Beyond Zero Most would say that success is the acquisition of money and power. I dare to differ. I would even go so far as to say it can even be the reverse of the purpose of life, which is true success.
But how do we define what this ‘purpose of life’ is?
Look around at what we have discovered so far. Life exists, still, in billions of forms. This world is a living-laboratory of form, some not so successful and so dying off but many going on to become so much more than they were or are. I would like you to hold in mind that ‘form’ in itself is merely a means to an end and is only half of the equation of evolution.
With the sciences, which all began in the many diverse religions, we have discovered so much, but we still don’t really understand what we are or what the real process of the evolution of life really is. If we think about it at all we tend to the belief that the human being has evolved to be the top of the food chain and that is as far as we can go.
I would differ again. It isn’t as far as we can go. I would even hazard a guess that evolution and true success is about becoming more than we were and so to evolve ourselves way beyond the pinnacle of where we find ourselves now.
Sadly the pursuit and acquisition of money and power almost always leads to the reverse of this. It can so easily create monsters out of men and stagnate millions of others in the process – hence the state of the world today. The rich and powerful would argue, quoting Darwin, that evolution is the survival of the fittest and in amassing wealth and power they are the fittest to survive. Taking a short term view it is a hard argument to surmount. If we have nothing and spend our lives at the whim of those who have ‘successfully’ amassed wealth and power, we feel we are failures.
But as a therapist I met people of wealth and power and read of many more, who as the end of their lives rapidly approached, saw themselves as failures and were very afraid of death and what it might bring. To leave behind that wealth and power which was their bastion, frightened them beyond belief, for what if there is something after death? Which is of course is why, in the past, kings and other powerful men had their wealth and weapons and even their wives and slaves, buried with them. I have met people who having amassed wealth and power and lost it again, lost also their will to survive. Without that bastion of wealth they could no longer face the future either.
What we do in life either adds to or takes away from the purpose of our lives. Rich and powerful people begin to feel that their wealth, though it added quality to their lives and the power they wielded over others added to their self-esteem, as the point of death approached they started to wonder if it this was enough?
At its physical levels, as Darwin pointed out, evolution is one the survival of the fittest. But being the ‘fittest’ could mean so many things. I would offer that physical evolution is only half of the equation. We know about the evolution of the body and brain, but that is where it becomes complicated for is there more than just body and brain? Do we carry what we have learned with us after death? Is knowledge the real wealth, the real power? Has what we have done to amass wealth and power created negative energy which we carry with us and if so, is this energy ‘soul’, and is it this energy which creates what our futures will hold?
Some would argue that the mind and soul are not physical and so being indestructible must survive the death of the body, but most scientists and especially physicists, will not accept that mind and soul or any ‘thing’ can exist at all beyond the Zero Point of the existence of matter. If it could exist what could it be when there is no ‘thing’ beyond that point?
So they tell us, once the brain is dead so are we. That is it! No more us!
So does it matter what kinds of monsters we become in our pursuit of survival of the body? I would say it does and many of my clients feared it was so.
According to science the mind and soul do not exist at all. Yet science also tells us, conversely, that in the beginning the universe came from nothing. This coming from no ‘thing’ bit is also something that most scientists prefer to ignore.
At the level of the smallest particles there is a zone that physics call ‘zero’ where particles pop in and out of existence all of the time. Beyond that point is no-thing-ness.
Yet what can this ‘no-thing-ness’ be - except to say that somehow space and time came into existence at the point of the big bang. Science can’t explain how that big bang came about. They can explain it almost to a fraction of a billionth of a second of the point of the beginning. But of what happened in that first micro-second or what caused the big bang to ‘bang’ at all is unknown.
Religions of course tell us it is God who made it happen. It is a matter of belief for them. For science, it is a matter of questing the smallest bits of matter for answers and in that search they come to a full stop at point zero, where every ‘thing’ stops being physical in any way that science can explain. They do admit to being somewhat puzzled by the existence of ‘virtual’ particles, saying that they come into existence for a purpose on ‘borrowed’ energy and then pop out of existence once that purpose is fulfilled so returning that energy: but have difficulty over the process of how it works. Quantum physics is the science that explores this region of space and time; while metaphysicians, like myself, stand as the interface between quantum physics and the many hundreds of religion and the thousands of sects that have spun off from them.
Somewhere between science and religion and so in the realm of metaphysics, answers must be found and metaphysicians, studying both disciplines, are beginning to find them. But they have to study not just one branch of science or religion, but be open to all.
One amazing thing metaphysicians have found by studying across religions is that at base all of them agree. It is only in the dogma where they differ, and it is there where each say that what they believe is the only light and the only truth, while all others are wrong in what they believe and so are the ‘enemies’ of God: all too often even now, being prepared to die or to kill to defend this view.
Throughout history and even today, it has been and is, rather a shame that most people of faith are not allowed to question their faith. In fact they are strictly and actively discouraged from doing so. History is full of people who have been tortured or put to death in cruel ways for questioning the dogma of their faith. Galileo of course, being a case in point, was merely shown the torture chamber while in his seventies, to encourage him to denounce his own findings, which were that the earth orbits the sun rather than the other way round.
Read the following for it gives a clue to where all religions agree. It is partly what lead me to research many more religions rather than just blindly follow what I was told, as a child, I had to believe, or suffer eternal damnation.
Please take a moment to compare the quotations taken from seven of the eleven of the major religions of the world.
CHRISTIANITY – “All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so unto them.” The Bible, Matthew, 7.12
HEBRAISM – “What is hurtful to yourself do not to your fellow man.” Talmud
BUDDHISM - “Hurt not others with that which pains yourself”. Unanavarga, 5.18
CONFUCIANISM - “Is there any one maxim which ought to be acted upon throughout one's whole life? Surely the maxim of loving-kindness is such. So do not unto others what you would not they should do unto you. Analects, 15.23
JAINISM - “In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self, and should therefore refrain from inflicting upon others such injury as would appear undesirable to us if inflicted upon ourselves.” Yogashastra 2.20
ISLAM – “No one of you is a believer until he loves for his brothers what he loves for himself.” Traditions
HINDUISM – “This is the sum of duty, do naught to others which if done to thee would cause thee pain.” Mahadharata 5.1517
As you can see at base there is plenty of agreement between the above. Their beliefs can be beautiful, but what they can’t see is that the beauty is not confined to just their own beliefs but - though expressed in different words and different ways - is shared by all religions. The sad thing about dogmas is that they imprison beliefs and do not allow them to evolve naturally to become more than they were and are, which is the purpose of life.
If we could just conjure up enough courage to take a fresh look at what we believe without fear of eternal damnation, we might, as a race of individuals, begin to evolve to be more than we are at this present time of a very uncertain future.
A retired hypnotherapist and lecturer, Tom Leigh is a graduate of the University of Metaphysical Sciences with a Masters degree. He is currently continuing his studies while writing a thesis for his doctorate. He loves sailing and owns a yacht that is two years older than himself, a classic cutter called Cloche d'Or, which means 'The Golden Bell'. It was built in 1939 in Holland. The Rhiannon Blade: http://www.psi-aware.com
