The search for the meaning of life was brought home to me in an alarmingly personal way on September 11, 2001. The day a terrorist strike made thousands of people pass away in a pointless act of
brutality. My partner Jo arrived home that day from a trip to Canada and New York on a United Airlines flight via New York. Two weeks before, she had stood on top of the World Trade Centre. Only good luck and timing saved Jo from death.
Whilst Jo was not here, I had been considering a change of consciousness that occurred for me many years ago. After several years of self-discovery, study and testing, I woke one morning with the recognition that my awareness was very different than normal on arousing…thought was absent and there was a sense of quietness and serenity. This lasted about 2 hours. Since that astonishing
occurrence, this peaceful state comes and goes in my life, so it seems nothing is permanent.
This also makes me see why killing any living creature, when one has a choice, is immoral. Thought makes us think that we are somehow superior to other animals. Take thought out of the equation and it is a different story!
However, I was still troubled by the problem posed in the title of this article. I feel a million times better about life and the world, but is that it? Do I bliss out for the rest of my life devoid of thought for the morrow? Can I understand what happened to my brain and can it be duplicated by others?
I considered this for weeks until the insights started flowing. Here they are in no precise order of significance:
Nine Insights On What a Change Of Consciousness Means
1. The main value is life itself, concern for all living creatures of all forms. If we value thoughts more than life, then we destroy others because of their different ideas, and this has been the problem with people for thousands of years.
2. For life to keep going in a fast-changing environment, it must become increasingly clever. This means it must sometimes change just to stay around.
3. Gurus who claim that consciousness is the only reality and 'things and bodies' are an illusion are making the huge blunder of looking for a answer to their mortality. These same gurus don't want to precisely circumscribe this elusive 'thing' called consciousness? For me it's simply
awareness of existing, and it is an fundamental part of my being, including my body.
4. Enlightenment for me merely means being my own light and making the most of my one chance at life in the framework of the existing world situation. It would be ridiculous and perilous to accept any one person's views on life or follow anyone else.
5. Living things are self-organizing and self-maintaining. They create order out of chaos. This is a recurrent, dynamic progression. Moments of ecstasy (or peak experiences) occur for an individual organism when 'everything is in order' i.e. food and other
central needs are gratified, for the moment. Therefore ecstasy is a product of order being maintained.
6. Evolution on Earth does not have an objective as such, other than to keep going, moment-to-moment. As situations on Earth change quickly or slowly over long periods, life has developed a pattern of mounting complexity.
7. My awareness changed to a natural consciousness because I began living from day to day on a 'NOW' basis, and I ceased putting energy into maintaining mistaken values (improving self, drive, self-importance, looking for permanent anything).
8. Human beings do not have a choice as regards whether there will be a new consciousness. The current planetary emergency will resolve itself, one way or another. So we are not in charge of our own progress although we are committed participants in the flow of life. We either harmonize with the whole of life or we self-destruct.
9. Thought is a very principal tool for creative living, but not for psychological identification, because it then creates confusion in the organism. Life, in humans cannot become less complex and go back to the state of so-called innocence or pre-thought. However, thought must be incorporated with the organism's number one value – the continuation of life.
I am ravenous and selfish for more life. Isn't everyone? That's a
immense problem too. Not to acknowledge that you want a lot more out of life than you are getting. It's called being self-centered. Everyone's greedy because it's how a living creature is wired. Let's not be hypocrites and make things worse by pretending otherwise. When we accept the truth we are free to be self-centered or considerate without feeling remorseful.
There is utterly no point in chasing after security, because there is none. Life is a
fleeting business, so go for the largest dream you can envisage, and be prepared for
disappointment, failure, shame, amusement, foolishness, learning, success and surprises galore.
This is our greatest trial in the present time and where genuine meaning and reason lie in wait for every person. Perhaps too much peace can be
boring too, if meaningful living is {absent|not
present|missing}. I finally got bored to death being 'blissed out' all the time and leaving the challenging stuff to others. Challenges are all over the place.
Gary Hipworth is a life planning consultant who believes that all people are capable of being their own life coach. For this purpose he created Superlife Life Planning Software to help you discover What is the meaning of life
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