In the following article I would like to relate to a common perception among spiritual and religious people that life keeps offering the same lesson again and again until we learn the teaching of the lesson.

As a result of our upbringing, we are accustomed to think of our existence in terms of punishment and reward. From the moment we are babies with the ability to sense intonations and read facial expressions, our environment trains us to react to reward and punishment. Reward can be in the form of a subtle smile or soft voice, all the way to receiving a cookie or having a fun day with Dad. Punishment can be as subtle as a slight raising of the voice at us, all the way being grounded with no TV privileges.

We cannot shake these conceptual associations even when we are grown up and we think of ourselves as free people. You can hit your baby toe painfully on the leg of the coffee table and your mind immediately will relate to it as a punishment for something “bad” you did, said, or thought a minute ago.

What is the lesson when a tree breaks in the wind?

What is the lesson when a flower is eaten by a deer?

What is the lesson when the phone rings when you are asleep?

The idea of Life giving us a lesson is a spiritual cliché. Who outside of our self gives us a lesson?

Who is life?

Are the trees giving us a lesson?

Or maybe the galaxies are giving us a lesson?

Are the atoms giving us a lesson?

Or maybe the molecules are giving us a lesson?

Are those that have already died giving us a lesson?

Or maybe those that are not yet born?

Or maybe God?

This kind of perception is naive. The problem in our perceptions of higher powers (or in whatever you name it) is that we reflect our own limitations and ways of experiencing reality upon these “powers”. We do not have much choice in our perceptions as we can perceive reality only from what we know.

Let’s take the concept of God. No matter what the religion is that represents God, God is always perceived in the form of the mind. We picture God within our own picture. We apply our own virtues and qualities to God. Because we experience anger, our God gets angry; because we punish and are punished, our God punishes; because we experience love, our God loves; because we ask for forgiveness, our God forgives; because we become jealous, our God gets upset when we lose faith in him\her, etc. So who gives us lessons? Does God get up in the morning and create a schedule for the lessons of the year?

God: “So lets see what we have here; John should get Lesson Number 14. Bankruptcy will help him learn about his ego. The Manchester team should lose the World Cup so their followers will finally learn how to behave nicely during games. And Iraq, let’s see, Iraq should get Lesson Number 568. I guess we should send America to help them with their lesson as America is known as a very good tutor; after all, they helped Vietnam to graduate. (At this point, God is not really sure what lesson Iraq needs to receive but it is already written in his agenda, so why not.)”

What is interesting is that “lessons” always come in a painful way. Why is this? A lesson is an action that you learn something from. You can learn a lesson driving a car and because you are good at it, your next lesson is learning to drive a truck. Because you are a great student, your next lesson is learning to fly an airplane, and because you are so dedicated, your next lesson is learning to fly a spaceship.

In so-called spirituality, the lesson is to say in politically correct terms that someone got hit by life badly. For example: George received a million dollars in the lottery to teach him about gratitude, but he didn’t get the lesson so he received another million dollars. George still felt unlucky. It was only when he won the third million dollars that he started to appreciate the flow of life. So, if you win the lottery three times, you are considered lucky, but if you get hit by a car, there is a lesson in that?

So, no one above you or below you is teaching you anything. If you are a master, you may choose to turn an event in your life into a learning curve. At the end of the day, you are the teacher and the student.

Namaste
shakti mhi

To discuss this posting or to comment, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this article.

The following is an email that I received from one of my sincere students that represents the common conceptual struggle people shared with me about my fall.

Dear shakti;

I would like to talk about what i will call here your “accident”.

I must admit that i was deeply shocked to hear about the “accident”. I must have been thinking that only “good” could happen to you! out of all people.

so, in the recent situation of your “accident”, I asked myself immediately, Okay but why!!!?? and why am I so shocked and in disbelief!

Signed,
J.

Dear J,

Many people, spiritual or not, believe, feel, and hope that good things happen to good people and bad things happen to bad people. As spiritual seekers we should check the roots of these beliefs and where we are coming from in our life assumptions.

So let’s start: The first question to ask is, “Who is the one, outside of us, that implements this principle of good for the good and bad for the bad?” This ‘thing’ must have a mind, as ‘it’ thinks and evaluates the same as we do.

Is there a mighty power (In the sky? In the clouds? Under the ground? Or maybe in the mind?) that files all actions, intents, and thoughts into good and bad:

Stealing - Bad

Giving - Good

Drugs - Bad

Sex - Good? Bad? (Still in discussion ;-)

And then what? I guess the he-she-it entity sits down and files the whole of humanity into groups of good or bad people. For example:

He is greedy - he is bad.

She is negative - she is bad.

He is compassionate - he is good.

She is good hearted - she is good

And so on.

Next is to match all the people in existence based on if they are good or bad with what they are going to receive from the entity. This takes a long time as you need to choose the future moments for each person. For example in the Flying Category fate:

Who is going to fly by plane and see the world?

Who is going to be in the plane that crashes?

Who is going to fly to the sky from being crazy in love?

And…

Who is going to simply fly off a balcony?

The final stage, of course, is to send down to earth the “implementations” that implement the big agenda of events; including traveling all the way to Thailand and pushing me off the balcony.

What is in your mind when you think about an organized super duper program that files everything into good and bad? I guess the God concept, in its many forms, is the best fit in such a play. But then we are falling into religious beliefs and assumptions and as you already know, I am not into that whatsoever.

Besides this, who is to define in an absolute way what good or bad are?

Is there a “good” that is good for everyone, anytime, anywhere?

Is there a “bad” that is bad for everyone, anytime, anywhere?

It is obvious that the programming of our minds influence reality, and as a result, we perceive reality in a very limited and structured way.)

So why are so many people are often shocked and in disbelief when “bad things happens to “good ” people?

When you immerse yourself fully in the moment, you have no space to go to the mind and ask “why?”, as everything is as it is. From the moment I hit the ground to this present moment I never bothered with the question, “why did it happen?” as I was determined to go through it mindfully. The fact is that the mind questions because it is missing data to satisfy its own limited program. (I say limited because the mind does not have the capacity to perceive reality as it is. This is why it has so many holes to fill.) However, know that just because the mind questions, it does not mean the questions are relevant to the moment.

The reason why people are shocked when “bad” things happen to “good” people is because they have built a fairytale of how reality should unfold, purposely unaware of the endless possibilities that either didn’t fit in their movie or that they are simply are not aware of.

We are usually get “hit” by life when a possibility that wasn’t included in our script unfolds out of nowhere and leaves us confused as the director of our own movie.

For my small self, my fall was the most uplifting and powerful event at the time it happened, but not anymore as I am immersing into a new moment in each moment.

Anecdote:

A lovely man that did my astrology chart for his own curiosity shared with me that to his biggest surprise, on the date of my fall nothing was predicted in my stars as a horrible event. On the contrary, Venus was floating somewhere close which supposedly indicates love, but not a disaster.

He couldn’t understand this figuration. I said, “Isn’t it obvious? I fell 30 feet down and didn’t get killed, didn’t hit my head, and even though I ended up with a broken spine, I didn’t end up, against all the odds, paralyzed. As a result of my fall I was embraced with the infinite energy of love that flowed to me from all over the world, helping me to heal rapidly. I met incredible healers that helped me on the journey to complete recovery. I had endless moments of immense gratitude for being alive and breathing with joy. Isn’t that what my chart was all about? Love and joy? Which proves to us that experiencing reality is all about perception.”

With Love and Joy, shakti

If you’d like to discuss this, please use the forum topic dedicated to this article.

(Dedicated to Daniel, who was there for me with his whole being.)

The Fall

My body was in motion, falling 30 feet down.

As I fell, time didn’t slow down, it simply stopped. Maybe because I fell at the speed of light ;-) or maybe when you take off from your usual orbit the laws of nature cease to exist.

As I was in the air I was very clear and very relaxed. I thought: “Is this going to be the end?” I felt a bit disappointed as I was in the middle of teaching a yoga teacher training program, and I had a few things to do in my life. I didn’t resist the fall with my body. I let my body fall like a heavy pillow and I hit the rock on the ground. The impact was incredible: bones and flesh hitting the ground at a speed that is only meant for diving birds. I lost my breath but not my consciousness. I watched my body in its stillness; no air moved in or out. I knew at this moment I was entering a new era of my existence, but I wasn’t sure yet if it was in the form of death or a new kind of life. I wondered if the reason I was not breathing was because one of my ribs had pierced my lung. I decided to gather all the energy that was left in my broken body and force a deep inhale into my shocked lungs. There is a good reason why it says in Zen “If you are aware of your breath you are aware of the moment.” I guess the last time I had been forced to inhale so intensely was when I was born. I felt so much joy when my lungs started to move, vacuuming the air in.

The Aftermath

I knew my spine was broken, so my next thought was: “Am I paralyzed?” I searched for my toes; it wasn’t easy to map them in my brain. I was determined to find the group of muscles responsible for moving my toes. I did; they moved and I was in bliss. Then I checked my legs and was thrilled to feel them moving. My left hand was lying beside me with no life in it. Broken bones were exposed to the air covered with a jungle of dark mud. I thought of the long journey before me: I was on a small island off the main coast of Thailand that did not have any medical facilities and the only way back was on a tiny boat on a stormy ocean. Honoring my practice, I knew there was only one way for me to go through the ordeal: being in the moment. Lying on the ground waiting for an emergency team to arrive, I had to restrain my mind from leaving the moment and wildly galloping into the unbounded desert of fears, doubts, worries, and the replay of moments that had past. I needed to be one hundred percent focused, tuned in, and crystal clear. I couldn’t afford to lose any energy by letting my mind wander outside of the moment.

Great people carried me from the jungle to the beach, and the pain was unbearable. I knew if I identified with the pain it would swallow me alive and I would lose consciousness. So I started to say loudly, “I am not this body and this pain is not me.” I kept repeating it as a mantra until I established a state were I was fully able to watch the pain, knowing it was in my body and know that it was not me. It helped me to manage the pain as a separate thing from my self. When I was informed that it would take some time for the speed boat to arrive, I started to chant like there would be no tomorrow. I chanted so loudly that people started to move towards the beach thinking maybe there was a Satsang going on. I couldn’t understand where this powerful voice came from in my broken bleeding body. But I didn’t care: my intense chanting established life in my injured body by evoking Prana and circulating it in my physical and energy bodies.

And the journey began . . . endless moments of awareness, bliss and gratitude for being alive.

When I arrived to the hospital a few hours later, I was informed that it would take another six hours for the surgeon to fly in from Bangkok. I asked Daniel to remove the big clock from the wall across from my bed as I needed to bend time to my own terms to survive the long wait.

The next thing I heard was the surgeon explaining how serious the injury was.

He suggested surgery for my spine. I went within my self, and came back with an assertive command not to touch my spine, just to care for my hand. They respected my wish but didn’t support it.

What made this experience so powerful and spiritual is that I was forced to immerse fully into the moment and move beyond space and time, move beyond all concepts of pain and pleasure, of good and bad. I experienced each moment as it was.

Another great aspect of my injury was watching the power of the mind when it was guided with intuition and cleared of all fears. My mind and I decided not to let any predictable diagnoses and bad news from the professional medical staff to stop us from being creative in our dance of healing. Meditation, visualization, loud affirmations when alone in my room, and tons of humor were my every day and night yoga practice. I was talking to my body and guiding it gently as it found its way back to a place of balance and health.

I refused to remain on morphine (even though it was really fun) and instead I was exercised changing the concept of pain into pleasure; after all, it is only a concept.

Long Distance Healing

It is important for people to know that because we are all connected to each other on the energy level, healing from a distance works greatly and is easily felt. Right after my event, many people in Thailand including teachers, students, yogis, and friends were meditating and sending powerful energy to encourage rapid healing. Very quickly, the news flew to many places, from India to Vancouver and beyond, and great people kept sending more and more energy to me. I was lying in my room in the hospital and felt strong vibrations moving along my spine with a great gold color, healing my broken bones. Even though I was isolated I felt connected to an ocean of high frequency vibrations. I could physically feel streams of energy entering my body from outside of me. I owe my rapid healing to all the people that sent this wonderful loving energy. Sometimes the energy felt so intense that I burst into tears of bliss and gratitude.

Thank you all.

Meeting Remarkable People

The events of my fall unfolded a lot of beauty and great moments. One of the great aspects of this event is that it brought inspiring healers along my way. It is important to remember that holistic ancient knowledge is vast and available for the one in need. If you reach out to it when you are in need you will be able to heal yourself without any damage or side effects.

I was amused by how my body reacted so openly and with joy to the various treatments I received*. All treatments should be enhanced with an excited attitude that you are doing the best for your body. If you are skeptical and not open to certain forms of treatment you undergo, you are draining the energy of the treatments. Some people mention that because I am so enthusiastic about all my treatments I heal so quickly; maybe my healing is partially a placebo. At the end of the day, who really cares what heals us. I am definitely recharging all of my treatments with my own energy and empowering them with my own mind. We must take responsibility and be fully involved in all of our healing. Otherwise our bodies are like cars that get fixed up in a shop.

* I received Ayurveda, Acupuncture, physiotherapy and chiropractic care, but try what works for you.

With love and gratitude
shakti mhi

Author of “The enigma of self realization”
And founder of Prana yoga college international.

If you’d like to discuss this, please use the forum topic dedicated to this article.

The following question was posed to shakti by a reader.

To read shakti’s reply to this question or, if you’d like to comment on this or discuss it, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this question.

I would not go so far as to say I am experiencing a rise of kundalini exactly, but as my practice deepens I am beginning to experience some feelings and some phenomenon that I am…not uncomfortable with, but certainly disoriented by.

My practice has gone from physical, relaxing, and calming, to very internal, silent, and vibratory. Instead of practicing silence, I am immersed in it almost without warning or effort. My emotions run the gamut from powerful and confident to terrified, sad, and fearful of my very existence. Mainly, it is the emotional states that I am having a hard time with.

These feelings of being not in control are actually most present at the times when I am neither teaching nor practicing. It is the point after grounding, when I come “crashing back down to earth” that I feel the most lost. I almost feel as though I’m no longer in control of this awakening, and that it is getting deeper without my control. I don’t know if I feel ready for it, yet a deeper part of me is trying to ease into these new experiences.

Is there anything you can tell me about how to integrate this energy into myself so as to feel more in control of the experience? I find that the “negative” aspects of this awakening are only magnified by my day-to-day stress and worldly concerns, which makes it all the more difficult to handle. I feel strong emotions coming to the surface, as I am usually so grounded and calm - I feel very alone and lost.

Angelina.

Transhumanism doesn’t rise above the DNA programming but rather enhances the DNA programming. Transhumanism stems from our strongest drive to survive, that has been manipulated via our DNA. Transhumanism deals with preventing the aging process and maybe even preventing humankind from dying, but as long as it rises from our identification of being our physical body it is not beyond the DNA.

In spirituality we rise above the DNA programming by realizing we are not the physical body.

Transhumanism can be compared to owning a car, where we continually develop methods to protect the car from decaying. For example, by enhancing the oils we use, upgrading the motor and maybe even shifting the car from using gas to use pure energy!!! But at the end of the day if the driver, who has invested so much energy in bringing the car to its highest functional capacity, identifies himself with it, then he is still trapped in a limited reality.

Nevertheless, to say that the driver can invest in technology that will help the car to last forever without any mechanical problems, while understanding that the car is only a vehicle and not a reflection of himself, then this is spirituality.

So you can say that transhumanism is an evolution within the DNA, while spirituality is an evolution beyond the DNA.

Now this doesn’t mean that one cannot lead to the other. Maybe if transhumanism one day extends the human life span for thousands of years people will have a longer time to realize ;-) but on the other hand if transhumanism creates perfect bodies and minds maybe humanity will fall even deeper into the illusion that they are this body and mind.

If you’d like to comment on this or discuss it, please visit the forum topic dedicated to this.

When surviving stops fulfilling us

And chasing our instincts starts exhausting us.

When DNA becomes only a small part of what we are

And “human nature” no longer feels like who we are.

This is when the seed of spirituality opens up.

Sending new stems into our empty hearts,

Golden flowers shaped like question marks,

Hanging from the branches, shimmering in the light

Spreading heavenly fragrance from another time,

Where we were free of our forms, shapes and minds.

shakti mhi

Dear shakti,
I have just moved to a smaller town and the teaching opportunities here are MINIMAL. There is a yoga studio in town but their classes now are not that full as it is. During these few years while I am here (I’ve moved to go back to university) should I be concerned that I won’t be teaching as often as I was before? My instincts tell me that it will pass and that it will all unfold as it is supposed to… and I’m ok with that. I just thought that I would turn to my teacher for some guidance in case there is something I am not thinking of.

I hope this finds you well. I love the new hair cut!

With love,
Joanne

shakti’s response is below in red.

Dear Joanne,
Do not waste your time by assuming what is coming or by being concerned as a result of comparing your future that is not in existence yet, or with what occurred in the past that is not in existence any more.
Assumptions and concerns are what freezes us from being creative and authentic, as you already set the tone in your mind for how things should unfold in reality.

Do what ever needs to be done.

Teaching one class is like teaching the whole word.

Be creative and come from the right intention, quality and love, versus quantity.

You said you are going to university. University is already a great opportunity for teaching. You have endless students that need yoga. You may need to educate them about the power of yoga. Do it step by step. Maybe you can offer in one of the many university events an open class introducing yoga. Maybe you can write in the university news letter about yoga. Offer classes to the staff members. Place posters on the boards. Enhance the yoga benefits for students: increasing concentration, relaxing the nervous system, helps to sleep better etc. Create one evening where people can come and meditate together. Become the yoga expert for your university. The sky is the limit.

Start teaching one class and the rest will roll on its own.

Love shakti

The 10 Commandments of Finding the Right Yoga Teacher Training

1 ) Find a Spiritual Teacher

Avoid taking training from teachers that emphasize their teaching on the physical aspects of yoga only. It is important to have a teacher who can give you a full understanding of the spiritual (as opposed to religious) aspect of yoga. The teacher should not be a scholar who knows his/her information from reading books and taking workshops. The teacher’s teaching must arise from direct experience. Such a teacher will be able to deal with all of the spiritual concerns that the student may have with no hesitation.

2 ) Make Sure to Experience Direct Transmission

Do not settle for teacher training run by novice teachers who show the teachings of their master from a DVD. Do not settle for the said “master” to only occasionally appear in the course. Every student in the course needs to have direct contact and experience with the spiritual teacher, as the transmission of the knowledge and wisdom often happens on the energy level.

3 ) Bigger is Not Better

Often you see teacher training with 60 to 200 students in a course.

In an intense 200h course, as a result of the intense practice, students often go through physical, mental, emotional and spiritual crisis and may face multiple challenges. As a result of being in a large impersonal course, the student and their needs get lost in the crowd.

4 ) Avoid Religions, Cults and Worship

Avoid trainings with even a hint of worshipping the spiritual teacher. Yoga practice is a process to transform the novice to become a free master and not to become a sheep, following without knowing.

5 ) Practical Teaching

Make sure there is plenty of actual hands-on teaching experience for you during the course so you don’t end up with theoretical knowledge but are unprepared to actually teach. Knowing the asanas (yoga postures) inside and out won’t make you know how to teach them. Yoga teacher training is not a yoga boot camp of doing the asanas all day. You need to learn communication, the psychology of the mind, body language, how to correct by using hands-on techniques, and how to give mental and energetic support to your students in the future.

6 ) Yoga is Not Gymnastics

Remember that 90% of your students out there are beginners! Most of the people in the West are dealing with physical limitations and health conditions. Avoid vigorous acrobatic styles of yoga. Choose a style of yoga that can walk beginners safely into the practice. Otherwise you will join the endless number of yoga instructors who make the students feel (after their first class) that they are not flexible enough to practice yoga.

7 ) Restrictive Yoga Facilities

Avoid styles that constrict you and your students to a specific teaching facility environment (hot rooms or facilities with too many yoga gadgets). The essence of yoga practice is to be able to conduct it in any place and any time. Your students should be able to take the teaching you convey and practice on their own anywhere without dependency on a facility.

8 ) New-Age Yoga

Be careful of flakiness and new-age nonsense.

Knowledge of energy and the chakras is powerful, but there is much more to the yoga practice than just the chakras.

9 ) Connection With the Teacher After Course is Done

Make sure that the teacher will be available to you to answer questions after the course has ended and to guide you in your first steps of your teaching if needed. You should be able to find spiritual support from your teacher outside the course as your practice must continue after your certification.

10 ) The Power of Transformation

Let your heart, not only your mind and wallet, be involved in the search for the right teacher and teaching. Avoid being influenced by trends and burgeons. The teacher is the vehicle for the teaching that may resonate in you forever.

True teachers will expand your capacity to receive wisdom that arises from beyond your programmed mind.

Namaste,
shakti mhi

Examining Self Perception

Inner Silence

Hi shakti,

Here is the first of my many questions:

I want to know what the purpose of existence is? Is there a purpose? Everyday is a new day with new experiences, there are ups and downs, etc. but really what is the purpose? I feel like I am just living day to day until my time is up. What are we all doing here?

Thanks,

****

shakti’s response is below in red.

Dear ****,

Let’s say you will be guaranteed that there is no purpose to existence and it simply is what it is, in any moment.

Image credit: http://www.universaluv.com/ 

Would you, as a result:

* Not care about anything any more?
* Not bother to breathe?
* Not bother to love?
* Stop being curious?
* Stop appreciating the beauty of a sunrise?
* Stop seeing the magic in rainbows?
* ……Kill yourself?

Let’s say you will be guaranteed that there is a purpose for your existence

Would you, as a result:

* Stop worrying?
* Stop being afraid?
* Free yourself from all attachments?
* Stop reaching out for recognition?
* …..Become the free self that you are?

The tree never says “my purpose is to create shade” While we sit under the tree we perceive its purpose in that moment as giving us shade.

Because the answer depends on who asks the question (us or the tree) and on who gives the answer (us or the tree), it makes neither the question nor the answer relevant, as it makes the questioner disappear…

Now go and have cup of tea* and drink it as if it is the last one you’ll ever drink, and you may find out that being fully in the experience doesn’t leave space for questions.

Love
shakti

* I very much recommend jasmine tea. *

Dear shakti,

Thank you for your response. And I happen to love jasmine tea.

I don’t fully understand your repy (yet) and am trying to understand what you mean.

When I am fully in the present, I realize how empty and meaningless my life and life in general is. Yes, I appreciate the beauty of a sunrise and in fact, I appreciate so much.

Is the answer to just be and embrace this emptiness?

Thank you,
****

Hi ****,

First I would like to ensure you that the matter we are discussing is beyond the mind gymnastics. This is the reason why in the beginning of our search for spirituality (meaning: discovering reality beyond “the making sense”) we are mostly in confusion.

The mind perceives reality in formulas.
For example: for the mind 1+1 is always equal to 2.
But when you experience reality beyond the mind, 1+1 may in one moment be equal to knowing and in other moment to a void or the infinite or nothingness.

So instead of trying to understand, figure out, or make sense of my words to you, simply let them resonate in you until your “sixth sense” will wake up and be activated to pick up on the endless possibilities that you may not be aware of in this moment. The most important is to be playful. Be sincere, but not too serious.

One of the greatest zen sayings is “form is emptiness and emptiness is form”.

“Form is emptiness” - Nothing has a meaning but the meaning that we pour into it in each moment.

“Emptiness is form”- like everything else, emptiness is just another form with a meaning of emptiness.

Most of the spiritual seekers are looking for a formula, recipe, structure, or path that will answer all of the dual questions that the mind raises. Most of the seekers are not willing to take the seat of power by giving a meaning to their moment; and in the same time not being attached to this meaning otherwise it turns to be a dogma instead of an experience.

The answer for the mind’s questions lies outside of the mind, in the experience. The experience takes place outside of the mind, while the interpretation and evaluation of the experience lies inside of the mind.
For example, taking a shower is an experience that takes place outside of the mind.
The shower was fun, too short, too long, too warm, unsatisfying etc, are all the mind’s evaluations and interpretations of the experience.

In other words we can say that the answer revealed itself when the question ceased.

You are asking if there is any absolute meaning to existence…..

In the time between the two emails you sent me I managed to fall from a high balcony, break my spine and shatter my arm. In the moment of the fall when my body hit the rock I couldn’t breathe, it took me extreme effort to force air into my shocked lungs. In that split second the meaning I gave to my moment was all about breathing and keeping my body alive. When finally the air entered my suffocated lungs, I was fascinated by my ability to breathe as I wasn’t sure if it was ever going to happen again. Next was to check if I could feel my legs, as I knew my spine was injured badly. Feeling my toes was a very meaningful moment. I won’t keep inventory of all my moments from that point on, but I was making sure in each of them that I stay out of my mind that often raises meaningless questions as “Why me?”;, “What will happen now?”, “Am I going to live?”, “Could it have been prevented?” etc.

Throughout all the moments I went through in the last two weeks: surgery, pain, discomfort and others, I was making sure that I am in the experience and not in the evaluation of it.

Even though all the above moments were absolutely meaningful in my direct experience, I cannot say they represent the absolute meaning of existence, as in the time of laying injured on the ground waiting for rescue, you may have had a cup of jasmine tea or a talk with a friend or had a moment of silence with your self.

If you would like to reveal the true nature of existence you have to move away from your familiar ways of perceiving reality, for example knowing that opposites such as meaning and no meaning dwell in the same moment, while for the mind it is always either this or that.

So to conclude all the above and future words:
If you need to have a confirmation that there is absolute meaning in order to have a meaning in your life, your life is meaningless.
If you do not have a space left in your moment to wonder about meaning because it is filled by your experience, your life is meaningful.

With love,
shakti