Chapter 14 - Viagnostic

The one thing that commonly hinders many of us from leading meaningful lives is our perspective on life itself. Although some of us do acquire the wisdom we need without ever articulating it by simply living, we generally fail to recognize what life really means because there is an assumption made that we already know especially among those of us who think that living effusively serves as its definitive proof. We also tend to confuse the visceral sense of awareness that few of us seem to attain with this implicit self-assurance that we may have regarding our relatively good fortune or success, which we attribute either to our own wits and hard work or to our faith in life as a blessing from the gods or God. Some of us may accredit our confidence to both sources, but we quickly see the fragility of our conviction when we undergo colossal or prolonged hardship. Things are no longer clear and our worldview finds itself under attack by some seemingly dark and ominous force. It is under these circumstances that we discover what we truly believe about our knowledge and ability as well as see how resilient we really are, particularly when the most basic assistance or backing from others in our lives is absent.

Many of us have seen, either in ourselves or in others, how suffering a horrible tragedy or undergoing grave misfortune can still lead us back towards a fulfilling sense of being. Naturally, this depends on the prospect of our recovery and the support we actually receive, but it also requires that we are driven more by our inner need for self-expression and less by a concern with our outward appearances. For instance, if a dreadful accident prevents the possibility of commencing or resuming a particular vocation, we can find another way to manifest who we really are, even if it means we have to start all over again and we may never regain what we once had. Many experiences that we suffer force us to confront who we really are and often expose the fraud that has been living our lives. And in those moments, one of the most valuable changes that we can make to our views, if we change nothing else, is to appreciate that it is not about what we accomplish but how we live our lives that actually matters. The more we focus on the ultimate end goal, the more we are open to the possibilities of how we approach our valued state. And the more we immerse ourselves in the process with sincerity, the more likely we will find ourselves on the right path and the more likely we will achieve truly great things and contribute meaningfully to the life and world around us that we come to know and cherish.

One of the ways to sharpen our focus on what really matters to us and subsequently motivate us into action is to envisage our imminent death. Death always puts life into perspective and quickly reveals the disparity between how we live our lives and who we really are, which is also why we avoid this seemingly morbid subject. Some of us are presently facing the final act of our lives and trying to live accordingly or find peace with how we have lived and with whom we have lived. But while there are those among us who continue to function as if that day will never come, the rest of us assume we have been given an unknown allotment of time to squeeze in as much as we can into our mortal existence. This includes anything and everything from families and careers to homes and vacations and all the pleasures, prizes and possessions we can get so that we can say or think that we have lived fully and proved our worth or made it on our own. But there is perhaps no greater practical joke played on us than to be convinced that we need to seek out our inherent value and the freedom or independence that we already have because it is the very thought that we have to find it externally in the universe is what traps us. The source of our primordial enslavement is within us all, which we unknowingly conceal under countless layers of assimilated belief and rationalization. But upon closer examination, we could easily uncover this cosmic prank, escape its detractive trance and return to our inborn search for meaning within ourselves to disrupt our normalizing patterns and guide us along our native boundaries.

For many of us, life can feel like being caged together with a perpetual problem generator that is hidden from us. We know we can let problems slide for a limited time until they grow unmanageably and envelop us to the restrictive point where there is no apparent exit from our shared predicament. Sometimes, we can coax or charm other people to solve our dilemmas for us, especially if we have or pretend to have something to exchange with them in addressing their challenges. But since we are so inclined to see life as an endless set of problems to solve, we can only surmount this perception by questioning it. This means exposing what is wrong with the way we see things before we assume we know what is wrong with the things we see, and this begins with discerning the crack or crevice in our beliefs that opens us up to contemplating what we already knew that matters but had forgotten.

When we hear or read about bad news such as the unfavourable state of our environment, we may become angry, anxious or depressed, and sometimes all three in rapid succession. Some of us may even mobilize our fury, but we become so preoccupied with fighting a nebulous and interminable enemy that we forget or overlook the original reason for fighting in the first place. As for the rest of us, we retreat with a commonly rationalized attitude towards life that stresses our powerlessness in the context of its inevitability in order to redirect our focus back to what to do with our remaining rations of time. In all cases, we lose sight of our innate basis for living not because we will always be confronted with difficulties in life, but because we fail to remember that life itself is not the problem. If anything, life is the solution or conduit to this unspoken quest to be what we already are. We are afraid to face it because almost all of us were taught or conditioned throughout our youth to dispose of such thinking much like the fairytales we eventually learned to dismiss.

Yet we struggle to maintain the will to live the life we are programmed to live. The issue is not with finding that will we already possess but with triggering our natural inclination to act, which relies on having some idea of whom it is we are really trying to be and believing in what we do actually matters. For a growing number of us, this is why we have lost our romance with living and why many others among us have forsaken the mystery of life to replace it with maximizing our indulgence in its pleasures and with relentlessly struggling to succeed in our undertakings. Although we need to work for our sustenance as well as for our greater gain and we should ensure that we all enjoy life to the extent we can, it is in seizing our moments of toil and play with a sense of ownership that we discover the whole point of this untidy affair we call existence. And if we can accept the reality that life will always appear chaotic and persist in being impartial to our wishes, then the spirit buried in our inner nature will awaken when we realize which dramas and adversities we are designed to tolerate. Enabling this is not only dependent on understanding what we are configured to endure but also on seeing what we can transform into value from our inspiring encounters. And to lift the weight of life shackled by chains of defenses against reality that we wall around us as prepackaged beliefs about the world and ourselves, we must have the willingness to greatly enhance our awareness of a personally obscure existence.

THE DEPTH, ASCENSION AND SCOPE OF THE SELF

If we think of consciousness as having different dimensions or characteristics, there are perhaps three relevant perspectives to consider. The first is depth, which speaks to our capacity to dig deeper and deeper into the layers of the unknown to see beneath the surface of what we claim to know or present as reality. The second is ascension, where we climb out of the cell of our thinking and cultural programming to ascend or elevate to a more enlightened state with eachgiant step we take. The third is scope and this reflects the breadth of our comprehension as we widen the scale of our perception to determine where to draw our attention. Without scope, depth may be restricted to a detailed yet narrow view of the world. Without depth, ascension may not have a stable foundation upon which to build. And without ascension, it is very difficult to expand our scope if we are caught in the craters of our reality. When all three are in play, we can liberate ourselves from our limiting views and assumptions by rising above and expanding beyond their boundaries as we dive deeper into the underlying meaning of life and apply its principles to living our lives.

The unification of the three perspectives that define the dimensions of our awareness can have a significant impact on how we interpret perfection. Since each dimension increases our comprehension of reality while concurrently altering our vision of a perfect state, we quickly realize the futility of trying to approach a preferred endpoint that we routinely adjust as we increase or shift our consciousness. We see life as a constant course correction through the stories that purposely remind us of the perfection that already resides within us but whose expression is always imperfect. True perfection is an ideal we cannot reach; only the feasible and satisfactory standards that we establish offer us gratification as an equivalent until our knowledge and experience affect our perception and reset our expectations. Hence, it should become obvious to us that the purpose of the incalculable ideal is not to measure success or progress but to guide us through the live action sequences of our lives as we gain awareness of ourselves in the world. The more we enable our consciousness, the more we can clear the road ahead that is flooded with distractions and bombarded by narratives intended to serve the interests of others while solidifying absurd images of perfection. Greater awareness helps us to see through both the illusion of our own beliefs and those of others and to change our ideals from targets to achieve at some future date to how we should be living our lives in the here and now.

Our outlooks on life and the constructs we form about the world include how we define the concept of self, which seems to move between one unified being and a multitude of entities as well as between a true self and an illusory ego or no self at all. And depending on whether we believe in a higher plane of existence or assume there is no real difference between the mind and the brain, we tend to either separate the mind and the soul or combine them as one, respectively. However, we commonly see the body as our physical representation, and we can expand on that accepted fact by entertaining an alternative notion that comprehensively describes the body, mind and soul as different layers of the self with a singular or distinct presence. This is helpful because we are more likely to detect the inherent difference between our actively operating consciousness that handles our bodily problems or choices and the more profound or enhanced consciousness that evokes our soulful authenticity or the essence of who we really are, individually and collectively, where the mind is the mediator between the two.

Many of us see the soul as a discrete entity that can be detached from our physical body when we die, whereas numerous others among us see it all as a single package that ultimately comes to an unquestionably mortal end. Yet despite our cultural differences in how we look at death, we generally share the belief that we are more than just our physical makeup even for those of us who insist on a purely materialistic view of the self. This is because as our bodies change as we age and the neural pathways of our brains alter with experience, we know that we are not quite the same entity anymore and yet we still acknowledge that we are the individual custodians of this one interwoven mass over time and place from which we cannot escape. We are always the same being wherever we go no matter how much we physically modify our appearance or constitution. This remains true for us until we are no longer conscious of who we are or what we were, but others will recognize us as the same entity even if they perceive us as having changed personally or corporeally to another lifeform or object that can be flora, fauna or inorganic material such as a rock. We also tend to perceive a person whose body appears to have been possessed as not encapsulating the same person, which makes it clear that we intuitively see others and ourselves as more than perceptible containers of molecules through which to distinguish our sense of continuity. Hence, we may need to rethink our notions of mind, body and soul and embrace them all as meaningful ways in which to see how ourselves within the greater totality of the cosmos.

Perhaps it is best that we define these elements of the self in the same way we might associate something with what it primarily does or what typifies that thing. For example, an aqueduct carries water. If we take this approach, then we can say that the body runs programs, the mind forms perceptions, and the soul discloses principles that underlie our choices. Each follows patterns within some shifting boundary. The program is a pattern of steps executed to produce some result. The perception is a pattern of stimuli that defines some object or concept, and the principle is a pattern of situations or scenarios pointing to some rule of the universe. Consequently and respectively, we follow instructions to achieve an output or a change in state, we follow constructs to interact with the world, and we follow purposes to best maneuver through life. Each type of pattern functions with its own level of awareness while moving in and out of our consciousness and while feeling in and out control.

We could also view these parts of the self through the awareness of our habits. We could say that the body serves at the delivery mechanism for generating and expressing our habits, the mind is the lens through which we are able to discern habits, and the soul is what prompts us to promote or change those habits. They simply represent layers of the same existence that are fully integrated and immersed in the world to become seemingly indistinguishable as one unique entity, and they work together to manage our lives regardless of our physical and personal setting. Understanding habits offer a way of positioning what we are and how to approach reality. And if we can momentarily dispense with our unwavering beliefs and allow ourselves to see these three levels of the self as different elements of our identity, then we may have a better chance to experience a more genuine sense of fulfilment through the depth, ascension and scope of our consciousness.

The varied functions of body, mind and soul realign with another as we learn to move across these three dimensions of consciousness to discover the art of living deeply, freely and completely. In this context, art refers to both a skill as well as an acronym for the acknowledgement, regulation and transcendence of our nature. Firstly, we come to accept our nature because going against it is a lost battle before we even begin to fight. To acknowledge who we are as well as the circumstances we face that are immutable in the present and immediate future is to afford us the opportunity to learn something we can actually change. Secondly, as a direct consequence of this reality, submission becomes necessary to regulate our behaviour in order to ensure our regularity or stability. The best way to grasp and influence our nature is to let it be or let it go and monitor its patterns. We will always understand it better as it is rather than what it pretends to be, and that is how we can manage, guide or redirect our efforts to our aspirations in alignment with our essence. Lastly, we build the confidence to test the limits of who we are when we are no longer imprisoned by our temperament, and it is in that final step that we transcend our nature and the boundaries that we were misled into thinking could not be breached by actualizing our potential as we grow into what we already are. This occurs by focusing on living life rather than trying to define or attain it. And it is in the depth, ascension and scope of the self where we can transition from the state of thinking we know who we are on the outside by what we sell or gain to simply being who we really are and cultivating what we always were on the inside.

THE ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF LIVING DEEPLY

One of the reasons many of us might be consumed by the notion of a separate soul is tied to our awareness of our fatalistic condition. We all know we are going to die. It is a frightening proposition that many of us do not want to contemplate until we are directly faced with its imminent reality, and yet we invest substantial effort in trying to defer it indefinitely. Luckily or unluckily for some of us, it happens so suddenly that there is barely a moment if at all to confront death and the significance of the life we have lived, which is why we should appreciate every day we manage to continue on living. But the prospect of our termination is always looming, and various events tend to surface it enough to encourage belief in some kind of eternal process where our story never ends. It is as if we are always waiting for a sequel and desperately placing our bets on a prequel or an alternate version of our origins and endings when we run out of ideas. But we mostly express gratitude to our ancestors for reminding us that before our beginning, there was another beginning and another before that; this reinforces our personal link in the great chain of life and comforts us in being part of sustaining this cosmic story by having the option to append a verse or two.

Our mortality does bring out the depth already in us as we imagine seeing some underlying meaning that was not previously recognized. We may think of profundity in this way because depth itself suggests a measure of how far down or back something might be, but it is really about how deeply we feel. And the deeper we feel, the more alive we are in the experience we all want to have. On the other hand, superficiality is something we associate with insincerity, which is not to be confused with being lighthearted or politely disinterested given that we can be sincere and yet still lack enthusiasm or be enthusiastic without being pensive or engrossed in a subject. Shallowness is the mere appearance of feeling or of expression, and it is so light and thin that we can see through it adequately to realize there is nothing really there that is relatable or that it is itself unable to relate to anything. However, we often pair superficiality with pretention as part of an act we play where our intent is to hide our true feelings or disguise our ulterior motives. Sometimes, it is as if we are trying to abscond with another person’s soul when we do not feel like we have one of our own. Unfortunately, such tendencies deceive us into believing that we are shallow or fake when in actuality we are living in fear and avoiding any acknowledgment of our true state in the presence of others as well as within ourselves.

The underlying and critical function of the superficial is to help recognize the profound because there can be no depth without a surface. Our depth is like an anchor that keeps us from drifting away and losing ourselves, while our surface is needed to reflect back where we are and the roles we play as well as to shield us from others as a defense against their exploitation. And although the unreadable expression of our cautious pretense can unfortunately seem emotionally hollow or impassive to the point where we risk appearing untrustworthy, our unresponsiveness tends to signal our withdrawal as if we are recoiling back to our true nature that is reacting to its growing imbalance with its current surroundings or retreating from the world due to overstimulation. Our natural response is to seek shelter, but the density of our social life obliges us to change strategies and react with apathy as if to be almost divorced from our bodies with our delicate skin refurbished with an armoured shell. This is because we tend to be much more sensitive to our environment when we live deeply. We need to disengage because we already feel too engrossed in our world. It is the necessary shift between attachment and detachment so that we can both enjoy and endure our own lives.

The truth is that many of us do not want to live deeply because we are afraid of what we will learn, especially about ourselves. This is an alarming proposition for those of us who have settled on a comfortable and unquestioned view of our existence, internally and externally. Moreover, it should not be surprising that many of us have managed to get through life with very limited hardship purely by circumstance or by efforts to evade it, which commonly means ignoring the anguish of life through distraction or fixating on seemingly positive experiences. While it is perfectly normal and sensible for all of us to lessen or eliminate needless pain where feasible, the danger of extreme avoidance or outright denial is that we never learn to deal with real suffering. Suffering is an inevitable part of life. Hence, regardless of whether it had transpired in our distressing past, is presently happening or will occur in our foreseeable future, suffering is vital to being or feeling alive. We are naturally inclined to stop or reduce it as part of seeking the gratification of optimal conditions, but it more importantly affords us the chance to appreciate the meaning of life at a more heartfelt level.

Consequently, living deeply may make us more prone to being traumatized, especially by events that are not deemed to be culturally justified as sources of trauma in many societies, but it can equally strengthen us in times of crisis that may be characteristically traumatic to most others. This is because we are already in a headspace that is comfortable or familiar with crisis or its aftermath such as witnessing death and destruction. Perhaps we gain unexpected comfort from seeing the spread of its normality among others and we ourselves no longer feel singled out as sensitive or weak since cataclysmic events raise our awareness of our commonly finite existence on a mass scale. However, there is still a distinction to be made between positive and negative forms of suffering. Given that suffering is unavoidable, we can undergo purportedly good pain if it supports our enlightened development, but truly horrendous pain frightens us into ceaseless retreat or causes life to become pointless if we never feel a lasting sense of relief and unbroken trust. The same holds true of authentic and simulated happiness. Authentic happiness prevails over the suffering of life, whereas simulated happiness has never experienced real anguish or has never consciously dealt with trauma. And although averting or blocking out reality may seem absolutely compulsory at times, the gratifying yet fleeting release from our emotionally brutal restraint hidden behind the innocuous pleasantries of the superficial cannot replace the persevering resilience derived from the nurturing joys of the profound.

Almost all of us occasionally complain about our lives, but we generally do little to address the source of our discontent. Many of us erroneously believe that we can resolve our troubles, at least temporarily, by filling our existential void with opportune career moves, new personal relationships, extravagant vacation plans and even desired purchases or activities that fulfill our guilty pleasures. We prioritize changing our experiences rather than facing them, but the truth is that we are more likely to find meaning and understand life if we try to absorb and enrich the value of the positive and negative experiences we have rather than aim to maximize the number of ostentatious moments we can accrue. Although such wisdom aligns with the classic principle of quality over quantity, it relates more to the idea that genuine feelings originate in genuine experiences. But if we are set on having innumerable encounters with life, then we should consider searching for patterns or slicing samples from our experiences to identify something meaningful. The goal of a good experience is to be in it when it is occurring and still have something remaining after it has elapsed so that we are not encumbered by a constant urge to repeat it successively, which is what happens when our experiences are short-lived or when we suffer diminishing returns with each and every subsequent iteration.

Living deeply means to truly feel and be present in the moment and to act with resolve, which includes being clear about what we are doing and why we are doing it in that moment. It demands that we utilize ourselves as live specimens in the embodiment and study of life rather than in its dissection and scrutiny. This involves living with passion, presence and purpose, or with sensitivity, focus and determination. Passion and sensitivity speak to the wholeheartedness of our bodies in putting our heart and energy into everything we do. And while passion expresses the motivation in our feelings, it is our sensitivity that enables us to have feelings. This is enhanced by the presence and focus of our minds or mindfulness, which describes the act of being attentive not only to our feelings but particularly to our thoughts, perceptions and beliefs. It is to view them from a short distance above, behind and even underneath like children looking up to adults to appease their curiosity. Finally, acting with purpose and determination reflects the thoughtfulness of our souls, where we consider our intentions and what is important in life to us or in a given situation along with the potential consequences of our hypothetical actions. This is equivalent to having a reason to live and being committed to that reason.

To have depth is to live truthfully and behave with sincerity, which we can refer to as the acknowledgement of living deeply. We cannot live deeply without being truly honest with ourselves and accepting life. We have to be faithful to the person we really are while translating and respecting the realities of our lives. And in order to avoid being swept away by our unchecked biosocial pressures and moralistic defenses that point to our inherited norms and unquestioned prejudgments, we have to be cognizant of the cues that elicit our responses and know the bounds of our physical and emotional tolerances, which include our bodily consumptions and social interactions. Otherwise, we can neither adequately uncover our sociocultural influences to distinguish between what innately defines us and what our society tells us that we are nor learn the lessons of our dispositions from the types of suffering that we can and cannot endure.

Thinking carefully before we act makes us less likely to communicate indelicately what is on our minds as seen when we are most inclined to be defensive, suspicious or condescending. However, this does not mean we should suppress what we feel. Being trapped with our unsettled emotions can lead us to implode mentally as well as explode outwardly by committing hurtful or horrific acts. While many of us apply discretion in openly expressing our feelings and to whom we voice them, the goal is to acknowledge what we are feeling before we discern the situational appropriateness of its expression and the means through which it should be conveyed. We try to understand what stirs us before directing our emotions towards others, including those whom we perceive as their instigators, regardless of our positive or negative perceptions. This is indispensable to how we adapt to life.

We can overcome many of our struggles if we can turn our sensitivities into assets by being aware of the underlying triggers that perturb us and by setting limits and monitoring those limits to stop what we are doing or to change our environment when we reach them. In addition, remembering that our experiences are conditional and ephemeral in nature may prevent us from executing decisions with permanent effects such as ending a promising career, breaking up with an inimitable partner or, worst of all, harming another sentient being. This is critical to protecting and improving our welfare when the outcomes stemming from our actions and reactions are worse than the initial events we perceived as leading to their incitement.

Our sense of depth is primarily associated with the body because our corporeal casing ground us to the earth or any celestial object on which we live. It is how we interface with the physical world, and it is because of our bodies that we are able to feel. Depth is the visceral experience of consciousness. And while it can be intense, it is the opposite of being obsessed, preoccupied or distracted. It is like the process of breathing. We deeply inhale the air we need and then exhale it back out into the world with its byproducts, which are consumed by other life in our biosphere. The joint act of absorbing and releasing bits of the world reveals the intimate relationship that forms between our bodies and our surroundings as well as our inborn reliance on this biological machinery to sustain our existence. Since we can only be as effective as our bodies allow us to be and this assumes what our brains allow us to be, the maintenance of a healthy body and a focused mind is vital to a meaningful life, which includes eating well, engaging in physical activity and ensuring quality sleep as part of a basic daily routine. The steady practice of meditation combined with other disciplines like yoga or tai chi also contribute to our overall well-being and self-regulation. But while a balanced lifestyle and its committed practices can help briefly relieve us of stress in response to a life riddled with anxieties that can obscure their origins, it does not necessarily lead us further into depth. In many cases, it only avoids depth if intended purely to keep us at peace instead of being wholly in touch with our nature and the environment that preserves us.

Although the body may represent our depth, the mind is what recognizes it and the soul is what fills it. As the body focuses the mind and the mind frees the soul, the soul fuels the body by tapping into its energy and injecting it with passion, presence and purpose. Life does not consciously need to know of its ambition to live, but we are essentially inert or lifeless without an inherent spirit or will to function. It is our feelings as they arise from our basic senses as well as from our shared consciousness that serve as an affirmation that we are alive and present. While they can overwhelm us and impede the governance of our faculties to the point where we may not want to feel anything, we rely on the resonant quality of those feelings to tell us how present we really are. Moreover, it is not our feelings that give us depth as much as it is our awareness of those feelings and their sources in relation to the world. Hence, as we reflect upon our profound sentience, we are drawn closer to the significance of living deeply as we recognize the intrinsic value of things we experience. And if we can accept the realities of life that include its dependencies and risks, then we can better overcome our anxieties and liberate our lives.

THE RESPONSIVENESS OF LIVING FREELY

We live in an increasingly artificial environment and function within a very structured system that persuades us to expect expedient convenience as well as decisive answers to definitive problems. And yet often to our dismay, reality does not fit well into our perfectly designed models and applauded best practices. Nonetheless, we apply them because we attain just enough of what we apparently need. And although we see the rapid modernization of our societies correlate with the exponential expansion of our knowledge, the ease with which we can employ and exhibit our analytical capacity makes us more prone to falling into the maddening trap of engaging in infinite levels of reduction and rationalization where we obsess over control we do not have. We can endlessly dissect the world into almost arbitrarily conceptualized pieces only to render depth meaningless in our virtual playground. But importantly, the belief in being free is essentially indistinguishable from the illusion of having real choices in a society that pretends to be free, especially one where we address inextinguishable risks by magnifying their threats and restricting or removing our civil liberties. We cannot treat life as a disorderly phenomenon that demands adherence to rigidly absolute protocols. The universe enables change by letting chaos be part of its order. Hence, a very fluid world requires us to be fluid as well if we wish to lead rewarding and relatively unobstructed lives.

Although freedom is a subject that concerns us profoundly, we seem greatly puzzled by what it means when our desire to be liberated from fear confines us to protective enslavement. When we think of freedom, we generally imagine the power to make decisions and act upon those decisions. It is to do whatever we choose to do, which assumes that we have the ability to move about freely and that we have a range of choices from which to choose, including the option to do nothing. In addition, we want freedom to be available to us at all times in the event that we might want to exercise that freedom. Yet we know that we are constantly exchanging one set of freedoms with another as demonstrated by marital commitments or vows of celibacy. It is not surprising that some of us break the rules to evade mutually exclusively choices, but ultimately we are always taking risks in losing our freedoms as a possible consequence of the actions we take such as engaging in a fun yet precarious activity that may result in an irreversible injury. This is why we are in a tug-of-war between the ‘freedom to’ such as to choose or move and ‘freedom from’ anything potentially negative, which we can easily relate to as states of freedom from pain, distress, danger, risk, doubt, confusion, desire and fear as well as from obligation, duty, subjugation and accountability.

The inescapable fusion between want and dread can lead some of us to evade decisions and emotions to the point of our own eventual detriment. And since the intricate concept of freedom can confuse us or make us apprehensive, we may need to recognize its two faces to appreciate the broader meaning of living freely. At a basic level, we understand that one seeks choice or the availability of options while the other responds with concern over being released or liberated from suffering or control. However, it does not matter on which side of the liberty coin we land because we have to assume in both cases some degree of autonomy or empowerment has to be in place. Even if someone else frees us from bondage, we still want the power to function relatively well on our own. Our yearning to be free to act and to be free of limitation or dependency implies a thirst for dominion over our own lives, which can swell into an unquenchable thirst for control over others. While we tend to push the boundaries of the possible as we attempt to test the reach of our powers, we cannot escape our fundamental dependencies because our existence is physically inseparable from our universe. We simply cannot exist in pure isolation or live independently in absolute terms. Given how we enter into the world, our relationships with one another and with our environment are not only integral to our sustenance, but our lives would be meaningless without them.

Yet despite this unalterable reality, we still try to circumvent this impossibility through the delusion of our sovereignty and superiority. As long as there is something beneath us to subjugate by threat or support, or by persuasion or appeasement, we feel more empowered or less anxious about where we stand on the socioeconomic ladder set against the pyramid scheme of a shifting geopolitical paradigm. Many of us even hide behind the banner of providing aid to others or gloat over our success at swaying their beliefs to conceal our own insecurities while remaining in denial about our mutual dependencies. And although numerous factors may drive our obsession with freedom in the context of independence, the most likely influence is that we are or have been physically or mentally distressed in some way by past or persistent experiences. For many of us, these cases may involve being subjected to our own neurotic tendencies or especially to abusive relationships, which may range from verbal to bodily abuse and from overly protective to utterly neglectful interactions. Some common sources include concerned parents fearful of losing their children to the point of smothering them with too much attention and the overregulation of their lives, or managerial superiors pushing beyond the appropriate boundaries of their authority in how they can direct their subordinates or the team they are responsible for leading.

However, some of us know exactly what it means to be violated or dominated to the point of our privileges being denied. We see this where we experience violence, especially among those of us who have survived agenda-driven atrocities and the deliberate infringement and deprivation of basic civil rights such as access to uncontaminated food and water as well as the means to live in decency and to progress without prejudicial hindrance. We are forced to adapt to a world that generously introduces us to both opportunities and perils, which together may dictate the course of our lives. And while some of us might believe we are only truly free in the uncivilized wilderness, there are no rights to be granted or refused. Freedom in an impartial world has a different sense since we have to live based on our wits and the natural provisions of our environment. But in civil society, freedom is tied to imposed rules that can traumatize us when they are broken or challenged, and the penalties can extend to the brutality of words where we are labelled as inhuman or branded as inadequate or unworthy of love and respect.

The result of these deliberate and inadvertent transgressions is that our most basic human trust is breached, and we lose faith in others unable to see them as moral or spiritual companions. This can lead to our autonomous inclinations to be free of abuse or betrayal and can trigger a more defensible reason for our coveted independence when we are reminded of our existential vulnerability alongside an unconscionable history that casts doubt on our facility with trusting the universe. And it is therefore not surprising that when we experience power or some perceived mastery as limited as it may be over our demarcated world, we develop the confidence to momentarily overcome our primal fear of fragility. However, we risk developing a misguided belief in our personal autonomy, and our fixation on independence can become an unfortunate distraction from the struggle we all have with our instinctive longing to reflect who and what we really are and to realize the potential that resides within us all.

Living freely suggests that we want to be unhindered in our ability to experience life learn from it to manifest the full extent of who we really are. Learning is liberating, but we also want to bear witness to what we encounter and feel free to appreciate or understand it. It does not mean we have to experience everything, but it does demand that we give ourselves permission to utilize whatever capacity we have to do what we deem significant or wish to discover in order to determine if it is significant. It is less about the freedom to choose as it is about the freedom to learn about the world and ourselves so that we can orient our actions towards experiences that display and align with who and what we are. We have a hunger inside us that needs to be projected outside of ourselves through the development of our stories in order to unearth the viagnostic meaning that is buried within our lives.

To unlock our essence, we have to submit to life. This may seem counterintuitive and difficult to accept given the strong association we make between freedom and control, but we can only gain control by letting go of that which we do not actually possess. Many of us struggle with this because we carry with us the delusion that we are or can be fully in control. However, it is not about letting go of our power, as much as it is about releasing our hold on a belief that we are in total need of control. And a failure to yield voluntarily in our discovery to appease what we need, we will be forced to succumb in other ways through addiction or subjugation that will make us feel more enslaved. The more we live in fear of losing control, the more we deprive ourselves of who we really are and compromise the stability of the self. This can push us to fall into the pit of our madness as the weight of its iron chains pulls us further down and away from our emancipation instead of realizing that we can only find freedom in the interplay between possessing power and relinquishing control when we take responsibility for our lives.

We cannot live freely without being able to respond to our circumstances and owning the consequences of our choices. This necessitates the assertion of our needs and the regulation of actions we can influence in alignment with a world we cannot rule. The answer to our liberation rests with our own discipline and submission to the responsiveness of living freely. Only an observed life of regularity and moderation oscillating naturally between subtle restraint and casual acquiescence can weaken our extreme and opposing tendencies towards being overly self-managed and being entirely uninhibited as if we were driven by a force blanketing our skin that was neither external nor internal to our being. We cannot defuse our explosive temperament unless we allow our thoughts and feelings to flow charitably through our consciousness so that we can study and regulate them before they convert into detrimental deeds. By openly monitoring ourselves, we can prevent or lessen the asphyxiation of our inward supervision and the paralysis of our outward apprehension. Hence, the success of living freely depends on being attentive to life and learning to mind our surroundings, account for our biases and predict the impacts of our motivated choices while being sufficiently consistent to ensure stability in our lives.

The interrelated concepts of freedom and control can be entirely seen from the perspective of the self or the ego. Even when we consider the predicament of others, we are able to empathize with them because we can imagine how we would feel if we were in their situation and therefore understand how they might feel. Every scenario we can contemplate, which ranges from a state of being completely free to not being free at all, places us in an egolistic frame of mind. Instead of being self-centred and concerned with power, we are self-motivated in accordance with what appears self-relevant within the boundaries of our growing and maturing identity. The notion of freedom has no meaning without our own individual self-awareness, which instantly creates the sense of distinctiveness and significance we need to feel. Each of us is one unique instance among all other instances of being in the universe, while we are all entangled in the same existential web. And although we cannot escape this, we do desire the autonomy to travel within the womb of the world through our empowered bodies and liberated minds.

Being free is to move, think and create freely to unleash our potential. This requires that we unmask our false beliefs and pretentious identities, almost all of which illuminates our influences and indoctrinations associated with promoting values that primarily benefit or serve the concerns of others and do not align with the essence of who we are and what we need. Freedom demands that we meet our most basic self-interest so that when faced with deprivation and abuse, we do not respond with overindulgence and domination or austerity and capitulation. Our beliefs reflect our insecurities and our disparities with others as well as our strategies and defenses in supporting the favourable conditions we desire. By exposing their prejudice and incredulity, we can free ourselves from the mental imprisonment that restricts our bodies from full engagement in life and blocks the free will of our souls.

We can live freely without the strangulation of constant panic and the instability of unruly behaviour. However, since the mind stands between our deception and disillusionment with our conditioning ready to auction off our freedom by persuasive brokers, we need to remain vigilant about the deleterious beliefs that may come disguised as truths. The danger of being insecure is becoming condescending, and the threat of overconfidence is a life of regrettable mistakes. Ascension comes with the risk of artificial elevation, which can place us at the pinnacle of our conceit before we fall into the pit of our despair. Living freely encourages us to let go and take risks, but we can only permit our inherent trust in life if we are cautious and neutral as well. So while depth tackles the fear of losing ourselves, and ascension addresses the fear of living our lives, scope eases the fear of not knowing the truth when we convince ourselves that we do know. And once we free the soul, it opens us up to living a full life.

THE TRANSCENDENCE OF LIVING COMPLETELY

Our existential complexity compels us to oversimplify the phenomenon of life, but we also tend to overcomplicate its simplicity by twisting reality around our imagined autonomy and omniscience. The fraudulent creation of our ego lures us into the seductive state of separating ourselves from the universe, which reduces its meaning to reflect little more than its material composition. But this is a fear-induced fantasy that individually lets us overlook our collective dependency and integration with the cosmic whole founded on the fundamental order of all existence, which is the universal truth. Consequently, we cannot achieve a legitimate sense of completeness by seeing ourselves as separate or detachable entities that can somehow live untouched or unaffected by society and the rest of the world.

Our need to comprehend things and events is always present in our ongoing encounters with reality, and that understanding tends to be local and specific to our particular set of circumstances in an effort to adapt and advance our lives. We naturally shrink the world to what is directly relevant to us. However, we also have a complementary need to see the big picture or view life as a whole, regardless of whether it pertains only to our personal lives or includes everyone. This is the same necessity we have to summarize the overall meaning of life and to grasp the essence of who we really are. And while living deeply and freely provides us with insights and possibilities to consider, we want to unite all discoveries and integrate our goals or aspirations under one umbrella, preferably with ties to the same roots. This is part of our holistic tendency to apply a systemic approach to life, which enables us to see how multiple things concurrently interrelate with one another while trying to avoid missing anything important.

Living completely means being holistic, which begins with a sense of inclusion where we neglect nothing by contemplating all things however irregular or irrelevant they might seem. This requires us to draw from the impartiality of the universe so that we do not initially favour anything before we realize what is truly pertinent in any given situation and how it aligns with some larger plan or purpose in life. By considering everything, we widen the focus of our attention to be clear which values we will sacrifice to accommodate others of greater importance such as when we choose to sustain long-term communal harmony over achieving individual short-term gains, or to dispense with rules or legalities when our immediate survival is at stake. This rightly assumes that we also operate with a rough playbook to compare and apply our core principles. For example, subsistence often trumps propriety, but we do not necessarily approve of expediency over etiquette unless speed becomes urgently critical to saving lives or averting a catastrophe. Hence, we need sufficient context to make sensible decisions, and that demands that we adjust our scope accordingly and reset our magnification of the world to perceive the order beneath or above the chaos we sense. And with increased clarity, we are better able to detach ourselves from unimportant things and align ourselves to the essential ones in any scenario. This is why we should only pass judgment after we have heard the whole case or in receipt of decisive information.

If we want to feel whole or live completely, we need to see ourselves continually as part of a greater organism, which is not unlike our various social affiliations such as being a member of a family unit or a resident of a global community. We are participants in multiple domains of existence in which each one serves its own purpose. For instance, our bodies function as a vital set of interrelated systems sustaining our individual lives, but they are also inseparable parts of the universe from which we borrow our matter and energy that we must return at end of life. Moreover, our minds are more than our consciousness that only accounts for a small fraction of what we are, but they also represent slices of a wider consciousness to which we may not have direct or full access. As for our souls, they contain the entire seed of all possible intentions derived from a common source or purpose that we all struggle to voice and demonstrate. However, they also serve as infinitesimal fragments of an integrated ecosystem that extends beyond the physical universe as part of a larger autonomous system that supports life and manifests its meaning. Hence, despite our natural inclination towards distinctiveness, we know that no entity exists alone in a web of interlocking relationships.

Being whole individuals begins with becoming aware of our oneness with everything, and we need to live harmoniously with the world as well as with ourselves to live completely. However, we only realize our sense of completeness when we experience transformation and transcend our nature. Our internal tension resides in the rift between who we really are and whom we are taught to be, and closing that gap requires that we find ways to attain intrinsic fulfillment while navigating through societal expectations to which we must adapt. This often necessitates the resolution of situations that fall outside the boundaries and specifications of our personal disposition, which is part of our inner study and a lifelong endeavour to acquire wisdom about our nature. We do not know who we are until we see ourselves in multiple situations and witness the diverse behaviour of others. And this includes not only what we do but also how well we overcome the circumstances we undergo to reveal what consistently motivates us across those conditions. For example, some of us may show more concern with acquiring assets while others among us seek to determine how we can best use them other than to obtain even more assets. Many of us follow a relatively narrow path through life, but we can broaden its meaning by being more inclusive of what we can learn while growing beyond our influences. Being open and impartial to everything enables us to embrace what is most relevant to manifesting our essence.

However, expanding our definition of self involves more than practicing inclusion and fostering a nonjudgmental environment that permits a diversity of expression in our orphaned identities and constantly shifting roles. It also extends to our development and evolution, where we do not view our lives as merely the sum of our own parts but rather as emerging features and narratives of the world. The transcendence of living completely occurs when we can see ourselves in the greater story of life as its many faces and perspectives along with everyone else. Some of us like to see this as being one with God or being inseparable from that greater order to the deepest point where there is no difference between each of us and the whole of life. Yet for many others among us, this transpires when we experience a very significant metamorphosis and become what we are meant to be. We actualize our completeness and ultimate purpose once we have undergone an elemental change that exposes our true essence and we find our place in the universe.

Applying a systemic approach to life is also about being strategic in how we engage the world and ourselves. It involves knowing how to anticipate conflict or to detect disparity, where we define the problem or need in order to develop a strategy that addresses our concern or interest. This demands that we monitor our results and make course corrections, but a successful strategy depends on a sufficiently clear vision of where we need to be to direct our plan of action. We can alter this vision as we acquire more knowledge to better discern what we need, but it requires us to have a good sense of the environment within which we function and that is contributing to our challenges. We need to know the lay of the land and survey the terrain because the more reliable or current the map we possess, the easier it is to draw out an appropriate course or effective plan to follow. Finally, we need to pinpoint exactly where we are on that map, which naturally returns us back to the awareness that living completely means that we are living deeply and freely as well. It is the combination of these three ways of living that provide a comprehensive perspective on our lives that will spark the moments of insight and light the fire in us to realize and actualize who and what we are. As we explore the labyrinth of our own selves while avoiding the insularity and shallowness of those who do not recognize the greater narrative of life, we gradually come to appreciate the underlying meaning of our existence.

THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE OF SENITENT LIFE

Determining what we should essentially seek in life seems like an everlasting quest that most of us conclude only when we almost arbitrarily choose our purpose or our purpose chooses us. In either case, we wrestle with our underlying motives and try to make peace with the discordant voices that instruct us to move in opposing directions before the distance between who we really are and what we have become is too wide, high or deep to execute any decision that can fundamentally realign our lives. Unfortunately, many of us fastidiously study how we should live life to the point where we bury ourselves so far down beneath the surface that we can never find solid footing on which to move ourselves forward. We also tend to look for guidance everywhere outside of ourselves where none exists or at least not where we hope to find it and especially not in the form that we expect it to be. But we eventually discover that the answers lie in our romance with life as we dive into its truth, release ourselves from our illusory restraints and touch the whole of what we are in the source of all existence.

As sentient beings who feel present among one another in the world, we want to find our own purpose in life that extends beyond the basic function to live. Although many of us are tempted to pursue a purely hedonic lifestyle that maximizes our enjoyment of life, we have to remember that we are innately designed like all life to adapt and reproduce as a prerequisite for our continuity and that continuity seeks some sense of fulfilment, individually and collectively. Inevitably, we should try to experience the pleasures of life and make it more than bearable, but our morally self-conscious survival suggests there is a deeper meaning of higher significance with a broader purpose seeking expression through us as its vehicle, portrayal and embodiment. Hence, while the fundamental intent of life is to live, the ultimate purpose of sentient life is to find purpose and uncover its meaning by exhibiting our essence through the life we are afforded as situated within the reality we encounter.

While some among us have been fortunate enough to get a glimpse into our own inner nature, many others have fabricated a very convincing version of it to never bother to peer into it again. Regardless, we largely fail to appreciate how to engage deeply, freely and completely in self-discovery; this is because we tend to look outwards when we should look inwards and poke around inside when we should be wandering out into our environment. We can best understand ourselves by synchronizing our internal and external states. As we observe how we respond to real or perceived conditions, we notice the things we seem gifted at doing as well as the way we enjoy playing. We can uncover our purpose by sensing what feels right when our disposition serves a situation or what feels wrong about the world that we are even mildly inclined to change. It is in maintaining that sincerity with ourselves as we concurrently test our powers to the point where the things that naturally matter to us come together with the particular means by which we know how to actualize, refine and sustain them. The meaning of life is realized through how, where and when we apply ourselves to any given need or scenario we choose, whether it is raising our children and volunteering in our communities with unwavering devotion or making valuable discoveries, creating beautiful works of art and improving the quality of life through professions such as medicine and engineering. It does not matter what it is that we do as long as it matters to us. Sometimes, it requires someone else to point it out, but it is in its actual doing that reveals its importance and not in forever contemplating it with inaction.

Hence, if there is a point to life and if what we do matters, then all we are left with is what we are going to do about it. Whether or not we are bound to a preordained fate, the development of our stories still depends on the choices we make, individually and collectively. Although the larger world in which we live may not seem to alter substantially, it can and does change by at least some small measure in relation to our lives because we are given a rough sketch of a partially written future left for us to edit and elaborate. As long as there is choice, our destiny remains a moving target. Even if our decisions lead nowhere or in the opposite direction of where we intended them to take us, other options will present themselves. And while it is unbeknownst to us all what will ultimately happen, it is only once a choice is committed to action that fate can make a course correction.

In our efforts to subsist and improve the quality of our lives, we surface our inherent desire and need for power. By power, we mean the capacity to cause a change that may result in a useful impact. Life cannot exist without power because in order to sustain itself, it must have the ability to access and harness resources to convert them ultimately into something beneficial to its own functioning, growth or renewal. Key examples of power include attracting, building, influencing, adapting and destroying. But instrumental to all power is the capacity to learn, know and apply what is known. This facility is what turns resources such as information into power whose use translates and intimately links to change.

Not surprisingly, we experience and enable change through the body. And while the mind recalls, anticipates and witnesses that change, it is the soul that drives or is synonymous with what wills change. Hence, when we say that all life has soul or spirit, we mean that all life possesses the basic will to live. This simple and obvious function may not offer much consolation to those of us struggling with unrelenting pain and unhappiness or an aimless existence, but asking the question of why there is life seems to be of little to no concern to us until we come to realize how extraordinary it is that there is life at all. This foundational mystery is what triggers our inquiry and the pursuit of its answers in relation to our animated existence, which we utilize as a starting point to develop our narratives that act as conduits for cultivating meaning in life. Our stories are like distinct plants growing together in the same open field where we harvest both our goodwill and malevolence.

However, our challenge is always how to find our way back to ourselves when the rest of the world, especially its darker side, conceals that path from us by misdirecting our functions and redefining our identities. This begins very early during our most impressionable years, and it is why many of us unconsciously try to return to our once untainted childhood by experiencing the innocence of love with a trusted partner or by witnessing children in the act of imaginative play. And yet given how easily overwhelmed we can be by conflict and the whims of life, many of us would prefer if someone would tell us what our purpose or meaning really is. And while some of us have had the good fortune of wiser elders and teachers to guide us through our dilemmas or have families and friends to provide us with insights into ourselves, no one can tell us our purpose because it is uniquely tied to each one of us. We can only decode the message and read its meaning by living and owning own lives as we align and identify with the difficulties we can willingly face. None of us really want to struggle unless we find fulfilment in it, which is why each of us must find roles that can inspire us to excel and expand, and not retreat into the chasms of our despair, or worse, let our desires be lit by the fires of hell. We need to coalesce with the characters we can play in the right performances that enable our stories to progress.

Our key power or instrument of influence lies with our intelligence in what we learn, but our most meaningful power in our quest for purpose is our capacity for love because it is through the experience of love that we discover who we are in what we want and what we are capable of doing to fulfill that love. When we live deeply, freely and completely, we actually mean that we love deeply, freely and completely. Accepting reality and acknowledging our own nature, which includes appreciating others, involves loving deeply through our capacity for empathy by placing ourselves in the predicaments of others and sharing in their realities as if they were our own. Similarly, loving freely permits us to experience life uninhibitedly by caring about what we learn. And finally, we cannot be inclusive and live in harmony without loving the world completely. This does not mean tolerating the abusive or disloyal behaviour of others, but it does demand our unconditional openness and ability to grasp the broader significance of events and place others in the context of their larger stories. In unison, loving deeply uncovers the meaning we feel while loving freely enables us to find it as we strive to love wholly in order to see exactly why we love and keep charting a course forward until the Grim Reaper returns us to our ancestral home.

In the film Maudie [14], based on the life of folk artist Maud Lewis, a seemingly unassuming woman captured the world she painted in cheerfully colourful landscapes with the life that animated them. Despite the physical hardship she faced with her debilitating arthritis and the disparaging interactions she endured with her disapproving family as well as the emotionally guarded fish peddler who would later become her husband, she maintained a youthful optimism that she imprinted in her works through the window of her childlike awareness. However, her story is really a testament to how an inhibiting bodily memory, a mental presence and a soulful gratitude in their unity can give rise to a meaningful life where unleashing potential and the joy of living can occur by simply being who we really are. She lived deeply by appreciating nature and accepting her own. She lived freely within her personal limits by seizing every brushstroke to depict the gentler imagery of a harsh world that many of us take for granted. And she lived completely by transcending the confined existence that others either helped to create or escape and by ultimately finding love where no one else would have found it.

The quality of our lives is bound to the love we have for our stories, which the universe initiates for us to develop from the choices we need to make. And how we choose to live our lives will depend on what we meaningfully discover that matters through the depth, ascension and scope of our awareness, where we try not to lose ourselves in contrived routines, endanger others or ourselves with impulsive decisions or become so preoccupied with the big picture that we fail to live or do anything at all. If we listen attentively with genuine care, our past will remind us about our relevant inner nature and our future will keep adjusting to our natural trajectory from where we are in the present. Our purpose will come into perspective as our stories bless us with fitting experiences where we find ourselves loving deeply, freely and completely. We encounter our purpose in the love we intrinsically want to own as a responsibility, but our challenge is to find unique and enduring ways to express that love. And if we can cease to concern ourselves with what we cannot change or control, then we can better determine and prepare what we need to do in the here and now to shape the narrative of our lives in order to reflect the meaning in what we contribute to making possible some part of what happens in life.