What Is “The Universe”?

The term the universe has become somewhat of a buzzword, but for so focused entrepreneurs, there's a deep sense of something majestic and powerful beneath it. It's one thing to say that the universe has your back, and it's an entirely different thing to live and breathe that belief. There's a sense of assurance and even invincibility that comes with tapping into that sense that your very existence is fueled by an undercurrent of well being, that everything is working out for you. Everything. And that you have access to universal resources to create anything you dream of. If you're eager to tap into the depth of this power so that you feel like you're truly creating the life you want, this episode is for you. You're listening to the Universe has yous Business. It's the podcast for rising entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants, and change makers who are here to achieve more while letting the universe do the heavy lifting. And I am your host, Andrew Donovan. Hey, hey, hey. Welcome to this very special episode. You know, we are 25 episodes into this podcast and I haven't paused to have a real conversation about what I mean when I say the universe. And of course, this podcast episode is called the Universe has yous Business. Now, the reason why I think this conversation matters is because as a soul focused entrepreneur, as the conscious creator of your life, you and I were, we're both always looking for how we can tap into that creative power that we really know is deep within us. We want to be the manifestors of amazing things. We want to be the conscious creators of powerful, impactful businesses, of beautiful lives and many things that are meaningful within our lives. And so when we say the term the universe, what does that really mean? And what is the power of behind that term? So let's start off with talking about what just the term the universe means. Now, sometimes I've said in previous episodes, the universe can be replaced for many other synonymous terms. God, source, the universe, the greater good, your higher power. And in a number of conversations, I and other teachers have said they basically all mean the same thing, but that sometimes and actually frequently might not be true. Let me start with the term God, because studies show that the bulk of the human population believes in, quote, unquote, God. But our definition of God, of course, varies widely across the board. I've given a lot of thought to why we define God in the first place. Now, many of you know that I grew up in a very specific religious setting. I grew up Mormon. So most of my life, I believed that God was a refined, perfected Human being who had a. Has a physical body and lives on a planet really far away. That's the Mormon version of God. And of course, the bulk of the world religious traditions like Hinduism and Buddhism, the largest religious populations in the world, have very different definitions of God. God is a spirit or an essence or an energy and an underlying energy that is beneath everything. And then you've got world wisdom traditions that define many versions of God. Like in Hinduism, for example, there's many gods, but they're not specific people. They're concepts intended to illustrate elements of existence, which I think is really, really cool. But fundamentally, as I've dissected and really deconstructed my spiritual paradigm over the years, and the reason why that mattered to me is, is because I wanted to understand how I relate to existence, how I relate to the universe, and how I really am the creator of my reality. And so as I've deconstructed my own religious and spiritual paradigms, I've come to the idea that we define God because we really want there to be meaning to our existence. And we look at this incredible world that we live in and the universe that our world is a part of, and we think, well, this couldn't be by accident. And of course, if you're into biology, anatomy, if you're into, oh my gosh, what's that college class that I always fell asleep in. The evolution of the human species. The word is just slipping from my mind. I'll remember in a minute. But if you're into. If you're into anthropology. There we go. Then you know that the development of the human brain has literally, from an anatomical level, evolved to adapt to our need for the belief in God. And so as we've entered what some people consider a new spiritual age, where meditation has become such a prominent practice among many people, even people who aren't religious at all, and yoga has become a regular part of so many people's lives and healthy living, mindfulness. We're in this new spiritual age, and we've started using this term, the universe, well, one thing that I've learned as I've studied many spiritual traditions, is that words are limits. Just the very use of a word is limitation. So when we say something like God is loving, or the universe is abundant, or the universe has your back, I mean, a word is a construct that we've all come to agreement on, and we use those constructs to define things. But defining something is. Is in itself a limitation. Which is ironic because we, most people agree that the universe is limitless that God is limitless. Correct. And when you say God is limitless, I mean the word limitless is by itself a limit. So there's actually a word in Hinduism called oh my gosh, where is my mind today? That word will come to me too, in just a moment. This word means defining God cannot limits God, therefore God cannot be defined. Brahman is the term. And so that's. It's a version of God that basically means God cannot be defined. Because when you define God, you limit God. And I would say the same thing goes with anything. The universe. Saying the universe is loving. Even that is a definition that inherently limits the universe. And you might think, wait, but, but that's good though, right? To say the universe loves me or that God loves me. True. I mean, they're in their lovely words that have beautiful meaning to us. But using words to define something so vast, so expansive, the true source of your power and of life itself. I mean, that really words don't do the trick. It's something that you have to tap into. It's something that you have to sense. In fact, one of my favorite quotes from the poet Rumi, he says, our task is not to find love, but to break down all the barriers we've built against it, which really means that love is something you connect to. And many people in their religious paradigm say God is love, you might relate to that. And so our task is not to find God, but to break down all the barriers that we've built that prevent us from connecting to God. If you're familiar with Taoism, I love the definition of the Tao. The Dao says that the Tao means the way. It's the inspired path, it's the unfolding of life, the unfolding of existence. And I really like that because instead of perceiving the God as a person, it's God is the way, and just very different from what I grew up with. So one of the most pivotal moments in my experience as an entrepreneur, in my journey of spiritualism, which really for me are the same thing. Because I've never wanted to be the kind of entrepreneur that says, okay, I went to all the workshops, studied all the courses, I've gotten all the to do lists and I've mastered the best practices. Therefore, I am now an action oriented being whose action is so precise that I'm always going to get it right. I've never wanted to be that kind of entrepreneur or even not get it right. But I've. I've never wanted to be the kind of entrepreneur who's so action oriented that my action takes a dominant presence over my being. I've always wanted to focus first on being, which really is a spiritual method. And one of the biggest shifts that I've ever had in my spiritual journey, which has had a huge impact on how I create my life, my relationships, my businesses, my abundance, my financial prosperity. All of that has been learning to define the the human ego. So if you're listening to this podcast and you have a pen and paper or a note app on your phone, on your device, pull it out, because I hope that this will have as much impact for you as it has had for me. I read a book by Wayne Dyer years ago called the Power of Intention, and this book is one of my top three most influential books I've ever read. And in this book, he defines the ego. Now, oftentimes we use the term ego one as if it were a bad thing. And I'm going to tell you right now, the ego is not bad. As long as you have a physical brain, you will have an ego. So if you're pushing against your ego or judging your ego, you're really pushing against yourself. Therefore, not allowing yourself to show up as a whole and complete person, as a whole and complete being, because the ego is part of who you are. But most people go through their lives completely unaware of what their ego is. And therefore they allow themselves and their lives to be driven by their ego unintentionally. And this is really where a lot of people, including myself, for many years of my life and still moments where I let myself slip into an unconscious way of living in certain moments, that's where we lose our power. So Wayne Dyer in this book, defines the ego. And with these six points. Number one, I am what I have. The ego says I am. I'm defined by my material possessions, by the stuff that I collect. Number two, I am what I do. The ego says I am defined by my actions. I'm a hard worker, I'm a philanthropist. I'm the church leader, I am the person on the school board. I am a good parent, I'm a bad parent, I'm stupid, I'm bad at school, or I don't have many talents, or I'm really talented. I impress people, right? So I am what I do. Number three, I am what others think of me. The ego says I am defined by the good opinion or the bad opinion of the people around me, maybe even people that aren't around me, just randos on the Internet. That's a trap. We fall into pretty Easily nowadays. Right? Number four, I am separate from others. The ego says, I am my. I am a single autonomous being. I am not you. My feelings are mine. Your shit is yours, my shit is mine. And we are separate. I'm in competition from others. When other people succeed, there's less for me because we're separate. When other people have or experience something that I don't want, I am going to go far away because I don't want to be part of that because we're separate. Number five, I am separate from what I lack. The ego says if there's something that I want and I don't have it, I am separate for it. Therefore my separation from it defines me. Can you relate to this? For me, this really is noticeable when. Here's an example. I grew up in this little city that exploded with growth when I was a young teenager and we were in the quote unquote poor part of town. And a lot of wealthy families moved in around us and built really beautiful homes. And. And I always felt like I was less because my family didn't have a lot of money. I mean, we lived a fine life, but we didn't have the abundance, the excess, the financial resources that a lot of homes and families around us had. And I felt like my lack of that was part of who I was. I let it define me. Number six, I am separate from God. The ego says God is far away. God is. I am unworthy of God. God is someone or something that eludes me. I must prove my worth so that I can be worthy of God. God is a third party arbitrator that dishes out or withholds blessings at will. And therefore, because I'm separate from God, I must strive and toil and prove myself in order to become closer to God. Because I'm separate from God. Do you want a summary of them? Number one, I am what I have. Number two, I am what I do. Number three, I am what others think of me. Number four, I am separate from others. Number five, I am separate from what I lack. And number six, I am separate from God. Woof. Does all of that just. I mean, that is. That's some heavy stuff. And do you see where maybe you've allowed your ego that those six identifiers of the ego to run your mind, to run your thought processes, to run your life. Even for me, I realized that basically everything that I grew up with, believing in my religious background related to one of those six things. And it was very interesting to me to become aware of those things because just the Awareness lifted burden, great burden from my shoulders. And all of a sudden that was the beginning of my journey of not needing to prove my worth. A lot of times, I mean, most, most religions, most spiritual lines of thinking say you are of worth, period. Your worth is infinite. But then they tie in all this bullshit that says that teaches those six points. Your separation from God, your separation from other people, your need to prove your worth, your need to collect the truth, your need to do certain things so that you can become worthy. And it's very ironic. And, and when I became aware of how I was allowing myself to live this identity that wasn't who I really was, all of a sudden layers of misidentity started to fall off and I started to discover who I really was. I started to feel the essence of my real being. I started to feel what God is for me, and I started to feel what my power really is. And for me, ah, this is just such a beautiful point in a spiritual journey because, well, if you've ever read the book the A New Earth, A New Earth by Eckhart Tolle, he also talks about the ego, and he asks this question. He says, once you understand what the ego is, once you understand the false identity that is your pain, or the way that your mind takes control with dysfunctional, irrational thoughts and beliefs. Once you strip away everything that you aren't, what's left? What's left is what you actually are. So you take those six false identifiers that so many of us walk around this planet thinking and living all the time. If you strip those away, what's left, who you really are, is beneath that. Now, I love this term that I'm going to share with you in a moment as I've learned to deconstruct my false identity and learn different ways of thinking about source, the universe, God. I came across this term. The term is God unfolding. And it resonated with me on a deep level because, well, here's the way that the author Wayne Dyer describes it in the Power of Intention. He says, think of God in this way. There is an undercurrent beneath all existence that causes life to unfold. You can look at your fingernails, they're growing, but no one's doing it. It just does it. Your eyelashes are growing, your skin replaces itself, your heart is beating, and no one's making it happen, but it happens. An acorn falls in the woods and takes root. And over the next several decades, a hundred foot oak tree grows. And nobody did it. No action was taken, nobody did anything. But it unfolded and physics are even just scratching the surface on what the expansion of the universe really is. And we can see through telescopes, high power telescopes, that the universe is literally physically expanding. And we, we understand that the universe is expanding. And in a spiritual context, we say life is always unfolding, things are expanding. And for me, I love using the term God unfolding to explain that expansion, that inevitable growth. You look at the evolution of humanity and this really, for me, when we look at social situations in humanity's history, this really for me is proof of God unfolding. And just so you know, when I say God unfolding, I mean this is everything. Like there is not a physical particle on this planet in this universe that isn't part of God unfolding you. You're this little blob of cells and, and substances that make up your body and the consciousness within you. You are God unfolding. And when you look at social circumstances and it's incredible to see where we've come. I mean, thousands of years ago we had practices that are not socially acceptable today. And hundreds of years ago or even decades ago, we've seen practices fall to the wayside. And it's taken a lot of efforting, has gone into creating a lot of this change. I'm talking about like the end of slavery, the evolution of voting rights and women's rights, gender equality, all of that. And I always say that those, the progress actually happens in spite of our own resistance. I don't think it's ever because of our efforting. I think it's because life causes you to know what you want and what you don't want. When you know what you don't want, you know more of what you do want. And the creative process really is this. So you experience some contrast, you as an expression of God, an expression of the universe. I don't even like to say an extension because that makes it sound like you're separate and you're not. You're an expression of it all. Life causes you, the an expression of the universe, to know what you don't want and to know more of what you do want. And because you are the universe, the improvement, the answers to your questions, the improvement to the less desired circumstances or the unwanted circumstances, it exists simultaneously. It's birthed from the contrast. And so that's why so many world spiritual texts say ask and it is given, because you ask. And it's not ask and go prove yourself worthy or ask and go do a bunch of shit to make it happen. It's ask and it is given, they happen basically simultaneously. And the creative process is that, that's it. You don't even have to do anything. You don't have to write down your intentions for it to happen. I mean, all the things that you want, you. You live some life where you didn't have enough money and boom, you launched desires, you launched intention, even subconsciously that allowed you to become the creator of more abundance. And so that abundance, it's already been created energetically. And then people say, well, I want to create, not just energetically, I want to create stuff physically. Like I want money in my bank account, I want the perfect spouse in my or partner in my life, in my home, in my bed. I want, I want like the real relationships. I don't just want it energetically. And that's really what manifestation is about. It's about allowing yourself to be an energetic match to what you created already energetically. And when you're a match, that's when stuff materializes physically. So I just gave you a lot of stuff. Are you tracking me so far? Hopefully you don't have this episode on like 1.5 or 2x speed on your player because you may have missed some of that. So I love this idea that God is unfolding. The universe is unfolding and you can go into nature and you can literally see it. And I love this phrase from the Tao Te Ching. It says, God does nothing and leaves nothing undone, which is just one of the coolest concepts. And so contrary to how we as humans frequently try to exercise our will power and our effort to make stuff happen, to create our lives, but with a lot of determination and with our knuckles white and our fists gripped. And that's not really how God works. God does nothing and leaves nothing undone. Just like that acorn falling in the forest and growing into a majestic hundred foot oak tree. No one did it and yet it was done. One of the most beautiful paradoxes. And so that leads us to what I like to call the great paradox of existence. You may be familiar with the law of entropy, which says that by nature things are always deteriorating. And you can look at. I actually just bought some incredible artwork at the Utah Arts Festival two weeks ago. There's this photographer and I wish I would have grabbed his name before I started the recording here. He got a special permit from the Ukrainian government and he went into Chernobyl in a hazmat suit with a special guy and photographed just some incredible sights. I mean, haunting scenes. And the photography that I bought, it's hanging in frames right now. In my living room, he photographed pianos that were just deteriorating. The keys are falling apart. I mean, and it's haunting and also just so beautiful. But it's an example of the law of entropy. It's been decades now since the incident of Chernobyl and, and things are deteriorating, things are decaying because they're not being kept up by people and just by nature. Things break down. But somehow the earth is flourishing. Somehow life is still unfolding in the most incredible ways. And so you might look at a tree that's fell and now dead in the forest. And per the law of entropy, it's deteriorating, it's breaking down, it's biodegrading, and still the forest itself is flourishing, is unfolding. And even the way that that dead tree in the forest is breaking down, its nutrients going back into the soil, its particles becoming food for other creatures that start breaking it down and eating it up and benefiting nutritionally from the substance of that fell tree, I mean, that it's all the universe unfolding, it's the cycle of life. But it's not even just the cycle of life. It's, it's the expansion of life. Is that not so incredible? And the reason why I like to call that the great paradox of existence is because the law of entropy tells us that stuff is breaking down, stuff goes to pot, right? And somehow, per the, this incredible undercurrent of well being that is the universe, the world that we live in is still unfolding and life is renewing itself continually and expanding, consciousness is expanding. I mean, the human condition just gets better and better and better. Even with all the stuff that we don't like to see on the news, with wars and contentions and social injustice and different things that we're aware of that need improvement. Even with all of that happening, the human condition today is drastically better than what it was 50 years ago, 100 years ago, 1,000 years ago. True or not true? Definitely true, Without a doubt true. We are, we live in. Even with all the contention happening in the world now, statistically speaking, we live in the most peaceful era of. Peaceful era of our, of human existence, basically, which is pretty neat. And it's just an on we go into the future. And that doesn't mean that we don't want to improve things. The improvement is birthed from the contrast. So all those things that we see on the news, we are the creators of improvement. And we will be creating continually a better and better world. Which just gets me so, so excited now I've said a term here in this episode that I'm not sure if you caught, but I said well being. And I want to explain that because for me, well being is really the undercurrent of our existence. It's the well. Being is what allows existence to unfold and to continually improve, even with the presence of something like entropy, where we would expect stuff to decay without intervention from somebody doing something. And when we say, well being is always flowing, that's really an easy thing to say with words, but without necessarily feeling it. Just like when we say God loves me no matter what, do you actually feel loved all the time? Or you say like, you know, in our family we love each other, but do you. Do you feel love all the time? Probably not. It's really easy to disconnect from love, that is. And when I say, well, being is always flowing, you could substitute that with many words. Love is always flowing. God is always flowing through you. And to me, that's kind of all the same thing. I want you for just a moment, to pause where you are, close your eyes, take a slow, deep breath, and I want you to think about a moment when you sensed true well being. Maybe it was that moment where if you're a parent, you held your newborn baby for the first time and you just were connected to love. Or maybe it was a moment where you had experienced a great loss or a tragic event in your life and somebody just came to you in unending compassion and just gifted you that connection, that love that you needed in that moment and you were connected to it. And it's not even that someone gifted it to you. It's that the circumstances were just right to where you allowed yourself to connect to that love that was always there. But so oftentimes we think ways and do things that create disconnect from it, but it's always there. And that's why I love to look at nature as an example of proof that well being is always flowing. One of my favorite things to do is to cycle up the canyon. There's several canyons right nearby where I live here in Salt Lake City. And I love just cycling out of my home up, up the street, and I go up City Creek Canyon or Big Cottonwood Canyon. These areas were just. They're just rich with beauty, beautiful pine trees, and they all have a river because they're a canyon. And I love cycling up the river and just feeling that fresh air that is a little bit cooler because of the presence of water and watching this flow of water. And I'm always. My brain is just Confounded frequently by how much water can flow continually. And sometimes I'll even get to a higher point of the mountain where I can see what looks like the start of a waterfall. And I think that's like almost at the top of the mountain. Where is the water coming from? It just blows me away. But why I really like watching the river is because it just flows and it reminds me of how well being is constantly flowing through every cell of my physical body, through every aspect of my life. And I like this reminder because it reminds me that the only places where life is quote unquote difficult or hard or challenging are areas where I introduce resistance through the way that I show up as a conscious being, through my thoughts. And the areas of my life where I don't put a lot of resistance into the mix. Those are the areas where things just are peachy, things just happen so nicely. I had this moment a few years ago where I was, I had my first six figure year and I remember when I was thinking about how I've been studying manifestation principles, law of attraction, the idea of the universe, the great loving universe, the flow of well being, and I'm a pretty self aware person and I had this thought where I said to myself, geez, I know how much resistant thought I still put into the mix, how much resistant thought I still have on a regular day to day basis. And in spite of that well being is so great, it flows so generously, so infinitely, so abundantly that in spite of my own resistant thought, it's still able to just seep right through the cracks of all that resistance. And I still get to be the receiver of so much abundance. And then I had that thought again when I had my first seven figure business year and, and thought the same thing, I thought okay, I still feel like I have so many self disempowering thoughts and in spite of those, I know when I have really flowy, inspired in alignment thoughts. And just those that little bit is still enough to connect to the wellbeing of the universe, to where I'm able to be the experiencer, the enjoyer of so much well being. And I bet that you could look at your life and that you could see many areas where well being is flowing pretty effortlessly. And sometimes we forget about those because we like to focus on the areas where well being is not flowing. And then we think okay, I've got to do something about this, I've got to fix this, I don't like this, but really if you could focus on those areas where well being is flowing where you're allowing God to just unfold, unfold through you, through the beautiful life that you're living. If you could tune into what that feels like, well, that's the same energy that you want to be bring to the areas that are more challenging. Interesting, right? So I like to remind myself that well being is always flowing and that the expression of the universe, that I am an expression of the universe and everything is. You are an expression of the universe and the expansion of the universe happens through you. You are the creator. And for me, this whole conversation, it really is a sacred conversation. I feel the sense of deep reverence when I talk about this because as an entrepreneur, I like all the fun, measurable things that entrepreneurs get to do. I like launching a new course and having a sales goal. I like seeing if we can hit new sales numbers this month, this quarter, this year in my businesses. I like launching new businesses. I love seeing 10,000 new people land on my email list. I mean, I love all of that. But beneath it all, what's it all for? It's because you are here to create meaning, because you are here as an expression of this incredible universe where improvement is inevitable, where goodness is unfolding. And the more that you can tap into an internal sense of that, that's how you find your creative power. So whatever business you're in as an entrepreneur, I mean kudos to you. So cool and beneath why you think you're there for that business. And I can tell you all the reasons why I frequently think I'm in my business. I mean, I love achievement. I love checking off checkboxes. I like recognition. I really like recognition. I like to be on the stage. I like to be in the spotlight. I like to be a voice for good. I like to be a person of high impact. I love when people tell me they've received benefit from the content I've produced, the things that I've done as an entrepreneur. But beneath that, in my moments of stillness, in my moments of really connecting to the whole of who I really am, really connecting to what that endless stream of well being feels like. Those are the moments where, when I sense I don't think that I'm a creator, I sense my existence as a creator. And conveniently, those are the moments when I know I am in my most creative space, when I am really connected to my true power as the creator of my life, as the creator of my reality. And those are the moments when I'm able to create the most good, where I'm able to have the best ideas connect to connect with me. I rendezvous with the best people, the best relationships, the best connections, the things that are perfect for the next moment. And when my creations produce the most value for the people in the world around me, that's when it's the most fun. So, my friend, you are the creator of your reality. Creation is truly beyond the ego. Those six things that we defined early on. You're not here to collect a bunch of stuff to impress people. You're not here to just to do things to become worthy or do things to prove your your value to God or other people, the world around you. Creation, real creation, is beyond the ego. It's beyond perceivable action. It truly happens at a soul level, at an energetic level. And inspired action really is the fun byproduct of when you're in this creative process. When you're not in this creative inspired process, that's when you have to really work hard and struggle. But when you tap into that flow of well being and meditation, mindfulness, it's really, there are so many good tools to do that. That's when you get to enjoy the fun byproduct of inspired action. The universe, my friend, has your back because it is you. And when you sense this internally independent of what is externally perceivable, you will find your power to create and you'll realize its unfolding has been inevitable the whole time. If you found something valuable from this episode. Thank you for joining me. Please do me a favor, hop into the reviews on Apple Podcasts or whatever podcast platform you're using. Give us a five star review. That's how we are able to spread the word, keep producing more content like this for you and other conscious creators like you. Thank you so much for being here with me. I appreciate that and I will see you on the next episode. Bye for now. Sam.