Meaning
Meaning is a topic that comes up frequently in human life, and in particular in areas such as religion, spirituality, psychology and philosophy. The goal is often to find or develop a sense of meaning, but there are many layers to this topic...
Big Mind
From the Big Mind view, everything is as it is - there is no room for meaning or lack of meaning.
At the same time, Big Mind is all and any experiences - including meaning and lack of meaning in any and all shapes and forms.
And Big Mind is in a sense the meaning awareness seeks when it is exclusively identified with the small self. Awareness does tend to experience a sense of meaning when it connects with Big Mind in any way - as a "feeling", a numinous experience or similar.
Small Self
There are at two main ways an experience of meaning comes up when awareness is exclusively identified with the small self: Through its presence or absence.
Awareness can here experience meaning through...
- Opening up for a taste of Big Mind (God, Spirit, Buddha Mind).
- Sense of connections with self, others, nature, cosmos. A sense of belonging.
- Through believing in thoughts, such as values, norms, commandments, moral guidelines.
- Through a sense of direction, and/or of having and working towards a goal of any type.
Again, we see a form of spiral pattern. The version with most suffering is the small self experiencing lack of meaning. The version with least suffering is awareness awakening to the Big Mind view, which is beyond meaning and lack of meaning. And inbetween are phases where there is a sense of meaning.