There are some things no one else can tell you. Some things you just have to decide for yourself. Unfortunately, these things are the big things. That’s why having someone else tell us what’s true seems so necessary. Who are we to say we know the truth about the big things, such as the meaning of life and why we’re here? It feels important to get the big things right.
Most of us rely on other people and institutions and systems and culture for answers to the big questions, subconsciously if not consciously. Dismantling those belief systems is scary. You’ll probably feel like you’re falling. You are!
As Chögram Trungpa said, “The bad news is you’re falling through the air, no parachute, nothing to hang on to. The good news is, there’s no ground.”
It’s not about knowing the truth, you see. It’s about seeking your own answers to the questions that are ultimately unanswerable this side of the grave.
- Why is there life at all?
- What’s the purpose of your particular existence?
- Where do we come from? Where are we going?
- How shall we live while we’re in these bodies on this planet?
- Why do we suffer and die?
- What is love?
- Does God exist? If so, what is God’s nature?
And there are the big questions for churchy people: sin and morality, the need for redemption, forgiveness.
The answers you’ve received from your parents and teachers, your churches and your schools, your televisions and social media feeds – they’re all made up. They’re someone else’s best guess.
No one knows the true answers to the big questions. That can be freaking scary. But please don’t hand your questions over to a “higher” authority. Don’t throw your hands up in despair and go back to Netflix. Don’t take the easy answers that you know in your heart aren’t right for you. Don’t decide the answers aren’t important.
To rely on someone else’s answers is to hand them your power. We can’t ultimately know the important answers. Anyone who says they have them is lying or deluded. The seeking, the doing the best we can, is what’s important.
So be intimate with your big questions. Sit with them. Ponder them. Learn to be comfortable with not knowing. Let them grow and stretch you. Let the big questions make you bigger and stronger and more flexible.
Pay attention to your experience and intuition. Pay attention to your inner wisdom. Give yourself the respect you deserve. Strive to live in integrity with your questions. Listen to the wise ones. Find a community that welcomes your searching – one that blesses your open hands and open mind.
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything.” ~Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
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