The Eternal Question
The Eternal Question – Is there any Purpose to Life?
At one time or another everyone has asked this question, and very few people have had a satisfactory answer. We continually seek understanding and feel the need to know where we came from and what we are doing here on Earth; but although we talk with others and use our reason and intellect, the outcome is always the same. However, our purpose and reason for being here can only be known through inner experience and understanding.
This involves the understanding of what we are and what we are not. When looking at the stock answers given by the different religions, by gurus, secret societies and other experts, their answers are all based on mythical heavens, and the eternal soul that provides greater happiness after death, and confirm that the suffering experienced here on earth is a trial to prove us worthy of attaining everlasting happiness.
The modern approach to life involves handing our personal responsibility over to external authorities which claim that we don’t have to be concerned any longer about our life because they will do everything needed to protect and look after our welfare. So the religions look after our after life; the government looks after all our social needs; and science will protect us from the environment; from disease; from economic downturns; and from being invaded by other countries, and so on. This leaves us in a helpless position with no personal freedom.
By doing this we never take any responsibility for our own actions, always blaming the authorities for their incompetence. What we need to realize is that everything that happens in our life is our own fault, and when we recognize this we have to make a change in our consciousness and accept responsibility and withdraw our dependence on outside authority. This is the first step we have to make which will lead to a greater understanding of what we are and what is our purpose, here and now.
Next we need to see that we developed all our thoughts, attitudes and emotions around our body, and we believe that our body and personality constitute our self, which reflects our conscious existence here in the world.
But what we don’t realize is that we have a mind which is our Ego, which is responsible for all the impressions that are conveyed through our senses to the brain and are acted on by our mind. Through these impressions we inwardly develop ideas and ideals that promote thoughts about these ideas and ideals, and when we accept the thought, we desire it to materialize in our world. Over the years we have generated thousands of such thoughts which control the way we think and behave. For instance, when we are confronted with a problem we instantly retrieve several thoughts from the memories stored in our brain, and utilize that information to rectify the problem. However, this is not always the answer, and we find that we enlarge the problem and begin to become agitated and confused; and as the outer authorities have no solution to our problem, therefore we become insecure, and suffer. If you take this further you will see how everything you do and experience in this world is caused by the lack of true knowledge and that you base everything on the limited sensual knowledge in the world. It’s no wonder then that the world is in such a pitiful, violent state.
Now, reading this, you are in a position to know that you cannot find the answer to your life because your life is based on an Illusional state around a body that is not you. To realize your purpose in life is to find out what you really are, and that cannot be found in the world but within your inner consciousness. Did not Jesus say that the Kingdom of Heaven is within you? Not in some fanciful state which exists in an unknown dimension that is only accessible following your body’s death?
An understanding of what constitutes your real state of Being can only be known by your personal effort when following the correct way through experience. No one can teach you to find your true being; it cannot be found following rituals or dogma, or having a personal teacher or guru. Only you can become aware of your true nature and know the true purpose of your existence. You are the answer to your question.
But you need to be shown the steps needed to reach this inner state of being, and that can only be understood by seeing what others have done, and this requires a change of mind that involves thinking in a new way and not relying on the same old memories that fill your mind now. If you have placed all these thoughts, over the years, in your memory, then you have to replace those thoughts with new thoughts based on knowledge from beyond this Illusional world and body.
To help you understand what we have been writing here, we will reproduce the experience that Jon Whistler related in his book ‘One Light’:
‘Into the vortex, I plunged. Into the deep, unutterable wonder, I danced and flew with radiant Beings of Light – the Elemental Beings who plunge into the heart of the glorious Earth and ride the rainbows into rock and flower and every living creature, to work their magic of integrity and renewal.
‘It was glorious and selfless – a radiant decent of love, which I too experienced in my ecstasy.
‘I reveled in the Moving Spirit of Being or Nature. Everything flowed in me, I was Being. I experienced the livingness of the trees, or the Standing People, as the American Indians so fitly call them. I poured through the holes of the Earth and entered its crystal heart. I felt the Earth Mother’s currents, energies, as a magnet tingling in my spine, (even while I seemed to float apart from the body at this time) I felt as if I was a huge tree – an ancient Redwood maybe – as up my spine – whoosh! The flow of life energy poured. And shot out through the branches of my skull, until my body seemed alive with wonderful fire. A flower blossomed in my heart, and one deep inside the center of my head. They poured their power upwards like a fountain, and I poured with it. It was the fireworks display of all time!
‘Then up and out again. The eyes of my consciousness belonged to the Sun. Was I Zadore? I dwelt in the Sun, but was not the Sun. I passed the Sun’s portal through me, as if I was the Gateway it shined through, and which channeled its Being with mine to a greater Source.
‘And while in the Sun I saw the sorrowing of the Light as it was separated from the lower dimensions in the Illusion. Into the Illusion I plunged, falling deeper and deeper fearing that I would be lost. But of course, I could not be lost, as I was seeing ALL and being ALL, in my awakened state.
‘But I felt the pain – knowing the agony of separation – yet I knew also that it had its purpose. I felt the frailty of this human dilemma that the Illusion’s existence rested on a precarious point of balance, which relied upon the human consciousness only turning itself in one direction. The Illusion is a House of Cards that, with the right impulse from us all, could topple and disappear. If only we could turn our faces from the parody of life, then all pain would cease to exist.
‘Oh, suffering world – my heart cried for it. Oh fatuous Ego – frail yet loved by the power of the eons of assumption and fighting for a separation that only caused it pain, when all it needed was to surrender itself in unconditional love to its Source.
‘Then briefly did I view the ghastly scepter of an evil which had no substance…’
And freedom and oneness are the final attainment when, later, Whistler faced the greater demon within his Illusional consciousness. He then outlined the way to Oneness in Being in his book.