Do YOU Police the Universe?

As we watch the actions of some and what happens to others in our busy world we find it easy to rail against the many unfairness and injustices that appear to take place.  The media brings us a daily pictorial torrent of the misfortunes of some and the persecutions of others.  So it’s not surprising we find it hard to discern ‘meaning’ amongst this blizzard of information, and it’s not surprising when we create our own ‘mental uprisings’ and, in our conversations, find ourselves making our own ‘verbal assaults’ against those who seem to be delivering the injustices of pain and suffering upon the many or simply being unfair towards a few.

While many of us do rail against the apparent injustices in our complex and complicated world it seems there are some who do not react in the same way.  They carry another perspective, which is, if nothing else, an interesting way to consider the significance of all events.  They say there is no such thing as unfairness that it’s entirely relative to our personal point of view and tends to be defined according to our personal prejudices  They say one mans unfairness is another mans fortune. They say that we are all intuitively aware that justice is a natural process, that it has its own route, its own pace, its own moment of arrival and its own appropriate impact? 

We all acknowledge there is a natural justice built into human affairs when we refer to the idea of ‘karma’, when we acknowledge that what we sow is what we will reap, or when we recognise that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, and when we often remind each other, “What goes around comes around”.  These insights into the laws of ‘cause, effect and consequence’ remind us that the moment we become angry towards other peoples actions we are telling the world that we cannot wait for ‘natural justice’ to arrive, and that we have appointed our self as police, judge, jury, and jailer in order to help it along!  In such moments we forget that we have not been given permission to police the universe!

Little do we realise that the anger we experience is in itself justice visiting us!  We are the one who is suffering in that moment.  We are the one who is getting your own back… literally!  We are the one who is crying, who is suffering.  What for?  For the wisdom to free us from our ignorance about the cause of our anger, for the love that may wipe away the inner tears of our unhappiness, for a perfect world that dances to our tune.  But we cannot see the true nature of our cry because we cannot see our own anger as a form of suffering.  We cannot see that it is an emotional consequence caused by our inability to accept others as they are and to accept the world exactly as it is at any given moment called now!  We cannot see that our anger, our suffering, is caused by our attempt to police the actions of others. We are blinded by the misbeliefs that we have been taught i.e. that anger is not only OK but good, that it is ‘caused’ by ‘them’, that someone else is to blame for our emotional discomfort.  These beliefs all contrive to cloud our capacity to see that we are only hurting our self.

This does not mean we just sit idly by watching the persecutors and the persecuted fight it out.  We always have choices.  We can leave our ‘armchair anger’ behind and go help, go do something, go offer to make a contribution towards improving things for others in the future.   Perhaps the key word here is ‘offer’.  We only need to be careful that our offering does not turn into forcing, driven by frustration, as we attempt to take the law into our own hands.   If we do decide to leave the comfort zone of ‘armchair anger’ and go ‘do something’ it might be advisable to wear the peaceful face of compassion, and not a face screwed up with condemnation and contempt.  The first face is that of the ‘possibility of positive influence’ (nothing is guaranteed) and the second is that of ‘an attempt to control’.  One is enlightened and the other is endarkened.  Obviously this is not easy to begin with, especially if we are taking the plight of others personally.

This more considered and calm approach, based on the awareness that natural justice is always at work, can easily seem to fly in the face of our conditioning where we have likely learned that revenge is an acceptable response to perceived injustice.  The mythology of the avenging hero, which is woven through almost all modern movies, soaps and video games, appears to condone and encourage an anger-driven vengeance towards those who are unjust and unfair.  So confused are we that we have almost positioned revenge within the range of what we call human rights.  Such is the thickness of the fog that now surrounds this dangerous emotion. 

For years Jo Berry was angry. Her father was killed by Patrick McGhee, the IRA bomber, at the Tory Party Conference in Brighton in 1984.  She decided that she had to meet him and she described one particular outcome of their meeting, “I felt downhearted for weeks, and scared.  I had begun to understand that when you give up blaming others for what they have done you experience a terrible fear that you are betraying others.  Yet I was elated”.  Eventually they jointly set up Building Bridges for Peace and appeared together on television and at public meetings.  In working with her father’s killer she reflects, “I don’t want to demonise him.  I want to listen to him. I want to see his humanity.  I don’t want to forgive him yet, I want to understand him.”

We all know the law of gravity because it keeps us in our seats.  But few of us realise that in the physical world the ‘law of gravity’ in just one of many laws that are intertwined with the ‘law of balance’. Gravity ensures everything returns to a state of balance.  Too much moisture in the atmosphere and down it will come as rain, rebalancing the atmosphere.  Too much ‘tilt’ on the ocean wave and down it will crash on the beach.  The laws of balance can also be found at a mental and spiritual level.  To many people, angry thoughts of vengeance will either emerge as violent behaviour and thereby attract violent responses, or if internalised, will eventually emerge as physical disease, as consciousness seeks a way to eliminate the emotional poison and restore balance to our mental and physical systems. 

Expand this insight out onto the world stage, then watch people, organisations and nations exchanging negative energy and we are watching either a) one side upsetting the balance… momentarily, or b) balance being restored, as it must, because it’s the law.  This unbreakable law does not need to be administered or enforced by us or even by a higher power.  It is a law that is simply built into the system and dynamics of all human affairs. It administers itself.

Understanding that this law is in operation at all times teaches us the wisdom of standing back a little, and just watching, not jumping to conclusions, not hurting our self with violent thoughts of what we believe could be a justified revenge.  Knowing that what goes around comes around doesn’t stop us laying down laws within society, it doesn’t stop us from relieving the gunman of his gun if he is in the same room (though you will need a good strategy!) but it helps us not to take the law into our own hands at a mental level after the event.  We cannot rush justice. We cannot force the rebalancing of energies at any level in the world.  If we attempt to do so it is form of arrogance and we only upset the balance of your own energies as a result.  Even to condemn those who would try to take the law into ‘their own hands’ is to take the law ‘into our hands’!

The final course in any meal, including the meal we call life itself, is always called ‘just desserts’!  Everyone who comes to eat at the table of life has within their destiny the opportunity to choose their ‘just desserts’ i.e. the consequences of their actions.  Some choose ice cream, others choose sour cream!  The first is more aware of how this choice is made, so they live carefully but not fearfully, compassionately and not resentfully, peacefully and not angrily. If the law of cause and effect is truly a strand within the laws of balance and harmony then whatever arrives at the table for our final supper will be an accurate consequence of how we lived our life!

How does the law of cause and effect work out at the mental level?

Reflectn on where you see evidence of the law of cause and effect in operation a) in the world b) in your relationships c) in your personal life.

The action you need to consciously is to plant positive seeds in three areas of your life this coming week and then watch patiently for the effect in the days/weeks/months ahead.

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Ross Galán, Spiritual Life Coach

at the Spiritual Life Coaching School