November 3, 2025
I have come to feel the universe is friendly, but each person must reach their own conclusion. After making your choice, what you choose will be your truth as you go through life. As you consider this critically important issue, let me offer a few of the reasons for my personal decision.
One realization is central to my understanding, although part of me still does not like it: The universe is not particularly interested in my ego images of how I would like things to be. The longer I live, however, the more obvious it becomes that numerous urges I have felt are not destined to be fulfilled. Many things my ego wished for have not happened, while others that I did not wish to happen did anyway. This seems to be true for all of us; it is part of being human.
Even harder to accept, we will each experience deep pain and serious loss. The inevitable conclusion is that the world can only be friendly if pain, loss, and unfulfilled expectations are part of the pattern of a friendly world. I have come to believe that is true.
My Reasons the Universe Is Friendly
First, it gave me life
This universe gave me life, along with a planet filled with other life forms that nourish and support me in countless ways. One day I woke up and became aware of having an existence, without having to do anything or pay anything for it. It was simply given to me. Then the universe provided a whole wide world in which I had an opportunity to experience a fascinating, interesting, and complex life. No one knows how having a life on a planet filled with other life came to be. To me, the chance of having a life at all seems amazing, a great gift.
Second, it gave me a conscious life
Being conscious is a miracle in itself, if you think about it. And you can think about it! Being able to think, along with all the other wonders of having a conscious life, is incredible. It makes possible the experience of love, joy, creativity, beauty, and much more.
No one knows how having a conscious life came about. We humans have been speculating on how it happened for thousands of years, and there is still no answer that most agree on. Perhaps it was just a chance event in a blind universe, but to believe that can only be an act of faith. There is no proof for such a conclusion. To me, on the other hand, having a conscious life seems like a marvelous gift, not neutral or blind chance.
Third, the presence of other conscious individuals
This universe has provided thousands of other people I have met and been able to communicate with, interact with, and work with to create and build all kinds of things, from businesses to campaigns to communities. The billions of humans who lived before me created art and music and science and books and cities and sacred sites and roads and methods of transportation to access the wonders of the world.
Especially important, this universe has provided other people with whom I can build friendships and find love — splendid possibilities for spending the moments of my days. True love and deep friendship have been available to human beings for tens of thousands of years, and are among the most precious rewards of life. Neither was produced by science or technology, nor can they be accessed through reason. We have not been able to understand or explain them through countless millennia. We cannot control them. To enter their domain requires trust, taking risks, and opening the heart.
We take these powerful connections with other people for granted, for they have been with us our whole lives. But to seriously reflect on these wonders makes clear their mystery, for these deep connections require that we be conscious, that others be conscious, and that we have the capacity to communicate and understand each other in incredibly complicated and nuanced ways.
Because these marvels have always been available, we just assume them to be a human birthright, though we cannot begin to explain them. Millions of us have speculated over the millennia on how such things are possible, but no one has been able to explain the mystery of intricate human interactions in a way that has been broadly accepted. There are theories in every culture that last for a time, and then are replaced by new speculations. In our own culture, there are numerous theories, and each is accepted by those within specific circles of belief, but not by those in other circles. It is likely this will always be true. Yet every day, throughout the day, we each live accepting this bountiful bequest as if it is somehow our due.
Fourth, the problem of physical pain
Along with love and joy, having a conscious life also brings bodily pain, even suffering. The existence of physical pain, however, seems to be a necessary part of having a body. Much of the physical pain we suffer consists of electro-chemical signals we need to teach us about dangers in the world, such as learning not to touch anything that is really hot. Other pain consists of signals to which we should pay attention because something is going wrong in our bodies.
The fact that a lot of physical pain consists of warning signals is made clear by the fact that there are a few people who do not receive pain signals from their bodies, even when they are severely injured or sick. Their signals are not registered as conscious experience, so they do not avoid dangers or know when they are sick. The reports of these people make vivid that anyone suffering from this condition will have a terribly difficult life, because they are constantly injured, stumbling into situations that do great harm to their bodies. They do not know when to get treatment for an illness. Thus their lives are shorter on average than those of us who have pain signals.
Physical pain, therefore, seems like something quite necessary for anyone having a physical body. Since I am glad to have a physical body, I have to accept the signals as part of that gift, while learning to avoid causing pain unnecessarily. And learning to deal with them wisely when they do arise.
I have read credible reports of a few special people who have learned to pay attention to pain signals only as long as they are needed, and then to tune them out after they have served their purpose. (Unfortunately, I have not become a master of this ability, at least not yet).
Fifth, understanding emotional and psychological suffering
I do not like emotional problems or psychological suffering at all. But I have come to see that this suffering is often a signal too. Sometimes my actions are causing harm to myself, and other times they are pointing to ways I am treating others that are causing them harm. That troubles me, because I have a conscience. Other times this suffering is a result of wounds that others have inflicted, or are now inflicting on me. Although difficult, these are also signals that point to ways others are treating me that are causing emotional or psychological harm and need to be addressed.
A certain portion of my suffering is also caused by my own thoughts. Although unpleasant, recognizing this provides information about ways I am thinking that are causing me unhappiness. This can be changed, if I become more self aware. The price of having a conscious mind seems to be that I will have all kinds of thoughts, both helpful and harmful ones, and the discomfort of harmful thoughts gives me direction about ways I can work with my thoughts to make them more consistently healthy.
Psychological suffering also provides feedback about the harmful ways we are treating each other, and about how children are being raised that are causing them to suffer in later life. If communities and societies will pay attention, these signals provide direction for better ways to treat each other and improved ways to raise children — teaching families, communities, and societies healthy lessons which we can learn and pass down to future generations.
If we do wish to learn, there are healthy models around us now and in the past that can help us discover better ways to build healthy communities. Of course, we often do not pay attention to the signals, do not learn the lessons we need to learn, so we are reminded over and over by the problems that continue until we make changes.
Sadly, it seems these kinds of signals are necessary for individuals as well as societies to correct mistakes. One of the best ways of learning and growing is through paying attention to mistakes and heeding their lessons. Recognizing difficulties offers individuals a chance to learn, pointing to ways of being that will lead to healthier emotional and psychological lives, and it provides societies valuable direction for building and maintaining healthier traditions.
But why was the world set up with emotional and psychological pain and suffering to begin with? I do not know. I didn’t set up the system. But I also can’t think of a better way to set it up if I could change it. When I try to think of a better way the whole system of the world could be set up without suffering that still included both free will and personal ego desires, I can’t.
Using my own life as a template, there are countless instances when I had more than one desire, and they were in conflict with each other: Wanting to eat a piece of cake but not wanting to gain weight, wanting peace but also wanting fame, wanting to have two different careers at the same time, or to live in two different places, or to have two different mates. Each choice required a full commitment, so I couldn’t have both.
There are an equal number of times in which fulfilling my desires meant someone else did not get what they wanted: We both wanted the same mate, or the same job, or the same award, and both of us couldn’t have what we wanted. Or I wanted to have the power to make another person do what I wished, but that would have meant the other person didn’t get to do what they wanted.
In short, this is the problem of having free will, of having the ability to make choices.
Sixth, the issue of free will
Do we have free will? Most everyone goes through life as if they do. If we do, however, no one really understands how this dramatic ability came to be. The terrible consequence of having free will is that some people will make choices that are harmful — not only to themselves, but also to others. Free will allows each of us to cause pain and suffering to ourselves and to others. Does this suggest the world is not a friendly place?
My answer is that the only way there can be free will for all of us is for it to be possible for people to make harmful choices. That is the price to be paid for having free will. If bad choices were not possible, there would be no free will. So for me, the world is friendly because I have the chance at this marvelous thing called a human life, which includes the ability to make choices.
Some people say free will does not exist. If there is none, however, there would be no point for anyone to study anything, write anything, learn anything, or share any ideas with other people. Everything would just happen without anyone choosing to do anything. Everything any person said or did or wrote would have no effect at all. Everything would already be determined. What other people did or said or wrote would have no impact.
It is interesting to note that those who say they do not believe in free will also believe they had a choice about the career they followed, the friends and partners they have, what they read, and the music, hobbies, sports, and pastimes in which they engage.
If we do have free will, it is a gift that has defied rational explanation for thousands of years. Ultimately, whether you believe there is free will or not is a choice. There is no proof for either belief (although there is a great deal of evidence that it exists). But it is a choice we each get to make.
I put my act of faith on the side of thinking we do have free will. Would you choose a life in which you did not have any free will? I wouldn’t. If you believe you do have the power to make choices, that suggests the world is indeed friendly to you. If you believe you have no free will, there is no reason to make any choices or try to do anything about the bad things that are going on in your life. As for myself, having free will is a great gift, and another sign that the world is friendly.
Seventh, the costs — and rewards — of hopes, dreams, and expectations
All kinds of hopes, dreams, and expectations arise spontaneously in us from an early age. They can be extremely complex, intricate, and detailed. Once again, no one has been able to explain how this happens, but each of us has directly experienced each of these many times.
It is true that if we had no hopes, dreams, or expectations we would never be disappointed, and the suffering that failure brings would be avoided. But without hopes and dreams to motivate us to action, no one would make an effort to create anything, learn anything, or build anything. The inspiration and motivation given by our hopes, dreams, and expectations — followed by the intentions we have formed from them — have powered all our advanced achievements. Without them there would be no intricate languages or complex civilizations. There would be no highly organized effort over centuries to write and share the books that have become the store of our accumulated knowledge.
Hopes and dreams and expectations lead to desires and longings that propel us to act. Without them we would still feel an urge for the basics of life — sex, food, and shelter — for these seem to be purely biological and shared with all higher lifeforms. But the desire for deep loving relationships; deep friendships of mutual care and concern in which life’s most meaningful experiences are shared; the desire to help those we hardly know — all these come from desires that haven’t, and probably can’t, be explained by biology alone.
Some spiritual teachers advocate giving up all desires, but to me that seems both impossible and unwise. A wiser path is to make good choices about the desires, hopes, and longings to which we will devote our time and energy. Absent a spiritual desire for connection to something greater, which Soren Kierkegaard called a “passion for the infinite,” which some Christians call the “Holy Longing,” and the Buddha called “the Great Desire,” no one would ever make any attempt to find a spiritual connection. The Buddha didn’t condemn all desires, but simply taught that there was one truly important desire. He himself was relentlessly driven for six years by a burning desire to awaken to the truth, which for him was the ultimate desire.
Plato characterized the ultimate desire as the longing to live in harmony with the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. In the same vein, modern Advaita Vedanta teacher Nisargadatta said, “Desire is devotion … to the real, to the infinite, the eternal heart of being.” Therefore, he continued, “it is not desire that is wrong, but its narrowness and smallness.”
Still, having desires and longings presents serious difficulties. Which ones do we focus on; which do we give up to pursue others? We all assume we have free will to make such choices; even those who say they do not believe in free will go through each day making choices as if those choices matter.
Having so many choices, however, has its costs. Whatever we choose to pursue requires time and effort — and sacrifices. But what if, after investing time and energy, we come to believe we made the wrong choice? What if we fail? What if no one appreciates what we are doing? What if we spend our time and energy, and even we do not value the result? What if we wake up one day and are dissatisfied with the choices we have made?
Wise men and women through the centuries have addressed these questions. Their advice is rich and varied, but the central themes that run through all is that, as you go through life: 1) choose to spend less and less energy on self-centered desires, 2) spend more and more time on cultivating love, compassion, forgiveness, and kindness within yourself and in relation to others, 3) seek wisdom to be able to make good choices, 4) develop a deep connection with the spiritual dimension within which we exist, and 5) be of service to those in physical, emotional, and spiritual need.
I am grateful for having been given numerous hopes, dreams, desires, and expectations — even though they have brought difficulties and pain. As a reward, they have given me vitality, energy, and motivation to live a full life. As I have gained a greater understanding of what is truly important, I have made better choices about which desires to pursue and which to release — and felt myself moving toward greater harmony with the deep currents of Being.
Eight, accepting death
When young, our own death seems unlikely, or even unthinkable to many in our culture. That was true for me. Those who are forced to think about it by dangerous circumstances react in a variety of ways. People in many cultures grow up with an acceptance of death, and even a willingness to risk death repeatedly for what they feel to be a worthy cause. Others see death as an escape from terrible life conditions, while others see it as the beginning of a new phase of existence, others the reward of a virtuous life. Those who have rejected all such beliefs might view their own death as a tragedy.
Thoughts about the death of those we love is often even more difficult than our own. The death of a loved one is a painful event in most cultures, even when accepted as natural, because a person we cherish is no longer available in our lives. For this reason, death is frequently surrounded by rituals that help the grieving come to terms with the loss.
Yet despite the pain and grief, death seems necessary. The unavoidable fact is that, for living beings to have life on this planet, there must be death. The first organisms seem to have appeared on Earth over 3 billion years ago. If each had not died, as well as each successive generation, there would not have been organic matter to create soil and air for us. If all subsequent living things had not died, there would have been no room for more living things, no room for you and me. If all insects and deer and monkeys, and yes, humans had not died, the planet would not have had the room or resources to support new lives.
Further, if there had not been countless generations of new life, the process of evolution could not have occurred, and complex forms of life would not have emerged. Evolution cannot explain all developments that have taken place, but it is clearly a process that is a fundamental part of how the world came to be as it is.
There is also the accumulation of knowledge. If human beings had not passed the torch of what they had learned on to new generations, the growth of human civilizations, with all its wonders, could not have taken place.
But the advancement of knowledge requires ever-new generations. It has often been said that we stand on the shoulders of giants, which is true. But old ways of thinking must pass away to make room for the new. Each generation becomes stuck in its particular way of thinking, so all human cultures and civilizations have gradually been built as lessons from the past were used to create a new future by the next generation. It has taken many new generations with new insights — building upon the past — to proceed from living in caves and the barest shelters to more complex patterns of living. Only the passage of ideas from one generation to the next has allowed this developmental process to occur.
As I get older, I am at peace with this pattern of living and dying. Trying to avoid the end of this life in this body seems more and more like my small self trying to maintain control and prevent movement into a larger self. Part of me understands that this particular bodily existence has a natural sequence — to learn and grow, to move as gracefully as possible through each stage, living each stage fully. Then, part and parcel of the opportunity of having a life includes living peacefully through the natural stage of dying.
I value all the stages and therefore feel sadness for those whose lives are cut short. I do not know why some people die young. Perhaps it is simply cruel fate, without rhyme or reason. Perhaps there is a reason I simply do not understand. It is possible that some of those who have a short life live more fully and intensely than those with a long life. Perhaps there is a perspective in which it all makes sense, a rhythm to each existence that I am incapable of understanding.
The only thing I know for sure is that I am not in a position to judge the pattern, or to determine how it should be. I do not know enough or understand enough. From my limited perspective, I wish all individuals could have a long and full life. But having had that myself, I have no desire to cling to life in this body. I feel incredibly fortunate to have had a life, and do not wish to end it, but seem to have no fear of death and do not want to extend this life beyond its natural pattern. My aspiration is to move toward death with peace, equanimity, and acceptance, while opening more and more into an awareness of, and in harmony with, the larger pattern within which all and everything exists.
Being In Harmony with the Larger Pattern
One of the pressing issues most people are concerned with, when considering the nature of the universe, is whether there is really a larger pattern. Is there anything to life beyond fulfilling our personal drives, urges, and desires — beyond eating, drinking, and having as much pleasure as possible while avoiding pain, suffering, and death? Is there a larger dimension that gives life meaning? These are difficult questions, because no response can be proven, thus each of us must reach our own conclusion.
The compelling evidence for me, as I began my journey, was the fact that so many wise men and women through the ages had reported finding a spiritual connection, and thereby changing their lives profoundly for the better.
This is true of the most respected and honored individuals in human history — Confucius, the Buddha, Jesus, Muhammed, teachers and Rabbis in Judaism, countless saints and sages in India, the shamans in all the early traditions around the world — all reported profound experiences that helped them come into harmony with a larger pattern. For many, this connection brought them feelings of deep love, peace, meaning, wisdom, and joy.
Not only wise men and women have had these profound experiences or found a powerful spiritual connection. Countless ordinary men and women have reported significant experiences through the ages — in every culture and era of history. For most, these experiences did not have the lasting effect they did on the well-known saints and sages, but countless lives were nonetheless changed in beneficial ways.
For myself, experiencing this connection became increasingly important as I moved through life, and I now know it is possible. I have had numerous powerful experiences, feeling a deep connection with something greater. I have not, however, been able to live in these states permanently. These moments have always given way to my everyday self — although positive changes have sometimes taken hold.
Of crucial importance, many small steps through the years have had a dramatic cumulative effect. This is another ability that we often take for granted, yet upon reflection, a universe that includes the possibility of choosing to make conscious changes in who I am definitely makes this universe a friendly place.
Having experiences and making changes has not prevented various life difficulties, of course. But I have gradually come to see that many of the difficulties I have faced were a natural part of having a full life, while others were signs that I needed to change if I wished to have a deeper connection to the larger pattern. I look back and see that there have been many signals that I was not in harmony, and much of my suffering has come from failing to pay attention to them.
For those who believe there is no free will, these signals are meaningless. If we do have free will, however, we can heed these signs and signals and do the necessary work to move into greater harmony. Through this process we learn and grow, and the effort is exceedingly worthwhile, for we are moving into alignment with the larger pattern. William James called this pattern the “Unseen Order,” while others call it the Tao, God, the Source, universal wisdom, pure awareness, consciousness itself, and many other names.
Because I do believe we have free will, many of the difficult feelings I have experienced through life, when I paid attention, helped guide me toward better alignment with the overall pattern.
This is spiritual growth. You can choose to believe spiritual growth is not possible, or that it is. But please understand: This is one of the most crucial decisions of your life. And whichever you choose will be an act of faith, because there is no proof for either belief.
The wisest teachers in every culture the world has known came to the conclusion that developing a spiritual connection — to others, to the natural world, and to the larger pattern all around us — is definitely possible. They also insisted that, as you move toward greater connection, you will know it with certainty in your heart. This has been the case for me.
The guidance of the wisdom teachers helped me find such a connection, but each person must discover this truth for themselves. If you discover this connection, however, you will definitely feel the universe we find ourselves in is friendly. If it were not well-disposed to us, a spiritual connection could not exist.
If you have not yet found that connection yourself, but wish to find it, choose to believe in the possibility and begin your search. Spiritual teachers in all the wisdom traditions have offered methods for this exploration, and by following a set of the guidelines they offered, you will be in a much better position to make an informed choice about what is possible. The testimony of the wise men and women throughout history insists that it will be worth your effort.
A Perfect World?
From my limited perspective, I believe the world could be better in many ways. I believe we can make it better, and I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to lend a hand toward that goal.
At the same time, the fact that the universe exists at all, as it is, has provided me the opportunity to have a human life and made possible an untold number of experiences of the beauty of the natural world as well as dozens of complex and meaningful relationships with other people. The existence of all that seems amazing, even miraculous. In reflective moments, when I consider the existence of the whole universe and my conscious existence in it, feelings of awe and wonder spontaneously well up.
Various scientists have calculated the odds that all the factors necessary for the world as we know it to have happened by random chance are infinitesimally small. If I try to imagine designing a better model, keeping all that is valuable and worthwhile and all that is necessary to make a human life possible, I have no idea how to go about it. How would you design this whole universe, starting from nothing?
The incomprehensibility of understanding, from a human perspective, how a universe could be created, has led any number of insightful people to simply bow before the mystery. Carl Jung discussed in his book Answer to Job the ultimate reason that Job accepted his fate was the realization that the existence of the universe was beyond his understanding, and the only intelligent response was to be grateful for its existence. The same was true when Arjuna asked to see the whole of Krishna’s being. Arjuna was given a brief glimpse, and he begged not to be shown any more because it was too overwhelming. When the Buddha saw the unfolding of the whole of the pattern, including all his past lives, one of his first responses was that he couldn’t possibly explain what he saw to anyone.
From my own limited perspective, I can speculate about how things could be changed to make the world better. But then I remember the many times I have acted in self-centered ways, and the result was hurtful to others. Not only those I hardly knew, but people I cared for. I have often even been mistaken about what was really good for me. These observations lead to the realization that most of the ways I think the world would be better come from a narrow personal point of view.
In continual attempts through the years to really “know myself,” I have learned to step back from my personal wants and desires and open into a wiser place. From that perspective, when I examine my past views about how the world would be better for others, they are just personal judgments about what other people should want, usually based on a projection onto others of what I want. But is that what they want?
From a wiser place, when remembering the many mistakes I have made, I shudder to think what the universe would be like if it was organized to fulfill my images for it. If my ego had control of the world, I would be continually tempted to fulfill my short-term desires for pleasure and personal satisfaction. In my self-centered moments, I would demand that everyone else be obedient to my every whim.
Would I really want myself in charge? When I am in a wiser place, I know that no one else would like the result of my being in control, and I would probably not be happy with the result for long either. And since every other human being is subject to the same temptations, I don’t want any other person in charge either. I fear we would all be like King Midas, who was given a magical power and used it to wish that everything he touched be turned to gold — and then died from starvation because, when he tried to eat, all the food he touched turned to gold.
Speaking for myself, if I had absolute power, I would be tempted to fulfill my immediate desires, and would then drown in my desires for instant gratification, starved of nourishment of all deeper longings for love, wonder, beauty, and inner peace.
I still do not understand why there is so much suffering. While some physical and emotional suffering is a signal that a person needs to change, it doesn’t seem to me all suffering fits there, such as when a young child dies from cancer or someone has a mental illness that is completely organic, with no relation to actions anyone has taken. I have no idea what lessons can be learned from a natural disaster, or a disease that wipes out a whole community. At some point, speculations about the “whys” seem unanswerable. I can only confess my ignorance.
One conclusion seems unavoidable: The universe is not organized for the immediate benefit of any one living thing, including me, and I cannot see how it could be organized that way. A lion must eat to survive, but if the lion is going to have food, that does not seem to benefit the gazelle it catches. I also must have food to survive. So must you. Yet for us to eat, another living thing, whether plant or animal, must be sacrificed every time.
The universe is an incredibly complex biosystem in which there are millions of varieties of life forms, with trillions of individual living things. One estimate of the total number of living cells on Earth is a million trillion trillion. These trillions of cells, as well as the life forms they make up, are constantly dying, while new ones are being created.
Further, each of us causes harm to other living things all the time. If you fly in an airplane to go where you wish to go, birds and insects are killed. If you want to drive an automobile on roads and highways built to accommodate driving, people will be killed; perhaps you will be. Many dogs and cats and deer will be killed. Fuel will be burned in both airplanes and cars, with resulting environmental harm. Human lives will be sacrificed in the drilling and recovery process of fossil fuels.
The incredibly intricate processes that make up this universe have gone on successfully for billions of years, generation after generation, with increasingly complex forms of life emerging. Neither I nor anyone else has any idea how to create such an interconnected, constantly changing system of existence. Yet each one of us depends upon it every moment. Could it be made more perfect? From my personal point of view, yes. But from the perspective of the whole system and its functioning over all this time — how can I possibly conceptualize all that, or begin to create a better world?
A Broader Perspective
When I am able to look at existence from an expanded perspective, I see that the universe — as it is now organized — is a place in which we can learn and grow. It is a place in which there is an incredible possibility for experiencing beauty and wonder, having loving relationships, and listening to music and being transported to another realm. It is a world filled with marvelous sites, colorful and interesting cultures, and billions of people who are different from each other, but also similar in a variety of ways.
It is a place in which I can walk in the mountains and feel a connection to the living things around me, and where I can find a measure of peace through meditation, prayer, and just being quiet and still inside myself. It is a world in which, in very special moments, any one of these experiences can break out into joy. And I know from numerous reports that other people have experienced these things too.
I have no idea how all this is possible, but I am grateful that it is. Martin Heidegger said in his later life that the only response when contemplating the wonders of the universe — and the possibilities we have in it — is to be thankful. In fact, he said it even more emphatically with the phrase “denken ist danken.” In English, this would be translated as “thinking is thanking” — meaning the two cannot be separated.
He was talking about contemplative thinking as he understood it, not the everyday planning, worrying, taking-care-of-business mind. For Heidegger, contemplative thinking is the doorway to the deep ground of “Being,” which brings with it an experience of thankfulness and gratitude. Countless saints and sages have said the same thing:
The Buddha: “Wise men appreciate and are grateful.”
Cicero: “Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”
Meister Eckhart: “If the only prayer you said in your whole life was, ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”
This world had been around for a very long time before I came into it. I do not know how it came to exist, and I certainly do not have any idea how I would begin to create a whole universe such as we have. I am glad to have been given a life, and the best response I know is to be grateful for the chance to have it. And if Plato is correct, being grateful leads to dramatic benefits:
“A grateful mind is a great mind which eventually attracts to itself great things.”
In a similar vein, the celebrated Christian writer and poet John Milton insisted that gratitude is a primary doorway for opening to the highest moments of fulfillment, “allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life and the world.”
As a guide for living, one of my favorite quotes is often attributed to Confucius:
“It is better to light one small candle of gratitude than to curse the darkness.”
Decide for yourself: Would you rather have a conscious life in this world, even with the flaws you experience in it, or have been given no life at all? You really do not have any other choice for the outlook you take. You might like the world to be better for you and for those you love, and you can work toward that end, but you cannot choose a life with just the things you like in it. The world is presented to us as it is. We can try to make it better, but we all start from what is already in place. You can choose, though, between lighting a candle of gratitude or cursing the darkness.
These two things are certain: 1) Bad as well as good things can and will happen. 2) As you go through life, you will have the chance to make decisions and choices that will affect how your life will unfold. So once again, if you had a choice between being born or never being born into this world as it is given, which would you choose?
If your answer is that you choose having a life in the world as it was presented to you, versus not having a life of any kind, then I suggest it is valuable to recognize your life is a gift. Part of that gift is a free will and an individual consciousness, and that includes personal wants and desires. You have the freedom to make bad decisions and to screw up. If you do, however, your life will be a mess. Other people also have their own wants and desires, and the right to choose their own path. Some of them will make self-centered, unkind, and even cruel choices, and their choices can bring harm to you.
If a lot of people make selfish, greedy, or fear-based decisions, bad things can and do happen to whole societies. A community or country can get off course. Free will gives us that privilege. Individuals are not forced to make good choices and decisions, nor are communities or cultures. But that does not mean the world is unfriendly to us. For me, free will is an integral part of a friendly world.
I believe the world is friendly to us because, inside myself, I feel a call to do what is right and good, and I believe everyone else does too. I have often ignored it. So has everyone else. We all make mistakes or choose to do what is convenient, or easy. We sacrifice what is good in order to be popular or win favor with a person or a group.
All the while, though, the pole star of what is right and good is there. Like the ancient mariners who used the pole star to guide their ships to a safe harbor, we each have an inner guidance for the right direction — call it conscience, an inner light, or the still small voice — which can guide us to the safe harbor of peace, into harmony with the larger pattern within which we exist.
The wisdom traditions of the world provide another pole star, available to each of us to provide guidance for how to align our life-course with the pole star of meaning and values — just as the sextant was used by ancient mariners for guidance on the best course to reach a safe harbor.
I did not get to choose whether I would be born — at least I have no memory of choosing. It just happened. I woke up one day and there I was. As Thomas Traherne puts it in these excerpts from his poem “Salutation”:
These little limbs,
These eyes and hands which here I find,
These rosy cheeks wherewith life begins,
Where have ye been?
Behind what curtain were ye hid from me so long?
How could I expect smiles or tears,
Or lips or hands or eyes?
Welcome ye treasures which I now receive.
I, that so long
Was nothing,
Did little think such joys as ear or tongue
To celebrate or see:
Out of nothing now awake;
These brighter regions which salute mine eyes,
The earth, the light, the day, the skies,
The sun and stars are mine – if these I prize.
Strange things doth meet, strange glories see;
Strange all, and new to me;
But that they mine should be, who nothing was,
That strangest is of all, yet brought to pass.
After I first woke up in this strange world as a babe, I also didn’t get to choose the wounds I received in my early years. They just happened to me. The same is likely true for you.
We do get to choose, however, what we will do with this life we have been given. We get to choose what we will make of it and the meaning we will organize our lives around. If we try to make the best choices we can, no matter what others say or do, we can find our way to a safe harbor of peace, goodness, and kindness within ourselves, in harmony with the larger pattern. Whether we do so is the primary actual choice we each get to make.
As for myself, I feel deeply fortunate to have been given a human life. I have also come to understand that to have the best life possible, the first step is to accept what is, the whole of it as I find it, both the good and the bad of it. Beginning at that point, I can make an effort to improve the world, as seen from my limited point of view. When I do, hopefully I will do so with humility, because I could be wrong about what is best for others, and even for myself.
Of this I feel certain: I am able to make choices that take me in the direction of love, joy, wonder, and of being in harmony with the larger pattern within which I exist. I know this to be true, for I have experienced it many times. When I have chosen to align with what is right, with the good, with being kind, I have felt myself moving closer to harmony, and of being in the presence of something greater than myself. Through these choices, I have at times known great peace.
I am grateful for the opportunity to have this life, even with the difficulties, because it has given me the chance to experience love, joy, wonder, and many other things I prize. I can’t see any way to get rid of all the difficult things and still have this life. Further, having such a life is so highly improbable that the universe does indeed seem friendly to me, as well as to other human beings who have been given the chance for a life.
You get to decide Einstein’s “most important question” for yourself: Whether the world is friendly or not. No one can decide for you. Before you decide, though, I urge you to reflect with an open mind and heart. Depending on your choice, the world will unfold for you in quite different ways.
May the world unfold for you in the best possible way,
David
For the first essay in this series, go to: A Meaningful Life