This article will dip into a few mystical ideas. I’m telling you now so that you’re prepared for what’s to come. The aim of this article is to give you a brief overview of how to align with the universe. If the idea of “aligning with the universe” sounds like nonsense to you then I invite you to read on so you can at least get an inkling of the profound logic which underpins the idea.
So let’s begin.
We Are The Universe
Take a moment to think about your physical being. Can you appreciate where you came from? Are you aware that the atoms which make up your body and brain have been around since the universe exploded into existence around 13.8 billion years ago in a process known as the Big Bang? Have you ever taken the time to contemplate the unimaginably complex journey followed by the matter that comprises you?
The water that makes up approximately 70% of our bodies is the same water that comprised the first homo sapiens, 200,000 years ago. And before that, this same water was consumed by the dinosaurs. How humbling is it to admit that our bodies are just another stop in water’s interminable voyage across planetary space and time?
The same applies to all the elements and chemicals which comprise us.
The iron in our blood did not form on the planet. It was forged in supernovas and spread across the universe billions of years ago. The same applies to copper, cobalt and zinc, all of which are essential metals to the functioning of our biochemistries. The formation of elements in supernova explosions is known as “supernova nucleosynthesis.”
We are literally made up of stars. How fabulous is that?
With Enough Time, Disordered Elements Become Ordered Humans
The big bang occurred 13.8 billion years ago, our planet only formed around 4.5 billion years ago.
Shortly after, once the Earth had cooled enough, the oceans formed. It is unclear how long it was after the oceans formed that life began. It’s even possible that life formed outside of the planet and arrived to earth in a comet or asteroid, a hypothesis known as “exogenesis.” To keep things simple, I will stick with the assumption that life began on-planet rather than off of it.
What is certain is that early life thrived in early Earth’s oceans.
There, in the primordial soup of the oceans, cosmic rays and lightning storms provided the energy required to drive chemical reactions which produced the first amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. From there these amino acids combined and recombined until they self-organized into a molecule which was capable of replicating itself: DNA.
Life on our planet could be as old as the oceans themselves. The earliest life forms on Earth could have appeared between 3.8 and 4.3 billion years ago. From that time, life has evolved from single-celled organisms which reproduce asexually, to complex organisms comprised of tens of trillions of cells, many of which reproduce sexually. Elephants, redwoods, great blue whales, spiders, pitcher plants, fungi and ants; the palette of life is awesome.
Among all of life’s expressions on this planet is one which is capable of producing language, art, science, technology, laws and culture. The latest and most complex version of life on our planet being us, human beings.
But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Before we talk about humans, I want to talk about life.
The Problem With Life
What is life? It’s impossible to define it. But, all life we know of does have certain common characteristics:
- All life consumes nutrients and excretes waste.
- All life responds to its environment, in some form.
- And all life depends on other life.
It’s this last characteristic of life which upends all the scientific laws and theorems our species has ever discovered. Life is a web. Plants produce oxygen and require carbon dioxide to live; animals require oxygen and produce carbon dioxide. And humans require plants and animals to live. If enough of the members of the web of life were to vanish, everything would collapse. Life is interdependent, it cannot exist without itself.
Scientists are at an impasse when it comes to determining the origin of life. Why is this? Because all life comes from life. That is an inviolable, unbreakable law which has not been violated after hundreds of years of experimentation and observation.
But if all life comes from life, How did life emerge in the first place? The answer to that question has been the subject of passionate debate and disagreements for thousands of years, even before the origin of science. The subject makes many people very angry for some reason. Especially scientists, who can’t reason their way out of inevitable logical conclusion.
The conclusion that life has always been.
We are just the latest instalment in life’s evolutionary dance. For what purpose? To what end? No one knows. And anyone who claims to know will be speaking untruths, because the purpose of the univese, and I do believe there is a universal purpose, cannot be comprehended by the human mind.
On Universal Intelligence
There is an intelligent self-organization which underpins everything in the universe. Look around and you will appreciate it.
This self-organizing intelligence is responsible for all the patterns we encounter in the universe. There’s the schooling of fish, the flocking of birds, the grouping of ants into colonies. The branching of trees, the branches of our veins and arteries, the branches of lightning and those of our neurons. There’s also the spiral of galaxies, the spiral pattern on the shell of a snail, the spiral of DNA.
It’s all the fingerprint of universal intelligence.
Universal intelligence is the driver of life and the prime organizing principle.
We are part of this universal intelligence. We didn’t consciously assemble our bodies and brains; universal intelligence did that for us. We don’t consciously determine all the functions going on in our bodies, universal intelligence does that, too. All so we can employ the tools we are given so we can express our potential to the highest degree.
We can also allow this universal intelligence to act through us. By aligning with universal intelligence we set ourselves on track to the best outcome with the lowest expenditure of energy. Because that’s how universal intelligence operates. More on how to align with universal intelligence later.
Let’s Get Back To Life
So we’re looking at life’s origins on our planet. It began around 4.0 billion years ago. From there it has been on an incredible evolutionary journey from single-celled organisms, to fish, amphibians, reptiles and eventually to mammals. Mammals are the current hot-shots in town.
Mammals first appeared around 300 million years ago. They are characterized by the presence of mammary glands by which females feed their young, a neocortex, fur or hair and three middle ear bones.
From their origin 300 million years ago to the present day, countless species of mammals have emerged and gone extinct. And all of them have behaved in pretty much the same way; they’re born, they live, they reproduce and they die. All mammals have existed in harmony with their environment, taking what they need and giving in return; aligned with universal purpose.
Except For One
Two-hundred thousand years ago a species of mammal emerged which was different from the rest. It had an enlarged neocortex. Although all mammals have a neocortex, this particular mammal had the biggest ever, relative to its size. That species was homo sapiens. That’s you and me. Us.
This oversized neocortex allowed homo sapiens to plan, imagine and speak. It allowed us to create stories which brought people together under shared visions of the universal drama. It allowed us to tease apart the secrets of the universe, describe and predict the movements of the planets and the cycles of the seasons and record them using symbols.
The neocortex was a fantastic addition to our cerebral toolkit. It also came at a great cost, one most people are not aware of.
For homo sapiens was the first mammal, the first living being emergent of this planet, which could question its own existence. To look around and ask “How do I fit in here?” And by asking that question, sapiens effectively cut itself off from the universal purpose. By becoming an “I”, sapiens established itself as an ego; an entity apart from the universe.
And we have been paying the price ever since.
The Price Of Separation
The ego perceives itself as separate from the universe. This perceived separation is the source of all fear.
When we identify with the ego, as separate from the whole, death becomes the most terrifying prospect imaginable. Death is a transition from one state to another, as experienced by all matter and energy. But to the isolated ego, death is the end. And the end terrifies the ego.
The ego is driven by fear.
It’s the ego’s mission to survive. It does this with any tools at its disposal.
Violence, lying, cheating and hoarding of resources are all manifestations of the ego. Fear and the ego go hand in hand, they are the drivers of competition. It’s our fear of being an isolated fragment, a finite body, which pushes us to hurt others so we may ensure our survival.
Less severe manifestations of the ego are incessant self-doubt, anxiety and depression. These states of being are only possible through the ego.
Think about it, if a person were to recognize that they are one with all that is, why would there be any need to experience fear? Nothing that exists can be threatened, nothing unreal exists. Everything is impermanent. To be one with all that is means existing at peace with what is.
This recognition of unity; with the plants, the animals and fellow human beings, is love. When you love someone, you recognize your unity with that person, and hurting that being becomes impossible.
Love is the death of the ego. Love is what aligns us with the purpose of the universe.
Human Beings Are The Only Species Which Can Choose To Align With The Universe
Let’s say for now that the purpose of the universe is to create life.
No other animal can fall out of alignment with the universe’s purpose. Every animal does everything it can to extend its life and thrive.
Only humans can do otherwise. Only humans (or animals which are in close proximity to humans) can experience depression which is so deep and incapacitating that they decide the only solution is to commit suicide. To choose to end their life by their own hand.
Only humans can choose to reach into the uterus of a pregnant mother and snuff out an unborn life before it emerges into the world. Imagine how terrified of the world we must be in order to commit such an act?
Because we are the only species capable of falling out of alignment with universal purpose, we are also the only species which can choose to align with it.
And when our choices are aligned with the universe they serve both us as individuals and the whole.
That’s when the universe starts dancing to the tune of our heart.
How To Align With The Universe
It doesn’t happen with the mind.
It happens with the heart.
The mind thinks but the heart knows. By purifying our mind through contemplation (meditation) we can listen to the calling of the heart. Meditation is the practice of Presence. It’s not necessary to meditate to be Present. Presence can be practiced by taking hold of our breath and by inhabiting the body, rooting ourselves in our beingness.
The self-organizing intelligence which organizes and animates the universe is constantly sending us invitations. Invitations to grow, explore and love. Those messages can only be received and interpreted through the heart.
And once we begin heeding those messages is when the universe opens itself up to us. People who want to help us appear, ways around obstacles appear, allowing us to move forwards. The way opens itself up to us.
That’s why Lao Tzu wrote “To a mind that is still the whole universe surrenders.”
Find Your Own Universal Alignment
I hope this article has inspired you to find your own universal alignment. We are unique beings, there has never been nor will there ever be another one of us. We have our own unique way of aligning with universal intelligence. The trick is finding it.
If I had read this a few years ago, before I started meditating, I would have shoved it aside as superstitious hogwash. It would have been the kind of talk I associated with “New Agers”, people with weak minds.
But if you contemplate what you just read objectively, you will realize that there is a supreme logic which underpins it. Nothing is accidental, we just don’t have the capacity to comprehend the infinite causes which lead to every outcome. There is a higher order to the universe. And we are exactly where we need to be to tap into it. By aligning with it we immerse ourselves in the flow of life.
I’m a big proponent of meditation to this end. It was only after I guided my mind to stillness, that I realized that the unified truth of the universe exists within each of us.
So I invite you to dip into the flow of life. You’ll never know where it might take you. Let me know what you think about this article in the comments below!
To our wealth and success.
Hi! I loved to read this article. You put a focus on something philosphers and people of all times have addressed in one way or another. The big questions in life. The most interesting part is where you say that humans have set themselves apart from the universe and are the only ones questioning our own existence.
The ability to think and reflect and change our lives for the better or worse. And secondly the part where you talk about the ego as a separator. But what is ego? It is an awareness of ourselves as a being that are different from other beings in the universe.
We are created with an Ego. Why? You define the Ego as something bad . Ego is fear but not love. But is that really true? Could there be that our egos are necessary for our development as human beings and our higher spiritual universal entity?
That we are here to learn how to submit our egos to the laws of the universe? To find out how this Universe works? To learn how powerful our ability to think and reflect are?
Maybe we need to learn how to love ourselves first so we are able to love others? That we are here to learn how to co – create with the universe? Maybe our work here is to think, reflect, feel and co create? That the ego is necessary for us to experience the universal laws? These are my thoughts. I have no answers to what the universal purpose is with human beings being created are.
Hello Hilde! Thanks for stopping by Explode Your Wealth and for leaving this great comment!
Also, thanks for the complement.
I don’t believe I wrote that the ego is a bad thing. I do believe the ego and fear go hand in hand, but I don’t believe either of them are “bad.” The ego is. Fear is. We can choose to act through fear or through love. Each choice comes with its own consequences; experiencing those consequences is key to our growth.
So I agree with you. Our egos are necessary for our spiritual development. We are here to dis-identify with our ego, so we can realize that we are in actuality the universe experiencing itself through a human being.
Loving ourselves as we are is the basis of all other loves. The ego is incapable of love, as it perceives itself as separate from the rest. Love is the recognition of unity. So to love ourselves also means to let go of the ego.
That is the challenge we each have.
Feel free to drop us a line if there’s anything we can do for you!
All the best,
Erick