Living in a Perfectly Self-Organizing Universe

One of the most powerful ideas to me is the notion of the perfectly self-organizing system. Prior posts have spoken to how the Big Bang is an example of a system expanding to become more complex as a means of evolving and realizing a system’s inherent potential. The qualification on this is that any system – be it molecules being agitated in a heating chamber, the cells of the body, or traffic on the freeway – will not be any more complex than it needs to be. In other words, part of being a perfectly self-organizing system is the idea that systems tend to be as simple as they need to be.

The other part of being a self-organizing system is that the equilibrium point for the system is that it tends towards simplicity. A system naturally gravitates towards whatever is the most efficient and effective for keeping the system going.

If the Universe is one ginormous, perfectly self-organizing system of energy, imagine then that everything that happens in it is continually adjusting to ensure that the Universal system is maintaining equilibrium.

In other words, the Universe is a perfectly self-organizing system predisposed to having things work out exactly the way it needs to work out, whether we can see it or not!

Living in a Universe of Energy

In the last post, we explored the interconnected nature of the Universe. Everything we know is like a multidimensional spiderweb connecting all things. How is this possible?

When the miracle called the Big Bang occurred, it released all of the energy that now exists in the Universe. All-That-Is came from that one moment when Infinite Potential of the Universe gave way to the expression of the reality we now enjoy.

And although this energy takes on different forms, at the base level, it is still energy. It is all energy.

When we can pierce the veil of physical reality to the underlying nature of our Universe as energy, we begin to get in touch with how our essential energy is the same as that of and connected to everything else. This is the beginning of transcendence, of living from a more expansive space.

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If this post or others about the idea that there is only one YOU resonate with you, check out my “Jumpstart Your New Year” e-booklet and five-minute meditation compilation, $9 through January 31st.

Living in an Interconnected Universe

In the Buddhist tradition, there is a beautiful metaphor called “Indra’s net.” Indra, the Vedic/Hindu god of the heavens, has hanging above his home a net that stretches to the edges of the Universe. The net connects all things of the Universe. It is like a spiderweb. And when one strikes a part of the spiderweb, the entire spiderweb vibrates.

Such is the Universe in which we live. It is an interconnected Universe. When one part of the multidimensional web is struck, the entire web vibrates.

When one person makes the journey towards the fullest expression of who they are and only as they could be, the entire Universe begins to shift.

From suejames.com

If you’re digging some of the wisdom I’ve shared in this blog post, I invite you to access your personal connection to the Universe with my “Jumpstart Your New Year” e-booklet and meditation audios. ($9 through January 31st; normally $18)

Returning to Your Core In the New Year

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.” - Michelangelo

Most of the great sages and wisdom teachers throughout time have said that the journey of personal transformation isn’t about acquiring new skills or things. Rather, it is a stripping away until you return to the essential self, … to the core values that define your being in the world.

I’ve created two tools designed to help carve out the beautiful YOU within:

• “Creating Your Focus for the New Year“: Drawing from some of the most powerful ideas from goal-setting, positive psychology, and mindfulness practice, as well as the experience of spending hundreds of hours coaching people, this e-booklet provides a process for clarifying your big-picture values and translating them into goals you can pursue to have the most fulfilling year yet. $10.00

• “Meditation for Busy People“: In this digital audio, I offer five 5-minute meditations for developing your meditation practice. Tracks include: Noticing, Love All Around, Spaciousness, Still Point Within, and Release. $8.00

Combined, the e-booklet and the meditation audio are $18.00. For the new year, I am offering both for $9.oo, but you have until January 31st to purchase them.

Imagine the shift in our world if the people in our lives were living more expansively from their core values.

And if you are looking to meet people who are also committed to living from the truth that there is only one YOU, you can join the Love-Expressions Facebook group and follow on Twitter.

Let’s all go to the next level in 2012!

Weekly Pay It Forward (WPIF)

Many of us have the practice of giving gratitude for the many good things that Life gives us. We pause in our day to develop that “attitude of gratitude” for the things we receive.

And yet, developing that attitude of gratitude also has just as much, if not more, to do with giving thanks for the things we are able to give. How are we giving to and making a difference for others? How are we contributing to the world?

When we give to others, we are telling the Universe – with Its infinite Abundance and Supply – that we trust that it will only give us more. It is the old adage that the more we give, the more we get.

So I propose a little experiment: In addition to our daily gratitude lists, let’s tune into WPIF: Weekly Pay It Forward. Own the ways in which you have given to others and to the world over the course of the last week. Even better, let’s start a little movement on Twitter: #WPIF, and remind others of the unique contributions only they can make.

Born From a Miracle

The Big Bang is taught as the scientific explanation for how all of the Universe was created. If we go far back enough, we can trace everything around us to the basic building blocks that emerged from that initial infinitesimal point of potentiality.

And yet, there is a more profound meaning to this event than the sterile perspective science presents us. In that moment before the Universe exploded from nothing, in that tiny space, existed every possibility of Life. And all of it was the same vibrant energy that coalesced into hydrogen, helium, oxygen and nitrogen atoms, which eventually became the foundation for every phenomenon in the Universe. As the Taoists say, “From the One came Two, and from the Two came the 10,000 Things.”

We are descendants of this ancient original event. We inherit the miracle that was the Big Bang.

We are the unique fulfillment of a possibility born eons ago.

Ponder that! …

Cuz There Is Only One YOU!

After sitting on this for a while, I have finally launched a new Facebook group, Love-Expressions, dedicated to one powerful idea:

There is only one YOU!

I believe that the nature of the Universe is Love. Love is an energy at the heart of everything. … And yet, in a Universe filled with countless galaxies, each with hundreds of thousands of stars surrounded by an incomprehensible number of planets, each likely populated with trillions of beings, … there is only one YOU.

One YOU with your unique gifts, experiences, and talents. … One YOU that can make the unique contribution to the world that only YOU can make. …

You’re pretty frickin’ unique!

This Facebook group is committed to building a community in which we can share resources (e.g. inspiring quotes and reflection pieces) and celebrate the uniqueness of each and every individual.

Because the unfolding of Love in the world begins with the unfolding of your unique signature and expression of Love.

Creating Spaciousness

This post has taken a while to write. And in that way in which Life provides the curriculum, I feel like it took going through the past few days to really fully appreciate the focus of this particular blog post: creating spaciousness in one’s life.

Pema Chodron does a really great job of talking about how we need to create a sense of spaciousness to see that the craziness in our minds is small compared to the natural space and balance that already exists before our thoughts, problems, and emotions fill up our mind.

What I have gotten from the past few days is that, even if spaciousness is the natural state of our minds, it does take conscious effort to return to that space. We can’t just assume that we can sit in meditation for an indefinite period of time or adopt a positive attitude towards our circumstances and expect that spaciousness will just automatically emerge.

It is in being conscious in our seeking and returning to the mind’s natural state of spaciousness that we realize that state. …

On Opening to the Wisdom Behind the Suffering

“Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhichitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound.”

I read this excerpt from Pema Chodron‘s The Places That Scare You, and I couldn’t help but appreciate how timely the wisdom was. Insecurity came up for me, and I just had to sit with the discomfort and craziness in my own head.

I read the above and thought about the own suffering I cause myself in my insecurity. Then, I realized:

When we are suffering, … when our wounds are opened wide, … we are the most open we can be to the deeper truths of the human experience trying to find their way into our hearts.

On Making It Count

Recently, I had a conversation with my boss/mentor/friend that made a huge difference for me. I was talking through with her around my attitude towards and participation in a primary relationship in my life … about the ways in which I continually have to balance being authentic and honoring my own experience with being responsible for how I feel impacts that relationship and other relationships in my life. … In my mind, yes, it’s true that I am allowed to have and express my feelings, AND I can’t be emotionally-vomiting on people.

She asked me a good question: How do I want to use my air time?

Do I want to use my precious time in the relationship unconscious and simply reacting to the circumstances of the relationship? Or do I want to use that valuable time to be fully present and awake to and in the relationship?

Making it count doesn’t only mean honoring our own feelings and experience as human beings, which ebbs and flows like the tide. It also means diving deeper to that place of consciousness that is unchanging in the face of Life so that we can choose to bring 100% of ourselves to every moment of the relationship.