The meaningful life – Part 3

Continued from yesterday

Everyone needs a switch-off button to the mind. It is then we can begin to realise that there is a realm of intelligence beyond thought. Thought is only a tiny part of intelligence. It is then we know that, all the things that truly matter; truth, integrity, beauty, love, creativity, joy, inner peace arise from beyond the mind. This is when we begin to open to our inner self. The moment we liberate ourselves from the mindsets, we are on the path to the discovery of our hidden treasure, the self.

It is important to reach yourself to be able to help others and mankind. Each of us should try it. You will feel this great sense of self, something in conscious experience that transcends all elements. A deep phenomenon that is sometimes hard to pin down, just feeling a glimpse of reality within yourself that is really out of this world. You conquer ego, anger, bitterness, fear and hold no room for malice. You are so bold, never feeling bigger or better than anyone. Never feeling richer, poorer, smarter than anyone. You are just allowing and enjoying a sense of being and thanking God for every moment. When you reach yourself, you attain psychological consciousness that includes all the challenges and virtues. You are able to create the real happiness in yourself and in people. This is described as authentic happiness (Martin Seligman). It is not wealth, it is not achievement, it is not pleasure, it is not fun. It is the meaningful life. Serving others in your chosen job, in your social life, in your family life, during rain, during sunshine, creating meaning for your life and happiness for others.

Benefits of meaningful life
The most unenviable position a man can find himself is to have the means in this material world, but the material world without a meaning. He is far worse off than one with hardly any means but radiates a lot of meaning in his life. With your real self you live a meaningful life endowed with additional values including:

• Awakeness, which in functional terms is the ability to process information about the world around you and deal with it in a rational fashion all the time. There are always so many challenges around a leader, and always will be. Awakeness is the ability to spot the problems quickly and prevent them before escalation. What must be done today will not wait till tomorrow.

• Introspection, a process by which you become aware of your internal state. This access to one’s mental state is an important component of the everyday concept of existence. It gives you the ability to think about yourself and see yourself as an individual of distinctiveness from others; not necessarily better, but different. It is a sense of Singularity. This helps leaders to take fair, but dispassionate decision on crucial issues fearlessly.

• Attention, which is a significant portion of cognitive resources devoted to dealing with relevant information and situations. Paying attention prevents being aware of a situation and doing nothing about it. Attention helps leaders to break into granules, very highly complicated issues into many sub-components, encouraging details that make resolution of conflict very easy.

• Voluntary Control, an act performed deliberately to respond appropriately to circumstances by an element of prior thought. It is the process that anticipates and be ready for solutions whenever the problems occur.

• Awareness. Indeed, wherever there is phenomenal consciousness, there is awareness.

• Supervenience. The notion that crystallizes intuition and intuitive ideas that one set of facts can fully determine another set of facts. If physical facts about the world are fixed, then biological facts cannot vary. From intuition, you know the next step to take in most situations.

• Cognitive software for most issues. In Cognitive Science, this is the internal capacity that deals with learning, memory, attention, categorization, linguistic behavior and competencies. It makes it possible for one to predict imminent and latent consequential actions and prepare appropriate responses to them. There is a neurobiological theory to bind various kinds of information into a unified whole to deal with many problems of mindset.

• Materialism. The self is not acquisitive. It is the I, the egocentric mind that is wanting everything and is very greedy, I want to buy new cars, buy or build new houses everywhere possible, buy jets and aircrafts. This is primitive capital and material acquisition. The self is conscious of the emptiness of materialism. It is the self that recognizes that vanity upon vanity is all vanity.

• Coherence. This is required for good judgment of situations. Intrinsic beliefs from understanding, coherence, awareness and consciousness prepare you to make good judgment. There is a vast difference between knowledge and understanding. The application of the combination of knowledge and understanding appropriately is wisdom. Our educational system provides so much knowledge with very little emphasis on understanding. Leaders must be wise.

•  Immune System. There is a relationship between presence and the inner body. Presence is pure consciousness reclaimed from your mind and connected to your inner body. Connectedness with yourself strengthens your immune system because you actually inhabit your own body. The more consciousness you bring to your body, the stronger the immune system becomes. It is as if every cell awakens and rejoices. The body loves your attention; it is also a potent form of self-healing. Most illnesses that creep into you will not survive in your body.

• Retardation of Aging. The awareness of the inner body is beneficial in the physical realm. One such benefit is the significant slowing down of the aging of the physical body. The inner body changes very slowly and remains strong even at older age. Your body remains vibrant, lighter, clean and lively if you are present in your life.

• Peace. Through the inner body, you are inseparably connected to your creator and you have peace. The peace that passes all understanding.
Please make sure you choose your best self. If you do, you will be choosing happiness for you and for all those you touch in this life. That is when you are the best gift you can give to yourself and to the world.

Please do not hesitate to give this great gift.
Thank you.

Concluded

Prof. Wale Omole, OFR, is Chairman Editorial Board of The Guardian