I love this short essay by Albert Einstein. First of all, it makes me address a fundamental question about my “come from” place. I don’t know from this essay, what Einstein himself believes, but I know my answer for me is “yes.” I want to believe that is also where he stood as well.
I know the universe didn’t seem friendly when my youngest son died in an auto accident, and I had to take a really close look. I was raised with a couple of lines about God that resonate closely with this. “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” And, “All is in Divine order.”
In circumstances beyond my control, my belief that the universe is conspiring in my favor, and is a friendly place, is one of the rocks in my spiritual foundation that holds me steady in the midst of mighty winds and tidal waves of change.
Here is what Einstein writes on the subject:
“I think the most important question facing humanity is, ‘Is the universe a friendly place?’ This is the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.
“For if we decide that the universe is an unfriendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to achieve safety and power by creating bigger walls to keep out the unfriendliness and bigger weapons to destroy all that which is unfriendly and I believe that we are getting to a place where technology is powerful enough that we may either completely isolate or destroy ourselves as well in this process.
“If we decide that the universe is neither friendly nor unfriendly and that God is essentially ‘playing dice with the universe’, then we are simply victims to the random toss of the dice and our lives have no real purpose or meaning.
“But if we decide that the universe is a friendly place, then we will use our technology, our scientific discoveries and our natural resources to create tools and models for understanding that universe. Because power and safety will come through understanding its workings and its motives.”
Some of my favorite Einstein quotes…
- God does not play dice with the universe.
- Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.
- Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
- There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.
- A man should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.
- In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.
- A person who never made a mistake never tried anything new.