When we contemplate the vastness of space and time, our little existences seem hopelessly insignificant. Where do we then place Man who has only been around for a time which accounts for less than the momentary batting of an eye compared to the cosmic timeframe. But the cosmos in all its infinity can not belittle Man. In a world of a billion living species, who has the courage to unravel and interpret the deepest mysteries within it. Who is it that can contemplate a trillion galaxies some zillion light years away. Who is it that can subjugate all else so completely and collectively in the interest of his own kind. In fact it’s the man in all his feebleness who seems to have the audacity to belittle the cosmos and not the other way round. 

Intimidating as it may sound, many within the human race itself would disavow this characterization as delusional self-aggrandizement. For Spinoza, a 17th century Dutch philosopher, human existence when seen sub specie aeternitatis i.e. from the perspective of eternity, without any shifting influences of time or human emotion, appears to be a part of a single all-encompassing continuum called nature or substance or if you like, God. This way of looking at reality was the point of departure for his monism and it succeeded in, if not obliterating completely, fracturing our self-conceived position in the universe for years to come. Instead of identifying man as an outsider observing reality, this idea confines him within the boundaries of the same reality he’s trying to observe. Thus the act of observing nature itself becomes an act of nature. In this way, any semblance of objectivity and hence freedom in man’s thought or action is reduced to nothing but a self imposed........

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