Excellence Reporter: Altazar, what is the meaning of life?

Altazar Rossiter: Whenever I hear this question I think of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. In his books he asked the meaning of life, the universe and everything. The answer was revealed as 42, and I think that’s as good an answer as any in a world where the quest to know everything about everything is a mainstream philosophical objective.

The thing about meaning is that nothing means anything intrinsically of itself. Things, be they abstract or solidly physical, are what they are. When I consider the significance of anything it always involves a context, which means the meanings I understand are the meanings I’ve created myself, and they may have little or no relevance to anyone else.

If I’m not careful, this is where I run into a need to validate my meaning by getting others to agree with me. And if they don’t I could get very upset, especially if the meaning they make is somehow in opposition to mine.

When people identify with their meaning that meaning becomes an existential issue. If that meaning is in danger of being demolished intense survival fears can be triggered. These can ultimately degenerate into a rationale for one person to want to eliminate another.

So making meaning can be dangerous, and announcing an opinion on the meaning of life could somewhat ironically be life-threatening. But I’m going to take the risk.

For me, the meaning of my life is to experience being a physical expression of love. This might sound a bit trite, arrogant or naive to some, and this leads me back to the process of making meaning. This is my meaning, I don’t insist that you make it yours.

Love is another of those ineffables that defy definition, but I believe most people have experienced it whether they know it or not – a bit like life. It goes unrecognised and submerged in the ocean of emotion and sentimentality that passes itself off as love in the realm of human interaction.

The thing about love is that it’s been hijacked by conventions in the mainstream realities we inhabit and it’s loaded with the distortions of the mind’s attempt to figure it out. When one person says to another “I love you” it’s often the beginning of negotiations that lead through a heap of expectations and associated disappointments, and the corresponding landscape of approval – or otherwise.

Conventional concepts of love are riddled with conditions that can be articulated as I’ll be nice to you, if you’ll be nice to me. These conditions all actually mean I’ll pretend not to notice your lack of integrity with yourself, if you’ll pretend not to notice mine.

Life then really becomes a struggle to make sense of what is being felt, as if it wasn’t always. But piloting a course through the minefield of emotion emphasises the inadequacy of [what I call] the mortal mind to cope with feelings. And this scares the mortal mind, because it wants to control everything, but it has no authority over feelings. What it is able to do is trigger emotions – or more accurately emotional reactions.

The mortal mind is very good at triggering emotional reactions, which are nothing less than a smokescreen that prevent the experiential truth of living from being felt. I see this as a fundamental disconnection from the flow of personal well-being that is endemic in the world today. The existential psychosis of fear and control that underwrite mortal mind-sets and false beliefs is obscured in the confusion that ensues.

Love is marginalised. The domination of mortal mind-sets, in what is hubristically called the civilised world, successfully overlaps cultural imperatives in the collective to create a blanket of doctrine, dogma and ideology that’s basically woven from a fear that isn’t real.

My personal history has been to learn that my mortal mind is not me, even though it thinks it is. By default, this has involved trusting what I feel in my heart over what my mortal mind wants to believe, and deconstructing the emotional reactions that are triggered when it fears for its existence.

I’m a work in progress. I don’t pretend for one moment that I experience myself as love all the time, or even most of the time. But I do some of the time. And when I do it’s very clear that my life has meaning.

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~Altazar Rossiter PhD is an holistic mentor, energy facilitator and wisdom teacher. He leads a modern mystery school programme based in the Netherlands. This embraces the new energy paradigm of self-empowerment that’s arising in human consciousness, in a co-creative partnership with Spiritual Intelligence.

Altazar has spent many years in the mainstream world as an electrical engineer, designing power systems for the oil and gas industry. However, in his mid-thirties he experienced a major life shift and his healing channels opened spontaneously. This led him to explore the metaphysical aspects of human existence. He recognises the suppression and abuse of the feminine principle as possibly the primary cause of conflict in the individual and in the collective.

Altazar is the author of DEVELOPING SPIRITUAL INTELLIGENCE – The Power of You, and facilitates the deeply transformative process of partnering with Spiritual Intelligence in public workshops. He lives quietly in the UK with his partner of over 20 years.
www.AltazarRossiter.com

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