Part 12: The vast majority of our Solar System’s mass, 99,9 %, is in the Sun, with most of the remaining mass contained in Jupiter. For the four terrestrial planets together, including our Earth, less than 0,002% is left.

Part 11: Just like you and me, our Sun and all the other stars have a life cycle of conception, embryo, birth, childhood, adulthood, old age and death. Crucial is how massive they are.

Part 10: And the gold and the silver in the ring around your finger or in your neckless, have also been ‘cooked’ in a supernova explosion.

Part 9: Almost 99% of the mass of the human body is made up of six elements: oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, calcium and phosphorus: they are all ‘cooked’ in the stars!

Part 8: “The Sun and the Earth formed about four and a half billion years ago, when I was 37 ‘Milky Way years’ old. A solar system forms relatively quickly and ours probably took only about 100 million years.

Part 7: The universe is not only ‘big in space’, it’s ‘big in time’ as well. Consequently, studying the universe makes us travel both space and time.

Part 6: From a few millionths of a second after the Big Bang onwards, the chronology of the development of the universe is being studied, understood and mapped by modern physics.

Part 5: According to the dissident Cyclic Universe theory, the Big Bang was not the beginning of time, but the bridge to a past, filled with endlessly repeating cycles of evolution.

Part 4: The Big Bang theory is the prevailing cosmological model of the birth and the expansion of the universe. However, it still is a challenge to modern cosmology to understand that very first ‘lilliputian moment’ of birth.

Part 3: Homo sapiens has produced a great diversity of wonderful guesswork about the birth of the universe. Or has the universe no distinct starting point? Has each beginning another beginning?

Part 2. Photographed from a far away vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it’s different. That pale blue dot, that’s here, that’s us, that’s home.

Part 1: Like messages in a bottle, stones can tell us wonderful stories. They whisper of the mysteries of deep time and deep space and introduce us into our own Big History.

Shanti writes to Piero Ferrucci, author of the book ‘Inevitable Grace’.

Shanti aka Iam writes to Richard Maurice Bucke.

Shanti aka Iam writes to Abraham Maslow.

Shanti’s tongue-in-cheek guide for the ego.

Shanti reflects on the universe and its amazing work to produce us, encourages us to participate in this gift of life and ultimately to wake up.

Shanti shares his insights about time, history, and the universe.

Shanti’s letter in response to the publishing of his article, ‘Osho, The Midwife of My Soul’:

Shanti describes his path of learning and seeking to arrive at understanding.