You would think after more than fifty years of pondering, yes, I started before I was ten, that I might have come up with some conclusions. And I have although they have been and remain something of a moveable feast - a work in progress - which no doubt is how it should be.
I suppose at core I have come to believe that we are spiritual beings having a material experience and the 'point of it all' is that experience. With a goodly amount of years behind one it is easier to gain perspective on one's own life and the lives of others - hindsight being a wonderful thing.
It has become clear that in many ways people are born as a unique Self and give or take some tweaking and adapting, pretty much remain that unique individual through long lifetimes. It has also become clear that some people have a greater ability to wrought change both in themselves or in their lives than do others. Which brings me to believe that in the main, as the Arabs would say, our lives are 'written.' In other words, before we come into this world, not only do we choose our family and circumstances we choose the life we will live; that being the lesson or series of lessons we need or desire.
So where does free will come in? And it does come in, it must come in, or otherwise we would be no more than automated robots, computerised programmes, mechanical beings who go through the motions and I have seen enough of life, my own and others, to find that concept not only untrue but pointless. And there does have to be a point to it all.
With free will we may not be able to change what happens to us but we can change how we respond and react to what happens to us. In other words, we choose how we will live the life we have chosen to live. Admittedly, this ability to choose will exist to greater and lesser degrees in people because we are all different, but no doubt even this factor was a part of our Soul's plan before embarking on this life. Astrology can show quite clearly who and what we are and who and what we are called to be. There is no doubt that two people having the same experiences will process them in different ways - we each live our life in our own unique way and that is the point of it all.
There is no other person who is the same of us and there never has been and never will be, so our uniqueness is eternal and stands as a sacred expression of all that is - God, cosmic intelligence, consciousness or whatever one wishes to call the power which makes this world and us manifest. We are expressions of that power; unique, sacred, wonderful,perfect expressions of that power. We are God, or god, or cosmic consciousness made manifest. We are an expression of all that is and we are one with all that is.
Consciousness is the source and form of this world and every single thing in it, you, me, a grain of sand, rock, bird, plane - you get the picture - the lot, is created from and of this consciousness. We are consciousness made manifest in a material world. We are all connected - we are all one. We are God and God is us. There is no separation.
The point of it all is that we are an expression of God, and I have to revert to that word because religious connotations aside, it reflects most accurately the intelligence at work in this world, made manifest in this world. We are co-creators and that is the purpose and meaning of our lives no matter how long, short, great or insignificant they may be. In fact, there is no long, short, great or insignificant just as there is no time - all is and always has been and the part we play in this world is as unique and as important as any other.
The point of it all is that we exist and in this material experience we grow as spiritual beings. We may not be able to change our circumstances but we can always change what we do with them and that is the wonder of it all. If we take responsibility for choosing our lives then nothing is anyone's fault - it is simply our responsibility and our gift to the process of creation.
Whether in joy or in suffering we make manifest the creative force and we can choose whether that force is sourced in fear or in love. Both are forms of connection and connection is the foundation of this universe, as even modern physics would agree, but love is the most powerful connective force and that is why this universe exists as an expression of what we call Love - in fact connectedness - because it must be founded in the most powerful connective power, not the least.
Fear exists to show us what Love is - opposites not only attract, they reveal. And perhaps too, in this material world, Fear can be our greatest teacher, leading us to live lives of Love - lives of connectedness. It is this forgetting of the truth which leads us to believe in Death and that too is a lesson for this world because in the world beyond this one (and in fact in this world) there is no real death. Energy, as even science agrees, cannot be destroyed, it can only be transformed and death, as the ancients and esoterics teach, is merely a transformation.
What makes this world different to the real world is that it is a world of matter , as well as spirit and a world where death exists. In truth, if we did not believe in death as we do, if we believed that when our physical body died we continued to live as our own unique, conscious selves, there would be no fear. And without fear we would be living a life of Love.
We would also be living a life of responsibility, as custodians and caretakers of this world and others, and ourselves, instead of a life of exploiters and manipulators; the latter being sourced in a fear of lack and separation. Believing that we continue to live beyond this world demands that we are accountable and will be held accountable. I don't mean accountable in any punitive way because I do not believe that is how the cosmos works, but we will know what we have done and how we have lived and the impact we have had on others and this world. There will not be an end of who and what we are and what we have done and been.
In such a world we will recognise that the most important thing in our lives is to find meaning and purpose and not to gain wealth or power. Not that there is anything wrong with wealth or power if those are the experiences which come to us and which we have chosen for this life. As much as anything, accepting or believing we have chosen our life gives a greater opportunity to accept that life, to be present in that life, to value that life and not to live in a future, possible life.
Meaning, or finding meaning in what we experience is an essential part of surviving as a human being as studies show. Meaningless or a sense of meaningless and lack of purpose lead to deep depression and joylessness, if not often, suicide. We need meaning to live fulfilling lives and that is why it is so important to come up with an idea of what 'the point of it all is.' It doesn't have to be the same 'point of it all' which others have reached, but there does need to be some sort of point to it all- some meaning and purpose in our existence.
The point of it all, for me anyway, is to learn to live life, no matter what it brings, with the knowledge that this is merely a brief moment where we play a part on the cosmic stage, and that when the time is right for us, the time that we have chosen, we simply exit our material body and return home.
