Author Archives: grnthei

What Is the Meaning of Life? – Revisited

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Updated July 9, 2021

When I was younger, I would ask this question whenever anyone, even a tour guide in a museum, asked me if I had any more questions.

The greatest thing you'll ever learn

Internally, it’s the question I asked myself multiple times a day all my life until I felt sure of the answer, which occurred sometime in my 30s.

The underlying question is “What is the meaning of ‘meaning’ in this context?”

The intent of the question is to understand what life is, what its purpose is (if any), what the universe is, what its purpose is (if any), why we are here, who we are, how we are to behave, what our relation is to one another, is there a God, and why are we compelled to consider any of this as relevant or meaningful to the second-to-second management of our personal business of existence.

One alternative to asking and answering this question to one’s own satisfaction is to go about life happily without caring about the question (which could be a Zen-like answer in itself, essentially filing the question away into the “Overthinking” file). Another alternative is to consider life meaningless, which many existentialists did in the last century.

Other than an intuition I had at age 12 that “I am God and so is everyone else”, which I tucked away as an interesting but unexplained aberration, the meaninglessness of life was my own position for the first 30-odd years of life. Around age 20, as I studied philosophy, I put reasoning around this earlier intuition, deciding that one took positions like this based solely on aesthetic preference, since knowability of the answer to What Is the Meaning of Life? was apparently beyond our scope.

In my 30s I had some unusual experiences that also reminded me of similar experiences in my childhood, at which point I felt as I do now — a very strong conviction that I actually know the answer.

The way I see it, all that exists is a single consciousness of such great computing power as to know everything that goes on within itself instantaneously at all times (though God or the One Self is above time). Since we don’t share this omniscience, God gets to play our roles with more drama and excitement. So the meaning of life must be to realize and enjoy this game as our true Original Self does, and thereby re-merge into the Original Consciousness.

I talk about this theory more in my book You Are The Universe: Imagine That.

From a practical standpoint, life becomes most meaningful for us to the extent that we realize our own unique gifts; we love doing the things inspired by those talents; we develop a life plan around sharing these things with others, and then we go forward with that plan without being attached to the outcome.

We then have a Purpose, a Mission, which satisfies the thinking mind of our own meaningfulness. Just as I go into meetings with awareness of my preferred outcomes, I set them aside at the last minute so I can go with the meeting flow, taking the standpoint of simply trying to help out everyone else in the meeting as best I can. Pragmatically and empirically, this appears to work best in balancing out the complexities of life as well.

So “What is the meaning of Life?” Enjoying it, loving it, loving all, and helping others to do the same.

“The greatest thing
You’ll ever learn
Is just to love
And be loved
In return.”
— “Nature Boy”, by Nat King Cole

Pragmatically, one’s philosophy of life – i.e., one’s values – will tend to lead to the most rewarding outcomes, to the degree that it does not contain seeds of negativity. For example, if our worldview includes the tendency to sit in judgment of other people, this will create situations of unhappiness for ourselves in the long run. This realization is why Jesus said “Judge not, lest ye be judged”.

The founders of the great religions were, at minimum, seers, visionaries, who grasped the way things work in life, and shared these observations to help others.

The Perennial Philosophy is the synthesis of all this wisdom.

Game Theory leads one to recognize that in the game of life, one is always making bets. If one is betting that the universe is benevolent not accidental, one will live a happier, more fulfilling life. Pragmatically, that is the bet to make, according to Game Theory, whether or not the universe is an accident in reality.

At this time of great crisis in the world, what we all really need the most is the spirit of cooperation and sharing.

Ideologies we have become attached to, groups we have become identified with down to the core of our being, the deification of competition as a perfect Good, the Marxist dialectical materialist love affair with contradiction, mindless devotion to an authoritarian leader, lazy subscription to ideas of others rather than one’s own contemplation of personal empirical experience, are baggage which must be left behind in a deep mind cleanse and reset that is open to new learning from attentive worldly experience, the scientific method applied to life, rising up above the pettiness of one’s own robotical negativity to embrace higher states of being which come with pure unclouded observation as if seeing everything for the first time.

I propose that if you are not yet in that state, to allow it a try. If we all do it starting now, events will unfold that will take us away from the spiral of doom now seemingly at our doorstep.

Love,

Bill

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Seeing the Miracles in Life

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Updated November 25, 2020

Be grateful for all the miracles in your life.

Isn’t it wonderful that we set aside a national holiday just for giving thanks?

And we have SO much to be thankful for. The Center Held. America came to its senses. The election is finally over. Half of us are unhappy with its outcome, but we are on the road to recovery now on every front and we shall overcome. It’s a Miracle! The miracle we call “the American system”, once again showing that it is forever working, we just had to give it time.

Prayer works.

Interparty and sub-party differences will go on probably forever but not with the same degree of lethality.  As we cooperate together more and more now, those old habits of respect and civility will return, like getting back on a bicycle after all those years. Aisles will be crossed. The good deeds of rivals will be graciously acknowledged with gallant chivalry as the standards were set by the inspired Founders and by the wise Abe Lincoln.

Sometimes the miracles in our lives are more obvious than at other times. While the world is always miraculous, sometimes we see the miracle and sometimes we don’t.

Babies, kittens, flowers, stars, the moon, the ocean, mountains, trees, falling in love together, family, friendships — these are among the more obvious miracles.

We’re often unaware of the improbability of certain events that occur in our lives. Not being statisticians, we don’t realize how long the odds are of these events happening and we just go along, taking it all for granted, feeling that if it is happening it can’t be miraculous, it must all be mundane.

By tuning out our appreciation for experiencing all that is life, we may be radiating very little gratitude for all of the miracles in our lives. The Universe may respond by turning the dial on the lesson machine so that it bumps us a bit more roughly to get our attention, since we seem to be missing the polite subtle hints.

How can we feel gratitude at times that are trying us to the breaking point? By comparing the situation to one even worse. What if we had never existed at all? The Universe has created us, we are alive — is this not justification for gratitude?

All mystery schools and religions teach acquiescence, trust and gratitude as three sides to the same coin — the acceptance of what is. In Islam, it is called the Will of Allah. In Taoism it is called getting into the rhythm of the Tao, linking into the underlying force of the universe. The word religion itself comes from the Latin religare, meaning to link up. The word yoga comes from the Sanskrit, meaning to yoke up, like yoking an ox to a cart.

Let’s all practice replacing negative emotion with positive emotion — which means remembering what we have to be grateful for and what we have to look forward to and be excited about. There may be challenging (even heartbreaking) trials ahead but we need to welcome them as opportunities to show what we’re really made of and how we can rise to the challenges individually and together.

If you don’t already do this every day, take some time to count your blessings. Happy Thanksgiving!

[dropshadowbox align=”center” effect=”lifted-both” width=”85%” height=”” background_color=”#fbe695″ border_width=”1″ border_color=”#a92525″ inside_shadow=”false” ]Wishing you much personal experiencing of the miracle you
are in, and much personal experiencing of the miracle you are.


Grateful written by John Bucchino, performed
by Ann Hampton Callaway and John Bucchino.

[/dropshadowbox]


Gratefully,

Bill

Follow my regular media blog, In Terms of ROI at Media Village. Here is the link to my latest post.

We can each make a difference

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Updated September 11, 2020

It’s 9/11. The 19th anniversary of that awful event. A salute then to the heroes of 911, New York’s cops and firemen and citizens who gave all, the honored dead and their families, the military and intelligence people who found and gave his fair due to the prime perpetrator of it all. How could there be terrorists capable of such demonic acts? How could hate and ignorance stir up such horrors?

Unfortunately we are seeing small samples of what may be the same roots springing up here in the land of the free. When a person is frustrated, and wants to do something, anything, to get even with forces that have limited him or her and their loved ones, they think of themselves as heroes and of their acts as justified by their intended end states.

The uneven distribution of wealth is certainly one of the causes because it justifies the spite and envy and ruthlessness, the refusal to compromise or admit any point to one who tries to reason with them. People want more than money, they also want respect, appreciation, and a place in the world they can feel good about. How can we as individuals do anything about this enormous precipice over which the human herd is rushing?

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

In the year 2000, every member state of the United Nations agreed to wipe out extreme poverty in the world by 2015 through implementation of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), which were inspired by the ideas of economist Jeffrey Sachs. The final MDG Report found that the 15-year effort has produced the most successful anti-poverty movement in history, though there is still work to be done.

There is evidence that the resources of the planet, properly stewarded, are more than enough to make everybody’s quality of life quite acceptable in terms of the basics. The fact that we have been squandering some or all of those resources of course creates a potential shortfall for some. But these are human actions and theoretically under our control.

In September 2015 global leaders met and finalized the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to continue the work to end poverty. Although many had valid issues and concerns about the UN, this organization is our greatest hope for a global communication strategy. The only way to bring everybody to the table for the highest possible good is an environment where every member state feels it has an equal voice.

Click here to read about the latest SDG report from the United Nations.

Let’s look at our own engagement with the world. For the highest most far-reaching results, I recommend we employ the concept of engaging relationships, where we all look at every relationship as an opportunity, whether we are enjoying it at the moment or not. We accept each relationship as a given, making the best of it that we can — drawing upon the wellsprings of unfamiliar creativity patterns in doing so, and pulling out all the stops. This creates the environment for making maximum improvements, optimizing all the issues together.

If not distorted by negative assumptions, we would realize how incredibly promising this could be for each and every one of us.  To do so on any scale, we’d have to decide to appreciate differences and challenges. We’d need to stop demonizing others and accept who he or she is, seeing that difficult relationships are a fine learning stimulus, and finding places in ourselves where we can make excellently productive fine tunings.

Let’s focus this week on seizing the day with all our relationships. Let’s remember to include the one we have with our self — which deserves some time allocation — and the relationship we have with the postulated One Self that is the Universe (or God, if you like), in which we are an aspect and the Whole at the same time. Each moment, let’s leave open at least the possibility that the Whole is aware of us.

We can each make a difference. With the critical mass of all of us changing our actions, we can make the 180-degree course changes that we all deep down inside want the planet to make.

We can start with engaging relationships, be mindful of our resources and our actions, and see how the ripples in the pond will spread to the ends of the Earth.

A song for today.

Best to all,

Bill

Follow my regular media blog contribution, In Terms of ROI at Media Village. Click here to read my latest post.

Getting to Flow by Living in the Moment

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Updated September 4, 2020

                                  

My first experiences of Flow state were at the Brickman Resort when as a young child my parents, Ned and Sandy, put me onstage. The height of stage fright got my attention. I was pulled out of my mind by the sheer challenge of dealing with it. I had no time to dawdle or stay in my head. This seemed as close to a life-threatening experience as I could imagine, although I did not have the time or ability (as a child) to put it into those words. I couldn’t even distract myself by paying attention to my fear! I was totally absorbed in handling the immense challenge of the moment.

This and other experiences when I was young made me keenly aware of the existence of Flow, although I had no name for it then and didn’t think about it consciously. I also noticed there were other incidents in which I was more like Hamlet, overthinking a problem while the time to move had long since passed. Continue reading →