The 2 Biggest Secrets of Life

Before talking about the 2 biggest secrets of life, let me start off with something that everyone can agree on. First what is the ultimate cause of all death?

If death is bad, wouldn't that make the ultimate cause of death bad? Ultimate cause is the cause that makes all other causes possible.

The ultimate cause of all death is birth. In other words, without birth there would be no death. So how can death be bad and birth be good? So we can all agree that people are born and then they die. So this way we know the beginning and end of everyone's life.

Also without knowing what the purpose of life is, there is no context to put it in. Definition of context: "the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea, and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed." Now we may not know the purpose of life but we do know that people want to be happy and they do not want to be sad or depressed.

So here is what the father of modern psychology, Sigmund Freud, says about this:

The question of the purpose of human life has been raised countless times; it has never yet received a satisfactory answer and perhaps does not admit of one.... We will therefore turn to the less ambitious question of what men themselves show by their behaviour to be the purpose and intention of their lives. What do they demand of life and wish to achieve in it? The answer to this can hardly be in doubt. They strive after happiness; they want to become happy and to remain so.

Aristotle is one of the most important founding figures in Western philosophy. Here is what he says about this topic:

Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence.

"How to gain, how to keep, and how to recover happiness is in fact for most men at all times the secret motive for all they do."
William James (one of the most prominent psychologists-- graduated Harvard Medical School)

So these are not the secrets of life. These are things that are well known. If you ask a little child that has not been taught any ideas, he or she will tell you that they want to have fun and be happy. Being happy goes along with other emotions life feeling relaxed, feeling content and feeling love and feeling fulfillment. Then there are other emotions that have the opposite effect of the above emotions like feeling fear, afraid, nervous, angry or anxious.

So here is the first secret of life. The first secret of life is that everything that happens to you is the best thing that could ever happen to you. I was talking to a Christian woman. I asked her if she believes this and if all Christians believe this. She said that she believes this and some Christians believe this. This woman had a very interesting life.

She was with her 6 children and I was asking about them, like do they all have the same father. The 2 boys are from her husband and her. She adopted the 4 girls when her sister and her sister's husband died in a car crash. These 4 girls were the daughters of her sister. When I was growing up, I know that I loved it whenever we visited our cousins from 2 families (my mother's 2 brothers). So maybe these kids love living together.

There are many terrible things that can happen in one's life. But in one way you can say that the most terrible thing that can ever happen to you is that you will die. Yet we know that this is certain to happen at some time in your life. Here is an Indian story about this idea.

A king cut his finger. So he asked his wise man or advisor why this happened. The advisor did not know but says that he knows that everything that happens is for the best. The king did not like this answer so he put him in jail. Please note that if something terrible happens to someone that you know, do not say to them that it is for the best even if you think that it is true. Especially if someone close to them dies.

So the king goes on a trip to explore his land without his advisor. The king's group is captured by a group of people that are superstitious. They are going to sacrifice (kill) the king to ensure that they have good luck. But then they noticed that the king has a cut on his hand and they do not want to sacrifice an injured person. So they want to sacrifice someone in good condition so they kill someone else.

So the king gets back and he lets his advisor out of jail. He tells him that he was right since that cut saved his (the king's) life. Then the king asked "How was it good for you that I put you in jail?" The advisor says that the king always takes him along on these trips and the adviser has no injuries so these people would have sacrificed him.

If the above were true and not only that but you knew that it were true (not believed it, but knew it) then you would never feel fear again. Even the richest people in the world like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet feel fear. Even if you are not aware that you are feeling it, it is still there and the slightest thing can make you aware of it. So how can you ever really be happy if you have fear?

Now people can believe the above as far as association with God. But even if one does not believe in God they can still believe in the above. They can look at it psychologically. Psychologists know that there is a lot of amazing things in the subconscious mind. Maybe your subconscious mind is in touch with other's subconscious minds with something like telepathy.

One of the worse things that can happen to someone would be to found a company with another person and then be fired from that company. This happened to Steve Jobs and this made him jobless (pun intended). But in a talk to college graduates, he said that this was the best thing that ever happened to him. By it happening he was able to meet his wife and also develop a new type of animation company-- Pixar Animation Studios for Disney.

Eckhart Tolle says this about the above:

Life will give you whatever experience is most helpful for the evolution of your consciousness. How do you know this is the experience you need? Because this is the experience you are having at the moment.

Evolution of your consciousness is referring to what it takes for someone to feel a big improvement in their level of happiness.

This second biggest secret of life is intertwined with the first one. Things may happen that are so terrible that you think that there could never be a good reason for this happening to you. So this next biggest secret of life is that you are the most incredible, amazing thing to ever exist. Don't you have a feeling somewhere deep inside of you that this is true? Your potential cannot be measured! It is off the scale. Because of this, it may take some really horrible things to happen to you to help you realize how incredible you really are.

This fits in with the beliefs in Buddhism. They believe that Buddha was a man that had reached an incredible level of realization called enlightenment. He was also called the world honored one or the one thus gone. One does not need to believe in God to be a Buddhist. They say that if God exists it does not matter since God is perfect and does not need to be improved upon. We are the ones that need to change and improve. So it does not matter if God does exist or not. What is important is that we exist.

Now you may think that this excludes the Christian religion since many people like to say that Jesus said "I am the light of the world [and you are nobody]." But Jesus also says in the bible, "You are the light of the world!" Now if is He saying that He is the light of the world and you are the light of the world then He is saying that you are as great as the son of man (that is what He called himself).

Since so many Americans have a lack of self-esteem from the way that they have been brought up, this is reflected in the Christian religion that they follow. He did not say that you should not judge or stone rabbits. He said that you should not judge or stone humans. Any doctor of that time could have given him a check-up and say that he was a human being. So his actions demonstrated the potential or human potential of a human being.

Many people love Michael Jackson. He said that he was trying to be like Jesus. But Jesus did not take medications or drugs to help him to get to sleep. At that time the most popular method of healing was fasting and that is why the bible has 74 references to fasting.

In 1877 there was a medical doctor by the name of Henry S. Tanner M.D. He had what was called "rheumatism of the heart" and asthma that kept him from lying down while sleeping. The doctors considered him hopeless at age 47 and he could not sleep very long at one time. So he was going to kill himself by fasting and figured that by the 10th day, he would be dead.

After 5 days of fasting days of fasting he was able to lie down while sleeping. By the 11th day he could breathe normally and could sleep the whole night. Then he called in another medical doctor and told him what he had done and to check on him every day as he continues to fast to see what happens. He ended up fasting for over 3 weeks and all of his health problems were gone. He ended up living until an age of 87 years old.

Despite what I have said above, it only helps to a limited to degree to believe the above. What is really necessary to be totally fearless and have unlimited happiness is to get to a level of realization where you know (not believe) the above. The Dalai Lama does meditation like other Buddhists do. In his 1998 book, The Art of Happiness, he says:

I believe that the very purpose of life is to seek happiness.

For more on the above you can see my article The Many Benefits of Fasting. You may also like the article Is the Key to Happiness Being in the Present Moment. Jim Carrey says in the video below that you should follow love and not fear and:

Life does not happen to you, it happens for you.