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INTRODUCTION
The title of this book indicates that we are dealing with that segment
of our life which is bound to this world. Implicit in this statement is a
strong indication that our life neither begins nor ends on this earth. Yet,
we have little, if any, conscious awareness that this is the case.
If there is more to our life than what we experience as life at any
given moment during our earthly life, then our life cannot be properly
explained and understood from its earthly quality, content and
manifestation.
Unfortunately, no one understands life properly. There is so much
confusion about it, so many diverse and contradictory opinions and
views, that it is difficult for us to sort things out and arrive at a proper
and satisfactory understanding of what our earthly life is all about.
This book is a modest attempt to put our earthly life in its proper
perspective. It is neither exhaustive nor complete as far as the subject of
life is concerned.
In order to clearly understand what is contained in this book, we are
to consider the following points:
1. It is impossible to arrive at an understanding of our earthly life
from the position of our earthly life. If our earthly life neither begins nor
ends on this earth, then it is only logical that it depends on factors which
are beyond anything that is available on this earth. Thus, in order to
properly understand and fulfill our earthly life, we need to consider all
factors of life which have nothing to do specifically with earthly life itself
and the way people live it. Obviously, this life will totally derive from the
conditions which are beyond our conscious awareness and which do not
originate on this earth.
2. Our ordinary conscious awareness, being the only available means
to our external mind, and being fully dependent on our physical sensory
organs, is not capable of giving us a correct view about our life. These
organs are accommodated and adjusted to the perception of a very
limited range of reality from which it is impossible to make any global,
general and sensible conclusions about the true nature of life. The
physical sensory organs are very narrow, selective and uni-directional,
able to give us only a subjective perception of the external reality. That is
to say, we see that reality the way we see it, and not the way it really is.
Yet, most people fully rely on their senses and consider their
perception of reality to be the reality itself. Very often, this leads many of
us toward making wrong conclusions about life with the subsequent
acquirement of the wrong understanding of what life is all about.
3. If our earthly life is not a phenomenon in itself and by itself; if it is
not bound to the earthly dimension only; and if it is only a brief segment
of the overall life, then the only way we can arrive at some proper
understanding of our earthly life is by comparison with different
segments of our life. These segments, in most instances, are not bound by
the experiences of life which take place on this earth. Thus, in order to
properly understand life, we need to consider something else, which has
no direct relevance to our conscious, everyday living. Only if we start to
look at other segments of our life, which are taking place or have been
taking place, and will be taking place, beyond and above our earthly life,
we will be able to acquire a better understanding and fulfillment of our
earthly life.
4. Because of the limitations and unreliability of our external
conscious experiences on this earth, any conclusions about life from this
position will be subject to numerous distortions and falsifications. From
this position, we tend to explain life as being solely a phenomenon of the
earthly environment and being solely dependent on and deriving from
the bodily functions. Thus, we tend to derive life from the functions of the
bodily organs themselves, instead of deriving the bodily functions from
the projection of life into the body.
Because we have a tendency to do this to all our experiences, we end
up putting everything in an upside-down position. Therefore, we can
safely conclude, that we live in an upside-down world in which we
consider the causes to be the effects and the effects to be the causes. With
such an attitude we rarely are capable of arriving at any sensible
understanding of what this life is all about.
5. It is difficult for us to accept the existence of something which
doesn’t submit itself to the tangible experience of our ordinary physical
senses. We are habituated to look outside of ourselves through the
glasses of our physical sensory organs. We have no other obvious means
by which we could by-pass or take off those glasses and look at reality
the way it really is and not the way those glasses present it to us after
screening out the substantial part of that reality. Because those glasses
are structured in such a manner as to perceive only something which is
somewhere out there, outside of us, and because we consider that
something to be the only tangible reality, we “naturally” disregard our
spirit and our soul which reside in our body, but which are not subject to
perception by our physical, sensory organs. Therefore, many of us, not
having such sensory experiences of our spirit’s and soul’s existence, deny
that they exist at all and if we admit that they do, we tend to explain and
derive them from the position of our physical world and physical body.
That is to say, in many instances, we consider our spirit and soul to be
the outcome of our bodily activities or activities of matter rather than
considering the activities of body and matter to be the outcome of the
activities of our spirit and soul. Thus, once again, we end up in an
upside-down position and in total distortion and falsification of reality.
Thus, in order to properly understand our earthly life, we need to
consider primarily the spiritual and mental factors of the true life from
which our physical, bodily and earthly life originate and derive.
6. If our earthly life is the result and outcome of something which is
not of earthly origin, then we need to disregard any and all external
considerations, as well as everyday events, as being unreliable indicators
of what this earthly life is all about. We need to learn to look in a
different direction than we have been looking so far. Obviously, life has
many aspects, levels, degrees and facets and the ways in which it is
manifested, actualized and realized. Usually, we are aware consciously of
only one such level — the earthly level of life. But, to properly
understand life, we need to transcend our habit of looking at life as solely
an earthly phenomenon and instead to turn our attention to the other
possible levels which can give us an entirely different perspective of life
in general and our individual life in particular. If the direction of looking
outside is a distorted version of reality, then looking inside of our selves,
into our spirit and soul, can give us a new and unexpected vision and
understanding of reality hitherto unknown to us. If we combine and
integrate all modes and directions of looking at reality, we can arrive at a
much better and more satisfactory understanding and fulfillment of our
earthly life.
7. Because of our bad habit of being uni-directional in our outlook on
and experience of our earthly life, we end up in a tragic, one-sided, rigid
disregard for any level and aspect of our life other than, mostly and
predominantly, worldly, physical, material, corporeal, sensual and
external aspects of it. This dangerous situation induces a lopsidedness
into our life in which certain limited aspects of our life are overloaded
and overused while others starve and are gravely neglected or even
entirely rejected as having no validity. We tend to look at them with
contempt, particularly at the spiritual aspects of our life. Such a bad
habit results in many spiritual, mental, emotional, intellectual, physical,
sexual, environmental problems, miseries, sufferings, shortcomings,
illnesses, diseases and ultimate disappointment, dissatisfaction and
unhappiness. In view of these facts, it is necessary to wake up from our
deep sleep and stop dreaming a reality which is only a dream and which
cannot give us the true food and drink that can sustain our life in a
proper and livable shape and condition. We need to learn how to
integrate all aspects of our life so that everything in us, or what
constitutes our life, has an equal opportunity for being actualized,
realized and fully manifested.
8. From the above considerations, it is necessary to realize that our
earthly life is not what it seems to be and it didn’t originate the way we
are taught and believe that it did. First of all, as mentioned above, it
didn’t start here nor will it end here. And, secondly, it is not limited to
only our physical body and to the dimension which we are consciously
aware of at any given moment.
There is a deep mystery in why and for what purpose our earthly life
was initiated. The bloody history of humankind reflects nothing but
problems and miseries. The endless list of various problems, difficulties,
crises, wars, crimes, etc., of our earthly life and of our everyday living,
lead many of us to believe that this is the way life is supposed to be and,
therefore, human sufferings and miseries are necessary concomitants of
life itself. But, if earthly life is basically such a good phenomenon (after
all, most of us do not want to die and desperately cling to this earthly
life), then why does it produce such devastating, negative, evil, and bad
conditions and their symptoms? Obviously, there is something terribly
wrong with the “goodness” of this life. What went wrong with our earthly
life? Who or what is behind all the things which have been happening on
this earth since the dawn of our history? This points at an entirely
different understanding of what this earthly life is all about. It forces us
to re-evaluate our view about the true origin of our earthly life.
9. Our earthly life has a very specific purpose and goal which is, in
most instances, hidden from us as long as we continue to look outside of
ourselves. There is no genuine life outside of ourselves. If we try to
understand and to explain life from something which doesn’t have any
life by itself and in itself, we end up considering life to be death and
death to be life. Again, this is an example of our upside-down position
and view. We are the ones who are the true carriers and containers of
life. If it is so, is it not logical, therefore, to attempt to understand and to
explain life from the life itself which is within us?
If we want to find answers about ourselves and about our life,
because we are ourselves and it is our life in us, we have to learn to ask
questions and get the answers from within ourselves. Thus, to find out
what the specific purpose and goal of our earthly life is, we need to
establish what the specific purpose and goal of our inner, private life is.
Only by answering this latter question shall we be able to arrive at a
proper understanding and fulfillment of our earthly life in general.
However, no one outside has any knowledge or answer to what the
specific purpose and goal of our private life is. That answer is contained
within us. We have to learn to dig into ourselves and bring it out to our
conscious awareness so that we can learn the truth about all of this and
become free.
Not everyone will agree with what is said in this book. Many people,
perhaps even the majority of them, will reject its content and its
conclusions as total fantasy or even the insanity of the author.
The purpose of this book is not to convince anyone of anything. It’s
purpose is to give the reader a different possible alternative and
perspective for an explanation of earthly life than just the traditional
one. Thus, it is meant only for consideration by those who are willing to
keep their hearts and minds open. Those who are not willing to do so
should avoid reading this book.
Peter D. Francuch
Santa Barbara, California
Source: UNDERSTANDING AND FULFILLMENT OF OUR EARTHLY LIFE
