Excellence Reporter: Leonard, what is the meaning of life?
Leonard Jacobson: There are many levels to my answering this question.
At the most superficial level, I would say there is no meaning to life. We are born. We live our life and remain unconscious for most of it. We live with all the limiting beliefs and all the repressed emotions that have accumulated within us. We have a family. We work, perhaps we get a gold watch and then we die. Without ever realizing it, we have been governed and controlled by the ego. For me, at this level, there is no real meaning to life.
At another level, we can live with more purpose and intention. We are more conscious and aware. We can be loving, kind and caring towards others, not because we are looking for any reward or return, but because it is how we choose to be in the world. We have been through a process of recognizing the limiting beliefs programmed into the mind, and we have released many of the repressed emotions. At this level, it is a journey of self-improvement, which can benefit our life and relationships tremendously. At this level, we have the opportunity to heal and release the past and live a life of loving kindness. We are still living within the mind, but we are living a much more fulfilling and meaningful life. We have moved from surviving to hopefully thriving.
But there is an even deeper meaning to life that most people are unaware of. It is also an extraordinary opportunity that is presented to us lifetime after lifetime, but very few of us take advantage of this opportunity.
Most of us are living almost exclusively within the world of the mind. It is a world of past memory and future imagining. It is governed by our beliefs, including all the limiting beliefs from childhood. It includes all the repressed emotions that have accumulated within us. It is a world of illusion and separation. The dream is essentially everything that exists outside of the present moment.
It is as if the whole of humanity has been lost in a kind of dream and the opportunity that we have each lifetime is to awaken from that dream. This means that we will awaken from the past and future into the present. We will awaken from illusion into truth and separation into Oneness. It is really beyond anything we can imagine with the mind. It is a journey of awakening. We gradually become grounded in the truth and reality of the present moment and we begin to experience ourselves and life in an entirely different way. In Presence, we open into love and the peace that “passeth understanding.” We are accepting, compassionate and allowing. We are without judgment and we are empowered from within.
At the deepest levels of Presence, we open into Oneness and we begin to experience the living Presence of God in all things present. We might even have an experience of Heaven on Earth. This is what the great mystics and masters have been speaking of for thousands of years. It is the only thing God wants of us. To awaken into Presence is to find our way home, to love, to Oneness, to Truth and to God and Heaven on Earth. It is the true purpose to our lives, and it gives meaning to our lives that is truly profound.
***
~Leonard Jacobson is an author, teacher and mystic, who is deeply committed to helping others break through to the joyous experience of living in the NOW. He is the author of five books and travels throughout the U.S., Europe, Australia and Asia offering inspiration, healing and guidance to those on the path of spiritual awakening.
