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THE CRISIS OF MEANING IN OUR LIVES

SEPTEMBER 2002 Revised 2014

I wish to share my perspective on what is currently happening in our lives and why we need a new perspective?
The search for meaning is evident in so many aspects of our lives. What is my life all about? What does my job mean? This company I have founded or work for? This relationship that I am in? Why am I studying for this degree and what does it mean to me? What does it mean that I am going to die some day? Why commit myself to one thing or another, to one person or another - or to anything?

Two of the top ten causes of death in the Western World are either suicide, alcoholism or drugs are frequently related to this kind of crisis of meaning.

These fundamental questions have always existed for humanity and each generation and each culture have had to provide tentative answers. However in the past 50 years of our recent fragmentated thinking their world was simpler in its structure and was able to provide more concrete answers.

Since ancient times the perennial questions - who am I, where did I come from, where am I going, what am I doing here on earth, and how can I live the most constructive and creative life along with why is there a universe and what is its purpose have been put forward? Now these questions still apply more so than at any other time in mans history. Where is life where does it come from, what is its destiny and how can I achieve a more conscious and fulfilling life - can, in my view only be satisfactorily answered from the standpoint of accessing our active and creative intuition.

People in earlier societies did not have to ask such detailed questions. Their lives were culturally embedded in a set framework. They had living traditions, living gods, living communities, functioning moral codes, problems that had clear boundaries and fixed goals. But in modern times we have lost, what some philosophers call, the 'take-for-grantedness' of life. We are left with a confused sense of personal and professional meaning or spiritual problems, with the need to cultivate a kind of deeper personal awareness or connection with true self sobthat can deal with issues.

In the West, when did it all change? During the period of the so-called age of enlightenment where science competed with and in many peoples eyes overcame religion. At this time traditional culture and all the meanings and values were adjusted according to scientific rational thinking. When the now famous physicist, Sir Isaac Newton and his colleagues gave rise to their theories about the construction of the world such a viewpoint of the world led to the development of technology which prepared for the Industrial Revolution but, at the same time to a deeper erosion of religious beliefs and personal philosophical outlook.

This new technology provided many blessings but also moved people from the land into big cities, disrupted communities and families, displaced traditions and crafts, and made reliance on habit and repetition virtually impossible. The accompanying attitudes which resulted from such a revolution has uprooted the human soul.

Newton's new physics taught that the physical world is governed by ironclad laws: the three laws of motion and the law of gravitation. Everything in the physical world is predictable and thereby ultimately controllable. B will always follow A in the same circumstances. Although most people don't know of Newton's ideas or of Sigmund Freud's id and superego this has led to the idea that we are passive victims of forces larger than ourselves, that we are helpless to change our own lives, never mind the world.

So what does this mean to us now in 2014?
For many people they are feeling overwhelmed by the confusing fragmentation of the world, and being unable to make sense of it or do anything about it, with the result that they have lapsed into apathy and depression. Newtonian reality has reinforced the sense of isolation and helplessness. The world is now divided into subject and object; the subject is 'in here' you, the world 'out there' them. The average modern person experiences himself or herself as just in the world - not of the world and sadly unable to do anything about their personal circumstances of what is happening in the world around them.

But times are changing. They have been for the past twenty or thirty years but now, with the crisis of meaning many people report a quickening of the pace and secretly feel within themselves that they need help to make core changes to the way life is currently being lived.

It is a difficult and challenging time for most particularly because the consumer led society is difficult to resist. We have become addicted to our luxuries, our toys our expectations even though we realize that they are not fulfilling the most important gap in our lives - a true sense of power through understanding and finding not only meaning but a way of truly expressing who we are in our lives.

This has happened not only for individuals but society at large. For example Leonardo Da Vinci as with other great thinkers provided a 'pole vault' in his ideas when he created the helicopter over three hundred years ago but the society at the time, limited by their views of what was and what not possible in their view of the world prevented a helicopter becoming a reality until people three hundred years later had mentally shifted to allow this to become their reality. Are many of us not guilty of the same self-limiting beliefs distorting and restricting our world and how we live life now and in the future?

At no other time have we had our minds so expanded but the key liberating influences around us - television shows us apparent undreamed of realities which means we can start to think that this can be our reality - the internet does the same and now in 2014 even social media. However, we have all these images whereas Italian renaissance society was rigid and controlled by the church at every level. The core question then is how do we reconcile this blessing and a curse of new expanded awareness into a way which we can relate to in our everyday lives where we find an inner place of being which reconciles the two.

One idea is that we have to be positively discriminating. To take in aspects of the images and then relate them to our personal meaning and expression in our lives. A married man with wife children and mortgage is happy in his reality but if an international executive believes that his reality is at fault when he experiences such images he is not in contact with the whole of his inner reality and expression. He can be happy in his unique expression of life just as the married man is of his.

For an increasing number of people the next question is 'Where do we go for such development and what are we looking for?'
Over the last decade more and more people have watched documentaries, purchased and read books or listened to self-development recordings. Some have attended courses, spoken with friends and exchanged ideas through the internet.

Their insight or awareness develops but the reality of their everyday lives appear relatively unchanged. They have an inner vision which is at odds or in conflict with their life.

The consequence of such conflict is stress. Felt physically, emotionally and mentally. Learning to relax is not the complete answer - symptoms are symptoms and must be viewed and dealt with accordingly.

At a time of stress many people turn for guidance to a variety of sources. Professional counselling and therapy - astrology and other means of objective guidance. Divination dates back thousands of years and has always been hugely popular in all societies even if for many it went against established religious practice and teachings. Looking out there to the world for guidance always includes, at some stage, looking within to create unique meaning to the insights gained.

Now science has taken up the challenge which was issued at the turn of the century by the spiritualist movement and metaphysicians to meaningfully explore, document and understand this core aspect of humaneness by using their modern tools of investigation. Brain science, quantum physics, alternative medical practitioners have in the last twenty years investigated and scientifically explored the real impact that the mind has in relation to the body. But that is only half the story for within each of us lies another world beyond the body - our inner dreams, discoveries and along with such dreams all the abilities required to express them fully in our lives.

I came from the world of science but because of my upbringing and early experiences always thought of the world in a different way from purely scientific beliefs. In my personal life and career I have always blended the two with truly remarkable results. Through my work I realised that I wished to enable as many people as possible to make the self same connections in their lives.

However, nearly forty years ago when I began my professional career the shift in public awareness of this need and awareness the practical ways of such a need being fulfilled had not occurred. Now it has and as a result I have spent the past twenty five years lecturing to literally thousands of people around the globe. Lecture tours are labour intensive - great fun - but this past year I responded to the request by many of these people who attended such workshops to write about the concepts I talked and show as many people as possible them how to integrate in their lives.

They also insisted that as many people as possible should be able to benefit from my work. A new website came into being, I began to refine a model which could be written down and easily understood without me present to explain all of the connection. More of The Power of Caring was born. NOTE: Fast forward twelve years since this article was written and I return to my core passion. Working with people for personal transformation.

 


 

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