Self Improvement Made Easy

The quest for the meaning of life was brought home to me in a frighteningly personal way on September 11, 2001. The day that a terrorist attack made thousands of people perish in a senseless act of violence. My partner Jo arrived home that very day from a trip to Canada and New York on a United Airlines flight via New York. Two weeks earlier, she had stood on top of the World Trade Centre. Only good luck and timing saved Jo from death.

Whilst Jo was away, I had been reflecting on a change of consciousness that occurred for me many years ago. After several years of self-discovery research and experimentation, I woke one morning with the awareness that my consciousness was very different than normal on awakening…thought was absent and there was a sense of stillness and peace. This lasted about 2 hours. Since that amazing experience, this peaceful state comes and goes in my life, so it seems nothing is permanent.

This also makes me see why killing any living creature, when one has an option , is evil. Thought makes us believe that we are somehow superior to other animals. Take thought out of the equation and it is a different story!

However, I was still troubled by the question posed in the first sentence of this article. I feel a million times better about life and the world, but is that it? Do I bliss out for the rest of my life without thought for the morrow? Can I understand what happened to my brain and can it be duplicated by others?

I considered this for weeks until the insights started flowing. Here they are in no particular order of importance:

Nine Insights On What a Change Of Consciousness Means

1. The highest value is life itself, compassion for all living creatures. Not just my life, or your life, but the whole flow of life in all its forms. If we value ideas more than life, then we kill others because of their contradictory ideas, and this has been the problem with humanity for thousands of years.

2. For life to keep going in a fast-changing environment, it must get more and more intelligent. This means it must sometimes change just to stay around.

3. Those gurus who claim that consciousness is the only reality and ‘things and bodies’ are an illusion are making the huge mistake of looking for a solution to their mortality. These same gurus don’t want to precisely define this elusive ‘thing’ called consciousness? For me it’s simply awareness of existing, and it is an integral part of my being, including my body.

4. Enlightenment for me simply means being my own light and making the most of my one chance at life in the context of the existing world situation. It would be absurd and dangerous to accept any one person’s views on life or follow anyone else.

5. Living things are self-organizing and self-maintaining. They create order out of chaos. This is a continual, dynamic process. Moments of bliss (or peak experiences) occur for an individual organism when ‘everything is in order’ i.e. food and other basic needs are gratified, for the moment. Therefore bliss is a result of order being maintained.

6. Evolution on Earth does not have a purpose as such, other than to keep going, moment-to-moment. As conditions on Earth change quickly or gradually over long periods, life has developed a pattern of increasing complexity.

7. My consciousness changed to a natural consciousness because I began living from day to day on a ‘NOW’ basis, and I stopped putting energy into maintaining false values (improving self, ambition, pride, seeking permanent anything).

8. Human beings do not have a choice about whether there will be a new consciousness. The current planetary crisis will resolve itself, one way or another. So we are not in charge of our own evolution although we are active participants in the flow of life. We either co-operate with the whole of life or we self-destruct.

9. Thought is a very important tool for creative living, but not for psychological identification, because it then creates disorder in the organism. Life, in humans cannot become less elaborate and go back to the state of so-called innocence or pre-thought. However, thought must be integrated with the organism’s number one value – the continuation of life.

I am greedy and selfish for more life. Isn’t everyone? That’s a massive problem too. Not to admit that you want a lot more out of life than you are getting. It’s called being selfish. Everyone’s egocentric because it’s how a living creature is wired. Let’s not be hypocrites and make things worse by pretending otherwise. When we accept the truth we are free to be selfish or unselfish without feeling guilty.

There is absolutely no point in chasing after security, because there is none. Life is a temporary business, so go for the biggest dream you can imagine, and be prepared for disappointment, failure, embarrassment, laughter, stupidity, learning, success and surprises galore.

This is our greatest challenge in the present time and where true meaning and purpose lie in wait for every person. Perhaps too much peace can be boring too, if meaningful living is absent. I eventually got bored being ‘blissed out’ all the time and leaving the hard stuff to others. Challenges are everywhere. Start somewhere – today!

For more information on discovering the meaning of life please visit The meaning of life

Gary Hipworth
Director Maverick Solutions
Creator of Inmate 88 Life Planning Software
Meaning of life

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