I think the most important question facing humanity is “Is the universe a friendly place?”
- Albert Einstein
This quote has always puzzled me. I've thought, "Really, Professor Einstein? That is the most important question facing humanity?" It seems "How do we transcend greed, hate, and delusion?" or "How can we human beings turn to love more consistently?" would be at the top of the list. Yet, as this quote has circulated in my awareness over the years, especially in recent weeks, I've come to see the depth and importance of that question for myself.
I spent much of April, including Easter weekend, in bed doing the Huber Cure. Thanks to an impressively powerful cold, I was afforded the opportunity to spend a lot of time in silence and solitude, just noticing and reflecting. Having strong connections in the past with Christianity, the passion of Jesus was large in my awareness during this time. For years, there had been a karmic perspective that always haunted me when I considered Jesus' crucifixion. It usually spoke in terms of, "How could he have allowed himself to be executed when there were (seemingly) so many opportunities to escape? Why didn't he ‘live to fight another day,’ so to speak?” This year, however, I saw the whole thing from a different perspective. This year, I recognized the tremendous love and trust it must have required for Jesus to go through such a horrific ordeal with the grace and dignity that he modeled through such statements as, "Forgive them; they know not what they do." It seemed to me that Jesus undoubtedly saw the universe as a friendly place -- even amid such cruelty shown to him personally -- and he had the profound humility to surrender his very life to it.
In a recent conversation with the Mentor, I was badgering her in my attempts toward clarity with questions such as "Who is the authentic human being and who is ego? How can I know the difference?" She gently suggested that perhaps that which is asking those questions doesn't actually want the answer but only wants a morsel or two of attention instead. She went on to say that true humility is letting go the pseudo-questions and fake-asking and dropping into the friendship of the Divine with the Divine. It occurred to me that one can only drop into a "friendship of the Divine with the Divine" if one sees the universe as friendly.
Ah yes, Professor Einstein, that is the most fundamental question we humans can ask. Because perhaps how we choose to see the universe either enables or disables us from entering into the very friendship our hearts desire.
In gassho,
Rebecca