this article is based on a spontaneous instagram live and has been adapted and expanded on for legibility. if you like to watch the original, here it is:
the purpose of life
as we are gearing up for our event awaken to self, i have been reflecting: what is the purpose of life? what are we doing? we're all chasing something, right? we're building companies, building families, building businesses, building our lives. and one day we die — and that could be very soon or in 40, 50, 60 years and then so what? all of what we have built disappears.
so the question is: what was the purpose of that life? and of course it depends on what you believe. whether you think you're just this body and when this body dies then your existence ends. but from everything i've seen this is not the case. i'm an eternal being. i'm pure consciousness. i'm just experiencing life through this body and it can be either a life of suffering or a life of beauty, awe and surrender. this is what i come ever closer to realise: our existence is nothing what we think it is. we live in an age of ignorance.
the age of ignorance
we have been living in an age of ignorance for a long time and that is what created all this dystopian world that we are moving more and more into. it is because we are stuck in the ego fighting each other, competing with each other, whether it's between countries, businesses, industries, people and even within our very family. our family structures are collapsing. there's no love in this world. and therefore it's a constant fight. but it doesn't have to be that way.
i was just commenting on a post on linkedin about my experience at singularity university and that technology will solve all our problems - and it's bullshit. i used to believe that but technology won't solve anything. the only thing that will help us get out of this mess and evolve is raising our consciousness, realising what we truly are and what this experience of life really is about.
based on everything i've learned over the past eight years and especially more recently, life is about learning and growth. all the challenges i encounter are in service of my evolution. everything is a gift, even the most difficult and painful experiences. to the mind this doesn't make any sense because the mind lives from a place of scarcity, ego identity and separation. it just wants to have and be more.
the business, the partner, the money
it wants to feel safer. it wants certainty. and those are the lives we build for. but then i wonder: why am i not feeling it? why am i not happy? i got the business, i got the partner, i got the money, i got everything. so why? maybe i need a bigger business, a bigger house, a more beautiful partner, a more successful partner. but i will still not be feeling it. because this is not how it works, or rather it is how exactly how it works: by looking for it in the external world, the world outside of us, we will never find it.
yet this is what the mind keeps us doing and chasing — when we live from this very limited place of the mind — because life is so much more. again, i'm an eternal being. i'm pure consciousness. some people call it god, some people call it source. it doesn't matter what you call it. it's all the same. and there are experiences like the experience we're offering at the end of this month that show you very viscerally and experientially who you are. you don't have to believe anything. you will know what you are with more certainty than knowing your name. and it won’t be your mind and body.
i am pure consciousness
this has tremendous implications for how to live life. and that's the second part: we will be helping you to ground this realisation into your life. because even once i know i am consciousness and the body is just a vessel through which i experience life temporarily, i am still here in this life, right? i still need to make money, i still need to pay bills, i still need to take care of my family and deal with all the friction of life.
these non-ordinary states of mind, these consciousness-expanding states that help us grasp that we are more than who we think we are, they don't necessarily make it easier to live life if we don't bridge the experience into our everyday life, into this dimension. when i realise that i am more, the purpose of life also changes and it is no longer about resource acquisition and creating dominance in the world but it becomes a much more profound understanding that in the end, this idea of pure consciousness means we are love and love is what we all yearn for.
reconnecting with self
i'm not talking about romantic love, i'm talking about the love for life. this deep and continuous sense of presence, connection, gratitude and awe. i want to feel that every day. everything in life is in service of this realisation that i am more. and the more i can live in this place, the more i experience presence and gratitude. these are not just new age words. this is profound (perennial) wisdom that humanity has established over thousands of years, or tens of thousands of years, or hundreds of thousands of years, since we exist.
we just forgot it. when we go to school, school teaches us how the world works — which has nothing to do with how the world really works. yes, you get some practical skills like math but this connection to inner wisdom is severed shortly after birth when our “education” through our parents starts. the “awaken to self” experience is reconnecting you to your true self which most of us never experienced and never will experience outside of these modalities.
truth vs. needing to be right
and from that place, i can then live life differently. for example, one of my big obstacles is the trauma around money. it has shown up in many ways: i was a banker. it was about having more and more. then i was trading bitcoin and other stuff and made a lot of money and lost a lot of money. then i was coaching charging a lot of money. money was a reflection of self-worth and for me to feel safe.
while money is still part of this game called life — there's nothing inherently bad about money, the obsession with money and with the ego that wants me to be better, faster, more right, etc. is single-handedly responsible for all the friction in my life and between me and others and the world at large.
when we have an argument around vaccines or covid or any other (controversial) topic we're not engaging in it like “i want to get to the truth and let's debate it to get to the truth”. instead, we're going into every conversation with the need to be right. and that’s the friction that we then experience in life. it is self created. it is self destructive.
killing ourselves
and then i wonder why life is so difficult. yeah, because i am not here to be right. what do i know anyway? i am here to expand, i am here to learn, i am here to grow, i am here to connect and ultimately i am here to love. to love every experience and living from a place of awe and wonder for life. this place exists for every one of us, for every human being. it's a birthright. we've just been out-educated, out-socialized of it. we live in this disconnected world now. when i switch on the tv, which i never do, or when i look at the news, it's all about fear, it's all about competition, it's all about indoctrination, it's all about control. and it’s full of lies and half truths.
when someone speaks up against it, they are called a conspiracy theorist, and then they're canceled. people are being canceled and our genders are being confused. all of that is confusing our sense of belonging, community and harmony. that's what we are doing to ourselves: we are killing ourselves, and we are even supporting the process of killing ourselves by not speaking up against it but canceling those that do.
recognising who i am
i hope that the experience we are holding this month helps participants find their purpose — just like it helped me and so many others. it's a beautiful, a fulfilling thing to understand what you are truly made of and who you are. while i can be a banker or a startup founder it’s not who i am:
my calling in this life is to support those that want to be shown who they truly are. it’s what i have been seeking for myself and it’s therefore what i am here to gift to others. the messenger and the message are the same.
and like that each one of us has a calling, an essence. it is not something you choose. it is something you recognise, you find, you discover: you are who you are. and when you allow your being to be what it is, you will feel all the purpose, meaning and beauty you have been looking for all along. it’s all already inside of you. you are coming home.
as mark twain said:
the two most important days of your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.
with love
vincent