Gratitude, Forgiveness and Creating a Friendly Universe

There is a lovely quote, supposedly from Albert Einstein — though probably not — but worth examining anyway. It’s this: “The most important decision we make is whether we believe that we live in a friendly or hostile universe.”

 It’s tempting to challenge this statement. How can the universe possibly be friendly or hostile? Surely, as a non-conscious expanse of energy and radiation and rock and dark and light it is not even ambivalent, it merely is. It is neither friendly nor hostile, just as a chair is neither friendly nor hostile. It’s not scientific and the question is daft. 

But something about this makes me think of metta. Compassion, or loving kindness meditation. I’ve never been one to practice it with any regularity, but it goes something like this. You sit down to meditate, and you wish good health, good fortune and happiness to yourself. And then you focus all your attention on someone you are fond of, and you wish them good health, good fortune and happiness. You do this with as much intention and concentration and love as possible.

But then you go a step further. You wish these things, with the same love and the same intention, on someone you don’t love. An acquaintance or a friend that you’re not particular close to. And then you wish them on someone who you have no feelings towards. And then someone you find annoying or who you dislike. And then you work your way up to someone you hate with a passion.

Ultimately you wish health, good fortune, and happiness, on all beings and all things, alive and dead, sentient or not.

What is the point of this? Does wishing these things upon people make them healthier, or happier, or wealthier? Does it somehow raise the vibration of the universe to send positive vibes to Donald Trump, or whoever else you chose to focus on? How is that even possible? Where’s the science? This is daft.

And then I think about forgiveness. Someone wrongs us, commits a crime, an injustice, does something terrible, and as good decent people we are supposed to forgive them. We are supposed to let them off the hook, as if it never happened. But why? Why, when they’ve done this terrible misdeed should they be permitted to carry on as if it’s all ok again? How is that a good thing? Where’s the science? It’s daftness gone mad.

And I remember that quote that Einstein supposedly said, and I wonder if I’m looking at it from the wrong end.

Recently I’ve been thinking about gratitude. For me gratitude began by saying thank you. Two words. Throwaway things that you automatically drop when someone holds the door for you, or serves you coffee. Thank you.

But thank you isn’t gratitude. Real gratitude isn’t something you give, it’s something you feel, and that feeling is a connection that makes your world bigger. Gratitude is a deep-seated appreciation of something that reaches inside you and makes the moment better, richer, more colourful and more worthwhile. It is something that joins with you, warms you, lights your fire and expands your horizon. It connects you to your growing world.

Gratitude is a connection with that first sip of mulled wine at Christmas (if you love Christmas). The reassurance of a smile from someone you love when you’re feeling unsure. That feeling on a Friday when you’ve ticked off your to-dos and you can rest easy for a couple of days knowing that you’ve done a good job. That feeling when you look out of the window and see the setting sun casting is warm glow across the sky and it touches you. It is a connection between you and the outside world that makes you feel a certain way. But it is not about the outside world, it is about how you feel. It is about you.

When we forgive, it’s not about letting the other person off the hook, it’s about letting ourselves off the hook. It’s about saying I no longer want to be punished by what this person did to me, by that unfortunate event, by my own stupidity. I’m done with it. I’ve suffered enough. And I’m done carrying that person, that thing, that event, that moment from the past around with me every moment, every day. I choose to be free of it. 

Forgiveness is about us.

And loving kindness, it’s not about pretending that those awful people are anything but awful. It’s not about sending out positive vibes to people who don’t deserve it (even though it could be said that a loving outlook raises the universal vibration). Loving kindness, metta, is about becoming more loving. More patient. More kind. Gentler. Softer. More open. 

Loving kindness is about us.

And when Einstein supposedly said: “The most important decision we make is whether we believe that we live in a friendly or hostile universe,” he wasn’t asking us to try and get such an understanding of astrophysics that we could somehow unravel the intentions of the infinite, he was asking us to make a decision.

This question is not about the universe, it’s about us.

If we decide the universe is hostile, then that belief will shape us and the way we live out our lives. If we decide the universe is friendly, that belief will shape us and the way we live out our lives. If we choose to express loving kindness to the world, if we choose to forgive, that will shape us, and the way we live out our lives.

 If we choose gratitude, we will find ourselves connected to a world that expansive, dynamic, poetic, beautiful, interesting and filled with joy. If we choose the opposite, our world will shrink and darken. 

If we choose to see danger, to see evil, to see corruption, then we will see it everywhere. If we choose to be a victim, to be powerless, to be a bystander in the events of our own lives, then that will become the framework of our existence.

So let’s choose. Let’s choose which universe we prefer, and in choosing let’s step into it and make it real. Because this is about us, it is about who we want to be and how we want to live. And we get to shape what our universe looks like.