I took a walk with a friend the other day. It was an overcast windy day, typical of fall in the northwest, with hints of sunlight scattered amidst the fallen leaves. We were sharing the details of some personal issues with each other when she turned to me and said, “For the longest time, it’s felt as though the universe were conspiring against me.”

Wow, I thought, she’s describing my feelings exactly. I imagine most people feel that way when life seems particularly challenging. But as accurate as it sounded, what did it really mean?

How could the universe as a whole conspire against anyone? If it could conspire against someone, could it also conspire for someone?

When things are going well, we tend to think we’re being rewarded or have hit a lucky streak or grace period in which we’re in the flow. However, when things are going badly, we assume that we’re being punished or that we’re unlucky or having a bad day. What’s behind this way of thinking? Do we actually believe that the universe is capable of taking sides? Or is something deeper at work?

Perhaps, we’re actually onto something when we think this way. We are living beings who interact with our environment all the time. There is no way to separate ourselves from it. We are connected to everyone and everything in the world we live in. We send out signals and we receive them. Every thought, emotion, and action carries our energy with it as it is sent out. By the same token, we are constantly bumping into the thoughts, emotions, and actions of those around us…receiving them. Could it be that the universe is made up of all this output, and it is this interaction that we feel and perceive as either positive or negative? Is there something, a presence, an intelligence beyond that directing the show?

Perhaps, it’s just a way of personifying the chaos we feel at the mercy of sometimes. Blame our pain and suffering on the big, bad, old universe, because we certainly couldn’t be to blame. Shit happens, right? No one asks for suffering. Right?

Well…I don’t know about that. But I do know if you look deep enough, and I mean really deep, into the hard-to-reach corners of religion, science, literature, and the arts, they all essentially point to the same thing: we and the universe are one and the same…we are it…it is us. We are moving with it all the time, whether we recognize it or not. Sometimes, we just allow that and feel totally in sync with it. Other times, we resist and feel totally out of sync with it. It is not the universe that has shifted, but us. We create the ripple that hits us sideways and knocks us down. Sometimes the effect is delayed making it appear as though things “happen” to us out of the blue, but if we were to rewind the tape and look at ALL the thoughts and feelings we were having…we would see a connection somewhere.

Are we to blame? No, there is no blame, because most of us aren’t aware of how things work, so we interact with the world around us ignorant of our role in it. But our ignorance doesn’t get us a pass either. Our only option is to find out how things work, and make the changes within.

Sounds daunting, doesn’t it? It is, but it seems to me that if you were willing to incarnate on this crazy plane of existence, the least you could do is to read the instruction manual, so that you don’t fuck it up. Too bad it doesn’t exist. No, we have to go searching for it, and rather than finding it all in once place, we pick up pieces along the way, like finding clues on a scavenger hunt.

The whole thing feels as rigged as a Las Vegas casino. Apparently, that’s part of the game of being alive.

A hall of mirrors. A labyrinth. A maze. Waking up in the dream. Dreaming we’re awake. Because of it’s mirage-like nature, we can never be sure we’re onto the Truth. Again and again, right when we think we’ve hit the bulls-eye, we discover we’re not even close.

Maybe that’s a good thing. Would you really want to destroy the mystery anyhow? Half the fun is not knowing what will happen next.

But that doesn’t stop some of us from trying to figure it all out.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 9th, 2007 at 9:57 am and is filed under 3-D, Amnesia, Freedom, Illusion, Perception, Truth. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.