The Universal reflection

I realized not very long back that I'm faced with few very fundamental (or not so fundamental) questions about our Universe and for whom I do not have answers.

How did the material of the Universe come into existence.. who/what created it?

Is there a boundary of this Universe.. and if there is, what lies beyond that boundary?

These questions have been answered vaguely by some eminent theorists and astronomers but the explanations don't seem to quell my curiosity.

If we talk about the origin of the Universe, we generally start with the Big Bang that happened some 15 billion years ago and try to reconstruct the events that followed. The Big Bang and the stellar turmoil that followed it are understandable. Many facts still need to be found, but more or less we have sketchy details.

I'm not worried about why the Big bang occurred. What intrigue me are the events before and long before the Big Bang. Where this 'universal' material come from? If Big bang happened 15 billion years ago, what was happening another 15 billions years ago.. or 100 billion years ago... or...........Billion billion years ago? Is there a cycle of events that starts with a big bang and finishes with the disintegration of celestial bodies? Even if there is such a cycle how and when did it all begin? -The question is especially for my atheist readers.

Now having decided that I do not have answers to any of these I try to think of existing 'configuration' rather than what happened in the past.

Even after much analysis I am not able to locate any tangible thing that is infinite (a quantity or set larger than any finite number). Some people may point at water drops in an ocean or sand grains in our deserts. These are huge numbers but still finite. Just that we do not know how to count accurately may not qualify something as infinite. So if we talk about stars in this Universe they may be finite too, just that we don't know the exact count.

Every finite thing, however big is enclosed by some boundary. What is the boundary in the case of our Universe? Where does it all end? And if there is a boundary what lies beyond that? Possibly some other Universe for which we have no evidence as yet. But then what is beyond that? We cannot go on for ever as no tangible thing is infinite. We may talk about new dimension in space and time which may help in arriving at some models, one of which says that if you keep moving in one direction in space for sufficiently long time (over billion light years) you will reach the starting point. Not a very well elaborated theory (this is where imagination can also have limits) but could lead to a possible answer in future.

These questions do not matter to us in our daily lives. We are born. We learn, earn, add value to the civilisation/society and die. Mankind progresses.

But when I ponder upon these vaguely answered questions I realise how insignificant can be our existence. Still we fight over 'petty' issues involving religion and race. This is another issue but I will refrain from discussing more about this now. With this post I just wanted to light a spark of curiosity in our materialistic minds.