Just how big is this universe? It is at least twenty billion light-years across. Light travels 300,000 kilometers in one second. How far then is 300,000 kilometers? It is the same distance as if you went seven and a half times around the world. In astronomy the distance that light, which travels that far in one second, traverses in one year is known as a "light-year." Based on this unit of calculation, even though light may travel for several hundred million years, it could still not arrive at the end of the universe. The universe is that big. Do you understand? (127-216)

Until recently stars at a distance of 10 billion light-years had been discovered at Greenwich Observatory, but now the age when we are able to see stars at a distance of 15 billion light-years has arrived, and we are entering the age when we will be able to see stars at an even greater distance. So how big is this universe? What did I just say? Ten billion, roughly speaking. Well, that is also a principled number, but actually it is as big as 21 billion light-years.

So what does that mean? If light travels from here, what should we call the distance it travels in one day? In one day? Hmm? "The distance it travels in one year is called a light-year." Ah, so what should we call the distance it travels in a day? It's not a light-year. What do we call the distance traveled in a day? One what? One light-day. In a month one what? [One light-month.] I don't know. It's too complicated. You work it out. This thing sets off and travels 3 billion meters in a second. The speed of light and electricity is the same. It travels 3 billion meters. In terms of distance, that is the same as seven and a half times around the world. A distance seven and a half times as much as the circumference of the world. In a flash it's already gone seven and a half times around the world.

If we were to travel as far as light travels even in one day, our backs would be bent over and we would be completely senile. It would not just take one hundred years, so how many ten thousand times one hundred would it be? How many ten thousand times a hundred? Ten million times a hundred. Is that right? Is it ten million times? It's one million times a hundred. One hundred million light years is like one million people all living to the age of one hundred. One hundred million light-years is like one hundred people being born and all living to be one hundred years old one after another. Even after one million people had died, the light would keep on going.

In that case how much is twenty-one billion light years? How many times one hundred people? Hmm? Two thousand? Two hundred million? Is that right? Two hundred and one million? Two hundred and one million; how many people is that? Hmm? Oh, I don't know. All of you work it out. If those people lived and died one after another, each one living to be a hundred years old, even after two hundred and one million people had lived and died the light would still keep on going. \It would not go in a straight line, but round and round in a circle. It is this kind of a universe. Do you all need money? Those of you who need diamonds put your hands up. Hmm?

Let's try and think about this. This huge amount of people is in front of me, but even after they have all died, the light keeps on going. How far would that distance be? How far is that? That distance is so far that even if you lived several thousand years, several tens of thousands of years, then died and were resurrected you still could not cover it. It is that kind of world. It is not moving without a purpose. Everything centers on reciprocal relationships of giving and receiving. Even our cells function in that way. According to communist ideology all this just happened of its own accord. (181-195)