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Ultimate Questions

Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

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Page 1: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Ultimate Questions

Page 2: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

The Question of Purpose

1. Why is there anything at all rather than nothing?

2. What is the purpose/meaning of life?

3. What is the purpose/meaning of your life?

Page 3: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Cosmic Riddles – The World of Science

• Copernicus & Galileo• 17th Century

– Beginning of scientific revolution– Everything is called into question– Rene Descartes

• 18th Century– Isaac Newton

• 19th Century– Science and the common person

• Technology– Science as the new deity

• Characteristics– Ernst Haeckel– Unrest

• Dickens & Tennyson• 20th Century

– Second scientific revolution• The atom

• Conclusions

Page 4: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Telling the Human Story: Literature

• http://falcon.jmu.edu/~ramseyil/storyorigins.htm

Page 5: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

A Schizoid World: The Social Sciences

• Schizoid• Existentialism• Anxiety• Social Anxiety – causes

– Nuclear weapons– Competitiveness– Exaggerated expectations– Mobility– Lack of religious center

• Two Responses to Anxiety– avoidance and denial– “the courage to be”

• Intellect, Will & Emotion• Eros vs. Thanatos

– C.S. Lewis (storge, philia, eros, agape)• Determinism

Page 6: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

STIMULUS RESPONSE

WHAT CAN HAPPEN BETWEEN STIMULUS & RESPONSE?

PROACTIVE vs. REACTIVE

“No one can hurt you without your consent.”

-Eleanor Roosevelt

“They cannot take away our self-respect if we don’t give it to them.”

-Gandhi

Page 7: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

FREEDOM

TO

CHOOSE

Independent Will

ConscienceImagination

Self Awareness

RESPONSESTIMULUS

Page 8: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

There’s nothing I can do, that’s just the way I am

He makes me so mad

I have to / I can’t / I must

Let’s look at our alternatives, I can choose a different approach

I can control my own feelings

I choose / I prefer / I will

Page 9: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

THE MOBIUS STRIP

Thoughts on the Mobius Stripby Parker Palmer in the book,

A Hidden Wholeness

Page 10: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Take a strip of paper with which we will make a Mobius

Strip.

One side of the strip represents your outer, onstage life.What is my image influence impact?

The other side represents your inner, backstage life: Ideas, values, faith, heart, spirit, soul, etc.

Page 11: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Stage 1Children come into this world with no

separation between the inner and outer life.

Page 12: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Stage 2Hold up the strip of paper so that it makes

a “wall,” separating outer and inner worlds.

We erect walls to serve as barriers between inner truth and the outer world.

Examples

If you live behind a wall long enough, not letting the world see who you are:

You might forget there is a “real you” hidden there.

Page 13: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Three Consequences of Living Behind a Wall

1) My inner light cannot illuminate my work in the world2) The light in the world cannot illuminate my inner darkness3) People see us as “not being real” in our relationships and close themselves off from us.

Page 14: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Pain will crack open our closed world

…if we are willing to feel it

It could be loneliness, depression, anger, alienation, failed relationships, etc. that

force us to admit something needs to change in our lives.

Page 15: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Stage 3Form the strip of paper into a circle.

“I decide I want my inner truth to be the measure for the decisions I make.”

Who am I? What am I about? –a good step

But there’s another side to this stage.

Page 16: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Shadow Side of Stage 3

When we live inside this new identity, we form a “secret garden” to which we invite only people with whom we feel at ease.

We use our “inner truth” to exclude those we find challenging.

This “circle” is really only a “wall” in disguise.

Page 17: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Stage 4

Make a Mobius Strip with the paper.

Whatever is inside us continually flows outward to form or deform the world.

Whatever is outside us continually flows inward to help form, or deform our lives.

There is really only ONE REALITY.

Page 18: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

The Bottom Line….(1)We learn that stages 2 and 3 are

illusions, although they were necessary at the time.

(2) We think we are hiding our truth behind a wall.

(3) We think we can use our truth to screen out what is alien to us.

But we all live on a Mobius Strip—we are constantly engaged in an exchange of what is “out there” and what is “in here.”

Page 19: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

OUR CHOICE

• We can walk the Mobius Strip wide awake to its continual interchanges, learning to co-create in ways that are life-giving to ourselves and others.

• Or we can sleep-walk on the Mobius Strip, unconsciously co-creating in ways that are dangerous and often deadly for relationships, good work, or hope.

Page 20: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

• What are we sending from within ourselves to the world and what impact does it have?

• What is the world sending back to us and what impact does it have in us?

• We have the POWER TO CHOOSE MOMENT TO MOMENT between THAT WHICH GIVES LIFE and THAT WHICH GIVES DEATH.

All spiritual traditions ask us to wake up to the reality in which we live

Page 21: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

In Stage 4 we come full circle to the place where we began—the adult

version of the wholeness into which we were born.

T.S. Eliot wrote: “We shall not cease from

exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first

time.”

Page 22: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning
Page 23: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning
Page 24: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

1. What is the significance of the story of the man hanging off the cliff and eating the berry?

• How can you live life one moment at a time while beginning with the end in mind?

2. What is the significance of the story about the diamonds?3. “Life is a banquet but most people are starving.” What

does this mean to you?4. What is the significance of the story of the man and the

mendicant?• “I don’t want this diamond. Could you give me the riches that make it

possible for you to give this thing away?

5. “Life is something that happens to us while we’re busy at something else” You have 3 ½ months left at Cathedral. In what way (s) do you need to un-busy yourself and focus on life?

Page 25: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

6. “The tragedy is not in how much we suffer, but in how much we miss.” What does this mean to you?

7. “Human beings are born asleep, live asleep and die asleep.” How do we wake up?

8. DeMello says we’re all given a drug as a child. What is the drug DeMello is talking about?

9. What happens once you take the drug?10. What do you lose the ability to do when under the affects

of the drug? What “drug” are you under the affects of? What have you lost the ability to do because of it?

11. In what ways do you respond as a robot?

Page 26: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

12. What does DeMello mean when he says if you drop the drug everything will be the same, but, “You will have dropped out. You will be in the world but not of the world.”

• How does this idea parallel living a life of faith?

13. What is the difference between loneliness and aloneness?

14. Think of someone whose approval you think you need. In what way have you lost your freedom because of it?

15. Think of someone you think is necessary to ease the pain of your loneliness. In what way have you lost your freedom because of it?

Page 27: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

16. What are the two kinds of desire DeMello talks about? What is the significance of this?

17. “As long as I need you, I cannot love you.” What do you think DeMello means by this? Do you agree or disagree? Why?

18. How does DeMello define spirituality? What role does religion play?

19. How often are you attune to what others think, feel and will say about you?

20. What do we need to discover in order to be transformed?

Page 28: Ultimate Questions. The Question of Purpose 1.Why is there anything at all rather than nothing? 2.What is the purpose/meaning of life? 3.What is the purpose/meaning

Determinism

• Genetic Determinism– Your grandparents did it to you

• Psychic Determinism– Your parents did it to you

• Environmental Determinism– Your environment is doing it to you