Saturday, July 18, 2009

Should We Take Life Seriously?

From my point of view it's not a good idea to take anything too seriously. I'm very serious about this. Consider these facts. All physical matter in the universe is made up of atoms. Atoms are 99.99% empty space. If you condense all the real matter of, say, an average kitchen table by removing all the empty space, it would be invisible to the naked eye. I read once that all the matter on the planet earth could be condensed into a basketball.

What gives objects the illusion of solidity is that the atoms that compose them are traveling very fast. They appear to be everywhere at once, like the rotors of a fan. When the rotors of a fan spin very fast they create the illusion of a solid sphere. Our entire world is an illusion created by our five senses to enable us to survive and communicate. In reality, we are living in a world of infinitesimally small objects traveling at incredible speeds. The world in which we live is in reality a creation of our minds, a construct of our consciousness.

Those that believe in a supreme being feel that our purpose is connected to whatever it is that this supreme being had in mind for us, his creation. Those that take a more scientific point of view do not attribute any grand purpose to mankind. They are not sure whether or not there is any reason for our existence other than survival and growth. Neither of these points of view is very convincing. The meaning and purpose of life (MAPOL) remains a mystery to me.

What does make sense, although it is very hard to understand the mechanism through which it operates, is that we create our own reality. Thoughts are things. Thoughts, through some unknown process, cause the reality of our world to exist. It is only because of our processing of electrical impulses and transforming them into images that matter and substance take the forms that are so familiar to us.

When you think about this, if you care to waste your time on such matters, you begin to see the world and your life a little differently. It is very encouraging to believe that you can create the life you want through transforming your thoughts into physical reality. In order to do this you need to be able to focus and visualize. You need to be able to be present in the moment and not be daydreaming about the past or future. This is why the root of all "real" spiritual traditions is meditation or prayer. These are not ways to connect to God. They are exercises that train your mind to be capable of proactively impacting your reality.

What is concerning, though, is that the world that we live in is a result of the collective thoughts or consciousness of everything that produces thought and consciousness. It might be that there are influences greater than man in this process. It may be that we have more control or less control than we imagine. We don't really know how much impact we have. We continue, though, to live our lives as if we are in soap operas taking everything that happens personally and seriously. I don't think that's such a good idea. There are much more enjoyable ways to live our lives.

1 comment:

  1. I like the thought behind this, although there is a possibility prayer is a method to communicate with God. This does however garner the opportunity to believe that God has a plan for each of us and the reality we see is collective, not individually created. Things and circumstances that appear good on the surface may indeed be present to show others things to either do or avoid. I think there is a higher intellect responsible, as you pointed at the marvel of what has been created, and it does however complicate an earthly explanation. I do believe that perseverance and hard work will get you ahead but I do concede timing and being prepared when an opportunity presents itself also have worked. I think that realizing your place in a given circumstance (being present at the moment) does have its advantages. I just don't feel that we create any matter from thought or from "thin air". It's a great thought process to examine the possibility but I can't quite grasp it. J

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