On may 20th the topic of our philosophical café had again something to do with LIFE. We wanted to go on,...there was more to share and more to find out together. Simone, Erik, Henk I,II, an III, Aukje, Joop, Marthe and myself sat around the table.

The question was : "Why is there life ?"

For those who have not that much time to read this blog...we did not come up with one answer ;-(. Let's say it was a conglomeration of different oppinions and sometimes two or three people met somewhere in the middle, shared the same thought or feeling. We have believers in the group and others who are very rational. There are people who have a rather pessimistic world view and others who think this is a wonderful world...it is striking that one can notice this fact mirrored in what and how they say it during the evening.

Erik started off with a definition : Life was something organic,...there was no big calculator yet there were rules that organisms followed....

Of course that was not an answer to the question of WHY!!! I kept repeating that simple single word the whole evening...I think that is the only way of reminding everyone of the center of the topic. It is ohh so tempting to talk about related topics and let your thoughts wander around.

Henk III without any further connotation to what Erik had said gave his view of WHY. He talked in the I-form and it was clear to him that he lived to answer one single question, namingly : WHO am I? SO for him the WHY question turned into another question...

Simone also came with a definition : she wanted to share her thought of "breathing and living": ...for her everthing that breathes has life and is alive...

THE BREATH of LIFE :

That notion of breathing left us in a beautiful mindset,...we all had connotations to that. Henk I added : "I sometimes wonder if we come back again..."
In other words he wandered about reïncarnation...and when our breath leaves our body where is our mind,...the spirit ?

What happens in a person when he or she starts drifting into another mindset,...away from the actual topic,...Sometimes these moments need to happen and I let go. I find it interesting as some of these moments change someone. What? Well, maybe these are moments in time when you start believing,...this certain feeling of:'I sometimes wonder,...do we come back'? These thoughts have nothing to do with science and do not refer to any book which Henk I has just read,...it is a wondering impuls leading to another level. It is the opening of a door to one's hidden self. Asking oneself these questions and sharing them brings the group together, ...if they really listen.(!) And really listening means allowing a silence after one has said something. Allowing a new thought or piece of information to nestle into our own synaptic windings,...to let them enter into our heart if you want.

Henk II was also captivated by the thought and word of breath : He came up with PRANA or cosmic energy, that was always at the center of our breathing.

Here I wanted to go into some detail : What are we talking about? Breathing in or breathing out ?

Simone is convinced that they are ONE,...they belong together,...in and out.
Aukje said she felt there was this clear distinction between breathing in, when you accept everything from the outside cosmic world and breathing out, when you give something from yourself.
Erik noted that breathing in was the YIN factor and out the YANG factor,...

Summing it up: "Why life ?" cannot be answered without talking about breath.

Now after this worming up we actually started the real philosophy. Walking and talking your way around in the maze finding ones way into the center of the maze and out. (symbolically speaking)

The following conversation can be divided into categories.
1) Some people preferred to answer the question with an individual understanding,...others
2)were clearly more interested in answering the why question out of the perspective of all people together
3) and we also had a universal aproach in which spirituality and the question of WHY LIFE reach up to the GODS and back

As a very compelling example I remember Henk III with the story of Brahman : Brahman (or God) came into existance out of nothing and was ONE. Yet a desire to get to know him (herself) split him/her up. Out of the unity there was duality...

Aukje thought of the survival of our humankind. She was convinced that you could apply the survival of the fittest idea as an answer,...there was this selection and you could also see that in the economy. But now nature was fighting back as human kind had taken too much from nature.

Why are we here,...why is there life ? Because we must see who the winner is? Who is the fittest...Leaves me with the question : and then? What if we ever had a winner,....? What would happen to him or her? What would they do, say, preach or teach? Would life just end there and then?

Simone came with a very interesting thought. She started off with telling us that she did not know the answer. That was refreshing in the sense that it made space in people's head. People felt a blank space... an opening. If we are too full with our own thoughts there is not much room left for others or for real listening and sharing.

So what was her answer: we are here on earth in order to learn...from experience from choices,..things that happen to us that we have to accept...if individuals learn the world learns and turns with us,...in other words: The world as a whole develops if we learn...into a positive direction.

What a wonderful positive attitude and way to look at things. The question remains WHY? Why should we learn ?

And after very intensly repeating that question I heard an answer : Because there is some use in it. OK. SO that means there is a reason...and finally someone came up with the answer : It is all about wisdom....

What a good moment for a break...\\/\\\

After the break Henk II came with some interesting wisdom: For him it was clear that we had to reach some sort of perfection. Coming from a state of ignorance our path was clear...we need to reach perfection by reaching our own core. Like the center of an onion we need to find out who we truly are. We can also say that we need to make aquantance with the person that we are not. "Everything you see you cannot be."

HIII immediately commented on this: "But you need a whole life time for this!"

HII you can call it the divine spark.

When Aukje asked if that was the inner God in Henk II he replied that he did not want to name it.

Simone commented that if you get to that inner core of yourself, there is this emptiness...

HenkII There is emptiness and fullness,....knowing and not knowing,...answer and no answer

But was there not a reason to live on this planet to share it with others for this earth asked Simone.

Henk II replied that he did embrace the world,...it was an inner attitude.

Henk III remarked that HenkI was too fast. Everything that he said marked the end of a learning proces and we were right at the beginning.

Then Aukje replied that for her it was like a train. We learn and we travel in that train of life and somethimes it stops and we can step out and wait for the next train till we are ready for our following destination.

Joop was interested in the question wether this train only went ahead....was there an evolutionary thought behind it ?

TRYING to PULL the group back to the main topic : WHY is there life ?

Simone had a very interesting thought to share: If there was ever more knowledge/wisdom and awareness then the path to more UNITY is ready. It all was about ONENESS. Coming to each other to find more peace and harmony.

Erik saw a completely different aspect of the WHY question: He sees the world as a very fragile planet also because there are too many people and ever more people to be fed. In his eyes people were here to colonies this planet.

HenkIII agreed on this one. It was all about living according to instincts, people only thinking in their own reproduction. Henk thought that overpopulation was a taboo topic but that it was of course a risk for planet earth. But of course that was not the topic of the evening...But what he said about our topic made sense: Henk talked about balance. Balance with the world as a goal and answer to WHY we are on this planet and also a certain unity with oneself and the world around us.

Marthe said that she saw life also a teacher. She was incredibly greatful for what she can still do in life,...playing the piano for example. With this answer we would be back at the answer : Why are we here ? IN ORDER TO LEARN...!!!

There is some regularity in life and it is necessary to see this and to live with it (Henk II)...may we say to go with the flow?


Overall the discussion was very pleasant and we shared a lot of laughter and we heard many oppinions...the thing for me to improve maybe is to learn (!) to make people listen even better to what the other has just said so that we can build up argument instead of starting new thoughts with every new speaker.

The challenge for next time : Will we be able to make space for someone else's story without bringing in our own backpack of thoughts and experiences...or will that then be half the fun...?

What I will try to do next time when we are going to talk about "The good the bad and the... " is to really make people repeat what the other one has said....we are going to get deeper and deeper into each other's minds. We are going to take each other ever more seriously...we are going to understand each other ever better...we will learn to be more gentle with each other. And we are going to do it slowly....because a mind that rushes too fast can easily lose track of others.

Till then, thursday philosophy.