Thursday, October 13, 2011

The Universe is Perfect

Envision a steamroller. The steamroller is moving at the exact speed it needs to for the best results. You are walking next to it as it is going along. There is nothing you can do to make it speed up or slow down. You can try as you will to push it, pull it, kick it, stand in from of it. But no matter what you do, that thing is just going to keep going and if you are not careful it will take you down. That is life. There is nothing you can do to successfully change its pace.




What keeps us from finding happiness is this belief that things are not as they should be. And the desire to continuously change, upgrade, improve, and alter everything around us is a symptom of this belief.

We continuously make changes to look how we want to look. The majority of us have experienced it. We want to dye our hair, update our wardrobes, slather our face in make-up or have a doctor cut into our skin to make our body fit an image we believe is better. And how many of us wish there were more time in the day? Or just one more day in the week to allow for relaxation? If we want to blame our problems on the fact that there is not enough time in the day, does that not sound silly to anyone else? Hasn't there always been the same amount of time in a day? And if there was more time, wouldn't we just fill that up too? Then there is the desire to change the minds of others. Through sales calls, convincing, evangelism, arguments and manipulation humans are more often than not, trying to get other people to follow their way of thinking.

But how often do we consider that perhaps things are just as they should be. In reality, life is a forever changing thing. Change is inevitable, so why do we try so hard to make it happen? The wind blows on its own, the river flows when there is water, and we evolve at the right pace when left to do so. Then still, why do we lack content?

We lack content because we do not know, understand or believe one very important fact. That the Universe is perfect. 

Yep. The Universe is perfect. Just as it is. Right now in this moment. And by nature, the Universe will not be the same even just one moment from now, but the one thing that will remain is that it will still be perfect.

Even with all this pushing, all this pulling, all this desire for things to be different; The Universe is perfect. Each struggle, each hardship, each time we step over the edge too far or not enough there is a lesson. There is something teaching us about our nature. We gain understanding of ourselves, our families, our friends and neighbors. It's perfect!
Now you may ask, how can the Universe be perfect when there is so much pain and suffering and brutality?
Because the most painful things are often the most helpful. They are the biggest teachers. Perhaps this is because the painful things are the things we have the hardest time ignoring. Pain is hard to ignore. So why try? You can put as much alcohol, drugs, food, new clothes, and sex as you want on top of that pain to hide it. But it is not going anywhere. Instead choose to look into it. What is it teaching me? What can I learn? Can I learn compassion, can I learn empathy, can I even learn how to take the pain away?

When we go through hard times we are not meant to just look down, close our eyes, put our head in the sand and wait for it to go away. We can't make the steamroller go any faster. We are meant to be present in the hard times just as we are in the easy times.

When we learn how to feel pain, when we learn how to walk through the storm, this is when we find peace. This is when true self love can happen. We are learning how to experience our humanness. When we learn how to feel pain we no longer have to suffer.