The Meaning of Life with Dr. Bob

You were born as you were. Strange statement, isn’t it? And what does that have to do with the goal and the purpose of life?

To say you were born as you were means that you were just perfect in that new-born state. I do not mean you had all the fingers and toes you were supposed to. Though they are important too.

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You were perfectly human. And then you grew through toddler-hood, elementary years, teenage-hood, young adult-hood, etc., to whatever age you are now. In other words, you progress through your ages and stages.

Progressing through ages and stages is what life is all about, really. You are moving on toward enlightenment. I believe you will reach enlightenment in this life or one of your lives to come. It is inevitable.

So the goal of your life is to accomplish enlightenment. Enlightenment, in my view, means you have realized your full self in relationship to THE Full Self. Self-realization. Someone looking at you from the outside would not be able to discern where you leave off and where the Full Self begins.

A goal is an end toward which effort is directed. Enlightenment will be obtained eventually, but perhaps not in this lifetime.

The purpose of life, on the other hand, is to be happy. A purpose is an end to be obtained. Happiness can be found in this lifetime – for sure.

Do you get the subtle yet real difference?

Finding your happiness through meditation and attachment to the Full Self is what you are about in this lifetime. Ever keeping the simmering pot of enlightenment on the back burner.

Every time you make real your linkage to the Full Self, thereby developing or reinforcing your happiness, you move one step closer to enlightenment. But enlightenment is the goal. It may a distant goal for you, as it is for me.

By distant goal I mean I know I will take lifetimes, plural, for me to reach it. This is not to put myself down. It is to be realistic about my present state.

Yes, I was born perfectly human, just as you were. But when I try to look objectively at my present state of spiritual affairs, I see that I am miles away from the goal of enlightenment.

But that’s okay with me because I have the purpose of being happy in this life time on my way to the goal. And being happy in this lifetime moves me down the path toward enlightenment.

Why ought you to care? Because it is the same for you. You were born perfectly human with the goal of enlightenment and with the opportunity to be happy in this lifetime.

By practicing the meditative arts you can be happy here and now. You are moving on toward that final blessed state called enlightenment where there is no desire and no suffering.

In the meantime, you can begin to understand that state through happiness wherein you can leave suffering behind, even in this lifetime.

Liken this to physical health. You workout to increase your physical health. That is your goal. It may some time to attain that goal.

Your purpose in working out is taking the steps toward physical health. Each workout adds to the previous and strength and stamina increase.

Finding happiness is a workout (or workouts) on the way to enlightenment. You really cannot have the goal without the purpose. You really cannot have the purpose without the goal.

Begin today to make a distinction between goal and purpose. Develop your purpose in life, which is to be happy. You will automatically be moving toward your goal of enlightenment.

 This has been Dr. Bob 4 U, and I invite you to change your life for the better by claiming your Free Instant Access to a Force-Source-Resource including a monthly newsletter titled The Force-Source-Resource Newsletter. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

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One Person Can Change The World

There are many benefits to being happy.

But Susan was not yet in the place of having the opportunity of benefitting from happiness.

She had phoned to make an appointment with me some weeks ahead. From the longer-term wait until the appointment, though she did not really need to wait that long, I reasoned that her concern must not be too urgent.

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Susan was around 55 years of age at the time. She was grandmother to two small children through her daughter’s marriage. It was the dead of winter so she was bundled up to the eyeballs and wore a kind of jumper under the outerwear.

“With the world in such a mess,” she began, “what is the point of trying to be happy, Dr. Bob? It just seems that I begin to be happy and then something happens and I feel sad again. It can happen to me or my family or something in the world at large. What’s the point?”

“What do you mean, Susan? What point about happiness is eluding you?” I asked.

“Why put effort into trying to be happy when that happiness is burst like a balloon stuck with a needle?” Susan asked.

“Well, there are many benefits to being happy,” I replied. “Have you seen them?”

“You are going have to produce a convincing list for me to make the effort,” she said.

“Let’s try just seven to begin with. See if you resonate with any of these.”

I began to list them for her with a little comment on each. Here are the seven I listed for Susan.

1. Happiness promotes feeling at home in your own skin. By that I meant Susan could know that she belonged where she was and in what she was doing and being.

Happiness helps you feel as if you fit where you are placed. It can also help you see that you may not fit where you are. You can then move to a place or state of mind where you do feel at home.

2. Happiness promotes forgiveness. Part of what Susan was feeling was the seemingly constant barrage of negative events in the world and in one’s own life.

When you are feeling happy you are more positively disposed to forgiveness. When someone wrongs you, which often happens in a negative world, when you are secure within your own happiness, you can release the hold the wrong has on you through forgiveness. Forgiveness puts you back in control of your emotions and life.

3. By a similar token, then, happiness promotes sharing. Because you are happy, positive emotions bubble up and out of you, unto other people or animals.

In a negative world you may feel as if everything is conspiring to crush you. When you are on the defensive in that way, you have difficulty sharing the wealth of your happiness. But giving of yourself is part of what defines you. Without sharing your happiness you suppress it.

4. It has been shown in many studies that happiness helps promote good health. This benefit of happiness alone may be worth the effort.

Stress, tension, negative thinking, all of these contribute to ill-health. Happiness helps you dispel stress. It helps you lay aside tension. It contributes to positive thinking. In happiness you are concentrated in the positive. It has been shown that this affirmative absorption promotes well-being and, therefrom, good health.

5. Happiness promotes flexibility. In other words, as the world throws you negative curve balls, you can more easily duck out of the way.

Have you heard the saying, “Every time we get ahead, something comes along to knock us down?” That is the attitude some people carry. It keeps them stiff in response to the hazards of living. Life will throw curve balls at your head. But when you have a happy attitude, you know such throws will come your way naturally and you can be ready to duck. To recover. To take your base. To say, “Oh, well, that’s life. I am stronger than this negativity. I chose how I will respond to it.”

6. Happiness promotes successful relationships. Who would you rather be around, a grouch or a pleasant person?

Being happy does not mean you must be all smiles and laughter all the time. It does mean the basis of your personality is positive and you are ready to smile and laugh when appropriate. Guess what? (You already know the answer.) When you are happy, people want to be around you. You build your own relationships by your positivist attitude.

7. Happiness promotes peace of mind. Is your mind stirred up with all the negative happenings in your life and the world?

When you are well grounded in the idea and reality of happiness within yourself, you are at peace within yourself. This peace can be developed to such strength, that nothing can disturb you or dishearten you. Witness all in history who had horrendous things happen to them or their family and still survived well. They greatest strength within their ordeals was peace of mind which came through basic happiness.

“So, Susan, how does this list of seven sound to you?” I asked.

“They have filled me with hope and the desire to develop internal happiness for myself. Thanks for you time.”

I hope your time was well spent in this article, dear reader. I hope you try to develop and keep happiness within your life. It does you much good.

This has been Dr. Bob 4 U, and I invite you to change your life for the better by claiming your Free Instant Access to a Force-Source-Resource including a monthly newsletter titled The Force-Source-Resource Newsletter. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

My Vlog: http://themeaningoflifewithdrbob.com/drbobslifephrases

One Person Can Change The World

“Are we there yet?” That is, of course, the proverbial question that kids ask on road trips. But you actually never stop asking that question even into adulthood – until you reach enlightenment.

Here are five tips to help you know you have arrived. These are numbered just for convenience sake. They do not necessarily come in this order. You can interchange the order in any way you see fit. You can even change the order multiple times, to suit you.

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1. You have found internal, unshakeable happiness. Having made deep, lasting connection with the Cosmic Consciousness, you have found that you are accepted unconditionally just as you are right now. When you realize this unconditional regard, you know you have arrived.

Do not be frightened. This is not difficult to obtain. It costs you only what you are willing to spend.

You spend on such things as instructions in meditation. There are many free sources on the Internet. Then it takes practice, which is free. And it takes patience, which is also free.

You find unshakeable happiness through meditation. This is where you make a linkage between yourself and the Cosmic Consciousness. Forged into that link is unconditional love and unqualified understanding.

2. You have found meaning for your life. Through meditative arts you have found your link between yourself and the Cosmic Consciousness. In that link you know that your life never ends. In that link you have found happiness.

Why might it be important to you that you are eternal? Eternality means you can know that you are an everlasting part of the Universe. As long as the Universe exists, you are integral.

How long will the universe last? It is never-ending. Therefore, you are never ending. Your physical body will die. But you will not.

3. You have found your purpose in life. Your purpose is to experience, in all its shades and variations, all of life, as much as you can hold. Because the Cosmic Consciousness is just that, consciousness, It needs you to experience on Its behalf. You fulfill your purpose just by living.

The Cosmic Consciousness is One. As One, It cannot experience. Why? Because all experience is in relationship to something else.

Think about it. We cannot know light unless we know darkness. We cannot feel hot unless we can also feel cold. We cannot understand love unless we also can understand indifference.

(It is commonly thought that hate is the opposite of love. Love is a feeling, an emotion. Hate is also an emotion, therefore, they are related. However, indifference means having no feeling for something, someone.)

So, you are the expereincer. You are in relationship to everything and everyone else. You live the life of the Cosmic Consciousness.

4. You have found giving as the reinforcing mechanism of experiencing and being in unconditional regard. Compassion and kindness have become your watch words. These are not something you have to do but things you want to do because they help you feel worthy of meaning, happiness and purpose.

When you are filled with love, unconditional acceptance, total regard, you develop an effervescence that you did not know you had. You need not be all smiles and jovialness, all the time. Everyone displays different levels of joy.

But you feel like letting your joy overflow into the world and unto other persons.

5. You have found yourself – all of the above. When you have put together the package of all the elements in the first four tips, you are complete in this life. You have claimed yourself. You have entitled yourself. Again, this is not something you have to do, or have to do in a certain order. This packaging of yourself is something you want to do and to be, in order that you feel you have arrived.

So, start today rewrapping yourself into a new gift package and deliver it to yourself. You (your package) has arrived.

This has been Dr. Bob 4 U, and I invite you to change your life for the better by claiming your Free Instant Access to a Force-Source-Resource including a monthly newsletter titled The Force-Source-Resource Newsletter. Just Click Here. Remember, one bit of information can give you a lifetime of satisfaction.

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