The Meaning of Life...

Unemployment has reached 10% in the United States... 16 million people without work... 16 million people unable to pay rent, buy food, or pay the bills. Assuming each individual pays ten bills in a month, 160 million businesses a month will now not be receiving payment. Assuming each person would be paying $1000 in income taxes for the year, that is $16 Billion lost income revenue. Consider that those individuals would be likely to purchase at least $100 worth of Christmas toys had they been working this season, that is $1.6 Billion that will not be exchanged for goods or services into our economy this Christmas Season... The reports are all around us on this day: Lost jobs, lost revenue, lost income, lost taxes. The focus of our life energy seems to have been taken very drastically off course.

Consider this a moment of clarity.

Step back from material things... from jobs and homes, from cars and reality TV, from iPods and bottled water... what are you left with? You. The simplest yet most profound statement you can make is simply "I exist". You exist in mind, body, and soul. You are a force of energy, a source of love, an embodiment of the most divine. The material is distraction. The spiritual is reality.

When the student is ready, the teacher will come... so it has been said.

What is more divine than life? The collective experience of living, the personal journey of emotion. Life is our spiritual interface with the material world. It is our opportunity to learn, to experience, to seek out, and to love. These are the lessons of all history's spiritual teachers... but we are failing the test.

We are currently involved in multiple wars around the globe. There are those who seek to do harm for the sake of doing harm - thoughtless massacres, savagery. We have perfected the art of murder in the name of religious duty. We are failing the test. We can see it in the eyes of the innocent victims of senseless shootings, bombings, raids, etc. The cries of children, women, and men mourning the loss of their fellow man echo the distress of the individual soul, and the collective soul. What we do affects our ability to exist, and undermines our ability to achieve a higher state of understanding of the meaning of this life.

Should we not vest every last ounce of energy and effort to make our fellow man smile, instead of cry? Is the challenge so great, the purpose of all things so complex that we have lost our ability to recognize the truest truths, the simplest concepts, the holiest of purposes? Have we become so distracted by the things of the world that we forget the teachings of unconditional love? Pick your religious icon of choice, isn't their teaching that of altruism? Across all religions, all faiths, all spiritual concepts, unconditional selflessness is the holiest of hollies - the one common truth - the meaning of life.

The conflict of this world comes from the individual evolution of spiritual consciousness. Just like the evolution of civilization, the evolution of spiritual consciousness begins with the simplest task of just surviving, and culminates with true enlightenment. The conflict arises when one group at a level of consciousness fails to comprehend or accept that of another. Or it is out of dutiful obedience to their collective god, rejecting any other explanation of the same by way of the sword. In simple terms, religious wars for the sake of religious observances. Be it Islamic Jihad which caused mass genocide in Africa to Christian inquisitions which bore witness to human sacrifice in the early Americas, religious warfare has been the leading cause of torment in the history of this planet. What is most ironic is that all of the great teachers warned of this, and offered the answer, the truth, the secret to life... love and happiness. Does not the New Testament teach that of Faith, Hope, and Love the greatest is Love/charity... the complete giving of yourself for selfless reasons. It is not done out of obedience to God, but out of Oneness WITH God. The secret - revealed? God lives within us all, as the source for life, the breath of life. Our soul, our spirit, our very existence is the divine order from chaos - realizing this divine oneness is the highest level of spiritual consciousness.

Life was created in the image of Perfection. The breath of life was given, and with it the love of the most Divine. The energy of our spiritual consciousness is greater for knowing this - that God is Love. Not simply a bumper sticker or a televangical slogan... God = Love, and therefore Love is God... To love is divine. To Charity is Divine. Unconditional Altruism, the complete giving of the self, is the meaning... not out of duty, but out of divinity.

It is not what we have, what we give, or what we say... It is How we live, how we love, and how we share which allows our spiritual evolution... These are the teachings of all religious lore, legends, and leaders... from the earliest teachings of creation to their modern day counterparts, the message has remained unchanged since the beginning of time. Follow the golden rule and you will surely know God.

The face of God is found in the face of your fellow man. In the eyes of every man, woman, and child you will find the secret of life. When the eyes are filled with tears, filled with pain, filled with fear - there is an energy, an imbalance, a darkness being applied to the universe... The knot in your stomach, the pain in your tears, the longing for an embrace of comfort - it is life. When you are overcome with joy, when you see your child at birth, when your heart jumps out of your chest and you find yourself longing for a shared embrace of joy - it is life. There is an energy that connects us all... the spiritual consciousness, the energy of life, the power of humanity, the holy spirit. It is our compass. It is spiritual intuition, and it will guide you to the truth.

The power of prayer, of meditation, of a simple thought is real. It is the connection with God, the oneness with the universe, the evolution of the spirit. We know these rituals by different names and understand them at different levels of our own consciousness. They are the universal truths... the secret to happiness, the meaning of this life.

Be happy in your own mind. Love others unconditionally. Accept that each individual exists on their own level of spiritual consciousness, and judge not. Be kind in your thoughts and in your actions. Offer a positive thought or a prayer for a stranger in need. Forgive as freely as you have been forgiven. Lend a helping hand to one of the 16 Million neighbors in need of compassion. All of this is Love - the meaning, my friends, of Life.