Humankind has acquired a lot of knowledge; science has made fabulous progress in the last 400 years. However, most of what there is to know is still unknown. For example, are there tons of universes out there, or is this one the only one? How did life come to be? What is matter really? What do the electrons and quarks consist of? What is dark matter and dark energy? What does a thought consist of? What does consciousness consist of? There are endless amounts of questions that we need answers to.
So, we have the part of the world that we know of and the gigantic part that we don't know anything about.
The unknown part of the world is a mystery to us, and we can't do anything but speculate about it. Here, we are all on equal footing: scientists and spiritual teachers, philosophers, and laypeople.
We don't know if life and suffering have a purpose, we don't know if the universe has a purpose, and we don't know if a God is hiding somewhere. We don't know how things really are.
We are like sailors in a small, rickety boat, in a heavy fog and uncharted waters.
"I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell. Possibly. It doesn't frighten me."
― Richard Feynman
