I think it's important at life to find your own belief about what reality is. About why the universe is here... why we exist... why was there a big bang... what happens before and after we die if anything... and what's the meaning of it all?

While sometimes these questions may seem irrelevant to our daily lives (knowing the meaning of existence might not help you make that next sale at work:P) I think these questions are the most important questions we can ask while we're here. The entire way we live our lives could be completely and forever altered if the meaning for our life was different.

Of course the problem with these questions is that they are hard to answer, and may be impossible to answer with 100% accuracy. But what we can do is form beliefs that resonate with us, that feel right and that make perfect sense and are in alignment with all that we currently know about the universe and reality.

If you're a regular reader of mine you'll know I think that believing is seeing and also that your beliefs about the world will have a major impact on your perception and experience of it, so forming solid and empowering beliefs about the meaning of life or the nature of reality will definitely have an empowering impact on your life. What empowers people can be different from person to person as well. Some people may be empowered by believing that there is no meaning of life, that there is no god or afterlife, therefore freeing them to live as free of life as they choose and follow any path they want. While others may be empowered by having different beliefs about existing as a spirit after death therefore encouraging them to accomplish what they feel their purpose is during this life.

Whatever your beliefs I hope they make sense to you, feel right and also importantly make you feel good about existence.

An interesting perspective

I once heard of an interesting way to view reality by Bill Harris the founder of Centerpointe research and a speaker in the movie 'The Secret' its closely aligned with my beliefs and it makes a lot of sense to me so I'd love to share it here.

Imagine for a moment that you had the power to program your dreams at night. You could make absolutely anything happen in your dreams. You could make them last for as little or as long of time you would like. You'd experience them all as if walking around in the real world, and you can set all the rules yourself. What would you do?

I think we'd all go through a few phases if we had this power. First we'd program our dreams to allow us to act out all the interesting fantasies we have in life that we never had the chance to realize. We'd fly fighter jets (or just fly), have intimate encounters with our favorite celebrities, travel to places of the world we've never been, see what its like to eat 100 tubs of ice cream in a row, and so on.

This would be incredible fun for a long time but eventually we'd have done all we wanted to do and these experiences would lose their amazingness. It would be time to 'up' the game.

Maybe next instead of just acting out joyful fantasies we'd give ourselves some challenges... To make a game of out if. Perhaps you'd give yourself the role of a super hero with a certain mission to accomplish, or maybe you'd take an active role in one of our favorite tv shows and help them overcome a new adversity. Maybe you'd give yourself super speed and strength, a flaming samurai sword and fill new York with zombies and see how long you could survive (a personal dream I'd love to have hehe:D) The point is, instead of just experiencing joy, you'd want to experience a trial and a challenge then feel the joy of overcoming the adversity and growing from it.

Eventually though you'd want to up the stakes even more. You'd definitely want to put things into the experiences to make it more real. Instead of just programming a dream with a start and finish and some minor challenges, maybe you'd create massive scenarios that span many years and allow you to pursue the adventure with a great deal of freedom, with an unknown outcome where you can pursue multiple paths. These games could be pretty similar to real life and you'd definitely have fun learning from them and seeing what you can accomplish in this alternate world. Maybe you'd decide to take a role as scarface and see what kind of empire you can build. ^^

Finally there would be only one way to escalate the game even more. You'll realize the limiting factor in all of the above scenarios is that you know its just a game when you play it. The risks aren't real risks because even if you die in the game your true self is never hurt. The true key to getting the ultimate experience is to forget that it's a game while you play it only remembering your true existence after death.

This brings me back to the nature of reality. Imagine for a moment you are god. Not a Christian type of god, sitting in the clouds looking down at people. But more of a infinite energy and intelligence, a universal mind if you will. You are infinite consciousness and intelligence in its purest form.

Perhaps god desired an experience to grow and learn from, and in order to experience life and to grow and learn from it there has to be a separation from this infinite oneness to distinct separate parts that can interact with each other. There has to be a world for this to take place in. And like the dreamer he found the ultimate experience was a game in where the players forget their true nature, and forget it's just a game in which their true selves can never truly be hurt until the game is finished. So god creates the self sustaining universe and separates himself into countless forms of life in which to experience it with.

My Thoughts

Whether this notion of reality has any truth in it or not I have no idea, but it's really exciting and empowering for me to think of it this way. The beliefs don't violate any scientific knowledge we have and they fit in with a lot of spiritual knowledge and experiences people have had around the world... plus it fits in with my belief on what god is.

To think of myself (and everyone else) as microcosms of god, taking part in this game to learn and grow is really interesting and fun to me. If this belief is true than I know no matter what happens in my life it will be okay as my true self can never be harmed, and it gives me the motivation to live a free life and try to accomplish as many awesome things as I can during my time to get as much out of it as possible. Who knows how many layers the game may have besides the physical. Perhaps in this game we have multiple human lives (like the reincarnation beliefs of Buddhism.) Maybe there is an end goal to this game we're all progressing towards together. There's no way to know for sure, but it makes sense to me and it feels good so for now I'll continue to believe it!

What do you believe?

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