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Existential Meanings

What separates us from the things that we see that is apart from us, as in not connected or in any way joined to our body? I mean to say things like a lamp post, a table, a chair, a car… I asked this question to quite a few people and the most common answer they gave me was, that they had a heart beating, that they are alive whilst the lamp post, the table, the chair, the car did not have a heart beating, nor were they alive. The most unique answer I received was from a new friend. She said, it was the level of consciousness that differentiates her and the table. The question asked was however what separates, and not what differentiates.

Not that any of the answers were incorrect, but what is more correct is the meaning that we give to everything including ourselves. If the lamp post did not have a name such as a lamp post, and we did not have the meaning of space in between what we call a lamp post from where we were standing, which is too a meaning we give to the position that we are at, what would be experienced? And the space that we see between us and anything that we had put meaning to, how do we know if there is nothing there, is it because we cannot see it thus it does not exist? In truth, how can anything be separated from us when they are in our mind and only projected outwards?

Likewise of a beating heart; I asked my other friend, what separates us from say, a dog? A dog also has a heart beating, does that mean that it is the same as us? And I can almost guess the answers that my friend will come up with – that we talk, and the dog barks; we think, and the dog doesn’t; we walk on twos and the dog walks on fours and etc. The thing is, how do we know that the dog does not speak through its bark, how do we know that the chair and the table does not have a heart beating and are not communicating, except that we are oblivious to their abilities to do so or unable to tune into their frequency of communication? Again, our meaning of heart beating, of abilities, or methods of communication and etc. The mind is now so evolved that the other day I was running through the App Store on my iPhone and found an App which enables dog barks to be translated into human language. What does it speak?

If we didn’t give a meaning to ourselves that we are human beings, that we have the ability to think, to speak, to create; are we then any different from all that we can visually see, touch and hear within our experience?

Everything is being put a meaning – everything, not one single thing is being left out – a tree, a flower, a stone… If the meaning is something that is valuable to us, we will tend to cherish the thing of the meaning that we have given to a little bit more totally obscure to the truth that it is actually the meaning that we cherish more, rather than the thing. Similarly, if the meaning to something is one that means little or nothing to us, we may not pay much attention or even take notice of it. Strange, isn’t it? And we think that it is a normal thing.

Imagine again, if there was no meaning to anything, anybody or even of ourselves, what will our experience be like? Would it be totally meaningless or just the opposite of it with everything experienced to the fullness? Perhaps some may imagine that life will be empty without meaning? But meaning itself can be varied so how can any meaning to anything be real since what is meant to be real is true, absolute, consistent and totally unchangeable? And if it is unreal, can it still be experienced to the fullness and in richness? Just because the dog, the table or the lamp post feels solid that makes us define them as real? Yet they are just but energy and our experience of visibility and texture of each of them is only defined by the density of energy of each. Look again to an open space, it seems as if nothing is there, but as you swing your palm up and downwards repeatedly, you will feel some sort of sensation around your palm or even hand area which is actually an experience of energy; the movement of unseen energy being in friction with the movement of your palm or hand. Just because we can’t see energy, it does not mean that it is not there.

If all is only energy, only differentiated by density, what is there then to be defined? Yet to examine deeper into the source of energy, quantum physics have proven that within energy is simply emptiness and nothingness. It is not an emptiness or a nothingness, but simply void. So what is there to define, if that is really true?

I am not implying that since everything is void and empty that life becomes meaningless, but only to be aware that everything within our experience, knowledge are all only meanings we give it to. And I am not saying that there is anything wrong with giving meaning to anything for that matter, but simply to recognise that everything else exists only because of meanings. And our experiences of hanging on, resistant or even to the extent of don’t give a damn all arise from meanings that we give to everything with nothing amiss.

Still, can you imagine an experience, or a world without meaning?

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