Maybe It’s Not Dead

I have a funny story to share since my last post. I wrote that I have a juicer that’s been languishing on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist for months. I did all the right things, included all the right keywords, posted the right pictures, and even published the ad at a time when I “should” have received the most traffic. People would message me about it and then disappear. I kept my hopes up, kept renewing the listing, but eventually I just gave up because it had been months and I still had the thing.

I completely wrote off the juicer, assuming I wouldn’t ever sell it, and then, out of the blue, someone wrote to me. I expected this to go the way of the others – initial interest and then no follow-through, but lo and behold, I sold it! Here’s what’s interesting: I didn’t renew the listing. I didn’t update the photos. I didn’t pray about it. I didn’t do anything.

I want to be very clear and precise here because some people might hear that story and say, “See! It’s when you give up that you get what you want!” You can take away from the story whatever you want, but for me, that kind of thinking is dangerous and implies a sort of certainty that life rarely provides. “Do nothing” isn’t a secret to manifestation. I’m not saying, “Just give up on fill in the blank, and then it will happen!” Because who knows? Maybe it will. Or maybe you’ll need to wait two months or two years or two lifetimes for the thing you want to happen to happen. Or maybe what you want will never happen, ever.

My spiritual teacher speaks to this when he says, “whatever happens in this universe of ours is nothing but an expression of Cosmic desire or Cosmic will … when a human desire and His desire coincide, then only does the human desire become fruitful, otherwise it is a sure failure.”

Again, he’s not saying, “Give up! Surrender! Then you’ll get what you want!” He’s saying, “If the universe wants something to happen, it will; if not, no matter how hard you pray, it won’t come to fruition.” Sometimes hearing his quote brings me relief. Sometimes it spawns rage. Where I’m at now is recognizing the complete powerlessness I have. I don’t know when things will happen or if they’ll happen. It’s been made abundantly clear to me I have zero control over almost everything, including my own body. However, selling this juicer made me laugh, and it reminded me that maybe the things I’ve given up on are still viable. That what I wrote off as dead isn’t so dead and has some life in it.

I dream of a world where we remember when or how or if things happen is rarely up to us. A world where we understand that despite our best efforts, much of life is out of our control. A world where we recognize that even if we’ve written something off as being dead, it may not be dead after all.

Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.