The Forgotten Meaning of Life
When asked the question “what’s the meaning of life?”, you have undoubtedly many times heard the answer 42.
This answer to the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything, as taught to us by Douglas Adams in his best-selling book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, has no doubt been a recurring response, but it usually leaves the questioner none the wiser.
So in this article, we will answer the age-old question about the meaning of life in much more detail.
Now, I know you are wondering: “Does this article really reveal the true meaning of life? How would this writer know?”. And you would be right.
I may have been mistaken, but that’s beside the point, as you will come to see.
You already know
My understanding comes from a lifetime (40 years now) of reading books, listening to spiritual teachers, and studying ancient wisdom such as shamanism, magic, meditation, and lucid dreaming, and applying that knowledge to my daily life.
Through the ages, our religions, priests, historians, enlightened ones, monks, scholars, spiritual teachers, and even our scientists, have tried to inform us about this fundamental truth about life.
But even if you have chosen not to listen (or just missed them all), the answer to the question “what is the meaning of life” has always been available to you.
You see, the true meaning of life originates from you. You know the answer, you know the meaning. It is, in fact, the question behind the answer that is far more important than the answer.
And one of the questions to ask is “what if you have simply forgotten that you know the answer?”
Don’t worry, this will all make sense after reading the article.
The insight of Douglas Adams
I’ll use The Hitchhiker’s Guide to The Galaxy as a starting point because it inadvertently teaches us a deep truth about the meaning of life (and because I thought 42 as an answer would be a good start to this article and make a fun image).
Why inadvertently? Because the author of the book, Douglas Adams, claimed that there was no meaning behind the answer and that it was simply written as a joke.
It’s told that he said:
“I sat at my desk, stared into the garden and thought ’42 will do’ I typed it out. End of story.”
But whether he knew it or not, he actually did come up with a better answer.
In the hitchhiker’s guide to the galaxy, a supercomputer named Deep Thought was built to answer the ultimate question of life, the universe, and everything.
After millions of years of calculating, the computer finally gave the answer: 42. That was the answer, but the problem was, that nobody knew what was the question it answered.
The supercomputer Deep thought was then instructed to build another supercomputer to determine what the question was.
This new supercomputer was the Earth.
Life is about questions - not answers
The Earth would incorporate living beings into a computational matrix for ten million years to determine the question.
While seemingly being more a part of the story than an answer to the ultimate question, this is already getting us very close to the answer about the meaning of life.
Now, I am not suggesting that we live in a simulation or are plugged into the matrix (as a movie of the same name might suggest).
We, human beings, are here on planet Earth, in physical form, not to find answers, but to ask questions.
Yes, the meaning of life is about the question, not the answer. In fact, there is no ultimate answer to the meaning of life. Life is infinite, going on forever. How would something infinite have an “end of story”, a lesson, or a meaning?
Life is all there is – and life… just is.
Life is a contextual field in which you can experience things. And life is subjective. Objective reality does not exist, and neither do things like right and wrong, good and bad, better and worse.
So life does not contain an inherent meaning such as “learning a karmic lesson” or “discovering the deepest truth about the universe”.
The meaning that your life has is up to you.
Life is subjective
Why? Because as I just mentioned, life is contextual and everything is based on your subjective experience. We all perceive life differently.
What is right to one person may be wrong to another. And the answer to what is right and what is wrong, good and bad, better and worse, the meaning of life, depends on what you are trying to do.
Let’s dig a bit deeper.
To understand the meaning of life, one must understand the true nature of life.
What we call life is but one part of a much larger (infinitely large) field of energy, and we have many different names for it: God, the Universe, the Source, etc. It’s all referring to the same thing. In fact, the totality of all that exists IS LIFE. That is all there is.
Life is eternal, infinite, and most importantly conscious of itself. Life is alive, experiencing itself through itself.
I know this is confusing, but hold on, it will soon make sense.
Living is experiencing
What we call life is life in physical form, or life in the context of spacetime. Life also exists in the metaphysical form of time-space (fun fact: what we call death and birth are transitions between these two dimensions or states of being).
The reason why physical life exists is that it provides a contextual field for the different aspects of the ultimate reality to know itself experientially.
What we call life, the physical life, offers the perfect opportunity for experiencing things subjectively, through consciousness.
This is done by dividing the whole into smaller parts, such as you. You are a mind/body/spirit complex, an individual part of the whole, that is conscious of itself, and through this mind/body/spirit complex capable of experiencing things in the physical universe.
But you are not your body or your mind. You are your spirit, and in its largest expression, your spirit (and therefore you) is the totality of life and all that there is.
You are at the same time an individual part of the infinity that is life, and at the deepest level, life or all that there is.
You wish to know your true self
Infinity is a tough concept to grasp from our current perspective.
So for now, think of yourself as a container for your spirit (soul) that travels through space and time to gather experiences.
As you move through space and time, in the very center of your being, the deepest depths of your subconscious mind, your soul (spirit) has only one thing it wishes to do. To know itself as the creator which it inherently is.
This is what your spirit is up to, and that is what you are up to in this life.
Your spirit, or in fact the totality that is life, cannot experience itself in the spiritual realm. The spiritual realm, the metaphysical time-space, is very different from the physical reality that we now experience.
While in the physical realm we can move about in space, time seems to be fixed. It flows constantly forward regardless of our actions.
This creates opportunities to experience things, as there is a natural flow of actions leading to consequences.
Knowing + Experiencing = Feeling
In the spiritual realm, however, the opposite is true.
Space appears to be unmoving, fixed in place, and your soul can freely move through time, seeing “the bigger picture” of your life, not just from your perspective, but from the perspective of all others involved in it as well.
This creates the opportunity for perfect knowledge, as you are able to perceive all of the consequences of all of your actions. Not just the consequences for you, but for all others involved.
Still, knowing something and experiencing something are two very different things.
You might know that you are loving and compassionate, but it has no meaning until you experience those things. You might know that you are all there is and the creator of your life, but it has no value to you until it is experienced.
Knowing and experiencing together produce the perfect feeling.
It's all relative
Now, if you were an infinite being (which you are), capable of creating whatever you want, what part of yourself would you like to experience?
Perhaps you would want to experience yourself being rich and famous? What a great idea!
How would you do that?
Well, you would have to create a place where you can concretely have that experience. That’s how the physical world was born: From your desire to know yourself experientially.
But what is rich? What is famous? In order for these concepts to make sense, or even exist, their opposite must also exist. You can only be rich if there is such a thing as being poor.
You can only be famous if there simultaneously exists a concept that is “not famous” (regular, nobody, you name it).
Sidenote: Understanding this concept of relativity, that all things can exist only in relation to their opposite, answers the age-old question of “why is there so much evil in the world?”. Because if there were no evil, there could be no such thing as good. And it’s good to remember that by the laws of relativity if there seems to be much evil in the world, there must be at least an equal amount of love.
Know-it-all
And now that you have known and experienced yourself as rich and famous, what aspect of your infinite self do you wish to experience next?
Why only experience one of them, when you can experience all of them?
And that is precisely what you plan to do.
What aspect of yourself do you wish to experience? Love, hate, compassion, indifference, rich, poor, healthy, sick… Only you can choose.
Once chosen, you will create the perfect circumstances in your life to experience the chosen aspect.
Mandatory amnesia
But there is one more plot twist, and this is the biggest of them all:
How would you experience that you are all there is, an all-powerful, infinite, being? You know that you are love and truth, how could you experience fear, hate, and lies, which you are not?
The answer is: You would have to forget.
That’s why we struggle with these concepts so much: Because we have forgotten who we truly are. Spirituality, God, and the true nature of the universe, all seem so strange and hard to grasp in this physical reality.
Not to mention that our experience seems so real! This must be the way life is, it is so concrete, so immersive!
Yes, it is, and it’s designed that way to make us forget.
We get so caught up in the physical pleasures of life, that we forget to use our minds (c’mon, we all like to turn our minds off by scrolling through social media and watching TV), and hardly ever try to get in touch with our souls.
You have forgotten
If we could for just one fraction of a second see through the veil of our thoughts and forget about the constant needs of our bodies, the meaning of life that I’m trying to convey to you here would become instantly obvious.
That’s why I asked at the beginning of this article “what if you have simply forgotten that you know the answer?”
You know the meaning of life, you have simply forgotten that you know.
Remembering this truth, the meaning of life, could be a profoundly life-changing moment for you. It’s what our spiritual teachers call enlightenment.
There are numerous courses, books, methods, videos, and articles about how to become enlightened through meditation. I strongly suggest that you find this answer for yourself instead of listening to me.
The meaning of life
But for those of you impatient or indifferent enough to not meditate and seek enlightenment (I know it may not be easy, I myself am far from enlightened), I would answer the question “what’s the meaning of life” in the following way:
Life, the reason why you are here (on Earth, in the physical realm), is all about creation.
You are here to experience any and all of the infinite aspects of yourself, so that you may eventually know yourself fully. Ultimately, the meaning of your life is to experience yourself as the creator and all that there is.
So what aspect of your infinite self do you wish to experience now? You choose!
Creation is a function of choice. It happens by realizing (making real in the physical) your ideas about yourself. This process works through the different facets of your being in the following way:
- Your spirit (soul, subconscious, higher self) conceives ideas
- your mind creates (chooses from the soul’s ideas)
- your body experiences.
Based on the experience, the spirit then makes a new conception. The circle is complete.
It's magical to live consciously
This goes on forever and ever and ever, in different dimensions, densities of matter, and states of being, until every possible idea you hold about yourself has been experienced in physical existence. The cycle then begins anew.
This is true whether you know it or not. You cannot NOT create, for you are the creator and by definition creating is what you do.
The magic of life happens when you are aware of this and start controlling the process consciously.
Your thoughts, words, and actions create your experience. This is sometimes called manifestation.
If you don’t create consciously, then your subconscious mind, the beliefs, habits, hopes, and fears will control the process.
I know this might be confusing and words often fail in trying to describe the indescribable infinite dimensions of life, the universe, and everything.
But if there’s one thing to learn here, one concept to summarise it all, it comes down to the ultimate question, rather than the answer.
Start asking questions
I told you at the beginning of this article, that the true meaning of life originates from you, and that the question is far more important than the answer.
Remember what Douglas Adams told us? That a supercomputer named Deep Thought was instructed to build another supercomputer to determine what the question was.
This new supercomputer was the Earth. And the Earth would incorporate living beings into a computational matrix for ten million years to determine the question.
Doesn’t this in essence describe exactly the reason why the physical world exists?
This “computational matrix” called the Earth was created so that you could realize your ideas about yourself experientially, and your experience boils down to some questions, one of which will be the ultimate question.
The Ultimate question
The questions are:
- What are you trying to do? Or more accurately, who are you trying to be? (To be, or not to be, that is the question – wrote one famous spiritual teacher).
- What am I in relation to this? Asking this question keeps you evolving, creating yourself anew.
Remember, that life is about constantly creating yourself as your best idea about yourself, and that can only be done in a contextual field where things exist in relation to each other.
Are you tall or short? Big or small? Fast or slow? Introverted or extroverted? Funny or serious? Only you can decide.
And now we finally arrive at the bottom of it all, the ultimate question. The question that you, as a part of this “computational matrix” called the Earth are trying to answer.
The ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything:
- “Who am I?”
(If you want the answer to that question to be 42, go right ahead, and please tell me in the comments what this experience feels like in your daily life).
That is the question, and that is why the answer to the ultimate question doesn’t matter. Even if there was an answer, it would be subjective.
Who are you?
The answer does not exist, as life is infinite and you are constantly asking yourself this question.
What would the answer be? (I guess you could answer “God or Creator or Life”, but infinity is a tough concept to grasp: In infinite reality, even God/Creator/Life has his/her/its own God, infinitely so. I know, don’t try to think about it too much).
It’s the question that matters. “Who am I?”. That is the spark of evolution. This is the meaning of life.
Douglas Adams may not have realized it, but when he wrote The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy he may have subconsciously been aware of this.
That’s why he wrote about the meaning of life and the answer to the ultimate question about life, the universe, and everything.
He wanted us to understand that life is not about finding answers, but about asking questions.
So take this advice and start creating your life with intention.
Ask yourself:
“In relation to this, who am I?”
Then answer this question through your thoughts, words, and actions.
This way, you are consciously creating your life and it will become an experience filled with whatever you wish.
Conclusion
I’ll conclude this article just by saying, that you have all the answers inside of you.
Ask sincerely, and listen with intention to receive, and you will find the answer.
As for the meaning of life, the takeaway here is that no matter what you believe, your life is up to you.
Make the most of what you have and try to find joy in every moment.
Disclaimer
The entire contents of this blog are based upon the opinions of the author. It is intended for informational and educational purposes only. The information in this blog is not intended to replace a one-on-one relationship with a qualified health care professional and is not intended as medical advice. Please consult your health care professional before trying any of the products or methods based on this content. I cannot guarantee that you will be free of stress, anxiety or depression, or that you will be happy. I simply want to share with you what I have discovered during my twenty years of seeking happiness and what has worked for me may not work for you.
