Guyus Seralius

This is chapter 4 of my audiobook The Forever All: A philosophical and Spiritual Guide titled, The Physical vs The Non-Physical. I discuss and explain my views on pantheism and how the entire universe is made up of the physical and the non-physical. I believe everything in the universe is a combination of something and nothing, or if you prefer, matter and space, and are ultimately unknowable. Most philosophers agree, myself included, that it’s impossible for something to ever come from nothing and for something to ever become nothing. Therefore, all the somethingness and all the nothingness has always existed and always will.

To learn more about me and my philosophical views, please visit my other sites:

My Book: Here you can review my book, The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide, and read several excerpts and chapters for free with the option of buying if you wish to read more. https://guyusart.com/my-book

My Philosophical, Scientific, and Political Views: Feel free to visit my blog The Eye of Guyus on WordPress, where I provide many of my essays and excerpts from my writings at https://guyus.wordpress.com

My Art: I will create custom art for you or paint or draw a portrait of you, your loved ones, or of your adorable pets using your own photo(s) for a good price. To view samples of my artwork, please visit my site https://www.guyusart.com

My Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/guyusart
My Facebook Page, Panmeism: https://www.facebook.com/panmeism
My Facebook Page, The United Citizens of the World: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnitedCitizensoftheWorld.Guyus

#yinandyang #thephysicalandthenonphysical #positivevsnegative #thepositivevsthenegative #pantheismexplained #godiseverything #godistheuniverse #pantheist #pantheistbeliefs #audiobook #spiritualguide #pantheismdefine #theinfiniteuniverse #YouaretheAll

This is chapter 3 of my audiobook The Forever All: A philosophical and Spiritual Guide titled, The Positive vs The Negative – The Yin and The Yang. I discuss and explain my views on pantheism and how the entire universe is comprised of two primary fundamental forces, the positive and the negative. I explain how everyone and everything in the universe is a unique blend or version of the Yin and Yang and how you are a unique intertwined swirl of the positive and the negative.

To learn more about me and my philosophical views, please visit my other sites:

My Book: Here you can review my book, The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide, and read several excerpts and chapters for free with the option of buying if you wish to read more. https://guyusart.com/my-book

My Philosophical, Scientific, and Political Views: Feel free to visit my blog The Eye of Guyus on WordPress, where I provide many of my essays and excerpts from my writings at https://guyus.wordpress.com

My Art: I will create custom art for you or paint or draw a portrait of you, your loved ones, or of your adorable pets using your own photo(s) for a good price. To view samples of my artwork, please visit my site https://www.guyusart.com

My Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/guyusart
My Facebook Page, Panmeism: https://www.facebook.com/panmeism
My Facebook Page, The United Citizens of the World: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnitedCitizensoftheWorld.Guyus

#yinandyang #theyinandtheyang #positivevsnegative #thepositivevsthenegative #pantheismexplained #godiseverything #godistheuniverse #pantheist #pantheistbeliefs #audiobook #spiritualguide #pantheismdefine #theinfiniteuniverse #YouaretheAll

This is chapter 2 of my audiobook The Forever All: A philosophical and Spiritual Guide titled, You are the All. I discuss and explain my views on pantheism and how everything requires the All in order to exist, how nothing could exist without the entire infinite universe, and therefore, how you are the universe.

To learn more about me and my philosophical views, please visit my other sites:

My Book: Here you can review my book, The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide, and read several excerpts and chapters for free with the option of buying if you wish to read more. https://guyusart.com/my-book

My Philosophical, Scientific, and Political Views: Feel free to visit my blog The Eye of Guyus on WordPress, where I provide many of my essays and excerpts from my writings at https://guyus.wordpress.com

My Art: I will create custom art for you or paint or draw a portrait of you, your loved ones, or of your adorable pets using your own photo(s) for a good price. To view samples of my artwork, please visit my site https://www.guyusart.com

My Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/guyusart
My Facebook Page, Panmeism: https://www.facebook.com/panmeism
My Facebook Page, The United Citizens of the World: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnitedCitizensoftheWorld.Guyus

#pantheismexplained #godiseverything #godistheuniverse #pantheist #pantheistbeliefs #audiobook #spiritualguide #pantheismdefine #theinfiniteuniverse #YouaretheAll

I decided to start narrating chapters of my book, The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide, where I discuss my views on pantheism, so I can eventually create an audiobook version. This video clip is me narrating chapter 1: Defining The All – A Brief Introduction. Enjoy!

To learn more about me and my philosophical views, please visit my other sites:

My Book: Here you can review my book, The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide, and read several excerpts and chapters for free with the option of buying if you wish to read more. https://guyusart.com/my-book

My Philosophical, Scientific, and Political Views: Feel free to visit my blog The Eye of Guyus on WordPress, where I provide many of my essays and excerpts from my writings at https://guyus.wordpress.com

My Art: I will create custom art for you or paint or draw a portrait of you, your loved ones, or of your adorable pets using your own photo(s) for a good price. To view samples of my artwork, please visit my site https://www.guyusart.com

My Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/guyusart
My Facebook Page, Panmeism: https://www.facebook.com/panmeism
My Facebook Page, The United Citizens of the World: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnitedCitizensoftheWorld.Guyus

#pantheism #allisgod #godistheuniverse #theinfiniteuniverse #theuniverseisgod

As a pantheist, people often ask me whether or not I believe in reincarnation, which usually refers to the rebirth of a soul in a new body after death. For the most part, the answers is, yes. But it really depends on what is truly meant by ‘reincarnation’ or how one may personally define the soul and/or the body.

I usually prefer to avoid using the term soul, because so many define it so differently. So for the sake of clarity, I will refer to the perceiving mind and the physical body. I believe each of us is like a passenger within a vessel mainly along for the ride or, if you prefer, a driver within a vehicle who has some control. We move from one vessel to another like a snake that sheds its old skin, again and again, or a hermit crab that moves from one shell to the next as it grows.

In terms of physical systems, there are living things and there are non-living things or dead things. All living physical bodies age, change, and sooner or later die, decay and wither away. But that perceiving entity that is you escapes that dying human form and continues onward. As your physical human vessel begins to die, it loses its needed order and balance to sustain itself. This imbalance and disorder finally reaches a critical point where the universe sort of gags on that dying version of you and then reflexively regurgitates or spits out that inner version of you from that dying vessel to go elsewhere.

Some believe it is all a mere physical world and that is all there is. Physical parts randomly interacting and that’s all. To me, that view falls short. There are those who would say it is all ultimately within the mind and that’s all there is. I don’t mind that view as long as that view includes an uncontrollable lawful aspect. It’s always difficult to fully define or explain what one means by ‘the mind’ or that which is ‘physical’. Personally, I view the physical material world as the resistant lawful portion of reality. So when I say physical or material or body, just know I mean that resistant portion of the cosmos, whether that be in the mind or not. So even if one says, it’s all in the mind, then at least know that there are unchangeable rules that your mind has to abide by. If you jump from the roof of your house, for instance, then due to gravity and all other physical laws, you will fall—unless you use other physical laws to alter that fall, such as a parachute or aircraft or some other lawful contraption. If it was all in the mind, in the way many often characterize it, then we would all be completely free to control our world and destiny or to defy the laws of physics. But I believe the mind is always bridled by laws of the All, laws of the cosmos. Even in dreams are we prisoners of this truth that we are not in full control. So even if it is all somehow technically in the mind, then it is as though the physical world (in the traditional sense of the word) still exists.

Some hate the idea of a dualist world-view, of trying to divide the universe or reality into two main separate camps like the mind and the body or the physical and the non-physical, often depicted by the Yin-Yang symbol, and claim that it is ultimately all one thing. I too, in many ways, believe it is all ultimately one symphony, one ocean of waves, so-to-speak, but at the same time, I believe that oneness can be differentiated or divided in the eyes of the perceivers. I am what is known as a dialectic or dualistic monist, one who sees both sides of the same coin. I’m also one who conceptually further divides the universe, that single coin, into higher resolution for further examination. So yes, I do view all of reality to ultimately be a unified whole, but this whole must express itself in dualistic terms to us perceiving beings.

For me, I believe the perceiving mind can never be fully extinguished nor separated from the physical world, for you can never have one without the other, because they go hand-in-hand like the black and white values on a written page. If you try to remove the white of the page the black text is no more or vice versa. Call it your spirit, your soul, your ghost or inner being, but it will always have a body or a physical aspect. In other words, whether your mind separates from your current human vessel by some means of spiritual ethereal mitosis or some type of quantum leap, from one physical vessel to the next, it will always be both of the physical and the non-physical, the mind and the body. It will never be otherwise.

Our levels of consciousness and awareness may come and go, it can wax and wane with sleep and wakefulness but can never be completely turned off like a light switch or a water faucet. However, your mind and identity are always changing, for a variety of reasons, thanks to the physical, material part of the world, and you will lose your memories eventually if not right away after your human death. But there has never been a time when you, the mental passenger, did not exist. I believe you will move from one life to the next, forever and ever. Because you, the perceiving entity, the passenger, are not like a mere physical structure like a house or chair that has only a fixed number of physical parts that can be assembled and then taken apart to be no more. That would unjustly cheapen the universe and what you truly are. Don’t misunderstand. Your human vessel does, indeed, have a fixed number of parts but that inner core version of you does not. You are so much more than that. You, that mental passenger, that perceiving entity is a hub, a core, an apex of the Forever All that is the universe from your unique point-of-view in time and space and you always will be. Your true body is the entire infinite physical universe. You are all that physicality and all that in between along with all its rules. Your mind is part of an unending continuum. It has always required the whole interconnected package we call the universe to make you possible. That will never change. There is no force powerful enough or a device clever enough to separate your inner perceiving light from the infinite cosmic lantern. That flame that is your local perceiving self merely changes its shape and position in the grand scheme of things as one might perceive it.

Putting aside our human death that will eventually come—sorry—in a very real sense, each of us are constantly being reincarnated from one moment to the next. We are all being reincarnated right now as I speak. Isn’t it amazing how the universe can allow our mind to have trains of thought, durations of existence, even though in a physical sense, as we often view it, we are a collection of tiny particles that don’t even physically touch one another? Observe the amazing physical processes that happen during the birth of any and all life and even observe the amazing processes that occur during death. Consider all the amazing mechanisms at play. Chemicals dance around, electrons change energy states and at times are emitted. Things bubble and flare up, they twist, contort, and move about, fluids flow, they squirt, spray, and flush themselves out as organic life tends to do whether it’s being born or dying. The universe is a remarkable machine with some remarkable mechanisms. Don’t so easily dismiss its ability to use similar awesome mechanisms to keep your perceiving mind going like an eternal flame that can never be completely blown out. Your wick and your wax will never run out. They are unending. They are eternal.

Some have suggested this view to be wishful thinking. That I and others are comforted by the thought and belief in reincarnation. Well, they’re partly correct. I would be lying if I said I had absolutely no hopes or desires to continue on after this present human life or that the idea of rebirth is not comforting, because to some extent, it is comforting. But as we all well know, life is not always comforting or pleasurable. It’s a mixed bag. In fact, it is too often quite the opposite. It can be rather painful, very cruel, very frightening, and extremely exhausting. I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that sometimes wishes it would not continue or that the whole thing would just stop. I don’t believe we get to live happily ever after in a blissful state of joy. Far from it. I will likely lose much of what I believe I know about the universe and have to relearn it all over again. In the next life, I will likely be very vulnerable like a child walking into a new classroom for the first time. So never forget, life is not all that great, but fortunately, it’s also not all that bad, either. It’s a mixed bag, always has been and always will be. So not mainly due to wishful thinking.

However, I always try to remove my emotions from the equation, so it doesn’t cloud my judgement, and I try to always base all my philosophical views on what I believe to be the truth and reality of the world, based on all that the universe has taught me so far, whether it’s actually right or wrong and whether I like it or not, and not on what I would like that reality or truth to be or need it to be or wish it to be. I know all too well that I would only be cheating myself to do otherwise, and I’m rarely ever able to fool myself into believing anything mainly out of comfort. I’m one of those who is always compelled to see behind the curtain, so-to-speak, to use any available evidence, logic, and/or valid reasoning before I believe in anything. Also, once anyone becomes familiar enough with my personal philosophical views, they will quickly learn that I believe in things that are very uncomforting and at times quite frightening or depressing. But I continue to believe in them, regardless, due to logic and lines of reasoning that are subject to error and could change the very next day.

Even in the absence of logic and going on instinct, I just never could believe that once my human body dies that my perceiving mind permanently and fully dies along with it never to reemerge, not ever. Think about that for a moment, what that would be like. Try to imagine simply not existing ever again. A hundred years roll by here on Earth, where you once lived as a human, then thousands, then billions, long after planet Earth, then trillions and still no you—not ever again. Not ever. As my grandpa Jack used to often say, “If it can happen once, it can happen again. It is now more difficult for me to believe we don’t continue than to believe we do.

Based on all the evidence I have gathered over the course of my life, thus far, I’m afraid you and I are here to stay, eternally trapped here within this infinite cosmic soup like prisoners, who will at times be treated well for good behavior and at times treated very badly and unjustly, back and forth, forever and ever, for better or worse. So we will have times of suffering as well as times of pleasure, times of sadness as well as times of great joy, moments of wakefulness as well as moments of sleepful rest. It will be perceived by each being to be both good and bad, both beautiful and ugly. Our minds will forever undulate between consciousness and unconsciousness to experience all the beautiful pleasurable highs and all the ugly painful lows and all the moments in between, over and over, in an endless cosmic cycle.

To learn more about me and my philosophical views, please visit my other sites:

My Book: Here you can review my book, The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide, and read several excerpts and chapters for free with the option of buying if you wish to read more. https://guyusart.com/my-book

My Philosophical, Scientific, and Political Views: Feel free to visit my blog The Eye of Guyus on WordPress, where I provide many of my essays and excerpts from my writings at https://guyus.wordpress.com

My Art: I will create custom art for you or paint or draw a portrait of you, your loved ones, or of your adorable pets using your own photo(s) for a good price. To view samples of my artwork, please visit my site https://www.guyusart.com

My Instagram site: https://www.instagram.com/guyusart
My Facebook Page, Panmeism: https://www.facebook.com/panmeism
My Facebook Page, The United Citizens of the World: https://www.facebook.com/TheUnitedCitizensoftheWorld.Guyus

Here’s an oil painting I had started many years ago (around 1996). It’s my version of Michelangelo’s Adam receiving the touch of God’s finger on the Sistine Chapel, meant to express my pantheistic view that the universe is the constant causation of our existence, that God is not something beyond or outside of us or the universe, but that we and the universe are that divine thing, that each of us is like a piece of cosmic fruit (seed, egg, womb) attached to an infinite cosmic tree, and that, ultimately, each is the eternal cosmic tree. It’s still a work in progress–talk about a project that’s been on the back burner! I recently took a high resolution digital photo of it, so I could start working on it again, digitally, within Photoshop. It’s nearly complete, but there are still a lot of little things I would like to clean up and do to it. I hope all you fellow pantheists like it so far.

To view more samples of my artwork or to review my art services or to hire me to create customized art for you, please visit my website at www.GuyusArt.com
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You may also want to visit and LIKE my newly created Facebook Page GuyusArt at https://www.facebook.com/GuyusArt.art

There is the All. The All is everything and every thing is of the All. It is a divine system with clockwork-like precision and order, which we are all a part of. It is the ultimate body, the ultimate mind, and the ultimate spirit. It is not the created, nor is it the destructible. It is the Supreme Being which has always been, is, and always will be. It is the law and it is the authority. It is what governs all things, including itself, yet it has no choice but to be what it is and to do what it does. That which is responsible for the existence of the All . . . is the All itself.

The All is also the ultimate contradiction, the ultimate paradox. It has substance, and yet it doesn’t. It moves, and yet it remains fixed. It is very old, and yet it is brand new. It is divided, and yet it is whole. It is singular, and yet it is infinite. Therefore, it is both good as well as evil, cruel as well as kind, beautiful as well as ugly, and painful as well as pleasant. At times it is frightening, though at times it is comforting. At times it hurts us, though at times it pleasures us. At times it gives life, though at times it takes it away. But overall, it remains conserved, unchanged, and completely balanced. Overall, it is the guiding force that pushes us towards a balanced path. Overall, it is responsible for our existence. Overall, it has meaning and it has purpose.

By Guyus Seralius — 1993-2005

The above essay is Chapter 1 from my book, “The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide,” now available at www.Lulu.com, Amazon, the iBookstore, and Nook.

All things play a part in creating your perception. Therefore, in your perception, you should see that you are the All.

There is your local self, that version of you that likely moves around within a vessel of human flesh at the moment, a subset of the All that forever grows, changes, and which will one day die, and then there is your cosmic self, that truer, eternal, universal version of you that is the All in its entirety and which will never change or die. In one sense, you are like a single leaf upon an endless cosmic tree, but in another, equally real sense, you are the entire, endless cosmic tree, for it is all, ultimately, connected.

Everything requires the All in order to exist. Nothing can exist outside the All, nor be independent of it. Consider what it takes for you to exist. Aside from requiring the obvious, such as a brain, a heart, a digestive system, etc., you require all else beyond your apparent body. For instance, you require water to hydrate your body, an atmosphere to hold the water into liquid form, a strong gravitational force to pull in and compress gases into such an atmosphere, a planetary body to provide the gravity and to serve as a platform, a source of heat energy, like our Sun, to warm things up. Atoms are needed to form these gases, planets, and stars. Space is needed for these objects to occupy, and so on. In short, you require the All, the entire universe, an infinite system, in order to exist.

The All is what makes any one thing possible. The All is required in order for any of us to exist, and ultimately, no one thing is more important than any other. Each thing, no matter how insignificant it may appear, plays its part in sustaining you as well as the All. Therefore, since the All is required for you to exist, you should see that . . .

YOU ARE THE ALL.

You are the All trying to perceive itself, trying to understand itself, and trying to know itself. You are the forever cosmic tree, whose branches never end. But you are not alone. You are actually in infinite company. I too am the All. So is your neighbor. And so is the smallest house fly. But you are the All from your own special position in time and space. This position allows you to forever remain unique. But in a deeper sense, at our core, we are all the same. We all have our moments of fear, moments of jealousy, moments of embarrassment, moments of anger, and thankfully . . . moments of pure joy!

The All is indestructible, which means you too are, ultimately, indestructible. Your mind will move from one life to the next, and you will at times forget your true identity. But thankfully, you will at times be reminded by the All who and what you really are, that true version of you that goes far beyond what you may normally see as your local self, and that is . . . The Forever All, an inescapable system of profound order, which will forever remain balanced and conserved.

If you are a good student, learn the great lessons it has to teach. If you can read the pages of life, then try to enjoy the epic story it tells. When you truly understand it, you will be in awe of its magnificence and you will marvel at its complexity and perfection. It will be your greatest epiphany. You will truly know it is the ultimate kingdom and that this kingdom is truly you!

The All can not be fully understood, for it is ultimately unknowable. It’s like trying to stare too deeply into the light of the Sun to see its core only to be blinded. Though enough evidence of the All is available for us to use our “mind’s eye” so-to-speak to understand it well enough without being permanently blinded. At times you will need to glance away from the brilliant light of truth to give your eyes a rest. Instead of staring at it dead on, use the corner of your eyes.

It is difficult to discuss the true nature of the All or to describe its true form, for we the perceivers have always experienced it only in part from a limited point-of-view. It can all be greatly misunderstood, but I will do my best to describe my take on it. I will at times discuss the All as it is, in its true form, but I will also describe the All through the eyes of the perceiver. Hopefully, you will know one from the other, eventually, if not right away. Do not try to look through the trees to see the forest, for you never will. You must take a step back and look around, for you are in the forest and the forest is all around you.

By Guyus Seralius, 1993-2005

The above essay is Chapter 2 from my book, “The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide,” now available at www.Lulu.com, Amazon, the iBookstore, and Nook.

The Positive and the Negative are the two ultimate descriptive words of the All. They are the two ultimate forces, the two ultimate attributes, and the two ultimate values of the All. Understand these two forces and how they interact and you will be very close to understanding the theory of everything. The All is comprised of these two fundamental forces, which are always in opposition of one another. Therefore, one half of the All constantly contends with its other half, yet the All forever remains balanced and conserved as a whole.

These two forces are responsible for all other opposites found in the universe. Everywhere we look in nature do we see examples of these two opposite forces at work—also known as the Yin and Yang, terms which have been popularized by Eastern philosophers. Examples of some of these opposites are night and day, up and down, large and small, hot and cold, light and dark, open and closed, pain and pleasure, etc. It could be said that these two main opposite forces serve as our true parents, for they are responsible for your existence and are responsible for the All. You can’t have one without the other. When you adjust one, you automatically adjust the other, for they shape each other. One pole will always be inversely proportional to its opposite pole. If you increase the light, you automatically decrease the darkness. If you increase the heat, you automatically decrease the cold. If you remove pain, you automatically increase pleasure. But keep in mind, these increases and decreases in the opposites occur only on a local level from the perceiver’s point-of-view. Nothing can be added to or subtracted from the All as a whole. The reason we are forced to experience local gains and local losses in these two primary forces, the positive and the negative, is because we have to experience the universe in limited portions. If we heard all sounds, and saw all images, and felt all things, all at once, we would not hear, see, or feel at all. One can not hear a song in the presence of all sounds. It can’t be done. So when one attribute is locally increased within a given area of the All, it must be drawn and decreased elsewhere from the All. It’s kind of like squeezing on one end of a balloon and causing the other end to expand and inflate. For instance, to increase the light within a given area of the All, perhaps within your bedroom, energy must be drawn and decreased elsewhere from the All. Thus the energy of the All is conserved. Physicists have essentially discovered this fact about the universe and have termed it “the law of conservation.” Though for scientists, this law mainly applies to energy, mass, and momentum. But it is my strong belief that it can actually apply to any attribute of the All, such as pain and pleasure, love and hate, wellness and illness, ignorance and intelligence. Even the distribution of the color green, as it is perceived, is constantly conserved.

Due to this law of conservation, the All will forever be maintained as it always has been, as it is now. You can rest assured that the All will never one day become fully corrupt, or completely evil, or cause you non-stop pain and suffering forever and ever, for the All is not something that “becomes” anything. It already is what it is and always will be what it is, and that is pure balance. Unfortunately, as well as fortunately, we the perceivers will always come to experience an offset in the opposite poles, due to a limited view, experiencing the highs and the lows and all the transitions in between. Time and time again, we will come to experience moments of sadness as well as moments of joy, moments of suffering as well as moments of pleasure. In the following chapters, I will discuss these opposite poles of the All in some detail and how they relate to us, the perceivers.

By Guyus Seralius, 2007

The above essay is Chapter 3 from my book, “The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide,” now available at www.Lulu.com, Amazon, the iBookstore, and Nook.

The universe is comprised of two main fundamental forces, the positive and the negative. This unfortunately means we will always have to deal with its negative half.

As a pantheist, I do not view God, the Supreme Being that is the universe, to be an entity which is all good and considerate and which always takes care of us. On the contrary. God, or the universe, can at times show very little mercy. It can be both kind as well as cruel, beautiful as well as ugly, a giver as well as a taker. However, when we walk a straight path and always try to do the right thing, it increases the odds that the universe will be good to us in return. The more good a person is the more he or she increases the chances of getting rewarded for it. But there are never any guarantees. We all know there are those who do wrong, yet get rewarded and those who do good, yet get punished. But one can at least increase the odds of getting rewarded. For example, if you take the time and effort to keep your home clean, you will decrease the germs and, therefore, increase the chances of not getting ill. But, if you fail to keep your kitchen clean, nature will by default try to punish you. Your home will likely become infested with roaches. If you lie frequently, others will stop trusting you. If you do not exercise caution, you will eventually trip and fall or encounter some other hazard. These are the type of universal laws that serve as the eternal Cosmic Commandments of the universal being, which include most of the well known Ten Commandments of the Judeo-Christian Bible.

Our pain and suffering helps us to grow and develop. It’s why we first learned how to build a fire—to escape the pain of the cold! Some might ask, “Well why couldn’t God, the universe, just tell us how to build a fire; or better yet, why didn’t God simply set it up so that we didn’t even need fire?” I believe the first part of that answer is that the universe was never “set up.” The universe is a system that has always existed and always will. It is what it is and has no choice but to be what it is and to do what it does, much the way 5 must be > 3 or how a square must have four sides.  The second part of that answer is we need the negative to appreciate the positive. It provides the needed contrast in our lives. In order to truly know pleasure we must first truly know pain. We need storms in order to appreciate the sunny days. Having needs helps us to appreciate our lives and our accomplishments. If everything was done for us, automatically from the get-go, we would be spoiled with no sense of right and wrong, we would hold little value towards life and the universe. The incorporation of pain and sadness into our lives allows us to truly live in a more meaningful way. The more we know the pain of losing a loved one, the more we will value life. If we were not faced with the prospect of pain and death, we would not take life all that seriously. Nature needed these mechanisms to perpetuate itself, so that we would be encourage to protect ourselves, to survive long enough to reproduce. The sensation of pain is what encourages us to quickly remove our hand that was accidentally or intentionally placed onto a hot grill.  Pain is what causes boys to really protect their privates. Doing so helps to serve the overall purpose of the universe. Unfortunately, life can be quite cruel and simply must be endured, and I am so sorry for that! I will be the first to apologize for the universe for being forced by its own nature to be so cruel to you, to me, to all of us. It is simply the natural way of things and can never be fully prevented or done away with. Fortunately though, life must reward us from time-to-time with indescribable joy.

When others are kind to you or lend you a helping hand, it is equally valid to say the universe is trying to help you, because they are an instrument of the universe. When a friend shows concern for your plight, this is also the universe showing you concern. Unfortunately though, as I mentioned before, there are times when the infinite system can show you very little mercy. When you become ill, for instance, you can blame the universe. When you become well, you can thank it. So we will always have times of pleasure and times of suffering. It is simply part of the universal formula that sustains life.

The universe allows living beings to be uneducated, unwise, and to make serious mistakes quite often, and therefore, to be cruel to others. We call these type of people, bad, even though it’s not their fault that they’re flawed. This means the universe sometimes has to allow those we think of as ‘good’ to be on the receiving end of those mistakes, even though they are relatively innocent and don’t deserve it. For instance, a dumb irresponsible man may be negligent by not properly securing his huge vicious dog to a properly secure leash, allowing the dog to escape and attack a jogger passing by, who is merely trying to improve his health. As ridiculous as it sounds, during ancient times, primitive men would have assumed that the jogger must have recently sinned and that God was simply punishing him.

In the Book of Job in the Christian Bible, you can read a story about a righteous man who is repeatedly punished by Satan. God, as He is described by Christians, permits this because He is trying to prove to Satan that Job is a true believer whose faith cannot be shaken or diminished by any of life’s struggles and that his religious devotion is not dependent on his favorable conditions. So he loses his children, his servants, his cattle, and consequently his wealth during a major storm caused by Satan, and then is stricken by boils and illnesses. All his friends try to explain to him that he must have sinned and that if he would only repent and beg for God’s forgiveness and change his ways, then all would be well again. Even today, in certain parts of the world, do foolish humans think this way—that all suffering is justified punishment from God. In certain third world countries, young girls are the ones who are blamed when they are raped.  Innocent citizens go to prison or, at times, are even put to death if their tongue is burnt while licking a hot spoon—a judicial test their people believe determines whether or not they’re lying.

It’s so sad that the innocent ones in life often have to pay for the negligence of others. Tragically, our history is filled with stories of the innocent ones suffering the negative consequences of the ignorant and selfish wrongdoers, who too often go unpunished in a timely manner. Though life will eventually punish all wrongdoers in full for their misconduct, one way or another. It’s the law of the universe. One can never escape their due punishment. It can only be delayed for a spell. If so, they will eventually experience the sling-shot effect of the consequences of their negative actions. And as for those who are forced by the universe to receive and endure punishments they do not directly deserve, they will sooner or later be fully compensated by the universe. Over the course of many lifetimes, everyone’s rewards and punishments, whether earned or deserved, will all balance out. When added together, you end up with equilibrium.

Nature will only allow someone to suffer only so much and for only so long, even if the release of suffering is through death, where one may pass on to the next life. And again, we will always eventually be compensated for our suffering either in this lifetime or in the next, or the one after that—if only based on the nature of probability like when you flip a coin a thousand times, fifty percent of the time it will land on heads. So according to chance, involving a large sample, you will experience pleasure fifty percent of the time. Where those moments of suffering or pleasure crop up no one will ever know for sure. That’s where it becomes random from our point-of-view.

Nature does this thing I call the zebra effect. In a manner of speaking, it has its black stripes or negative states, and it has its white stripes or positive states. And it osculates back and forth between the two. Nature is like an onion with its alternating layers. It always unfolds in seasons from the cold and depressing to the warm and joyful, over and over, in a cyclic or back and forth fashion. For example, as long as you continue to live, it is written that you will sooner or later become very ill again. I don’t mean to depress or frighten you, but that’s just the way the universe works. It doesn’t matter how wealthy you are or how rich in spirit, bad times will find you time and time again. Fortunately though, so will good times.

It’s important not to try to give life a reason for punishing you. Don’t tempt the universe by dancing on the edge of a cliff or by driving well beyond the speed limit, no matter how fun it may be. If you have a very extroverted lifestyle and you’re the type who loves to go skiing, mountain climbing, sky-diving, then you really increase the chances of having a tragic incident in your life. That’s the gamble. The grasshopper with the longest legs will also have the longest fall to break. It’s what I call the sling-shot effect or the Kennedy syndrome. The Kennedys often live extraordinary, extroverted lives. They fly planes, they sale, they ski, and they become powerful political figures. It’s their extroverted dispositions and lifestyles that serve as their curse and which leads to many of their tragic deaths.

But do not become a major introvert either. It’s not a good idea to become a complete recluse and live the life of a hermit to never leave your home due to the fear of some mishap. Chances are, your life will not be all that fulfilling. Nature has many ways to punish the overly sheltered as well.  A non-active lifestyle can bring forth loneliness, depression, and illness. So don’t allow yourself to become too introverted or too sedentary in your life or it will eventually affect your health. You must get up at times to exercise and get out and become at least somewhat social for the sake of your health.

The universe will find a way to punish you when you try to live in the extremes, because the universe ‘likes’ balance in the same way a flower ‘likes’ and moves towards the sunlight. It needs and prefers this middle ground. You have to try to balance your lifestyle so that you gently bounce up and down between extroversion and introversion, between safety and danger, and between pain and pleasure. So try to live a balanced life.

by Guyus Seralius on July 21, 2006 (Re-edited in May, 2015)

From my ebook, “The Forever All: A Philosophical and Spiritual Guide,” now available at www.Lulu.com, Amazon, the iBookstore, and Nook.