First and foremost, life is inherently meaningless. There is no one purpose in life based on one valid understanding of reality that applies to everyone. Ironically, this also means life offers each and every one of us an infinite number of ways to find meaning in life and give it purpose.

This diversity of meaning implies you are responsible for determining what it is that makes life meaningful. And that you must act from this knowledge to create purpose, thereby giving form and direction to your life. Life affords us the freedom to be who it is we wish to be.

Meaning in life involves identity, lifestyle, and legacy. It requires you break free from socio-cultural conditioning, or risk having the same goals as most other people. Being truly yourself requires going against the majority, being different from your close friends and family, and breaking with long-standing tradition.

Belief in God, or a spirituality is not required to make your life meaningful. What is key is having a coherent and congruent worldview. One that both meets your needs, and leaves you feeling unique, intimately whole and complete as yourself.

However, being on a religious or spiritual path may very well be an element of your identity. And for some, it is the major form of it. Lifelong psychological conditioning and religious and spiritual teachings determine your spirituality.

The purpose and goals of your spiritual practice will, and must be uniquely individual and highly personalized. However, practice typically involves some combination of obeying God’s laws, unconditionally loving all existence, serving others, and mystical union with God.

For the mystic, meaning and purpose include the responsibility to reveal the truth of existence, its substance and its ways. The task is to be intimate with it at its Source, and also to be familiar with all of its forms. And then to embody this truth in the world.

As a mystic you obtain this innermost knowledge of the Divine through union with God and then absorption into Spirit. In this way, and over time, you demonstrate a spiritual personality and reveal God’s presence in the world.

Mystical practice is a lifestyle different from any other. At its core you relinquish basic human individuality and independence, and seek to be controlled by a force greater than yourself. Life is collaborating with the omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent God. And not for your own, but solely for God’s own purposes. Before, you had sought the best for yourself, but now “you” do so for everyone and all existence. And at God’s direction.

Not a personal spirituality, your way has become one of the collective, the totality. Living a universally divine purpose, you are at once the product, and being of the Divine. No longer belonging to yourself, God grants you the promise of the mystical covenant. Life is characterized by a peace and security that is never overwhelmed. A divine power second to none is made available to you to address life and all adversity. And, while immersed in an aura of divine love and joy you feel spiritual liberation. Best described as a freedom from all restrictions, other than those placed upon God, you live a life free from death.