It’s the age old question. How much can we actually control in our life? You know, I’ve pondered on this myself for years. Often thinking I have total control, to having no control at all. Let’s take a look into how the laws of nature reveal the truth.
What Are the Laws of Nature?
The laws of nature sounds very scientific and esoteric. But, when we are contemplating on this, the answer is going to be dependent on the question we are asking. If we want to know the laws of nature at an academic level, the answer we might get is that they are a set of laws which dictate the ongoing survival of the animal kingdom. Things like cause and effect, eat or be eaten, adapt or die.
If we want to know what the laws of nature are in terms of how we should behave, what we are really asking then is, “How does the nature of existence itself operate?” These are laws of our very own consciousness.
The Circle of Life
I’m writing this while flying on a plane right now. I’m going from point A to point B, city to city. Or am I? Because in just a few days I will be flying back. So is my path linear (meaning it’s one way) or is it more cyclical in nature?
Take another example, you’re driving to and from work, Monday through Friday. Zoom out a little bit, now you are watching the roads and freeways, and all the little people in their cars driving. Where are they going? Are they just going from home to work? Or is it a cyclical pattern because they’re going back home after work? It’s almost as if humans are little blood cells part of a larger organism all flowing around in a cycle day after day, week after week, and month after month.
Last example to drive the point home. Let’s analyze the seasons. Does spring indicate the start of the seasons and winter the end? Or have seasons always been ongoing and continuous since the dawn of mankind, cycling and repeating?
I think we can agree that there are many natural phenomena that are cyclical in nature. They have a pattern, but a chaotic pattern. Chaotic meaning disordered or unpredictable. For example, no two workdays are exactly the same, though they are similar.
Amongst all the chaos out there, why are there some things that appear ordered and structured?
There is no such thing as permanent order and structure
I always found it interesting how in every post-apocalyptic movie or show, the great metropolitan city always ends up overrun with plants and wild animals. You see buildings crumbled with vines running up the side and packs of deer running through the streets.
With humans gone, nature overpowers even our biggest concrete cities. All of these important structures that we’ve built end up back in disorder eventually.
I see this with my son. I’ll clean up our living space until it looks perfect. By the end of the day there’s crumbs on the kitchen table, toys sprawled throughout the living room, and the smell of something foul with no clear source.
Yes, kids are great, but it’s been one of the biggest challenges I have ever faced. You might wonder why we even have them if it’s so difficult. Read: Dogs or Kids, Which Brings More Meaning to Your Life?
If all of our efforts to create order and structure in a chaotic world aren’t permanent, then what’s the point of creating anything at all?
The Fall of man is belief we are superior to the laws of nature
To some degree, that is true. What is the point of creating something better for our life if it never goes the way we want? I believe the answer lies in the story of Adam and Eve.
If you take the story in a literal sense, it is the story of the first humans who fell from God’s good graces because they ate an apple from the tree of good and evil. If viewed from a metaphysical sense, we see a story of the human condition acting based on the notion of “I know better than God.”
You best believe that a majority of the human race acts in this way. Hence, why we have religion so that we can humble ourselves and land back into God’s good graces.
So, if we operate on the premise that we know more than God, then of course we are going to believe that we can control our life. However, remember the example of nature eventually taking over, your illusion of control never lasts.
Work with nature, not against it
So how does one work with nature (God/Higher Power) and not against it? We must first let go of the idea that I know better, that I am the captain of my own ship. We must trust and have blind faith that nature can actually lead me to where I’m supposed to be.
Nature has laws that cannot be broken. By working with these laws, you can ensure positive outcomes in your life.
Nature sustains only the good
Nature sustains only what is ultimately good. If our intentions are good, what we create will leave a permanent impact on the world.
This doesn’t mean you have to be a goody-two-shoes or constantly try to do what you think is ultimately good. What it means is that the ultimate good (God) needs to come in and take control. Let go of everything, every moment you’re trying to control, and let God act through you.
Nature works in likelihoods and probabilities
The probability of anything happening in your life solely depends on the spiritual work you’re doing. To the degree that you’re willing to let go of yourself and your ego, the higher the likelihood that positive outcomes will manifest into your life.
If you’re doubling down on egoistic desires, the less likely nature will support you in the long run.
an intention is of God, a want is from the ego
Believe it or not, your intentions you do not have control over either. Intentions spontaneously arise in your consciousness when you’ve let go of your wants.
For example, back in the day when I let go of my want to be millionaire, the intention of building financial stability arose out of nowhere, from my unconscious mind to my conscious mind. It’s as if God had planted that seed within me from the very beginning. He was just waiting for me to let go of thinking I know better than him. It can be understood like this:
A want comes from a primal instinct and drive. An intention arrives spontaneously in the form of a lesson or intuition.
If your intention is to be a rich celebrity playboy because you feel that will make you happy. Sorry bro, that’s not how it works.
Related Reading: How Spiritual Manifestation Encourages Risky Decision Making and the Correct Way To Go About It
What we can actually control
The only thing we can truly control is the ability to let go (in which case God takes control). Everything else is ran by illusion (ego) and will not permanently last.
You’ve probably heard of simulation theory, how we are living unconscious and need to wake up from this dream. That is a lot more accurate than you might think.
If you watch yourself day to day from a third-person point of view, you’ll start to see very primal behaviors stemming from your need to survive: eating, sleeping, craving sex, pursuing money (resources), wanting to be known and liked, etc.
You might think to yourself, “Wow, I never stopped to question why I even do these things.”
What you are is the thing that is watching those behaviors. A state of consciousness, a quality of life itself. To awake from this dream, we have to first acknowledge that those egoistic drives are not actually you, and that they seem to go on automatically without your control. This is waking up.
When you wake up and decide to release control over your life, something else happens.
what does it feel like when God takes control?
As we relinquish control, we start to see a change in our cyclical egoistic-patterns. They don’t seem to dominate our thoughts or actions as much. We begin to feel like life is actually working with us, as if God has favored us for putting our life in his hands.
We feel an effortless flow to life and a natural pull to something higher. Hence the phrases, “Go with the flow. Let go, and let God.” Things begin to fall into our lives spontaneously as if they were gifts from the universe helping us along the way.
You live in a state of peace and non-worry because you have no goals, nowhere to be, and no outcomes to seek. We feel love all the time and not necessarily externally, but a bubbling up and outpouring of love from the heart.
That feeling of home and completion has finally arrived. Now life actually begins.