The Universe Will Thrive — With You or Without You

Instead of trying to save the world, do what brings you joy and surrender the rest to higher wisdom.

A few years back, I began noticing an interesting trend. Every once in a while, new ideas spontaneously came to my mind — an app, a social cause, the perfect message some public figure needs to hear, or even a new angle to write about.

Sometimes I’d let them simmer. At others, I’d let them go because I had different priorities. Most often though, I’d push them aside out of sheer self-doubt.

If it were such a brilliant idea, someone would have thought of it before.

Someone had. Years later, I would come across someone else who either brought up a similar perspective in conversation or an article written from a very similar angle or someone else in another place who went out and implemented precisely the same thing. Precisely!

Coincidence?

Was my thinking up of an idea only to come across very similar ones, a mere coincidence? Or did the same idea capture many minds; some like me decided not to act, while others took the opposite route and had implemented it a few years later?

Deepak Chopra, in his book Synchrodestiny, presents the concept that coincidences are not random events that happen simultaneously.

Synchronous events come about in everyone’s lives with a purpose, if only we observe them keenly. He shares that once he began to observe coincidences in his own life consciously, he found so many that he had to keep a written log of such events. And in hindsight, they made perfect sense, almost as if he had been walking with a map through life.

Perhaps, these events were coincidences beckoning me to be more aware of a larger, more fantastic plan. However, I think there was also a more profound insight here.

Cosmic Destiny

When I read stories of scientists who made breakthroughs, it strikes me that two or more scientists in different parts of the world were thinking on very similar lines, independently and yet, roughly around the same time.

Sometimes, these competing minds came together to collaborate. Isn’t that curious?

Isn’t it curious that unrelated people in distant parts of the world had been thinking very similar thoughts at the same time?

If we were to credit our intentions for guiding our actions, then there must also be a collective intention(s) driving the path of our entire society, planet, and universe.

The marvelous thing is, this collective intention seems to behave in an economically sound manner — almost as if it takes into account the probabilities of an idea propagating or coming to fruition from each source before planting it there.

In other words, very similar ideas emerging in multiple minds around the same time may be the universe’s way of hedging her bets. She will not leave an idea whose time has come to the whims of any single human being, will she? Would you?

The cosmic path is more significant than any of our individual ones. For our universe to be a well-functioning system, our separate ways must be aligned with the collective journey we are all on.

And to accommodate at least a few prima donnas and a few self-doubters, the universe must plant an idea whose time has come, far and wide.

In a nutshell, the universe behaves like dandelions, and dandelions behave like the universe!

Good and Bad News

From an individual’s perspective, this is bad news. If we don’t act on our ideas, someone else will. You can almost be sure that someone else has had a similar stroke of inspiration.

But there is good news too. When inspiration strikes, it doesn’t necessarily mean you are the chosen one. Our egos would have us believe that we are the chosen ones, or that the cause is too important to not dedicate ourselves to. Instead, you are one of the chosen many. And important as the cause may be, it may or may not be your path.

It is not necessary to be the protagonist of every story. Isn’t that liberating?

The Detached Pursuit of Our Destinies

Imagine thinking this way about all our pursuits. There is no need to be attached to what we may consider our life’s purpose. The pressure is off. The universe will find a way to execute its plans, with us or without.

Sometimes we have a calling. Every calling involves some sacrifice. And when it is right, your sacrifice feels right too.

Great personal sacrifice is at the foundation of most large-scale change that Gandhi, Mandela, Marie Curie, and others drove.

Yet, at other times, we also find ourselves trying too hard for something which we wished were our calling. The cause may be worthy, and it may even feel invigorating for a few years, but is it right for you? And is it right for you, right now? At such times, it is easy for our egos to trick us into believing that we must do this for the greater good, even when it does not align with your deepest self.

Only when we see this for what it is — a trick of the ego — can we be authentic and exonerate ourselves from the guilt of getting in the way of a tremendous cosmic cause.

No single person can get in the way of an idea whose time has come. All you can choose is whether or not it comes to life through you. Sometimes, the choice is “no”. We should learn to be okay with that.

That choice is neither right nor wrong. It is authentic.

Thank you for reading.