Our Universal Plan
By: Jessica Burnham

You know that feeling? When you’ve had a really peaceful meditation, and it sticks with you throughout the entire day? You carry this beautiful energy through you like an electric current, and even the most annoying things- for some reason- don’t annoy you? And you sit there, in your car, and think- I wish I had this reaction every day!

Life is strange that way. But in its strangeness, when we are given gifts like that, it helps us see something different. And then our whole life has a different perspective when stress rears its ugly head. Perhaps this is what happens as we grow out of the mind’s streaming program into our bliss. Recently, as I was encountering my usual mood altering circumstances (like mind altering drugs I suppose- are they really different??), I felt this stream of peacefulness flowing through me and I realized all I had to say to myself was “This is what the universe has planned for me today.” When I heard this, all thoughts of restlessness, impatience, frustration dissolved in my consciousness. I saw something completely different, and it felt really good. I didn’t feel like I was being controlled by anyone and others’ circumstances- it just simply was. What was happening around me was not some conspiracy by my outside world to test me beyond acceptance.

Whatever that good feeling was by spirit’s definition, it basically felt good because it simply was the lack of negativity projected by my own issues. It was not anything beyond that. I was not striving for some ‘great’ feeling like we do with all our searches. What I realized is- this really is who I am. Inherently I am this peace. I am nothing beyond that- not even ‘good’. I simply am without my negativity born of karma and past experiences. The inherent desire to not want to deal with our garbage puts us into this delusion. Our resistance to seeing our flaws and our darkness, through shame, creates a deep bog that can become unbearable at times for our beingness.

Have you ever witnessed a confrontation and thought to yourself, why are they getting so upset? If someone said that to me, I wouldn’t get so upset. But then when someone does confront you in a similar way you find yourself agitated and angry, and defensive? And they say, why are you getting so upset (this is when the bubble pops over the character’s head and reads “Haven’t I heard this somewhere before”)? And you don’t want to admit to yourself that you’re getting upset by something that you’ve questioned someone else for getting so upset over. You are all of a sudden sandwiched, cornered by your own rejection. So you fight back, trying to get out of your corner.

What is even more interesting about this kind of situation, is how completely different we feel when someone else tells us what they see in our behavior. If we say it to our self, it has no meaning- but when someone else says it to us, we react. Why is it when another conscious being calls us on something we react, but it is okay for us to say something negative to our self? To take it a step further, why has our society taught us that self abuse is completely acceptable, but abuse from others is not?

Someone once told me that when the commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ was taught, its true meaning was that the soul could never be killed. No matter what we think when a body dies, the human experience disappears before us in that body- but it still exists, because we are still existing. We are a part of that soul’s experience- and in that oneness, nothing can ever die. Can the mind’s madness continuum ever dissolve like the body in death? I believe the answer to this is no. But- where we act from, and what we connect with inside can change. And this is what brings us peace in our lives. This is the lightness that we deserve.

Every day we venture out into the world, we are encountering a plan. Whether it was something we, as a part of the universe, thought of years ago, or thought of yesterday, the plan appears. But the plan can morph from day to day based on where our consciousness resides. What a relief to know that sometimes, the plan presents itself, rather than me always having to present a plan in some formal way like I am the delusional micromanager of my universe!

There remains a balance to achieve in our understanding of this concept. A balance that keeps us in check, so we are not always waiting for the next great plan to appear. Rather, we are constantly planning in all that we think and do, the catch is accepting the ones that don’t always seem so appealing without resistance. I think this is a deep accomplishment for all of us. Profoundness lies in being in this state of acceptance regularly. Encountering the happenings of every day life, without attachment to what should have happened and our expectations of what ‘good’ truly is.