Guidance | Spirituality for Seekers

The third spiritual belief that I recommend adopting is that the universe listens to and cares about you. This is a belief that will make the heckles rise on the necks of many, and particularly those who are coming from a more atheistic or skeptical background. However, if you will bear with me then you will discover that this belief can bring enormous benefits to your life, and the adoption of it could in fact prove to be a key point on your spiritual journey.

My statement that ‘the universe listens to and cares about you’ makes the universe sound very much like the God of many other spiritual traditions. If you have moved away from a tradition which believes in a personal deity then you may quite naturally feel yourself resisting the idea that the universe is capable of listening, or that it cares about you as an individual.

My own spiritual journey has been long and winding, and after leaving traditional religion behind, I too resisted the idea that the universe was capable of listening or caring. In fact, I embraced atheism as the only valid position for several years, before eventually choosing to create my own spiritual path, so I have a great deal of sympathy with those who resist this concept.

What I would say to sceptical Seekers is that you don’t actually need to believe that the universe is intelligent in order to adopt that position for practical purposes. On the contrary, adopting this belief will bring you benefits even if you are sceptical, and it is therefore worthy of consideration regardless.

Let me explain why I believe this to be the case…

First, pause for a moment and remember what a belief really is. As I said in The Power of Belief, a belief concerning spiritual matters is a position which can never be proven or disproven. Adopting the belief that the universe listens and cares is not, therefore, something that you need to think of as being factual in any scientific sense. For that reason, you can adopt any spiritual belief that you think will enhance and empower you in day to day life.

When you understand that principle – that you are perfectly free to pick and choose your spiritual beliefs for no other reason than it improves your experience of life – you will open yourself up to endless possibilities. The belief that the universe listens and cares is just one of those possibilities, so let us now look at what kind of benefits tend to come to those holding this position.

The Benefits of Adopting this Belief

1 – You Are Never Alone
The first benefit of this belief is that you need never again feel alone. No matter where you are, no matter what time of the day or night, the universe becomes your ever-present companion.

2 – You Can Ask for Help
The second benefit is that the universe is ready and willing to listen to your concerns, worries, fears, anxieties, doubts, hopes and dreams. In other words, you can speak to it, either silently or out loud, just as if you were speaking with a close friend.

3 – You Will Feel Helped
The third benefit follows on from the second, and it is that you will actually feel that you are being helped and assisted by the universe at large. This could, of course, be cited as little more than confirmation bias, but the psychological and emotional gains that are derived from such a belief can be significant.

4 – You Will Look for Guidance
Holding the belief that the universe listens and cares, and will actually help you, will cause you to look for guidance in your everyday life. This will make you more mindful and appreciative of the various coincidences and synchronicities that you encounter each day, and reinforce the belief itself.

5 – You Will Experience Meaningful Coincidences
Again, this can often be explained away as confirmation bias, but the fact remains that those who hold this belief notice more meaningful coincidences in their lives than those who don’t.

Hang on a Second…

At this point I know that some of you will be wondering if all of the above isn’t simply encouraging Seekers to pray to the universe. Well, I suppose that in many spiritual traditions what I have suggested really could be regarded as prayer. However, as I have already said, the benefits of this belief are not dependent on whether or not you view ‘the universe listens’ as being scientifically accurate and true.

Consider the way in which many of us speak to our pets. Do we do this because we honestly believe that they understand perfectly whatever language we happen to speak? Of course not. We talk to our pets because it enhances our relationship and sense of connection with them. It has also been shown to bring us other psychological and emotional benefits, such as lower blood pressure, decreased anxiety, and so on.

In the same way, conversing with the universe enhances our experience of life and helps us to feel connected to the much greater whole of existence.

Of course, if the idea of conversing with the universe at large puts you off, an alternative might be to choose just one aspect of the universe to be your ever-present listening companion. Look at the sky as you verbalise your hopes and dreams. Cast your worries and concerns into running water. Or simply sit under a tree and unburden yourself of your stress and anxiety.

My aim in this post is not to convince you that holding this belief – and acting upon it – is ‘the one and only way’, or that it is any kind of indisputable truth. On the contrary, I am merely offering it for your consideration, and attempting to explain why I think you will find it useful and beneficial.

The 90 Day Experiment

Instead of deciding right now whether or not you would like to adopt or dismiss this belief as a permanent part of your own spiritual path, I would encourage you to simply try it on for size for a limited period. I suggest that you try this experiment for 90 days, proceeding as follows:

1 – For the next 90 days, adopt this belief and the two that I wrote about previously (see The Universe is On Your Side and Life is Your Teacher). Start viewing the universe as an intelligence which is looking out for you, guiding you and is ready and willing to commune with you.

2 – Take a few minutes every morning and every evening to speak with the listening universe (or an aspect thereof) and get whatever is on your mind off your chest. Enjoy the process of lightening your mental and emotional load in this way. Also try asking for whatever help you feel you need at the current time.

3 – If you would like to do so, spend a few more minutes, morning and evening, listening to how your mind, body and spirit respond in the moments that follow such unburdening. Do you feel comfort, relief, joy, peace, happiness or some other positive quality?

4 – As you go about your daily business, feel free to converse with the listening universe, handing over cares and concerns as they arise, and then letting go of them, rather than allowing them to fester in your mind and torment your well-being.

5 – Maintain your spiritual journal throughout the whole of this 90 day experiment, and note down how you feel about it, and what benefits you are beginning to notice in your life. Are you experiencing more meaningful coincidences? Does it feel as if the universe really is beginning to help you? Are you feeling lighter in your spirit than you were previously?

After 90 days, review your experience with the help of your journal. If you have not seen any improvement in your quality of life then you may feel free to set this belief aside for another time. If, however, you have experienced something far more transformative than you thought possible, you may prefer to consider adopting the belief – and acting on it – as a permanent part of your spiritual path.

Note: I would also like to encourage you to post a comment here and report back on your experiment. Particularly, I would be keen to hear how you felt about this belief before the experiment, what you experienced during it, and how you felt about it when the 90 days were over.

Another spiritual belief that you might like to consider adopting states that life is your teacher. Whilst you may encounter fellow Seekers who have insights which might prove useful to you as you create your own path, you should view life itself as your primary teacher. Life is the only ‘guru’ you ever need to follow to develop yourself spiritually, and you should be very careful of anyone who advises otherwise.

Of course, this does not mean that third-party insights cannot be extremely valuable. The words of Jesus, Buddha, Krishna and others, as presented in their own spiritual traditions, can often help us to clarify certain ideas and concepts, but they are not absolutely necessary for spiritual progress.

Spiritual teachers, both past and present, can be likened to the personal trainers that can be found in fitness centres and gyms around the world. Such trainers may have more experience than you in matters of physical exercise, and they can often point you in the right direction if you want to build muscle, lose weight or tone up, but listening to their words and advice will not, by themselves, result in your attainment of those goals.

Even if you have the best physical trainer in the world, merely listening to their advice, or fawning over their expertise, would not help you to make any physical progress whatsoever. If you want to build muscle, lose weight or tone up, those things can only be achieved through the sweat of your own brow.

Just as attending a gym three times a week and simply listening to the advice being given will not make you physically fit, so attending a church, temple or other spiritual institution to simply listen to someone talk about spiritual development will not, by itself, ensure your progress. In both cases, progress comes not from the instruction you receive, but by the work you put in by yourself.

This being the case, spiritual teachers are completely optional to your progress as a Seeker. Just as you can build muscle, lose weight and tone up by doing your own research in physical exercise and creating your own workout program, so you can develop yourself spiritually by taking a similarly self-reliant approach.

When you view life as your primary teacher in matters of spirituality, you dispense with the need to rely on the guidance of others. Life will, if you let it, teach you everything you need to know. You just have to learn to pay attention to the lessons it teaches you on a daily basis.

How to Learn from Life

Every experience that you have in life contains a lesson of some kind, but to recognise that lesson, you need to be paying attention. Unfortunately, most people live their days so wrapped up in their own internal narratives about what is happening that they completely miss what is really happening.

For this reason, the first skill that I think all Seekers should develop is that of mindfulness, which is the ability to experience the present moment exactly as it is, and without providing any internal commentary of your own. You may well have developed this skill already, but if not, I would highly recommend doing so, and one very good resource that you might want to use to help you do that is a book and CD package by Jon Kabat-Zinn, entitled Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present Moment and Your Life.

When you have learned to live your life more mindfully, be open to receiving instruction from life as you live it. Do not make any demands about how you should be taught, or what you should learn, but simply be open to whatever each moment brings, and you will find that you will begin to receive all the instruction you will ever need, exactly when you need it.

How will this instruction come to you? In a variety of ways, depending on your own circumstances and experience. For example, when facing a difficult problem, you may happen to see an oak tree, and get the idea that you too can stand tall and strong regardless. You may see reeds blowing in a strong breeze, and be reminded of the fact that being flexible is the best way to be resilient in the face of adversity. Or you may see the clouds passing through the sky, and realise that everything changes, nothing lasts forever, and that even this difficult problem will pass in due course.

The wonderful thing about viewing life as your teacher is that the particular lessons you receive will all be tailor-made to your own situation and understanding. Instead of having to search for ‘the right teacher’ who might somehow be able to give you ‘the right answer’, you will find that the insights you need the most will come to you of their own accord.

Another benefit of viewing life as a teacher in this way is that it transforms all experience into one which can facilitate your growth and evolution as a spiritual being. You will learn that no situation is intrinsically good, or bad, for those concepts are artificial and dualistic. Rather, all situations are exactly as they are, and they can, if you listen to what they have to teach you, help you to make progress on your journey as a Seeker.

Remember, the universe is on your side, and if you heed its instruction, it will teach you all you need to know.