Do you often ponder questions that you don’t know the answer to?
Are you on the search for truth or to understand yourself on a profound level?
There are endless existential questions you could dive into at any given moment.
Our existance and the universe are a fascinating topic to wonder about.
But, it can sometimes get a little frustrating when we don’t know the answers.
Well I’m hoping this post could lend you a hand.
Because in this article, I ask 3 existential questions and share my perspective on them.
Are my conclusions 100% true or for everyone? No, of course not.
But they are truths that I have come to realise for myself by connecting a multitude of information to form a framework in my mind that presents a knowing beyond beliefs and assumptions.
Maybe one day, I’ll be able to present these connections for the world to see what I see.
Although I know many of you will resonate deeply with my words on this page.
Until then, I’ll keep pondering and sharing what I find.
Enjoy.
Table of Contents
1. What’s the Meaning of Life?
To grow and expand ourselves.
We all want expansion, even if we arent aware of it.
Coming from someone who spent 28 years in a constricted state of fear, depression, and anxiety, I knew there was something more to life.
Two Perspectives of Meaning
Yes, we can say that the meaning of life is what each of us define it as subjectively, but is there a fundamental meaning that we can all agree on?
Thats why I see meaning from two perspectives:
- Subjective meaning (different for all)
- Objective meaning (true for all)
Subjective meaning is two people looking outside a window and seeing different things. One sees a beautiful rainbow and the other sees drizzly clouds.
This happens because of something called the Reticular Activating System or RAS for short. It’s a way for our brain to filter out things that it deems unimportant.
Each of our minds RAS differs greatly depending on our beliefs and self-image.
The way we see ourselves greatly affects how we see the world.
If someone dislikes themself and they take dark clouds as a reflection of their own self worth, seeing dark clouds could be a signpost of what’s to come – more depressing weather, which could symbolise what’s going on in their inner world.
Hence noticing the clouds and not the beautiful rainbow.
Objective meaning on the other hand is the foundations of a base reality.
What is the fundmental principle in life before the human mind has time to postulate a hypothesis?
Well, obviously this is hard to quantify as the only answers we can conclude will come from the human mind.
But what we can do is gather opinions from thousands (or millions) of people who all conclude the same thing.
This is why I love spirituality.
Because those of us who have experienced an awakening (lifting the vail of subjective reality), see past the illusions of what most of us thought was real prior to the awakening.
In my own experience, all I witnessed was pure unfiltered love. I activated my higher Self (or soul), and experienced the universe as one consciousness.
An unattachment from everything we experience except and only consciousness itself.
This has been the case for thousands of people who have gone through a spiritual awakening.
They reach a higher state of mind that reveals a deep knowing of their true nature, pure consciousness.
“We are not human beings having a spiritual experience; we are spiritual beings having a human experience.”
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
Many celebrities have shared their experience of this devine truth.
Here’s Jim Carrey explaining his own awakeing:
Of course, no one can really tell you what the meaning of life is or convince you that you are consciousness incarnated in human form, not I, not Jim Carry, only you from your own experience.
As Morpheus says to Neo in the movie The Matrix- “I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it.”
So if base reality is consciousness and human beings are an extension of it, we are here to have an experience. It is our souls purpose or desire to be here in human form to experience this physical reality.
And it is the one consciousness that has set everything in motion for it to be expressed by us.
2. What’s Your Purpose in Life?
This question aluded me for years, causing much turmoil in my life.
Today, the answer is more apparent than ever.
Everyone’s purpose in life is the same – to find their purpose.
Now, each persons purpose might be different, but a common theme we experience is, without purpose, we get lost.
Purpose can be becoming a mother or father, finding true love, serving others as a therapist, life coach, nurse or doctor, starting and growing a business, becoming an olympic athlete, or simple being a good friend or helpful neighbour.
These are all very different but they have one thing in common, a level of selflessness or a sense of overcoming oneself to achieve something greater that goes beyond self interest.
You may argue that being a helpful neighbour or becoming a gold medalist doesn’t fall under the selfless category, as these things will certainly make anyone feel good about themselves.
That can be said about everything we do in life, no matter how selfless we are.
There is always a level of self-interest in things we do, because anything good we do, give us a sense of pride in ourselves.
Which is a good thing!
But the difference between being self serving their whole life and dedicating their life to their purpose, is that it requires a shift in consciousness.
Many people spend their whole lives feeling a sense of despair because they live life in limbo, stuck somewhere between contentment and uncovering their true calling.
They know there’s something they want to fulfil in life, but they neglect to realise is has nothing to do with themselves and everything to do with overcoming themselves.
In the pursuit of serving others, entertaining others, inspiring others, or simply thinking of others, we shift our focus from being the center of the universe to being the cause of something bigger.
One thing is for sure and that is when you have found your purpose in life, you will know it and you will feel a great sense of duty and fulfilment in pursuing it.
3. What is Happiness?
If pursuing our purpose brings us fulfilment, what brings us happiness?
Is happiness something we attain or something we choose to be.
I much prefer the later because it means I can be happy now without placing happiness on conditions or somewhere I need to get to in the future.
As long as we place our happiness outside of ourselves, we miss the opportunity to feel satisfied and at peace with life, right now.
A mentor of mine recently told me a quote that I found extremely powerful, and it’s this:
“Today is a good day to die.”
We say we’re happy, but until we can say the above quote and be at peace with it, we aren’t truly happy.
In the past I struggled with “Cherophobia“, or the fear of being happy. I believed so deeply that I wasn’t deserving of happiness that I thought it would be taken away from me as soon as I achieved it.
This went on for so long, it manifested into catastrophic thoughts of death if I ever achieved such happiness.
Now I understand that any presence of fear or unworthiness prevents us from experiencing true unconditional happiness.
I know this because I spent the best part of four years reprogramming my mind to let go of negitivity and fear from my subconscious.
And what did that leave me with you may ask?
It left me with a choice (and lead me to a spiritual awakening), keep placing happiness on achieving success or find happiness within.
I chose to find it within and I continue to find it everyday.
Now, could happiness simply be a collection of chemicals we create in our brain? Maybe. But when you start to look for it in the presence of your being, you’ll soon realise it was there all along.
I personally think that until we break out of our conditioning (false beliefs, attachments and broken mindsets) and recognise the nature of our mind, we’ll continue to find it hard to be fully content with how things are in this very moment.
We are supposed to enjoy the journey, be present of it’s up and downs and love every minute of it along the way.
Conclusion
I hope you liked these existential questions and my thoughts on them.
I’m sure I’ll add more in the future.
What existential questions play on your minds? I’d love to know!
Let me know in the comments.