How could I possibly trust the Universe?
To even ask this question is to acknowledge a fracture between one’s self and the Universe, one seeing themselves as separate from all that is. So, naturally, we move with exagerated caution, our sense of hypnotic superiority leads us to feeling like we are in control of circumstances in our lives. And when things fail, we clench our fists, throw a fit and fight against reality. But could this premise be flawed? What if the core of the question dissolves when we see that we are not, and have never been, separate from the Universe? And if we are not separate, then we can change our relationship to it(mentally).
Trusting the Universe begins with a radical shift in perception. Through meditation, contemplation, and self-inquiry, we may begin to glimpse this fundamental truth: the boundary between "me" and "everything else" is imagined. We begin to see that it’s a fiction maintained by habitual thought patterns and reinforced by the mind’s incessant storytelling functionality. The mind clings to its familiar routine, defending a false-created self. Not “false” in the sense of malicious or wrong, but false as in manufactured, constructed like a mask we forgot we were wearing. This constructed self is then defined by contrast and control. Its sense of security depends on believing it is separate, autonomous, and in charge. It can’t even see that things come as they come, go as they go. It believes that the movement of form, the movement of events and situations are orchestrated by itself, the mind— the egoic mind. It believes(a type of complex illusion) that we are separate individuals, are the primary agents of action, that we steer life as a captain steers a ship. But when we examine this belief, we see it rests on nothing. What arises and passes through consciousness is rarely of our own choosing. Thoughts come and go without any ‘individual’s’ input. Emotions move like weather despite our desire to reroute them. Events unfold independent of our will.
Eventually, …eventually, we come to see that the sense of control is more of a story of mind than fact.
But we can tilt our view, look deep within, and see that we may not be in control of the universe as we mostly think, but that we are the Universe in motion? We then begin to see that our decisions, our actions, our preferences are all expressions of the same force that moves tides and stirs the wind? The narrative of control falls apart under this close scrutiny. The sense of participation as the Universe becomes stronger but also, this sense of participation is not seen from the perspective of separation. It’s also not seen as one being ‘puppeteered’. When this is seen deeply and experientially we can leap into life, arms stretched wide open as expressions of a vast intelligence we do not need to manage. There is no longer “me” trying to navigate “the universe.” There is only the movement of life, seamless and total, with no one outside it …and no one inside it too.
To trust the Universe is not even about gathering a new belief system. Belief systems only aid falling into another type of illusion. It is to relinquish the illusion of separateness. It is to know that our lives, our well-being, our unfolding paths are not apart from the Whole—they are of it. We are not cast into the world; we are in the world as the world. And the part of us that knows this, that deeper awareness beneath thought, beneath identity is not afraid. It does not need to control. It recognizes its own reflection in every wave of experience.
And that recognition is trust.
When we see it, when we really see it, when we remember to see it, we can jump into the Universe(and our experiences) with arms strethed wide open knowing that our lives are not separate from it, our well-being not separate from it. This Glorious Mystery, that’s greater than the parts of our individual experiences, is what we are birthed out of.
That recognition is what allows us to trust.
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