Book: Sceptical spirituality

What’s the point of it all ?

Doing your spiritual homework #6

Molten rock (artwork by the author).

What’s the point ? What’s life and experience all about ? What’s it all for ?

These questions — or something like them — need to form the basis of any serious metaphysical inquiry. And if the metaphysical inquiry is to turn into a genuine metaphysical quest, you have to find a way to formulate these questions in such a way that they mean something to you directly. They have to become your questions, in a very immediate and meaningful sense.

And the strength of your questioning should never be weakened by a sense of self-satisfaction or achievement; questioning should always be invoked as the great destroyer of self-delusion. You can even ask ‘What’s the point of asking what’s the point ?’ to bring the mind to the position where it cannot supply any more comforting imagery, and finds itself lost and defeated. The questions beg for an answer, but none is forthcoming. Why ? Why do you find yourself on a precipice, with nothing to hold on to ? Look at that situation, and ask yourself, what’s going on ? What the hell is going on ? Look again, keep looking at where you are. Perhaps it might feel as if you can’t seem to find yourself, and you get lost in a kind of confusion. Why ? Why can’t you find yourself ? Which bit of you is lost ? What does all this mean, exactly ? What’s it all about ? What is the precise situation, in all its nakedness ? You can’t even seem to grasp the mystery in one go. But stay there, and learn to see the mystery for what it is. Don’t impose ideas on it, just learn to look at it.

Asking ‘what’s it all about ?’ should not be treated as an intellectual puzzle, to be flirted with and then turned into a religious justification; it should be seen for what it is: the basic existential enigma. If you can’t answer the question one way or the other, don’t clutch at comforting imagery, just accept the cruelty and absurdity of your situation, and try again to find an answer. Keep trying. Don’t pretend to know if you don’t know. If you don’t know, simply acknowledge the fact, and try to find a way out. Try to find a means by which you could know for yourself, rather than have to believe. It may take years. It may seem impossible. Maybe it is impossible, and you…