Your Personal Relationship with the Universe

 

“There are two ways to live : you can live as if nothing is a miracle ; you can live as if everything is a miracle” – Albert Einstein

As we tread ahead along our spiritual path, the thing we hear the most from everyone is that, I will believe in all this only when I have an experience myself. And that’s perfect and exactly how it should be....I myself have a certain belief system only after having my own really dramatic experiences and honestly after being bombarded persistently left, right and centre by them. As if this is my destiny and I cannot run away from it. Till then I was a skeptic or a so-called “realist” myself. Whoever tells anyone to believe in anything blindly, has no idea what it’s all about!

But what is that big experience that we keep waiting for?? I mean, is God going to come in our dreams or are we going to have some out of body experience or some astral travel. I doubt if that ever happens for majority of us.  I mean….seems like God only talks to Neale Donald Walsch.. :) Right?? :) But hey!! The Universe has finally decided to converse with Shilpa Deshmukh ;) or has Shilpa finally started paying attention to it now, is the right question?? :)

But what does happen for many of us is that we keep experiencing signs or meaningful co-incidences or synchronicities or little messages in the form of intuitions. Some people call this accessing the storehouse of your subconscious mind, some people call it a little help from your spirit guides, some call it the intentional manifestation of the universal energy, choose whatever resonates with you.  They help us make decisions in case of dilemmas or just to remind us of our connection to the Source. And they come to us in many forms…through books, songs, movies, hoardings, somebody circulating some message on exactly what you were looking for, a gut feeling, a dream, a kind act from a stranger on a bad day and many such ways…. Many times there is something bothering us and we come across a book or an exact chapter on the same concept and that helps us reach a mental resolution. Many times it comes as a flow while writing something and you later wonder where the hell did these words come from?  Many times you see a hoarding right on your face..in big bold black and white..exact words staring right back at you..that you needed to hear. The examples are innumerable and its only between you and the Universe…Earlier I would get totally spooked out but now I feel like smiling when I find them as I finally understand that they are meant to keep me on the path.…helps me connect with the Universe and it keeps me grounded.

“Synchronicity is the coming together of inner and outer events in a way that cannot be explained by cause and effect and that is meaningful to the observer” – Carl Jung.

They could be as simple as a message reassuring us in a time of doubt. At the risk of appearing naïve..let me share a very simple co-incidence  that I experienced when I was choosing the name for my son. I remember, I had already decided during my pregnancy that my child’s name had to be from “S” and if it was a boy, then the name would be Samar. If you look up on the net, the literal meaning of the name is War.. which can have a bit of negative connotations.. but the more I went inside myself.. only one meaning kept coming to me, which was… A Warrior.. A Warrior of Peace and Light. That’s what my inner voice kept telling me. A few days later we went to Crosswords and I glanced upon this Paulo Coelho’s book called the “Manual of The Warrior of Light” which I had never seen before, so I immediately picked it up for casual browsing and for some reason on every single left hand side page there is a “S” written up and down on the pages with a quote on Warrior of Light in the middle. What that “S” is doing in that book on every single left page and what it means to Paulo… only he knows. I found it amusing and funnily felt very reassured but kept the book back on the shelf. And so when the baby came out we named him Samar and we told to whoever asked that it means…. A warrior of peace and light. ..because that’s what my inner voice had told me. And now I see my 4 year old son and how delightful he is and only now I read many spiritual concepts on the new age children and how they are meant to have warrior spirits and are meant to be Warriors of light and peace and love…. I got totally spooked out! How exact can it get?? Where did that phrase come from to me during my pregnancy? But now I see the whole connection between this amazing soul and why he would have chosen me to be his mommy…and it is truly fascinating and extremely profound. Someday it all falls in place for us and makes us smile…that’s all…no pressures…just smile….it’s enough to get you by the day….
Before you start judging me and my expectations of him, :) let me add a disclaimer over here that Warrior of Light is just a way of being and in no manner suggests the path or any field that he may choose....that part is entirely up to him and his eternal journey.... :)

 

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path”

– Dalai Lama

 But most of us choose to ignore these simple things around us because at that time they don’t seem very dramatic enough or we feel a bit stupid about it. People from the creative world still pay atleast a little attention to these signs. But if you come from an orbit where most of your peers and friend circle are from management studies or a corporate background then you have chosen a tough audience for yourself!! :) I mean its really far easy to get a hundred likes for a piece of cake but to have chosen a task to present such thought provoking articles to especially such an audience is not easy by any means.  :) We lot are a bit of a lone warriors ourselves and we would rather fight it out alone than receive some divine help!! ;) So burnt out in these heavy karmic places that we seem to have lost all our connection to innocence and any sort of higher Source. No wonder then that only rude wake up calls work for most of us!! Atleast that’s what made me notice and look back on all the “small” things….

After I started writing and sharing my thoughts on this blog, the amount of such experiences that people have been sharing is not funny. It’s almost as if we all are closeted spiritualists and are somehow keeping it inside us. Most of us are looking for our own connection to the Universe or a connection to something higher than ourselves. It’s a nagging feeling which most of us have about where do we actually fit in the greater scheme of things? Is there any meaning to this whole drill or just a random occurrence of chance events? But it seems like we would have to discover that on our own and establish that connection on our own as it is our personal journey which began really eons ago and probably now we are at a stage where we feel the need to figure it all out. Despite having everything to be grateful about we feel totally lost at times.  And that’s where these little signs help us with little pointers on the journey, provided we pay attention to them and have faith in them.

What I have realised is that they are not for just a chosen few but are for everyone and are there to help us and guide on this wonderful journey. Start paying attention to the world around you and you will notice them everywhere..you will start seeing the magic in things… journal them….they may not make sense to you at all right now.. ..but they are your little jigsaw pieces which one day will form the bigger picture…..and one day it will all make perfect sense to you……. :) And will be the “big” experience that you were waiting for…..and your own connection to the Universe…. :)

So last Friday, I came across this same book by Paulo Coelho after 4 years at an obscure roadside bookshop and it brought the whole episode back to me and I finally picked it up. … There are several quotes in there which are good….. maybe I will read them out to Samar soon…he loves all my books already… :) and thinks that all these writers are my teachers... ;)