OUR HUMAN JOURNEY AS SPIRITUAL BEINGS:
What Is Life Really All About?
By Bill Cottringer


I realize that this is a lofty, abstract metaphysical pursuit, especially for those who are too busy suffering and struggling to meet more basic physical needs like food, shelter and safety. However I can’t imagine my life without this passionate pursuit and I secretly wonder if more of us don’t feel a compelling need to put aside the 95% routine reactions we are caught up in with our life’s struggles and problems, to look for this same 5% truth in life—what is life really all about? This article is about my 5% glimpse for the purpose of opening it up to criticism, getting partial validation, and making likely modifications during my own continuing journey.

So what is life really all about? The answer shows up in many different versions of the same thing, but the most common way of saying it is, the pursuit of what Martin Seligman calls “authentic happiness.” It is something we know when we have it or don’t have it. It is a very convincing feeling. But it is exposing the other versions of this pursuit that helps define the deeper meaning more personally.

As it turns out, the achievement of authentic happiness can only come about if we live what earlier philosophers called a “good life.” It is both something we get from something we do to get it. So now, what is the “good life” all about? Quite simply, we are all on a journey to help the Creator complete creation in going from nothing to something and from good to better to best. We are all born with potential for greatness and given certain gifts to develop and carry out this potential—our unique contribution in helping others expand their piece of the treasure map, become more successful in being their best and enjoy authentically happiness.

Our main drive in life is to move from our independent and dependent egotistical separations with life, and all the suffering and unhappiness they bring—to an interdependent union with the oneness of God, and all the peace, understanding and joy which joining something greater than ourselves brings. That is quite an abstract mouthful, so let me try to provide a more concrete explanation. For example, everything we do—get a job, join a church, get married, start school, join a club, make friends, read a book or enjoy music—is merely our varied attempts to exchange our temporary, insecure, and unsatisfying aloneness and separation with a more permanent, secure and satisfying belongingness and union. From surviving nothing to thriving with something.

Let’s look at how we can do this, in defining a “good life” a little more clearly. It seems to me that all these following things are just different ones to do to get what we all want and are all meant to have in life—authentic happiness. This is what our human journey as spiritual beings is all about: Evolving from spiritual infancy to spiritual maturity, from surviving to thriving. Here are the things we have to do to get authentic happiness:

• Broaden our understanding of “sin” to include everything that is not the 5% truth, which is anything that isn’t of a pure intentional act of unconditional love for the rest of life. With this broader definition, it becomes senseless to keep score with who is more or less sinful; the reality is that we all have a long way to go and need each other’s help to get there. And unconditional love through the Golden Rule is the most effective way to get there.
• Expand this 5% truth of unconditional love that we are given freely by our creator to replace the 95% sinful thoughts and behaviors that keep us from enjoying authentic happiness. This is where all the hard work comes in to figure out how to do this when it becomes apparent that we are attempting to undo a lifetime of bad habits and are way past the learning curve. But the first step in the right direction always takes your farthest and furthest.
• Give up ourselves, our pride and our expectations for rewards in growing in humility as we move from wrong intentions to right intentions to pure intentions, or from extrinsic motivation to intrinsic motivation—living the good life because it is good to do all in and by itself for no selfish reason. The trouble is, the harder you try to give up having expectations, the more power they have over you. At some point there has to be a conscious decision and commitment to stop allowing the tail to way the dog.
• Learn the majority of areas we should strive for balance in and make progress in doing so, while becoming totally committed with those simple soulful things in life that need total involvement like the pursuit of wisdom, creativity, compassion, love and unselfish service. It seems easier to get totally into the things that need your full attention first and then concentrate on the areas to seek more balance in.
• Gradually experience true freedom by getting more in sync with God’s will, as not being the “opposite” of your personal preferences that must be overcome or sacrificed in the process. Believe it or not, it’s not a war between your head and heart but just learning to listen to your soul’s conscience without the mind’s ramblings and the hearts personalized feelings. The 5% truth resides deeply inside your soul’s conscience, but you have to want to hear it. The best reason is that it is the only thing that can set your free.
• Give up the futile notion that you have to go from being sinful to sinless and just concentrate on becoming less sinful with your selfish intentions and expectations, moment by moment, through the endless choices you get to make in this unfolding creation process you are part of. And helping others to do this too can really take the edge off.
• Learn to suffer in silence without judgment and with character. Life is a test challenging you to build character during adversity and the test never goes away until you learn the lesson and pass the test. And it usually comes again with more fury each time you resist; what you resist persists, and then some.
• Learn to pray with everything you have to understand these things and allow them to happen in you, without pre-defined outcomes and expectations for certain results. Just let it be and hope for understanding of both the painful and joyful things so you can avoid a few of the former and enjoy a more of the later. .

I have reached the point that I don’t know anything more important than the above. I hope it is important and true enough to consider.