Is the Universe Friendly?

There is a quote from renowned scientist Albert Einstein that, for me, points to the heart of the healing that is happening on our planet right now:

“I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.”

Let that in. This is the most important question that all people must ask themselves!

He then says, “If we decide that it is unfriendly, then we will…create bigger walls…and weapons. (Which is what we are doing.)

“If we decide that the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly and that God is essentially ‘playing dice with the universe,’ then we are simply victims to the random toss of the dice.

“But if we decide that the universe is a friendly place, then we will…we will create tools and models for understanding the universe.”

In order to contemplate this question, we need to understand that a friendly universe is not about everybody being nice to you. It’s much bigger than that. It is recognizing that life, rather than happening to you, is for you.  Or, as well-respected teacher and author Byron Katie once said, “Life is simple. Everything happens for you, not to you. Everything happens at exactly the right moment, neither too soon nor too late.”

This may be a radical shift in how you perceive life.  For most people, many of their thoughts, feelings and actions are generated from a sense that this very big thing called life – which contains both joys like falling in love, the beauty of nature and a new born baby, and sorrows like illness, heartache and death – is something you should protect yourself against. In other words, mostly our minds do not see the world as a friendly place, do not see that it is for us.

When you hear the world is friendly, your mind may be saying, “But, but, but! What about being rejected, or losing my job, or my child dying, or all the wars and families losing their homes and even their countries?”  What we have done over the years is resist, blame and become a victim, which just keeps us caught in struggle.

What would happen if you saw that the challenges in your life, especially the big ones, are tailor-made to help you grow? If you talk to people who have become truly empowered, they will say that the greatest challenges of their lives brought them the greatest gifts; that their challenges were essential in becoming a truly empowered individual.  Or, as Carl Jung said, “In every disorder there is a secret order.”

The best way to open to the truth that life is for you is with the yin and yang symbol, one of the most powerful symbols we have. The dark and the light are not on opposite sides of a line. They are nestled together.  They are companions rather than enemies and in the dark is a point of light and in the light is a point of dark! In other words, life is made from dark and light, the easy and the difficult, hot and cold, day and night. Our challenges are an essential part of our journey.  Rather than being punishment, or karmic retribution or God falling asleep on the job, we begin to recognize them as birth contractions for our awakening out of the small and limited world of struggling with life. They are also here to crack open the armoring we all have around our hearts.

When you don’t trust the weaving of dark and light, you live on a hamster wheel of liking and disliking, happy when life shows up the way you want it to and unhappy when it doesn’t. But to see the universe as friendly –as for you – allows you to show up for each joy and each sorrow, each gain and each loss, each adversity and each success as they arise and experience them fully.  Then life becomes workable and because you are no longer a victim to life, you can gather the treasures that always come with challenges.

To get off the hamster wheel of struggling with life is a major shift in human perception. And one of the most powerful minds on our planet is saying that our very existence is dependent on this shift from the universe being unfriendly and happening to us into the universe is friendly and it is happening for us.

It is my experience that the more you show up for the truth of this moment, even if it is uncomfortable, it becomes easier to trust life. Yes, life is sometimes very challenging and uncomfortable. But it is trustable. The more you say yes to your challenges, the more you will recognize the awesome intelligence that animates all of life, keeping the planets spinning as they do, bringing spring forth out of winter and healing the cuts on your skin. And you finally acknowledge that life is much smarter than you. It will give you the experiences you need in order to move beyond being a victim to your life so you can know the joy of being fully here for life!

How would your life change if you woke up each morning and knew that whatever happened that day was for you; that your world is friendly no matter what is happening?  In order to support this shift of perception I leave you with some powerful quotes from people who have grown beyond the liking and disliking mind. Don’t use these quotes to try to make your mind believe that life is friendly for it takes a long time and a lot of growing for our minds to make this shift. Use them instead to remind you of the deeper truth that lives in your aware heart – the truth that your heart knows is true – that the universe is friendly.

“Know and silently respect the perfection of everyone and everything, especially when it is not at all apparent.” ~ Mary O’Malley

“It’s very hard for a being who is totally attached and identified with his intellect to imagine that the universe could be so perfectly designed that every act, every experience is perfectly within the lawful harmony of the universe — including all of the paradoxes.” ~ Ram Dass

“I know this world is ruled by Infinite Intelligence. It required Infinite Intelligence to create it and it requires Infinite Intelligence to keep it on course. Everything that surrounds us – everything that exists – proves that there are Infinite Laws behind it. There can be no denying this fact. It is mathematical in its precision.” ~ Thomas Edison

“When you realize how perfect everything is, you will tilt your head back and laugh at the sky.” ~ Buddha