.
Ego, however, is clever. It rushes forward like a signature stamped on a moving river, claiming that this function of walking, this act of speaking, this thought of dreaming, is mine. Yet in truth it never possessed the materials of its claim. The muscles are shaped by proteins from food that grew in distant fields, the thoughts are stirred by impressions absorbed from a world stretching beyond sight, the very breath is gifted freely by trees and winds that circle the planet. Ego is like a shadow insisting it owns the sun.
Think of your true self like the sun—always shining, always there. Your ego is like a shadow—always around you, moving with you. The shadow never really controls the sun, but it can’t help acting like it does. In the same way, your thoughts, your roles, and your “I am this” ideas feel important, but they aren’t who you truly are. They only reflect the real you. No matter how much the ego claims or worries, the true self stays free, untouched, and shining on its own.
Consider the simple atom. It seems so small that the mind struggles to picture it, yet it is a kingdom of vastness in itself. Within it, electrons spin in mysterious clouds, protons and neutrons huddle in a vibrant heart, and within that heart quarks shimmer like restless sparks. Each layer recedes into deeper mysteries, like a hall of mirrors extending without end. The more science peers into the atom, the less substance it finds, until matter itself dissolves into probabilities, vibrations, and wave-like dances of energy. Thus the atom is not a hard grain but an event, not a brick of reality but a doorway into uncertainty. It’s more like a little event or a happening—always moving, always changing. You can’t pin it down completely, and it behaves in ways that are a bit unpredictable. So instead of thinking of atoms as fixed building blocks, think of them as tiny sparks of activity that make up the world around us.
Now pause for a moment and realize: the body is nothing but the collective appearance of these doorways. What is called “flesh” is a swarm of events, what is called “thought” is a ripple of atomic processes, what is called “emotion” is an orchestration of subtle biochemical storms. To identify with them as a permanent self (mind-body sense of self) is like mistaking a rainbow for a solid bridge. The rainbow glows, astonishes, and vanishes—yet no one can catch it. The self too appears as a dazzling formation, radiant yet elusive, made of atoms that do not stay in one place, do not belong to one being, and do not even truly exist as solid matter.
If the body is made of atoms, and those atoms also make up the world, then the ego is only a claim over what was never truly ours. It is like writing your name in sand while the waves keep washing the shore. With every breath, atoms flow out into the air; with every meal, atoms flow in from the earth. Each day, billions of particles leave the body and billions more enter, so the boundary called “me” is never fixed. A person is more like a whirlpool in a river—shaped for a time, distinct to the eye, yet made only of water that flows in and out. What we call “me” is never separate from the stream it belongs to, but part of the river’s continuous, unbroken flow.
Yet there is an even deeper turning in this inquiry. For just as the body is not separate from atoms, and atoms are not separate from the universe, so too the person is not truly separate from awareness itself. While accepting the physical unity between body and world, how can we deny their mental or spiritual unity as well?This is the final and most delicate insight of Sharirvigyan Darshan, leading us to the ultimate non-physical through the doorway of the physical. Atoms appear, bodies appear, worlds appear, but they all rise within a field of witnessing or silent and pure awareness that itself cannot be touched, weighed, or measured. Awareness does not belong to atoms any more than the sky belongs to clouds. Clouds drift and scatter, yet the sky is not reduced or enhanced by their passing. In the same way, awareness remains open, untouched, while atoms whirl and assemble into the temporary form of a body.
This recognition overturns every ordinary assumption. When the body is mistaken as self, life becomes heavy with fear and desire. Fear arises because what is owned can be lost, and desire arises because what is lacking seems to complete the self. But when it is seen that the body is only an arrangement of atoms, the grip loosens. There is no need to clutch at what was never owned. The hands may still work, the heart may still love, but the compulsion to control lessens, replaced by a spacious ease. Even death itself begins to appear in new light—not as the end of a self but as the recycling of atoms into new patterns, like clay reshaped into new vessels. This means we need not meditate separately on the pure self; simply seeing the body as a temporary arrangement of atoms is enough to bring the pure self into view. This contemplation looks similar to that experiential facet of Sharirvigyan Darshan, where body cells are seen as complete human beings in every aspect—a contemplation that led the author to a Kundalini awakening and a glimpse of self-realization.
Science too whispers of this mystery, though in different words. It tells that energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. The carbon of the body once burned in stars, the oxygen once flowed through ancient forests, the water once traveled in rivers older than mountains. At death, these elements scatter once more into the world, ready for new cycles. Awareness, however, is not part of this cycle of matter. It does not scatter or rearrange, because it is not made of atoms. It is the stage upon which the atomic drama unfolds.
This is the new way to see oneself: not as a solid individual enclosed within skin, not as a fixed identity defined by thought, but as the open awareness within which atoms gather and dissolve. The “I” that ordinarily feels so heavy is only an appearance, like an add on to pure awareness or like moving and chaotic reflections upon clean and still water. To recognize this is not to deny the body but to appreciate it more deeply, as one appreciates a song without claiming ownership of each note.
Mystics of many traditions hinted at this long before modern physics unfolded its revelations. They spoke of the world as maya, as dreamlike appearance, as shimmering play. Now science confirms that matter is not solid but probability, not substance but energy. Means, matter is not truly solid but energy shaped as a cloud of probabilities, where particles can be in many possible states at once. Only when observed or interacted with do these probabilities collapse into a single definite event we call “reality.” The mystic gaze and the scientific gaze meet at the threshold of the atom, both astonished at the emptiness and wonder that lie within.
This insight does not remove life’s responsibilities or dissolve the needs of the world. Rather, it lends them a gentler context. Work is still done, relationships are still cherished, struggles still appear. But underneath, there grows a subtle knowing that no function is truly “mine.” All our actions come from the whole, shaped by atoms and situations. They appear in pure awareness for a moment and then fade back into it. Ego may still claim them out of habit, but the claim no longer deceives as it once did.
To live with this understanding is to live like a wave that knows it is ocean. The wave rises, dances, and falls, yet never ceases to be ocean in essence. In the same way, the human being may rise in laughter, fall in grief, shine in love, tremble in fear, yet beneath every form lies the same undivided pure awareness. Atoms may assemble into different names and faces, but awareness remains one, endless, without division.
Thus the atom becomes not merely a scientific curiosity but a spiritual mirror. It teaches that the smallest unit of matter is already a gateway into infinity. It makes us see that nothing is really ours to hold on to, because everything is always changing and flowing. Behind all this change there is a quiet awareness that never changes. When we realize this, we find a freedom that nothing in life can shake, because it rests on what is permanent, not on what is temporary.
Our journey can move outward, studying the body and the cosmos, and inward, exploring atoms and finally the awareness that observes them. At first we see only the physical world—our body and the stars—but the real adventure leads us back to the center of our own consciousness. When this is seen, life appears as a play of light and energy, like atoms glowing as tiny fireflies or conscious beings within pure awareness. In that vision, we no longer feel the need to possess or control anything, but instead feel deeply connected, belonging to the whole.
Demystifying Kundalini 