A Big Yes

A Big Yes Our journey has taken us all the way back to the empty ground before time began, and inside the very birth of everything. We were there, remember? When you realize that you have been here since that very first moment, your whole perspective expands to unimaginable proportions. Your most fundamental beliefs and convictions about life are called into question, because suddenly the term "life" has taken on a whole new meaning. When we think about life, we usually mean "my life"—a few decades of personal history, a particular circle of family and friends, within a certain culture. We don't think of a fourteen-billion-year process of evolution and development that burst out of nothing and became the entire cosmos. But that's life. And the experience you are having in this moment, as you are breathing in and out, as you read these words, is all part of life in the biggest sense, part of one inconceivable, vast, integrated process. The life I'm speaking about is the something that came from nothing, and that is who and what you are. That which burst into being fourteen billion years ago has become you. And you were also the one who set all of it in motion—who made the momentous decision to take that unimaginable leap from formlessness to form. That's why you are here. If you have glimpsed this truth, even for the briefest of moments, it can call into question convictions you may not even know you hold. How do you really feel about life? Be honest with yourself. You may find that deep down you are not convinced that life is a good thing. For too many of us who have grown up in a secular, materialist society, life is a shallow, limited event, disconnected from both the boundless depths of Being and the vastness of Becoming. Isn't that why you are seeking spiritual enlightenment in the first place—as a way to escape from the apparent meaninglessness of existence, from the suffering and confusion that define "your life"? But in light of what you have realized, that conclusion doesn't make sense any more. If you were there when it all began, then "your life" can no longer be limited to your brief human lifespan or your particular personal history. The suffering and confusion of your personal self no longer defines who you are. Your identity is not separate from the very Source itself, or from everything that sprang from that Source. You are the empty ground out of which everything emerged. And you are also the evolutionary impulse —the urge to become, the desire to exist. From that newly awakened perspective and self-sense, you need to reexamine your deepest assumptions about life, to ask yourself the most fundamental question: What is the ultimate nature of life itself? Is life inherently good? When something came from nothing, when the universe burst into being fourteen billion years ago, was that a positive event? Was it a terrible mistake? Or was it a meaningless accident? One way I like to approach this question is: When something came from nothing, was it a big YES? A big NO? Or a big NEUTRAL? * * * This is not just an entertaining thought experiment. You may never have consciously considered this question before, but you already have an answer. Your culture and your personal life experience have predisposed you to see life in one of these three ways. How you have unconsciously answered this question is already affecting the way you relate to life at the most fundamental level, and it shapes your spiritual aspirations as well. The way we think about life is the foundation stone and the expression of our worldviews, our cultures, and our spiritual traditions. Look into this question seriously for yourself, considering all three of the possibilities. First, is life a negative event? Was the big bang a big "No"? That may sound absurd, but it's not an uncommon way to think. Are you deeply convinced that this world is a good place to be? Or do you find yourself seeking escape? Do you secretly long for transcendence, for release from a life full of confusion and suffering? You may make the best of it, and even endeavor to alleviate that suffering for yourself and others, but still deeply cherish the conviction that this world is not a good place. And you would not be alone in that conviction. Indeed, many of the great religious traditions, both East and West, are built on such a worldview. The first of Buddhism's Four Noble Truths tells us that "life is suffering." The Bible tells us that we are sinners in a world of temptation. In these, and many other religious worldviews, the ultimate goal of spiritual striving is to escape from this world, to find liberation, enlightenment, or salvation in a transcendent state or a heavenly realm. When the goal of a spiritual path is to escape from this world, the implicit message is that being here is not a good thing. Many of the great traditions, and many of today's spiritual seekers, still have this kind of subtle or not-so-subtle otherworldly bias, which by implication means that this world is not it. So if you long for transcendence, heaven, or eternal peace, you need to ask yourself, what does that mean about my relationship to this world? The second possibility is that life is neither good nor bad. The big bang was one big ... neutral. Perhaps this was all a meaningless cosmic accident, a random event that just happened to occur fourteen billion years ago, and has been unfolding mechanically ever since. Do you believe the life-process has inherent meaning? Or do you see it as merely a material event—scientifically fascinating and full of mysterious and complex systems but devoid of any deeper purpose or direction? With the ascendance of scientific materialism and secularism in our culture, this orientation to life is more and more common. In fact, it is considered by some to be the most evolved, sophisticated perspective. Scientific materialism tells us there is no inherent meaning in the act of creation. It's just happening. We live in a meaningless and purposeless universe. We can choose to give it meaning, but the unfolding of life is ultimately nothing more than a mechanical and biological process. If you are convinced that life is neutral and meaningless, what does that mean about your relationship to being here? The third possibility is that life is inherently good. What does that mean? It means that the big bang was a big, resounding YES! When all manifestation burst into being out of nothingness, it was an inconceivably positive event, an expression of profound goodness. Could you accept that life is good at such a fundamental level? That doesn't necessarily mean that everything that happens in life is good. Of course, many things occur within the process that are tragic, painful, senseless, and even evil. Nature can be brutal and violent. Life includes hurricanes, earthquakes, wars, and deadly diseases. But some of the people who have most deeply contemplated the story of life's cosmic deep-time unfolding—from its explosive birth to this very moment—have come to the conclusion that the essence of the process is fundamentally good. When you understand the incredible delicacy of each pivotal point, and glimpse what it has taken for evolution to bring us to this place, you may find yourself awestruck by the miracle of life itself—its creativity, its tenacity, its extraordinary potential. There can be intimations of an overwhelming goodness—God's uncontainable, inconceivable YES—that underlies everything, a fundamental positivity that is almost impossible for the human mind to comprehend. If you are convinced that this is the ultimate nature of life, then what does that mean about your relationship to being here? * * * It's very important to look into this profound question for yourself: What is the ultimate nature of life? Why is it important? Because it affects everything. When you or I have a bad day, it's essential to be clear about whether that bad day is occurring in an ultimate context that is inherently good, or that bad day is occurring within a meaningless cosmic accident, or that bad day is occurring within a vast and seemingly endless nightmare. If you are convinced the life-process is negative, then it makes sense to want to escape from it as quickly as possible. In the time when many of the great ascetic traditions were born, it's understandable that people would have felt this way. Imagine living in a world where you didn't know about the miracle of the evolutionary process. Imagine that life was short, brutal, and more often than not spent struggling just to survive. It would make sense to see the world as an endless cycle of birth, suffering, death, and rebirth, from which the only escape was through transcendence. It would make sense to long for a heavenly realm if you had not yet discovered that the world of time and form and becoming was going somewhere. But even though we now live in a very different world, and we now know that this vast process is going somewhere, the conviction that life is negative can still persist. If this is what you believe, it will profoundly color your relationship to life. And your own suffering or struggle will only serve to confirm that fundamental conviction. If you are convinced that the process is meaningless, that too will deeply shape your relationship to life. Cynicism and even nihilism will find a foothold in your soul, and spiritual depth will be always obscured by the seemingly impermeable surfaces of the material world. If this is your fundamental worldview, it makes sense that you might be living from one moment to the next, with little sense of overarching purpose. You might feel justified in simply trying to feel better and experience as much pleasure and satisfaction as you can. After all, what else would there be to do but to make the best you could of this meaningless event? If you are convinced that the big bang was a big yes, you will find that your relationship to life is confronted with some very significant questions. After all, such a realization should be reflected in the way you relate to your own experience. If the life-process is an overwhelmingly positive event, and if the energy and intelligence behind that process is the most essential part of who we are, and its nature is fundamentally good, then we need to ask ourselves: Who are we to be depressed? Who are we to doubt? Who are we to be cynical? In the way I see it, if you know beyond any doubt that at its deepest level life is good, you should be committed to proving it through your own example. You have an obligation to demonstrate that primordial YES through your own confidence and unshakable conviction. This perspective does not deny that life challenges us all, and we all have to suffer and struggle. But when we awaken to the inherent positivity that is driving the whole process, our relationship to our own suffering and struggle changes dramatically. Knowing that to exist is good will give you enormous soul-strength to bear the challenges that confront you and to live a dynamic and victorious life. It may not mean it's easy to be here. But you no longer expect that it should be. In fact, you feel the awakening of a sense of obligation to work as hard as you can to be an expression of the deep goodness you have seen. When you think objectively about how much work went into creating your own capacity to have the experience you are having in this very moment— fourteen billion years of hard work —then it might even begin to strike you as immoral to spend too much time sitting around and worrying about the fears and desires of your personal ego. Surely the purpose of all that cosmic effort and creativity and positivity—from nothing to energy to light to matter to life to consciousness to you —could not possibly have been just for that. When you awaken to the evolutionary process and its endless creativity, and you discover how profound and complex the structure of our universe is, you start to recognize and appreciate, at a soul level, what a precious gift it is to be here. * * * My own experience and ongoing inquiry has convinced me, beyond any doubt, that when something came from nothing it was a big YES—that the process itself is inherently, absolutely, and unconditionally positive beyond our mortal capacity to even begin to truly comprehend. And the reason I can say that, without hesitation, is that I have looked very deeply into this matter for myself. But once again, you don't have to take my word for it. Why? Because you were there. If you want to know what the nature of that initial cosmic explosion was—and is —the answer is there to be found in your own deepest interior. And this teaching will show you how to discover that answer for yourself. As you will see, it is already present in your own experience. All you have to do is learn to recognize it.