It's time to rip the cover off what really works to ditch addiction, depression, anger, anxiety, and all other kinds of human suffering. No, not sobriety. We're talking the F-word here: Freedom. We'll share, straight from the trenches, what we have learned from leaving our own addictions behind, and coaching hundreds of others to do the same—and since it's such a heavy topic, we might as well have a good time while we're at it. [00:27.6]
Bob: Hi guys, let's harken back to an old story that I've shared possibly a couple of times, just to reiterate something. At the end of the Buddha's life, he gave a what it was known as the Lotus sermon. Now the Lotus sermon wasn't some sermon about what a lotus is signified or anything else. He literally just held up a Lotus, and everybody around him was trying to guess what it meant and what was the symbolism. And I remember when I was younger, like we used to do this with scripture all the time, and everybody was geeking out on what the symbolism of Isaiah was and the symbolism of this and the symbolism of that, and got stuck in that whole world of like one thing equals this and that equals that. And I thought it was like me learning the truth, but what really was, was just me putting ideas together in my head and having synapses fire going…. puffff…. And I was like, ah, ah, cause that's all an aha moment is, it's just two synopses that fired. And it's so easy to mistake that for a true understanding of life. [01:32.8]
Just cause you have an idea that you'd like, they wired together in a certain way that they haven't done before and it feels like you discovered something new doesn't mean that you actually understand life, it just means that you had an idea happen. You had some synapses fire and you had a discovery of a new possible pattern, which may or may not actually be true. I've had all kinds of aha moments that later turned out to be absolutely ludicrous. And so have many scientists over the years. And we've trusted these scientists and we've let them guide us until another one has an aha moment. And then that those ones start to guide us because it's more compelling. So here are all these Buddhist monks around the Buddha, they’ve wandered with him for however many years. And they're trying to figure out what is his secret? What is the secret to enlightenment? And the Buddha, it's his last sermon. He's also, he knows he's leaving and he's looking to see who will be as successor, right? So, he's just sitting there staring at this flower and then he holds it up to each one in turn and each one in turn, trying to guess what this flower means. [02:38.9]
And the, you had, I would have hated to have been last in line, cause then I'm like, oh, he took my idea crap, but no, that's not it. And each one, he just walked and moved to the next while they were each guessing until he came to Cassiopeia and Cassiopeia just looked at the flower and smiled and then the Buddhist smiled back and then handed him the flower. And that was signifying that Cassiopeia was the one that had really got it. The truly had, you know, transcended the mind at achieved enlightenment and come to the place of Buddha's understanding so to speak. Now the word Buddha is a title just like Christ as a title. Buddha means someone with an economist, intellect. Buddhi is the intellect and Buddha is one whose intellect is is neutral on so many things that like it's not active, so to speak. Right, if you don't have an opinion about something, you're not sitting there thinking about it, you're just enjoying it. As soon as you have an opinion, now you're trying to defend that opinion and you're critical of, of things and whatnot. And so, all these people were busy, spouting their opinions or guessing and trying to figure things out whereas Cassiopeia was able to enjoy the flower. [03:45.3]
Now we're going to take this story on a different turn today because I want to talk about life. Now, we've talked about life and I read my poem on it a while ago. We've talked about life in terms of what it is, but I want to talk about this thing called The Purpose of Life. Because when I grew up, a lot of the teaching that I'd received from my parents and from others was that these were people that knew the purpose of life. And they had learned it from the Bible. They had learned it from scriptural texts. They had learned it from their parents. They had learned it from their teachers. They had learned it from prophets and, and pastors and emissaries of God. And they knew the purpose of life and they would come and tell me that the purpose of life was to come to earth, to get a body and to have a family so that you could return and go back to live with God again. [04:36.3]
Now I grew up in the Mormon faith and so family was a big part of that, that you were going to not just have a family on this earth, but also have a family in the heavens as well. And you'd be married for all of time and eternity and not just until death do you part. And that was a very, very big selling point that a lot of people used it in that faith. And if that's something that's interesting to you, then you can go and, and talk to the Mormon missionaries, if you want to hear more about that, about that viewpoint now. So, I had this in my head growing up that this was the purpose of life. But then holding that as the purpose didn't do much for me, like it gave me inspiration sometimes it was an aha moment. Sometimes it gave me comfort when things were bad, but ultimately it didn't act in any way, shape or form to enhance the quality of my life. [05:22.6]
It did change my emotions from time to time, but it didn't enhance the quality of my life. And I say, sat there looking at it one day and many days, cause I I've spent a lot of my time and in my life in past years, really looking at what's the purpose of life. What's the purpose of life? It occurred to me one day that I was doing the same thing as all of the Buddha's followers. I was busy coming up with stories and ideas about what the thing in front of me was. And I was missing the experience of the thing in front of me. Did you catch that? The more you and I talk about the purpose of life, the more we are out of touch with life itself. The more we talk about what we're here to do, the less we're able to see what is here to see, because our concepts and our ideas are made up by us and we so often tend to opt for them instead of for what was created in the first place. Out of one side of our mouths, we say creator, God is the greatest creator and the greatest being in the universe and his creations are without equal. And he is the most amazing, most capable being and he has most often he in most traditions, most capable being in all of the cosmos. And yet out of the other side of our mouths, we opt for our own creations instead of his. [06:44.8]
We say, this is what I think should happen. God, let me tell you what you need to do, whereas we really trusted that God knew what he was doing, then we would never experience negative emotions at all because it's obviously all for our good. Cool, so if someone chops off my arm, wow! I'm surprised that God's doing this. I wonder what he's going to do with it. This is must be for my good too. If somebody runs into my car, if my bank account goes empty, if my bank of count gets full. If, if I grew a new arm, what, whatever happened, we would always look at everything with a pure understanding that all of this is for our good, but we don't actually believe that. Instead, we turn around and we judge the creation and we judge it and we hold it up to our own standards and we declare what we think should be happening. And we hold a little private world in our heads and we opt for that private world and we stay in our thoughts and we stay on our emotions and we stay in our interpretations of life instead of actually being in direct contact with the miracle of what life actually is. And so, like all of those of the Buddha’s followers, we stand around spinning stories while only one is able to enjoy the grandeur of life. [08:02.3]
So, as I started looking at life and I started questioning people like life, like the whole purpose of life is so that we can come here and get a body as humans and have a family. And I would be like, are you serious? You're telling me that, that bird on that tree is pooping right now so that I can have a family that seems like a, a bit superfluous, don't you think? You're telling me some of those flowers that are blooming up in the mountains that no human eye will ever see, they're doing that so that I can come to earth and get a body and have a family and go and live with God again. You're telling me that the purpose of that life or the reason that that dog over there is barking is so that I can have a family, that a little bit odd and a little bit superfluous, don't you think? [08:40.6]
And a lot of things stopped making sense to me, it's not making sense to me why all of these social institutions were in place because they didn't jive with the story I was told as a kid. And so, as I started looking at just the things that were alive, it seemed that there was one common thread that I could point to. And that was that the whole thing that life really wanted was to be fully expressed as the life that it was. That an orange tree, all that it wanted to do that an orange seed, all that it wanted to do was just multiply and replenish and be all that it could be. That all the cells in it wanted to multiply and replenish, that i wanted to grow fruit and that wanted to be, have its fullest expression. And that the tree next to it, if that was an apple tree, it just wanted to be all that it was as an apple. And that, that was the whole point of its existence was that so that it could be what it is and that grasses want to do, do all that they could be. And even when they were struggling because it's drought or whatnot, they're still sitting there doing all their best to be all that they can. That life just wanted in every instance that I could find it to be a full-fledged life, to be all the way, what it was created to be. And that, that was the whole point of that creation, that it was sort of a purpose in and of itself. [09:56.8]
Now you don't have to agree with this because this isn't based on ideologies or beliefs. This is just observation. And I am open to the idea that what I look at and what I see could entirely be wrong. Then my perception could improve over time. And I might see something different. But as it stands, everything that is fully alive, when I look at it, all it's trying to do is multiply and become more of what it is. And then enter humans who are busy, trying to be something that they're not. You and I were born to be what we are. You were born to be you. I was born to be me. And yet we step into a society that tells us you're supposed to be different. We come into a family where the parents tell us you're supposed to be different sometimes. We meet with friends who tell us we're supposed to be different. And we run around instead of trying to be all that we can be sorry, that's the army thing. Instead, we run around trying to be everything that we're not. Is it any wonder that most of us are frustrated? [11:02.0]
If you really look at the life, beating in your heart, all it wants to do is be fully expressed. It doesn't want to put on new clothes. It doesn't want to be something in society. It just wants to beat truly for the first time. And the energy in you wants to be fully expanded and fully expressed. And when that happens and you've had moments like that, when that happens, nothing else matters. You don't care what other people think about you. You don't care what's happening next. You're not so busy trying to make a ten-year plan or anything like that. When life is really on inside, you, you're just fully engaged, it's a beautiful, beautiful experience. And every other moment in all the other plans you're making are so that you can get back to moments of feeling truly fully alive again. And life is what happens while you're busy making other plans, I once heard. [11:51.6]
If you or someone you know is looking to drop the F-bomb of “Freedom” in their life, whether that's from past trauma, depression, anxiety, addiction, or any other host of emotional and personal struggles, but they just don't know how or wants some help doing it. Head on over to thefreedomspecialist.com/feelbetternow and check out some of the things we've got in store for you or book a call so we can look at your unique situation and get you the help that you're looking for. [12:20.3]
But the problem is with this, and this is, I had fully admit that this is a huge problem, is that if the whole purpose of life is just to be what you are, then a lot of people are like, well, that's dumb. Like then what's the point? Somebody saying that anybody saying what's the point is saying that because they're not blissful right now. Somebody's saying that is like let down by the fact that the whole point of their existence is for them to be them. They're like, oh man, that sucks. That means you're busy judging yourself. That means you're busy judging your life experiences, which means that you aren't even aware of how glorious your life experiences and who you are really is, that you're so caught up in the minor details on the surface that you have missed the entire ocean of joy that comes from knowing and being in touch with the life that is inside of you. That's all that, that means. [13:12.4]
So, anybody asking that question? Oh, but what's the point. I don't get it when life is pointless. What's the purpose of this? Anybody asking that question is asking it from a place not of ultimate happiness. Now, if you, you can be happy and be like, wow, where did this come from? This is amazing. I want to know more. How is this made? Why was this made? That's a different experience, but almost everybody on the planet who's asking what's the purpose of life is asking because they're miserable. They're asking them because they don't know how to operate their body and mind to produce happiness. And because of it, they feel trapped inside of their own experiences. That's not what I mean by life is a purpose and of itself. That is your own creation. That is, you opting for your interpretation of reality over what life really is. All of your misery is your own making. You have become a misery manufacturing machine, and you're so good at it that you forgot that you're the one doing it. But the thing about misery is it has to be manufactured fresh every day. You have to take your experiences and you have to interpret them and they have to be manufactured fresh every day. Reality. The truth is always the most liberating option and it doesn't need your defense. You don't have to interpret it. You don't have to understand it. You don't have to make up stories about it. It'll always be there, always reliable. [14:27.8]
And happiness and wellbeing, every plant and animal species operating at its peak is experiencing some level of exuberance. And with humans, we call that happiness. That's what you're designed to live off of. It's the design of your creation and the miracle is that you have reverse engineered that and turned it into a misery manufacturing machine instead of a happiness manufacturing machine. So, when you're asking, oh, that's pointless. That's, what's the point of that? Just recognize that that's coming out of a place of misery. Now I fully get, then I've had those moments where I'm like, oh, what's the point, if I'm just supposed to be myself, I don't want to live like this all the rest of my life. Sometimes it's hard to look at life and feel like, oh wait, well, you mean, I'm just supposed to be what I am and that's it. Yes, that's it. Isn't that wonderful? So, on the journey from down at the bottom, total despair like, oh, I hate my life. Why am I here? All the way up to living life fully as you are in every moment, just being a human being instead of a human becoming or instead of a human doing or a human distracting to finally, just to be able to be in that journey, there's just a couple of different stages. And this is where goals show up. [15:39.9]
When we're dealing with goals, a lot of people have goals and what they mean, what they do with their goals is they look at this goal as the source of a new level of happiness. So, they desire to be fully alive, to be fully exuberant, to be all the way happy. And they've decided that certain external circumstances are going to be the source of that. That gets them excited. It gets them hopeful. You know, when they start moving toward it because they can measure, oh, I'm getting closer to it. That means I should be happier. I'm getting closer to Christmas; I should get more excited. Have you noticed that after Christmas has happens, like the excitement's worn off and you're not maybe as happy as you were when you were busy, anticipating it? And then on top of that, a lot of people, they set their goals and then their goal requires them to be miserable and to put themselves through hell in order to get there sometimes. And so, they go like a little pain now so that I can have happiness then. A lot of people look at retirement this way. They're like, oh, work hard now and then I'll be able to not do anything. And they're looking at retirement as a way to go unconscious in life. They set a goal that will enable them to stop having to pay attention to their life and to stop being as exuberant as they are right now. I don't want to work this hard. I don't want to be this involved because they have a judgment and a relationship to life that's negative. So, they set that goal and those goals they're exciting. Don't get me wrong. I've set a ton of them. They're exciting. You know, they're thrilling to talk to other people about, and then there's all the misery and there's the emotional roller coaster that's up and down along the way. [17:09.7]
And I've lived on that roller coaster for a long time. I think I still get on it from time to time and don't get me wrong, it'll give you experiences of life, but it's not the ultimate experience of life and it isn't life itself. It's you outsourcing your happiness. It's you taking happiness from inside of your breasts and chucking it halfway across the world and then chasing it going, I get to be happy when I go catch that when you could've just kept it on the inside the whole time. So, once you've gotten past that phase of goal setting where you're tired of the go set a goal and then go achieve it and go set a goal and then go achieve it. Then the next pace that comes is where, now you can start setting goals that are instead of a meaning it's to an end, you know they become an ending just to get you to do the means. In other words, they become an excuse for you to be able to get involved with life. This is what games are. And do you notice that when you're playing games, it's a little bit of a higher level of exuberance than normal life. You have a goal which is completely arbitrary and means nothing about your life at all. Whether you win a card game or don't, it doesn't mean anything about you. Whether you want a sports game or don't, it doesn't really mean anything about you. Yes, we can attach money, to it, and we can do it, some other things so that it gets a little bit more or involved, but ultimately, it's just a game. And the goal is totally arbitrary. Kick around thing into a net. Yay. If I do that at home, why does it not have the same significance? Because you've made up some fancy little game and it's the goal is to just score a certain amount. But the whole point of the goal is just so that you can play the game. That's a different way of setting goals. They're game goals. You set goals in your life so that you have a way to get engaged with life itself. [18:53.6]
That for me has been a much higher way of involving, of getting involved with purpose in life and tell the moments break in where I don't need to have a purpose. And I'm just being by myself. And that alone is the most glorious experience of my life. The miracle of every breath, the miracle of every moment, the miracle of seeing things happen, the miracle of feeling my body and how it works and how it moves the miracle of feeling the reverberation of sound in my chest and how much incredible pleasure just that brings to me as I'm talking or the miracle of listening to certain other sounds or music that I really get involved in. But just being that there's no requirement that I be anything other than what I am at this moment. And that that alone is more than enough. It's everything. Those moments are beautiful. I haven't figured out how to live in them all the time. And so, for me, setting goals, the most effective way I've found to set a goal is to set a goal that allows me to get into the game. In other words, a goal that gets me into activities that bring me alive because the end goal for me is to be totally involved in life, without it meaning anything about me. Without having any importance existentially for me at all, and yet I can play, like I got to win. Without winning or losing meaning anything to me at all, and that is the end game. But until I get there, I'm just looking for ways of setting goals that allow me to get into the process of playing the game, because it's in the process of praying playing the game, that those other moments of just being explode into life. [20:33.4]
And those are the moments that have radically altered every facet of my existence from, from the depression and anxiety and addictions that I used to have all the way to the relationships I have with my wife and my kids and the kinds of experiences emotionally and internally and spiritually, I've been able to have they've come from being totally involved in any given moment. And one of the reasons we have rituals in life and rituals are in every different spiritual tradition, whether that's chanting sounds or saying prayers or doing sacraments, whether that is kneeling down or standing up or doing service or, but repetitive rituals particularly are there like the ritual of tea and Zen like chanting mantras in, in in yoga and yogic practices and Hindu like saying prayers and rosaries, and maybe the Catholic version of Christianity, like doing dances and prayer sessions and Bible study. The whole point of having a ritual is that it gives you something to focus on so that you can get involved in playing the game of being in contact with life. [21:39.2]
The source of life is in every molecule of existence. It is in every molecule of your, your own being. Trillions of cells in your body. And the source of life is inside of every single one of those. And the whole point of having rituals that get you to slow down and focus on one task is so that you will finally be able to let life itself explode out of every pore of your being and fill you with love and joy and gratitude and hope. Right, that's the whole point of all these rituals. The point of reading scripture is not to memorize scripture, the point of reading scripture, so that the experience transforms you, that only happens when life is in that experience. The experience of praying is the same way that it's not to say the prayer, but to be in contact with the source of life. It's the same thing. And when that happens, you'll find yourself just happy for no reason at all, because you're finally able to just be, as you are, instead of sitting there with that little devil in your head telling you, you should be something different. So, as you're sitting there, if you ever catch yourself wondering what is the point of life? What's the purpose of all this? Most often, it's because you feel like you, you feel negative in some way, and you feel like you should be different. Things should be different than they are. And all that means is you can't see the miracle of each moment and you're not in touch with the source of life that's making all these happening. All these things happen. And that you believe that your little creation in your mind is more important than the creation made by the creator himself. [23:11.0]
And that level of arrogance, which I have carried for so much of my life and believe me, I still do, whenever I have an expectation that isn't met and I throw a tantrum. That level of arrogance is the very thing, preventing me from the joy and just absolute happiness that comes in each and every moment of life. Each and every step each and every breath. Life itself is too beautiful to miss. It's too fragile. This moment isn't coming back. And the more you're busy trying to interpret it and pretend that, you know, and understand what it is, the more you'll miss the mystery and the beautiful experience of letting it swallow you up and show you things that you never even imagined. [23:56.1]
And that's it for todays “Alive and Free Podcast.” If you enjoyed this show and want some more freedom bombs landing in your ear buds, subscribe right now at wherever you get your podcasts from. And, while you're at it, give us a rating and a review. It'll help us keep delivering great stuff to you. Plus, it's just nice to be nice. [24:14.3]
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