One of the main sources of stress is not having clear life directions or
goals. So often we are caught by the urgent things in our lives – our material
responsibilities and day-to-day struggles – that they create their own vicious
cycle within our minds. This vicious cycle often distracts us from the real
meaning of life. This is what we may know as the 'tension loop’. 
The top five regrets of the dying, as
witnessed by paliative care nurse Bronnie Ware:We find that we can’t concentrate for very long, we’re flighty and scattered
and it is self-compounding. This 'tension loop' can be permanently transformed
only through calming the mind and allowing a deepening of our awareness.
We need to identify the negative thought patterns in our lives and transform
them into positives. For example, worries are perhaps the most insidious of
all negative thought patterns as within the mind they are like a program that
loops or is never completed.
They use resources, create stress, and are happiest when nothing is ever resolved
or an ‘end-point’ reached. In the end, however, the real problem is not so much
that we may be stressed or sick or having a nervous breakdown, the real problem
is that we have confused ‘busy-ness’ with our life meaning. Meaningful goals
become less and less clearly identified. Every moment can be an opportunity
to reach your real self - to meditate - no matter where you are, or what is
going on around you. It is all a matter of where your consciousness is.
How many times in your life have you wondered about
the meaning of life: Who am I? Why am I here?
Most people have stopped
asking these questions, as if there is perhaps no answer; or if there is, it
must not be necessary to know.
Can you see how absurd this is?
How are we supposed to have clear life goals if we do not know why we are here?
We have all listened to speakers who were very complex in their arguments; and
probably thought ‘I don’t know what he is saying but it sounds important.’ We
have learned to value complexity because in our society it has meant increased
prestige. So the natural progression of this is, that the most important of
all questions must have the most extremely complex answers.
Gladly, for us, the opposite is true. Have you ever said - ‘I know this is right
and it doesn’t matter what anyone says, I know this is something I’ve got to
do’.
Perhaps you touched your heart and continued; ‘because I felt it right here.’
Or perhaps you were reading a particular book or listening to a person speak
and suddenly something they said struck a chord and you found yourself saying
‘Yes, that’s right’. Sometimes these feelings might have even defied logic but
you knew they were true as grass growing for you.
These are the 'Aah' moments of real wisdom. Wisdom requires not thought but
experience, It always feels very simple as it is a revelation of our real self.
It is a meditation experience. What we need to experience wisdom is meditation.
To know the meaning of life, we need it in abundance.
Imagine for a moment that you were the creator of the earth. Would you have
made it so difficult for us to know the meaning of life, that we would have
to renounce all other attachments and travel on a sacred pilgrimage for years
and years until finally arriving at some Himalayan cave, where a holy teacher
in a dim, dark cave would proclaim that the meaning of life was 42?
Or would you make it so simple that it would be sitting right in front of us,
waiting for the child in us to see? And perhaps we, in valuing complexity are
looking for the most complex of all answers to the biggest of all questions,
and continually missing the simplest of truths.
It often seems much easier not to know the meaning of life because in not knowing
we do not have to change anything.
Some of us are subconsciously afraid that knowing the answer might mean a change
to our present life-style. Many of us are not happy with our present state but
fear changing might make it worse.
So ask yourself if you really want to know. Take a moment if you need to, because
once you know it is impossible not to be transformed by knowing. (Wonderful
isn’t it?)
Now try this... Instead of asking what is the meaning of life, simply ask yourself
what puts meaning into your life? What moments would you like to increase? Take
a break to think this over, write some of them down if you’d like, and read
on...
Of the thousands of people to whom we have taught meditation, most describe
very similar moments that are meaningful: Relationships, travelling, laughing,
children, birth, death, experiencing and growing, nature and the like. Virtually
no one ever disagrees. All of these can be reduced to three words - loving,
learning (wisdom) and being happy. (They are always 'Aah' moments)
That’s it. If it sounds simple, that’s because it is. All three qualities mostly
arrive now when fate decides. Meditation shows us, however, that once we start
to focus on these important, meaningful qualities we can begin to invoke them
when we decide.
Now look at all those meaningful moments in your life. You will see that there
are moments where you have experienced the love, wisdom and happiness, that
is your real nature. What Jesus called the kingdom of heaven that is within
you or what Buddha described as the entire universe being within, within all
of us, in this moment right now.
The reason loving, learning and being happy are meaningful is because they are
the qualities of the heart.
Love Our world says to us that we will be
happy when we find the perfect partner. We will 'find love' outside of ourselves
in terms of our human relationships. Our world says that there is more or less
only one perfect person for us and if we do not find them we will not find love
or be complete or whole. So we need to go outside and find love. 
If we don't accept and love ourselves how will it be possible to experience
anything fully. In short the highest love is defined by the sheer number of
atoms we can reach with our love, with the fewest conditions. This is the experience
of the great masters, the ability to be connected by unconditional love to everyone
and everything. By limiting ourselves to one person, we will never know real
love. 
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1. Grounding In