Ep.065 The Burden of Proof (Part 4) The Meaning of Life is… This is huge! Science proves that human beings are meant to be spiritual!: Spirituality w/ Mark Zaretti

Episode transcript:

[00:00:05] This is Mark. And what you’re about to Hear is episode 65 of the live show, which was recorded on 26 June, 2025. And this is part four of the kind of ongoing Burden of Proof for Spirituality series, which is turning out to be quite fascinating. Well, at least I hope you find it fascinating. I certainly do. And in this episode, as I’m about to explain, look at the whole purpose of life from a medical, psychological and scientific perspective, which.

[00:00:41] Well, I’ll let you find out what the conclusion is and what that means from a spiritual perspective as you join me in enjoying this episode.

[00:00:55] Good evening. I’m your host for today. It’s Mark from The Way Back and this is discussing spirituality. And we are here at part four of the Burden of Proof. So this follows on from the last three episodes. It’s kind of turned into this mini thing and all on its own. The main thing to look at today is part four. So your life’s purpose, or making the assumption, does life have a purpose? So we’re going to be looking into this and I’m really glad that you can join me for this live show.

[00:01:26] What we’ve been doing for the last three kind of episodes, and this is now the fourth one, is looking at spirituality through the lens of the everyday. So what is it that in Everyday life kind of points to the existence of spirituality. And this is the idea that if we’re spiritual people and we’re trying to talk to someone about spirituality who isn’t necessarily spiritual, they’ll quite often be quite dismissive. And the implied burden of proof is on us as spiritual people to prove that spirituality exists, whatever that is. And obviously spirituality fundamentally is an intangible thing that’s based on your own personal experience. So it’s very difficult to prove that something that is intangible and experiential actually exists to someone that hasn’t had any experience necessarily and isn’t interested in that.

[00:02:21] And so the. That kind of got me thinking, well, how is there anything that proves it? And so far we have found a lot of proof, including modern science, quantum physics and things like this actually prove the existence of spirituality. And so this week we’re looking at, well, let’s just dive straight in and have a look at what we’re looking at.

[00:02:45] So I’m very quickly going to touch on something that’s very topical. It’s in the news right now and it’s about Ozempic. And we covered Ozempic and kind of the weight loss injections quite a few episodes back. And I just thought it’d be good to touch on that because this is something that’s now breaking news and people are waking up to the dangers that I pointed out many months ago in our, in the kind of live show I did on that. And in that live show I talked about alternative stuff that you can do to help with weight management.

[00:03:19] Then we’re getting into the whole thing of the Burden of Proof. We’ll be reading from the book and some more Q and A at the end. Now, as ever, I say, look, if you want to fire off any questions that we will cover at the end, just put question mark, question mark, question mark at the start of your question in the chat and then at the end I’ll go through and find all of those questions. So anything that comes up while we’re talking or any kind of thing where you want me to go into a bit more detail or explain stuff, just put it in the chat as we’re going and I’ll get to it at the end.

[00:03:50] But let’s just dive in now. This is, this is why I wanted to talk about a zempic. So we did a back in episode 49, so we’re on 65 now.

[00:04:02] So quite a few weeks back I did this whole thing looking at a zempic and the, the short version is that there is actually a natural way and it’s pomegranate juice and it has all the benefits without the side effects. And we did a lot to talk about the side effects of semaglutide, you know, which is the ingredient Ozempic and wegovy. And now what we’re seeing is it’s now hitting the news that there’s all these people getting sick and dying from Ozempic and wegovy and other kind of versions of this stuff. So we’ve got 113 cases of acute chronic pancreatitis and six deaths. And so, you know, in the Independent right now, pancreatitis, the life threatening reaction linked to weight loss injections and if we go to Sky News, weight loss and diabetes jabs linked to potentially fatal, fatal side effect.

[00:04:56] We knew this, we talked about this.

[00:04:59] You know, this is no big surprise but this is a multi billion dollar drug and probably one of the most successful drugs of all time. And people are taking it.

[00:05:14] You don’t need to take it. And so I just wanted to kind of flag that up that you know, we have talked about this before, this is something that we’ve covered in a previous episode and so please Please, please, if anyone’s even contemplating taking these weight loss drugs or injecting themselves for any other reasons, have a look at episode 49. I talk a lot about the whole pill for an ill zeitgeist created by the Rockefellers. And I talk a lot about zempic and alternatives for weight loss and the bigger picture as well there. And I think that if anyone’s putting their health at risk to improve how they look or to try and lose weight, then take a step back and maybe this spiritual perspective that I shared back in episode 49 would be really, really helpful and maybe they can avoid some of these lethal or very dangerous side effects. So that’s. I kind of just. That’s it. I just wanted to touch on that. I’ve done my kind of duty to point people in the right direction.

[00:06:18] So let’s go back to the proof of burden stuff. And today we’re going to be looking at the purpose of life is to grow. And to put that into perspective, to answer the question of is there a burden of proof? And what is the burden of proof?

[00:06:32] First of all, it was handy to list out what are the kind of propositions, the assumptions that we’re operating from when it comes to spirituality. And so we’ve, we’ve already covered these ones. So you are more than a physical body and brain.

[00:06:48] Your thoughts affect you and your environment. There are unseen dimensions, there is good and bad, and you have free will. So that was covered in episode 62, 63 and 64. Which brings us on to the purpose of life is to grow.

[00:07:02] So let’s have a look into this. And as ever, the approach I’ll be taking is to use evidence that anyone can get. So basically, if someone just sat at their laptop on their phone and did some searching, could they come across down to earth practical evidence, such as scientific papers, that kind of thing that would support these spiritual propositions.

[00:07:26] And then the other thing is that I’m going to avoid referencing religion or any belief systems because the proof should be agnostic of any particular belief system. It shouldn’t require someone to already have a whole load of spiritual jargon or vocabulary or understanding for them to understand it. So avoiding referencing religion, belief systems, the teachings of Alice Bailey, Madame Blavatsky, that kind of stuff, just down to earth, practical, accessible stuff. Sounds good. Let’s have a look. So the purpose of life is to grow. And this would imply several things. So the first thing it implies is that life has purpose, wouldn’t you agree?

[00:08:12] And so that would suggest that life and purpose are in some way linked. So what is the purpose of life?

[00:08:22] The second thing it implies, since we’re saying that the purpose of life is to grow, is growth is possible because it’s implied in that statement. And therefore, if growth is possible, then personal change should be possible as well.

[00:08:37] And then the third thing that the purpose of life is to grow suggests is that there is a direction to grow in. And therefore, if there is a direction of growth, then growth should be measurable.

[00:08:51] Now, I’ve said the purpose of life is to grow. And when I first introduced that proposition back in episode 62, I did say it should really say the purpose of life is to grow spiritually, since we are focused on spiritual stuff. But for now, we’ll just leave it as the purpose of life is to grow.

[00:09:10] So the first bit of evidence I came across, and this was literally just searching for the purpose of life. So if you look at point one here, then I’ve. I’ve put here what is the purpose of life? Because it’s implied life has a purpose. So if you just search for what is the purpose of life? You find obviously, people have opinions. And what you. What you tend to find is that people.

[00:09:40] The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy joke is the purpose of life is number 42, or the meaning of life is 42.

[00:09:46] But that aside, it’s one of those questions that psychologically, mathematically, spiritually, you know, people basically skirt the issue and talk anecdotally. They say it can’t really be answered. Maybe that’s the truth.

[00:10:02] But here is an answer from a guy called Mike Brooks, Ph.D. in Psychology Today, which I quite like.

[00:10:09] An answer. So note, he says an answer, not the answer, is that we exist to continue to exist. We evolved to evolve. This is fundamental to every living organism. Inherent to our existence is that we learn, adapt and grow.

[00:10:26] Health, happiness, and longevity are the payoffs for this. Since our biological evolution is the foundation of our existence, a purpose of our lives is to continue to, quote air quotes, evolve during our lifetime by learning and growing. And I’ve underlined the word growing there because, as I said, the purpose of life is to grow.

[00:10:48] And then he continues, each day, our purpose is to strive to be a little bit better than the day before. And I’ve put that a little bit better than the day before in red.

[00:10:59] And to continue this evolutionary process throughout our lifetime. And I’ve crossed that out and I’ll explain why I kind of made these annotations.

[00:11:09] And I like what he said and actually I did kind of look at some other, some of his other stuff and he shares similar sentiments when it comes to things like the danger of AI. And he seems to be someone that he’s looking for answers. He’s scientific, but he’s also open minded. So I’ve got a lot of time for people like that. So credit to him. And I’ve put links to his stuff in the description I will do when I write it all up.

[00:11:34] But let me just pick up a few points. So is that he said we evolved to evolve. That assumes that evolution exists.

[00:11:45] And remember, evolution is a theory. And I did actually point out that there are some big holes in that theory. But park, that aside, he’s, he’s. And he, he knows he’s deliberately mixing the metaphor. So we’re talking about we evolve to evolve, which is a genetic evolution statement. And then later he says we must continue to evolve. But he’s put it in quotes there. He’s really referring to personal evolution. In other words, growing in one lifetime, as he says, during our lifetime by learning and growing.

[00:12:13] Now I would put the inherent to our existence is that we learn, adapt and grow.

[00:12:19] If we’re talking evolution and we’re talking genetics, then does that apply to everything, not just humans or because I would say humans are different.

[00:12:28] Does an amoeba learn, adapt and grow or do they just simply.

[00:12:33] Some die off when there’s a change in the environment and those that have favorable genetics survive.

[00:12:38] Is there any learning in say, lower organisms?

[00:12:43] So why am I doing this? Why am I pointing these things out? Just to show critical thinking is always applicable. I would expect no less if he were looking at my work and I’m not picking holes, I’m just hopefully inspiring us all to look at the meaning behind things. What’s being implied? Just as I said, this is what I’m implying by saying that life has a purpose and the purpose of life is to grow.

[00:13:08] So.

[00:13:09] But he does pick up on health, happiness and longevity are payoffs for this.

[00:13:14] Now I’ve crossed out to continue this evolution process throughout our lifetime. Because the way that evolution according to genetics works is when you mate, 50% of your genes mix randomly with 50% of your partner’s genes. And the baby therefore is, or the offspring are, if it’s more than one, are a genetic variation from what you were. And if their genetics give them advantage in the environment, then they are selected for.

[00:13:45] That’s what genetics, genetic evolution is based on. So once you’re born, you’re no longer really able to evolve. You are now set genetically and you will play out your existence. And if you are favored by the environment, you will survive and thrive. And if your genetics have given you something that is detrimental or doesn’t benefit you in the environment, then you will probably be out competed. So genetics is a numbers game. So evolution is a numbers game. It’s not something that happens during the span of a lifetime. It happens at the moment of fertilization.

[00:14:21] So the only time you contribute genetically when you mated and when you were created, but not in between.

[00:14:28] So just picking on that.

[00:14:30] But I do like the idea that he’s talking about, that the purpose of life is to exist brings it right back down. But the happiness, health and longevity are payoffs. So this is what he’s, this particular pundit, scientific pundit, is saying. But here’s the key thing.

[00:14:49] My point, if we go back a slide, is that I’m implying that life has a purpose. And he is validating that as a scientist and a psychologist, saying that there is a purpose to life. It is to learn, adapt and grow. And there are markers for it, such as health, happiness and longevity will, you know, be indicators of whether or not you are fulfilling your purpose.

[00:15:13] And that there is this idea that we contribute over an evolute for evolutionary process and that is our purpose. So is there a purpose to life? We’re looking for evidence to validate the previous statement that life has purpose. And here is one example. Now, as I’ve said before, I’m not going to spend a lot of time on these because I want to demonstrate what anyone could do if they had a little bit of time. But yes, this guy, Mike Brooks, Ph.D. in Psychology Today, is acknowledging that life has a purpose. And he’s very humble enough to say, look, this is a purpose for life. This is the, an answer. This isn’t the answer.

[00:15:55] But, you know, he makes a good case. And this is only a snippet of a bigger article.

[00:16:00] So taking what he said then, it would seem, since it’s primarily about evolution, which is underlined by genetics, that it would seem that having children is the only purpose of life from a biological perspective. Life exists to exist is what he’s saying.

[00:16:17] So let’s have a look at that.

[00:16:20] So why is it that having children is the only purpose of life? Well, to have meaning, that is purpose. It’s because children exist after you have gone.

[00:16:32] Hopefully they have 50% of your genetic material. So you’ve contributed to something that will survive you and carry forth 50% of your makeup. In other words, there’s a relationship between you and them.

[00:16:48] There’s this nice idea that they will remember you, and therefore you live on in their memory and they loved you, and therefore you. You live on in their heart. But I would point out that others can remember you, not just your genetic immediate kin, and others can love you, you know, and so therefore you could, you could scrub out those last two if you wanted and say that if you’re just talking genetically, it’s only the fact that they exist after you’ve gone and that they have your genetic material that is the selfish gene argument that a certain guy promoted.

[00:17:27] So is there evidence, therefore, that people who have the most children have fulfilled their purpose and therefore succeeded in life? Because if just being very biological, because that’s the evidence that’s before us, the purpose of life is to exist and pass on your genetic material, then surely the people who have had the most children have been most successful. So let’s have a look. I want, I’m going to name some people and then I want to see if you’ve heard of them, because if they’re that successful in life, then we, we should have heard of them, Right?

[00:17:58] So, and I apologize if I spell this or pronounce this wrong, but.

[00:18:02] Mariam Nabatanzi Babiri, 44.

[00:18:09] Elizabeth Mott, 42.

[00:18:12] Alice Hooks, 41.

[00:18:16] Now, have you heard of any of them?

[00:18:19] I mean, they’ve been extremely successful, by the way, those numbers. That’s not their age, that’s how many children they had.

[00:18:28] So Mariam Nabatanzi Babiri had 44 living children that actually were born, not Stillborn.

[00:18:37] Elizabeth Mott, 42 children.

[00:18:41] So most of the births were multiple births.

[00:18:44] Septiple, you can look it up on, I’ll put links, but, you know, multiple births multiple times. Alice Hooks, 41. And some of these were, you know, a couple of centuries ago, certainly 100 or more years ago, which means that there was not much medical help. Imagine that.

[00:19:05] So these three women, there are, there are actually records of women that have had more.

[00:19:12] The maximum is 69. And it was a Russian woman, wife of a peasant.

[00:19:20] But that one they can’t prove.

[00:19:24] Whereas these ones, the ones I’ve written down here, are the ones that there is enough evidence to say that this, you know, this person actually had 44 children. The 69, there’s not direct evidence. So although there’s some records, it’s not enough valid, you know, it’s not valid enough, but 69. So these people should be by society held up aloft because they have been the most successful from a genetic point of view in terms of creating the next generation and therefore increasing the chances of them, you know, their genes carrying on. And therefore if the purpose of life is biological, they have succeeded.

[00:20:02] But none of us have heard of any of these people. I’d be very surprised if you’re listening and you’ve ever heard of these people. And if you have, you’re in the very, very small min.

[00:20:12] So clearly society and we all being part of life doesn’t hold in high regard.

[00:20:21] It doesn’t put them down either. But it’s not saying these people are highly successful.

[00:20:26] Now at this point you’d say, okay, well what about people who have attained wealth or status, like political status or they’ve become wealthy famous actors, you know, so what about wealth, status, political power, all of these things? Well, the reason why I’m, I’m going to rule out even discussing any of that is because they’re all founded on man made contrivances. So the financial system is a man made contrivance, the entertainment system is a man made contrivance.

[00:21:00] Legal system or political systems are man made contrivances. They don’t exist in nature.

[00:21:06] They are layers of abstraction where the value in them is only is perceived value.

[00:21:13] You can’t eat an Oscar, you know, it doesn’t matter how many Oscars you’ve won. If you found yourself in the jungle, it’s not going to help you survive.

[00:21:22] So the meaning of life cannot be to attain anything that isn’t part of nature.

[00:21:29] So it has to be something natural. So that’s why I’m not counting wealth and political or financial or any other kind of status or attainment or sporting attainments because these aren’t real things. You know, the Olympics isn’t a law of nature, it’s a creation of man.

[00:21:49] So we’re discounting those things and answering the question, does life have purpose? It must be something that is actually that exists and pre existed our understanding.

[00:22:02] So this is the top 10 from a book that lists the most influential people. So I’ve just given you three names of women who’ve had scores of children, but no one’s heard of them.

[00:22:15] Most of us have heard of most of the people in this list. So you’ve got Muhammad, Isaac Newton, Jesus, Buddha, Confucius, Saul, also known as Paul the Apostle, Kalung, Johannes Gutenberg, Christopher Columbus and Albert Einstein. Okay, so we probably know who most of these are, but I’ll just give them a very quick introduction.

[00:22:40] Oh, didn’t mean to Draw on the page over there. So let’s do this. So we’ve got Muhammad, self proclaimed prophet of God, warlord and creator of a religion.

[00:22:56] We’ve got Isaac Newton, who is a eminent scientist. He was also, I believe, a Freemason and may have also been a member of the Jesuit order. But he’s very much responsible for the theory of gravity. Remember, it’s not a proven theory, it’s just a theory.

[00:23:13] We should all know who Jesus is. But Jesus was or is God taken on form as prophesied 700 years or so before he came and fulfilled 300 prophecies. And his story is not told by him, but is told by eyewitnesses. So it’s a bit of a difference between him and say Muhammad. So Muhammad’s book was written by himself about himself, whereas Jesus’s story is written by others about him.

[00:23:42] Buddha or Siddhartha, who founded a religion that was in opposition to the other religions. In other words, it was more of a hedonistic approach and kind of denying a mono atheistic God.

[00:23:55] Confucius, famous philosopher, Saul, he’s the guy who was persecuting Christians and then had this seeing the light moment, fell off his horse, went blind and Jesus kind of visited him in that light vision and said, why are you persecuting me? And then after three days he was healed.

[00:24:17] Once he got his sight back, he became one of the main apostles and his story is told in the Acts, the book of Acts in the Bible. So he’s another person in this list. This is not a list I’ve curated, this is a list. K? Lun. I don’t think many people would realize who K Lun is, but every single one of you have used his stuff. He’s the, he was a eunuch actually who invented paper.

[00:24:44] And Johannes Gutenberg is the guy who invented the movable type printing press. So kicked off the entire newspaper and book and printing revolution that allowed books to be mass produced and therefore people to be educated. And not just the people in the churches who had access to scrolls and stuff. Christopher Columbus, again, I think he’s another Freemason and he quote unquote discovered America. And then Albert Einstein, who’s definitely a Freemason and who is the grandfather of modern quantum physics and a whole load of theories because remember science is much more about theory than fact.

[00:25:30] And so he’s kind of one of the archetype architects of scientism.

[00:25:36] So these people are ranked. And it’s interesting, the reason why Jesus is third and not first because there are More Christians than there are Muslims. Is that the credit for Christianity was split between Jesus and Paul because Paul actually did a lot of the work to spread Christianity after Jesus had gone. But the other reason the author of the book said is that Muhammad was also a political figure and a warlord. And so his impact wasn’t just religious or spiritual, but was also geopolitical. So Muhammad unified tribes.

[00:26:15] I apologize if I get the stats wrong, but I believe that Muhammad led 27 wars and was involved in another 20.

[00:26:24] And there were I think a total of about 60 or 70 military campaigns. But not all of them involved people dying. So people are. It’s difficult to determine, well what was a war versus what was he went there to war but the enemy gave up before blood was drawn type thing, but basically a lot of war. And that’s why he’s higher up the list because in terms of geopolitics, he had a bigger impact. Whereas as we know, Jesus is sometimes known as the Prince of Peace because even when he could have defended himself, he didn’t. He never resorted to violence and aggression as a means to spreading his teachings. Okay, so there is a difference, but why have I listed these guys? Well, these guys have all been very, very successful. So do they meet the criteria of successes? Passing on your genetics? So let’s have a look and see what we discover.

[00:27:24] And this is the number of wives that they had.

[00:27:29] So Muhammad had 11 wives.

[00:27:31] And the reason why I’m showing you this is if they were going to be by genetic and biological standards, successful, then having a partner would have been a prerequisite. So Muhammad had 11 wives. And famously, by modern standards, some of them would have. It would have been considered pedophilia.

[00:27:51] Isaac Newton didn’t have a wife. Jesus didn’t have a wife. Contrary to some of the rumors that people try and spread.

[00:28:01] Buddha had a wife, but he had a wife before he, when he was a young prince. And then he denounced his wife when he went off in to become an ascetic in the, in the wilderness. Confucius had a wife.

[00:28:13] Saw Paul the Apostle, seems that he wasn’t married, but he may have been supposed to have been married, but never actually was married. K was a eunuch, so he definitely wasn’t married. Johannes Gutenberg was never married. Sorry, if you can hear that in the background, the dog’s just having a glass, a drink of water. Christopher Columbus, I’ve put one plus, because he had a wife and a mistress. And Albert Einstein had two wives, not at the same time, but he had Two wives.

[00:28:48] So some of them never entertained that side of life.

[00:28:53] So what about children? Because that’s a.

[00:28:57] By the criteria of your successful in life, you have fulfilled your purpose if you’ve passed on your genetics. So Muhammad had seven children. Only one of them actually survived him. I believe her name was Fatima. Isaac Newton didn’t have any children. Jesus didn’t have any children. Buddha had one child. Confucius had one child. Saul didn’t have children.

[00:29:17] Kalun didn’t have children. Johannes Gutenberg didn’t have children. Christopher Columbus had two and adopted one from one of the places where he kind of invaded. And then Albert Einstein had three children.

[00:29:30] And I think his, his lineage is still going today.

[00:29:34] And so what I’m, what I’m showing you here is that these are people who have been extremely successful in their fields and in their impact on the world. And yet when we look at this, these ones. So Isaac Newton, Jesus, Saul Klen, and Johannes Gutenberg never had children, never succeeded genetically, and yet we all know of them or of their work and benefit from it.

[00:30:06] And I’ll get back to that. It’s very important to notice that we benefit from it.

[00:30:11] So two of the top three most influential people in history never had children.

[00:30:18] And 50% of the top 10 most influential people in history never had children. So the purpose of life, I would posit at this point that the purpose of life is not to have children. Or else some of the most successful people have failed in life.

[00:30:37] And yet we all benefit from what they did. We have paper, you know, we have printed books. We have Christianity.

[00:30:49] And the reason why Christianity is important is if we look at this famous quote. So when asked about Christianity, this guy here said, well, it’s a decent religion in the way that Islam is not.

[00:31:04] And then another thing this person said is I like to live in a culturally Christian country, even if I don’t believe a single word of Christian faith.

[00:31:15] Now, who is this guy?

[00:31:17] Well, this is my mental blank. This is Richard Dawkins.

[00:31:24] And you know, this is the guy who has made it his life’s mission to debunk God, to ridicule Christians and Christianity and to debunk Jesus. And yet he comes out with this quote that says, I like to live in a culture Christian country, even if I don’t believe a single word of Christian faith. And he draws a comparison, says it’s a decent religion in the way that Islam is not. Now, these are his words, his quotes. But what I’m saying is that 2,000 years after the existence of Jesus and Saul, who then passed on the teachings and formulated Christianity before the Council of Nicaea took it and twisted it.

[00:32:12] Christianity was set about and has changed the world to the extent that a guy who hates Christians and hates religion and hates the idea of God and has made it his life’s work to destroy them, likes the byproduct of God, Jesus and Christianity.

[00:32:35] And we’re talking about the big picture here of, you know, the purpose of life. Okay, so I’m just showing you how someone who lived 2000 years ago can be impacting modern day life so greatly that even his main opponents and detractors value the work and the change that he wrought.

[00:33:00] So it’s total hypocrisy on the side of Dicky Dawkins here.

[00:33:06] But Testament, that even his greatest enemies acknowledge the good that he did. And the word good perhaps is a clue to where we’re going with all of this. But remember, what I’m trying to do is to put together a lot of evidence that is at people’s fingerprints that points at the existence of spirituality. And this particular point that we’re looking at is that the purpose of life is to grow.

[00:33:30] So is there more tangible down to earth practical evidence that the life has a purpose and the purpose of life is good? Okay, so this is, I apologize if I pronounce it wrong, but Alvi Dempsey, and she’s a PhD student at the University of Limerick.

[00:33:51] And what her work has shown is that basically there is a link between spirituality and life.

[00:34:03] So what the key findings of her work is is that people with religious or spiritual beliefs were better protected against acute stressors. And what that means is say you’re running late for work, say you’ve lost your wallet or your phone’s dropped down the toilet, or something’s happened in life. In other words, the things that every day cause people stress or you’ve lost your job, whatever it is.

[00:34:29] She looked at a lot of data and said, well, people with religious or spiritual beliefs do not get as stressed and therefore their health doesn’t suffer as much as those that don’t have religious or spiritual beliefs and carries on. They, as in people who are spiritual, have better measures of heart health like blood pressure and heart rate. So this is where it gets juicy, medically, recordable, quantifiable evidence to show that what you have in your life in terms of spirituality affects your actual biometrics. In particular, this study was focused on the heart, but you could have looked at other things.

[00:35:14] Now these are the definitions that she and her work Used. So religiosity is a system of beliefs, rituals and symbols promoting a relationship to and understanding of one’s God or a higher power.

[00:35:31] And by her definition, spirituality involves seeking meaning and purpose in life, beliefs about the sacred or transcendent meditation and mindfulness. Now, you’ve heard me talk about mindfulness before and so I’ll drop a link in there. But mindfulness, I would say, is not really anything to do spirituality. But in the mainstream it is viewed as something that’s spiritual. And from where they’re coming from as scientists, it’s not surprising that they would look at mindfulness and put it into the spirituality bucket. But what I would like to say here is that you could put religiosity, as she’s defined it, in spirituality together. Because the key thing she’s saying here is a relationship with God, basically of one’s God. So a relationship to God and seeking as in proactive.

[00:36:32] And then she’s put meditation and mindfulness, in other words, simplify that to inner experience.

[00:36:39] So you could sum up what she’s saying here as people who have a relationship with God or a higher power. So I sometimes say the source.

[00:36:52] So summarizing people who have a relationship to God or the source or a higher power, whatever, that one thing that is greater, that is beyond limits, beyond definition. So therefore we have to give it a name, like God.

[00:37:08] People with a relationship to that who are seeking, in other words, proactively seeking it through inner experience, that is meditation, stillness, have, are better protected against acute stressors and are measurably healthier.

[00:37:28] So being spiritual has health benefits.

[00:37:34] Interesting. Now let’s just put our thinking hats on.

[00:37:39] And if we were to go back to the slide where basically it’s being said that, you know, success in life, okay, is biological.

[00:37:58] If your biology, your heart, health, your well being is improved by being spiritual, then doesn’t it suggest that the purpose for the biological body is in some way linked to spirituality? Because what makes the body stronger supports it. And if it’s. And so it’s kind of like this is a bit of a hint.

[00:38:21] If being spiritual made no difference to your biology, then you would just say, well, spirituality is just belief, it’s just imagination, it’s just this and it’s that. But spirituality actually strengthens your body. What does that mean? A stronger body is more resilient to disease, more resilient to stress, therefore going to be more fertile than a body that is stressed. Because when you’re stressed and you’re suffering from stress, then cortisol and other things reduce enzymes, reduce metabolism, reduce the production of sperm and things like that. So someone that is less stressed is more fertile than someone that is more stressed. So this is literally saying that there is a biological advantage to being spiritual.

[00:39:03] Therefore nature, if, if evolution exists, then evolution would select for the more spiritual people over a big number set. Okay, that’s what it’s saying, you know, and, and they’ve got now the scientific papers and evidence that if you connect the dots, that’s what’s being said here, that there is a physical, biological advantage to being spiritual. Okay, now this last point is really important.

[00:39:33] The health benefits, the heart, they focus on the heart. So obviously they’re just saying the heart health benefits.

[00:39:40] But healthy heart, less stress is going to have a knock on effect on the whole body. The heart health benefits do not extend to people who attend church.

[00:39:51] Really, really interesting. So what it’s saying is if it was just about what do you believe? Or even that you have a belief and therefore you go to church, if there was advantages to your health, you could say, well, it’s just the positive benefits of having like minded people that share a belief and give you a sense of community and belonging. And that is lovely. I mean it is lovely to feel like you belong to something. But their studies showed that, that believing in religion and going to church did not change your health and your biology. It was specifically what they called religiosity and spirituality, which they defined as a relationship to God and seeking through stillness and meditation. So in other words, it’s not enough to believe in Jesus and to believe in God, that doesn’t change your biology. What they’re showing is that people that proactively seek truth, God, stillness and with a focus on God, in other words, focus upwards, they’re the ones that get the biological benefits. So this is really, really, this is what we’re looking for. This is biological proof that there is a positive outcome that is different from religion, different from just beliefs that is tied to your relationship to God.

[00:41:25] Powerful stuff. This is a scientific study. Okay, so you know, as they say, so what about that was looking at the spiritual behavior. So what about the corally, what about. Or the opposite, what about on spiritual behavior? So this is a paper titled the physiology of dishonesty. Does it impact health?

[00:41:49] And this actually follows on a bit from the stuff about lying that we did last week where lying is not good, basically. So why have I chosen this? Well, dishonesty is one of the demonstrations of the opposite of spirituality.

[00:42:06] Spirituality is about truth. So deception Lying. Dishonesty is the opposite of truth. It’s the opposite of goodness. It’s the opposite of being a spiritual person.

[00:42:16] So dishonesty activates or recruits executive control areas of the brain. And we talked about that in the last episode about how the brain gets activated. And we also talked about it also triggers the fear center and the ego in the brain.

[00:42:32] But basically your brain gets busy and it becomes stressful.

[00:42:36] Dishonesty is positively associated with testosterone and cortisol reactivity. In other words, you’re going to, if you’re lying a lot, you’re going to react to testosterone, which is going to be about aggression, and you’re also going to have cortisol reaction, which means stress hormones. So you’re going to exhibit more stress. And by the way, did you know one of the things that cortisol does is it gives you belly fat? So if you’re someone that cannot shift the belly fat, you need to look at the stress in your life. Okay, so dishonesty gives you a belly, but it also basically makes you more reactive to stress hormones.

[00:43:17] Dishonesty increases arousal, blood pressure, and heart rate. Now, I’m not talking Barry White, cue the music kind of arousal here. I’m talking about get ready to fight, get ready to run away, get ready for aggression type arousal. In other words, it puts you on edge biologically.

[00:43:35] And now this is fascinating.

[00:43:40] If someone say you’re there in a room and you know someone’s just done something wrong and another person walks into the room and they’re like, who did that? And the person that’s lying, that’s done something wrong goes, well, it wasn’t me, or it was that person that just left you witnessing that lie. That deception gives you the same biological problems that dishonesty triggers in the person who’s doing the lying, because you know they’re lying. And now you’re in a difficult position because you’re either colluding with their lie and supporting it, or you’ve now got to confront the situation and risk a conflict with the person that’s just lied.

[00:44:21] Or you’ve got to internalize it and say, I’m not going to say anything. But then you now know about dishonesty and you’re not representing truth. So actually, when someone is a bad person, it actually has a negative effect on everyone who witnesses their wrongdoing. That’s what this is, what they’re finding scientifically.

[00:44:43] So let me repeat, because don’t you think that’s profound if you’re in the company of bad People doing wrong, it affects your health negatively just because you observed it.

[00:45:01] Powerful.

[00:45:03] Wow.

[00:45:07] So all of these things to do with lying and deception and dishonesty can have negative health outcomes, which is kind of like a bit of a da, you know, reacting to stress hormones and increased heart rate and all of these things. So yeah, being the opposite of spirituality is bad for your health. It’s not just that being non spiritual doesn’t have any effect.

[00:45:32] You know, it’s one thing if they, if it was like, all right, if you’re not spiritual, then fine, but if you deliberately doing wrong, you actually suffer. So if you’re not spiritual and just sitting on the fence, you don’t have the health benefits, but you don’t have the health detriment.

[00:45:49] That would be someone that I would refer to as someone that’s neutral, just in the middle, not really doing anything wrong, but not really pursuing spirituality. But people that are doing wrong and maybe they’re under the ideal, you know, they justify like, well, there’s no such thing as God. Well, it’s just this one life. Make the most of it. Look after yourself, Put yourself first.

[00:46:09] And with that, if they then go into negative behaviors and stuff, they’re actually harming themselves and people in their environment.

[00:46:20] So that’s actually really, really important. And we’re talking about a scientific paper that shows this. Okay, we’re not talking about philosophy or Marx says, you know, based on meditation, this is scientific, hard papers, you know, looking at large numbers of people in studies and stuff. So yeah, all of this was to answer the question of, you know, the first part.

[00:46:50] So I wanted to share this.

[00:46:53] And unfortunately the screen’s gonna, the text has gone a bit wobbly there. But basically this is a scientific paper in neurocognitive aging and behavior from 2022. And we got some scans. 87 year old man had fallen over and bashed his head. He was also epileptic. So what the picture is showing at the top is they scanned his head and they had him in the CAT scanner to do these scans. And they found that there was hematoma on his brain.

[00:47:19] Basically there’s a bit bleeding. And while he was on the scanner and they were recording everything, he suffered a cardiac arrest and died.

[00:47:29] Which is really quite sad.

[00:47:31] But what it meant is this is the first time that they were recording someone’s brain and brain activity before, during and after death.

[00:47:45] So this is, this was really, really kind of like fortuitous because there’s no way they could set this experiment up. You can’t Induce death in people. Okay, so enhanced interplay. The scientific paper is called the enhanced interplay of neuronal coherence and coupling in those in the dying human brain.

[00:48:04] And their conclusion was the brain may pass through a series of stereotyped activity patterns during death. And you’re probably wondering and well, basically what they found is that you’ve got alpha and beta and gamma and delta waves and they found elevated wavelengths in the brain during and after death for about 20 seconds that showed that the person was doing rapid recall of memories and visual and seeing it as so like the dream state.

[00:48:44] And they said this is consistent with the idea that when you die, your life flashes before your eyes and you see all of the key events in your life.

[00:48:53] And, and this is a proper scientific paper and it’s a hypothesis because they can’t prove it obviously.

[00:49:01] But they said it was consistent with brain activity of someone going into rapid eye dream state and other states. And there was this series of events that happened that they recorded that consistently would be expected if someone was reliving memories from the past in rapid succession.

[00:49:21] A life review.

[00:49:23] So fascinating. And again, I’ll share links. So this is the actual paper and you know, it’s a scientific paper, so it’s a bit like eating, you know, crackers without cheese on. It’s a bit dry. But there’s other. There was another paper that summarized it in a more soft and fluffy sort of way. And it basically said, good news, it might actually be true that when you die a you don’t actually use. Your brain can carry on for a little while after your heart has stopped. And you might actually have that life review that people talk about where you relive the seminal moments in your life.

[00:50:03] Now, let’s always keep in mind, why is Mark bringing this particular thing up? Well, is there a purpose to your life and the purpose is to grow, or as I said, the purpose of life is to grow.

[00:50:17] If the last thing your brain is going to do when you shuffle off your mortal coils, you’ve got 20 seconds left, your heart stopped.

[00:50:26] If the last thing it’s going to do is review.

[00:50:29] Relive the key moments in your life so you remember them, there’s a presupposition that maybe something of you is going to carry on.

[00:50:41] Doesn’t that tell you how important life is? And that at the end of your life you will be shown the moments that were most significant.

[00:50:50] Significant by what measure?

[00:50:52] That you were at your happiest, or that you grew the most spiritually, or that you Made the biggest mistakes or you made the best choices. You know, I’m not going to fill in those blanks, but just consider that this might be a learning exercise, a growing exercise, and literally in your life, last moments, your brain goes, right, let’s do the review.

[00:51:14] We’ve got 20 seconds before we run out of oxygen and shut down.

[00:51:18] But they’ve recorded it. Science using scientific, measurable instruments has recorded this kind of brainwave in a guy who sadly died in the scanner. And that is just another piece of evidence that points in the direction that, as I’ve been saying, towards spirituality.

[00:51:40] So the purpose of life is to grow. And we’ve covered part one of my kind of what that suggests, which is life has purpose and life and purpose are linked. And at the very end of life, as I just said, at the very moment of death, you review your life. That could not be a greater indicator that there is purpose. Okay, so let’s, you know, summarize that. So does life have purpose?

[00:52:10] Yes. What we’ve ascertained is that your value to society isn’t related to your genetic contribution. We remember great deeds and not great quantity of progeny. None of us had heard of those women and had lots of children.

[00:52:24] People who are spiritual or who have faith are healthier.

[00:52:28] This does not include religion. It is not merely a social or communal community benefit.

[00:52:36] People who are actively on spiritual have negative health impacts. That proves it goes both ways and they also affect those around them. And people who are dying may review their life. So all of these things point to the fact that life has purpose.

[00:52:51] Oh, and others value the good contributions to society by people from the past. So the purpose or the value of your life can be remembered. For example, Richard Dawkins celebrating Christianity and its qualities upon society and everything. Even though he hates the idea of religion and Christian and Jesus and God, he loves the fact that it creates good, stable, nice to live in societies.

[00:53:18] So the second point I said was the purpose of life is to grow. So growth, that would suggest growth is possible and therefore personal change is possible. So let’s have a look.

[00:53:30] This screen I’m showing you now is from Google and there’s this thing you can do in the background of Google where you can look at what people are actually searching for and you can compare those search phrases and see how they perform.

[00:53:44] So if we put into this search trend pattern thing, personal growth, find God, life purpose, spiritual growth, self development, all of these things that you would suggest would be indicative of the possibility that people are able to grow and change okay, then what we see is by far the most. The biggest one is life purpose. And remember, the big question is, or the big point we’re making here is life has purpose. So you can see this yellow line at the bottom. And don’t worry if you’re listening again on the podcast, I’ll put pictures that you can click through to the link and see all the artwork, but at kind of 75 to 100% of the searches now. But to put it into perspective, this is from the 1st of January, 2016 through to today. And this is across the entire world. All categories work web search. So this is massive data sets.

[00:54:39] The.

[00:54:41] The life purpose is the biggest question that people are searching for.

[00:54:45] But since about 2022, there’s been a bit of an increase.

[00:54:49] In fact, round about 2000, unsurprisingly, when we came out of the pandemic, there’s been gentle but steady growth in the search term Find God. The search term personal growth and personal growth and find God have grown together.

[00:55:08] They start at the same level and they’re going up together. So it seems to be that based on millions of people searching every single day, that there is a correlation between personal growth, interest in personal growth, and interest in finding God.

[00:55:23] And there has been some growth, but it’s a smaller amount in the key phrase spiritual growth and self development.

[00:55:32] So, you know, fascinating from a keyword point of view, but what does this tell us? It tells us that people in their millions, because this is a massive data set, I don’t know the exact figure, but billions of searches happen every year in Google.

[00:55:49] This is the vox pox. This is the voice of the populace. This is people telling you what they value in life because they’re spending their time searching for it online. And it is telling us that people are interested in personal growth, finding God, life’s purpose, spiritual growth, and self development. I could have chosen other key phrases, but they were the ones that really stood out as obvious indicators of whether or not there is purpose to life and it is spiritual.

[00:56:18] And so I’ll put a link to this search and you can put in your own keywords. You can see what else compares. And there’d be. There’d be good stuff and there’d be not so good stuff. I’m sure that there’s an increase in people looking at negative stuff and black magic and things. But my point is that that as demonstrated by life, that is people like you and me, across the entire planet, there is a growth in interest in these terms, which all point to the Fact that life has a purpose and it’s spiritual. So that’s one bit of evidence.

[00:56:55] And remember, we’re talking about change. So personal growth implies change, spiritual growth implies, implies change. Finding God implies change. Because if you’re finding God, it means you don’t have God. So you want to change that situation from not having God in your life to having God in your life.

[00:57:10] So is there, I’m going to share a massive example. You couldn’t probably get a more polar example of demonstrating the propensity and possibility of change in life.

[00:57:24] So this guy I’ve mentioned before, John Ramirez, and he was a warlock, which means he was a devil worshiping Satanist.

[00:57:34] And in his own words, he was the most powerful devil worshiper in New York, kind of.

[00:57:44] I’ll show you, I’ll go into a bit. I don’t want to glorify the negative, but I want to point out the extent to which he demonstrates the ability of a person to change.

[00:57:56] Okay, so he was born to devil worshippers. He remembers his mum and dad sitting there with demons in the room, talking in tongues when he was a young child. His dad was highly abusive and used to beat him up and abuse him.

[00:58:09] And so he prayed to the devil for a new dad. And then when his dad was age 33, which is a very significant number if you are Freemasons or Satanic, when his dad was 33, his dad was shot dead to answer this kid’s prayers. And then the devil basically appeared to him and said, I have got rid of the old to focus on the new. That is, I’ve got rid of your dad to give you my attention.

[00:58:38] So you’re mine now and I am your father. So he started referring to the devil as his father from that point forwards. And he was initiated into dark, the dark side at 10.

[00:58:50] So as horrendous as you could think, that’s what happened. And at age 13, he used to go to the local satanic church at nighttime from about, I think it was like seven in the evening or six in the evening till five in the morning. And every night he was trained by witches and warlocks all night long in dark arts and magic and summoning demons and all of this stuff. And he wanted to be the greatest Satanist and devil worshipper in the land. So he used to age 15, he’d sneak into hospitals, go into the intensive care units and use what he was learning from the witches and warlocks, the dark magic to kill people using spells and summoning demons and stuff. So he was practicing on the weak and the vulnerable.

[00:59:35] He was often visited by Satan, quote, his father, who would appear in physical form. And I talk about this pseudo physicality stuff in the Stonehenge documentary.

[00:59:48] And I explained how one way that that might be possible, not the only way.

[00:59:52] So I don’t doubt that his experience was that a being would appear in physical form. And he said this being would appear in his room and sit with him all night and answer all of his questions and teach him the dark arts and was grooming him.

[01:00:07] And he was asked to do human sacrifice by Satan.

[01:00:11] And he drank animal blood every week. And if he couldn’t get animal blood, he’d cut himself and drink his own blood. He didn’t answer the question as to whether or not he actually killed humans, but he had a cauldron in his house and he had, I think, something like seven machetes.

[01:00:26] So.

[01:00:27] And he did admit that he used to go into intensive care units and kill people. So.

[01:00:32] And then basically he got a reputation for being really bad. And a woman who had was jealous that her husband was seeing another woman contacted him and said, I want you to kill this other woman.

[01:00:44] Because he got known as like a satanic hitman.

[01:00:47] And when this jilted lover said, oh, by the way, she’s Christian, he said, I’ll do it for free then. Because he said, it should be 10,000 pack dollars, but I’ll do it for free because she’s Christian. So he really hated Christians.

[01:00:59] And he did all the dark magic and said that this woman would die in 21 days.

[01:01:07] And after 21 days, this Christian woman had not died.

[01:01:11] And he got really worried because it went on for a few months and she still hadn’t died. And his reputation was at stake, but he was also worried about what was going on. So he spoke to the devil.

[01:01:21] And the devil, quote, said, we have to abort the plan. Don’t touch her. We are no match for the God the woman serves. In other words, this woman worshipped the real God. And even the devil was scared. And that really shook him because he thought that the devil was the baddest of them all. He didn’t realize that God would be more powerful.

[01:01:42] And then he got a girlfriend who wanted him to go to church. And he hadn’t let on that he was satanic, you know, demonic guy at that point. So to kind of impress her, he went along with it and he went to church. And then one day he was at church and the priest did a call to altar, which I think means that if you’re not already a Christian, but you want to then come forwards and we’ll baptize you or something like that. Anyway, so he got up and he got picked up in the air by demons who were basically saying, you belong to Satan. You’re not going to the altar.

[01:02:19] And people in the church realized what was happening, that he was being attacked.

[01:02:23] And he knew what was happening as well because he had been working with these things most of his life.

[01:02:28] And There were about 200 people in the church and they went to grab him and stop him being lifted up, and they got thrown across the room and into the walls. And so these people realizing what was happening, started praying and trying to cast the demons out. And one of them was shouting at him, just say Jesus is Lord. Just say, Jesus is Lord.

[01:02:49] And that was a big deal for him because he was, at that point, you know, Satan was his father and he was a satanic high priest, warlock, etc.

[01:02:57] And he knew he could be killed at any moment, but for some reason he hadn’t been killed and he was quite surprised. And so he, in the end he said, jesus is Lord. And he dropped to the floor and everyone and all of the disturbances ceased instantly.

[01:03:10] So I know we’re talking about some pretty heavyweight stuff, but just listen to what I’m saying.

[01:03:15] Just him saying Jesus is Lord was enough to banish everything from that building and to leave him alone. And that changed his life.

[01:03:24] And after that big battle in the church, he said, I’ve been victorious in Christ. I’ve got peace. And he now denounces all of the dark stuff and writes books to expose what’s going on. Because he was basically explaining how the judges, the heads of police, police officers, the headmasters at schools, all of them are satanic, all of them are not in on it. And they basically have this entire control structure across the different countries in the world that rules everything. So they all look out for each other and, you know, a bit like. A bit like the Freemasons, you know, if you’re in the club, you get looked after.

[01:04:04] But yeah, he’s really now a voice for team Jesus, Team God. From his own experiences of having been one of the darkest, most evil, satanic, demonic people on the planet.

[01:04:18] So you could not get the point I’m trying to make is, is change possible if you orientate towards what is good spirituality? True spirituality, yeah. If this guy can transform his life in an instant, then it is literally the road to Damascus that I referenced earlier. Saul, known as Paul, who was set on the road to Go and persecute more. Christians had a vision of Jesus and became one of the greatest apostles. He never met Jesus in real life.

[01:04:53] This is after Jesus has already passed, but he became one of the bit loudest voices for Jesus.

[01:04:59] So something is going on. And the reason why I wanted to use this story of John Ramirez is not to eulogize him in any way.

[01:05:09] I won’t comment, but I wouldn’t spend time with him. Even though he now is on Team God, he still did what he did. He still accepted what he accepted. So that’s all between him and upstairs. But my point is I’m not trying to raise him on a pedestal, but I’m using him as an example of someone that was in the basement. Managing to see the light shows that the capacity for change from a spiritual perspective is there. And I know you could Google there’s lots of stories, but I thought I’d go for one of the heaviest weight ones because it proves the point. Always go to the biggest story to prove. You know, if you want to have gravity, it’s one thing that someone who, you know, a gentle little story might be a lovely story, but if you’ve got this level of contrast, it really, really proves the point.

[01:05:59] So what that means, then let’s press on is that we can now say, well, growth is possible.

[01:06:08] So we’ve demonstrated life has purpose. We’ve demonstrated growth is possible. So is there a direction?

[01:06:14] Because the purpose of life is to grow, grow in a particular direction.

[01:06:19] So the Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine. So again going to science to prove what is beyond science, they did this study in 2018, explanatory definition of the concept of Spiritual Health. A qualitative study, it was done in Iran.

[01:06:36] And just to pull a few lines from it, it is perceptible in people’s behavior. So they define this thing called spiritual health, which is not belief and religion.

[01:06:49] And they said it is perceptible in people’s behavior and it can be enhanced and improved. So something is that can be perceived, can be measured.

[01:06:58] And if it can be enhanced and improved, it means it can grow. So they are saying that spiritual health can be measured and can grow. So they are saying that life in life you can grow spiritually and it’s measurable.

[01:07:16] And then they said experts recognized that it’s the human connection with God that is the most important part rather than the idea of a connection with self. So you know, a lot of self help, a lot of the self help work is about you connecting with your inner Self, your inner child, or being at peace with yourself and all of that, which is wonderful, lovely, fluffy, good, but it doesn’t engender spiritual health.

[01:07:44] The same connecting with others. So falling in love with someone, lovely, but it any relationships with others does not engender spiritual health or connection with nature. So all these people that feel peace and joy and connection with nature, and I can get that nature’s my go to place, but it does not generate spiritual health. The only thing that generates quantifiable spiritual health that can be enhanced and improved is, is a human connection with God.

[01:08:19] This is a scientific paper, okay, so they’ve done the work, they’ve done the analysis, they’ve quantified it, they’ve talked to all the experts, they’ve done their statistics and they’ve said surprised us. But it’s not enough just to have a strong connection with another person or with yourself or with nature.

[01:08:37] You only have this quantifiable, measurable, enhanceable thing if you have a connection with God.

[01:08:45] So there we go. The Journal of Medical Ethics and History of Medicine is stating that there is direction and growth is measurable. The direction is the connection towards or with God and growth is measurable.

[01:08:59] So let’s summarize.

[01:09:01] What we’ve learned today is that if you choose a connection with God, evidence suggests you may have better health, cope with stress, better have less fear and qualitatively an observably better psychological quality of life if you choose hedonism, ego, Satanism, nihilism, etc. In other words, the opposite of spirituality. So this isn’t just being neutral and not having an opinion. This is people that go in the other direction. Then you increase in certain health issues.

[01:09:32] And I gave the example of deceit and lying. You do not cope so well with challenges, you’re prone to stress, you have more fear of dying and other things. So if you read some of the papers I’m going to reference and they talk about this and you negatively affect people around you, you are bad for society. And if we went back to that list of all the people who, you know, have had a big impact on society, you know, going back to people like Jesus and whatnot, then you’ve got modern day pundits who hate Jesus but acknowledge the good that he did for society in creating Christian Western culture. And so there is the opposite, that negative or people that don’t choose not to be spiritual actually are damaging not just themselves, but society.

[01:10:20] And I bring this up to reference the idea of is there a direction to growth yes, because if you look at the top there and I’ve got my faces over the top of the thing again, but if you look at the top there, all of these things are better. Health, coping with stress, better, less fear, and observably better quality of life means that you’re in harmony with life. If life has a purpose and you’re going in the right direction, everything is easy and there’s harmony.

[01:10:53] Whereas because the feedback is better health, etc. Whereas if you’re going in the wrong direction and you get increasing health issues, don’t cope with things, have more fear and negatively impact yourself and others, you’re demonstrating friction. So if you use the analogy of a river, a river flows in one direction. If you go with the current in the direction you’re meant to go, there is harmony, there is ease. If you try and go against the current, in other words, if you try and go against the flow of life, you have friction. So all of these things that are hedonistic, ego based, satanic, nihilistic, etc. Lifestyle engendering you in terms of poor health and stress and etc.

[01:11:38] Are feedback that you’re going in the wrong direction.

[01:11:42] And this is from scientific papers. So science is showing that there is, there can be harmony in your life if you’re aligned with a connection to God. And there will be friction in your life if you choose to reject it.

[01:11:54] There is direction.

[01:11:56] So the purpose of life is to grow spiritually.

[01:12:01] Science has proven that we can put the word spiritually in now because they have said it’s not enough to go to church, it’s not enough to believe, it’s not enough to have ideas. You have to be seeking, you have to be doing. You have to be. It’s your connection to God, it’s not your connection to nature, it’s not your connection to other people, it’s not your connection to yourself, it is God. And that is the definition that we’ve all. I’ve said many times that spirituality is your inner yearning, your inner desire to be closer to God. So the purpose of life is to grow spiritually.

[01:12:43] Case closed, you know, based on the evidence, based on the evidence that is there and what people are searching for, you know, across the entire planet, what science is telling us about the health benefits, it’s all there pointing at. Life actually does have a purpose. And when you go with the flow of what your life purpose is, there will be better health. Better health would mean that you’re more likely to be genetically successful, you’re more likely to survive. And therefore you are being selected for by nature. So nature itself will validate the fact that we want to spiritually grow in the direction of God.

[01:13:24] So I’m very gonna. We’re gonna very quickly do a little bit of book reading and then any questions. So get your questions ready and I’ll see you over there. I’d like to do something.

[01:13:39] Okay.

[01:13:40] And. Yeah, that looks good. So we’re actually on page 40 now. Part four, being holistic.

[01:13:47] And I’m not going to read too much. We’ll just get stuck in though, so. So let us do a really condensed recap.

[01:13:55] Belief is the basis of religion, whereas spirituality is founded in direct experience.

[01:14:02] And the ultimate spiritual goal for a human life is to become closer to God through experience of the qualities of God, along with humility and reverence towards God. I mean, how much synchronicity can we have that. I just read that, and this wasn’t planned.

[01:14:19] I just read that out when I’ve literally just been saying over there that the purpose of life is to grow spiritually, which means to seek that connection with God. And here it is. And the ultimate spiritual goal for human life is to become closer to God.

[01:14:34] So God is always guiding you to achieve this, and your higher self is guiding you too. However, free will means you can ignore this guidance and instead come from habits, ego and fear.

[01:14:48] If you go too far in the wrong direction, your body manifests dis ease as a kind of spiritual SOS to get your attention. Literally, your body is used as the canvas for your higher self to leave a message.

[01:15:01] Wake up.

[01:15:04] Chapter 16. Wisely receptive. So surely the wisest thing would be to make sure we are receptive to God and our higher self, right?

[01:15:13] That way we can avoid unnecessary dis ease, but more importantly, become closer to God and spiritually mature as a human being.

[01:15:22] Well, I would agree with you on that. So let me share a really important insight with you, which is something that most people simply do not realize fully.

[01:15:31] This life is not the first incarnation that your higher self has ever had. This life is, however, a wonderful opportunity for you. And when I say you, I mean all that you are an opportunity to grow and evolve spiritually.

[01:15:47] But if, for whatever reason you have been ignoring your higher self and ultimately God, then two things happen. The first is that God carries on guiding you and loving you. Yes, that is right. God is unconditional in God’s love and God’s support for you. God never abandons you, nor turns God’s back on you. Your choice. Having heard that is simple. Be grateful or take it for granted.

[01:16:11] Being grateful is a path that brings you closer to God, whereas taking God for granted is not. Free will means that you get to decide how you respond and since you have already responded just now, you have experienced free will. So this is nice real time example of how experience is higher than belief.

[01:16:31] You may have heard, sorry, forgive me, you may have had a belief about how you might respond or a belief in the presence of free will. But what just happened was a direct experience of how you reacted and therefore of a direct experience of your free will.

[01:16:47] What was real was your experience of how you actually reacted, gratitude or taken for granted. Your belief about how you might react was only ever a belief and may have been different from your reaction. This is why experience is more important than belief. Experience reveals truth.

[01:17:05] So what is the other thing that happens if we repeatedly ignore our higher selves and or God?

[01:17:11] Well, we will find out next week.

[01:17:15] I’ll see you over there. We’re at the end of the show and it is absolutely sweltering in here. Very warm, very warm day and we’ve got all the lights on. We covered quite a bit today and hopefully it’s made sense. So if, if it hasn’t questions in the chat and also just if there were any points that I raised that really stood out for you, do let me know in the chat and also put your comments down below if you’re watching again afterwards. Or you can always contact me and private message me if you like. All the details will be in the write up but I’ll give a few moments just in case there are any questions.

[01:17:51] I’m guessing that because it’s, it’s what’s 1020 here in the UK? 1021. That maybe we’ll just draw it to an end. But it’s been a really interesting. I actually when I started getting into this today’s topic I it got quite interesting and there’s so much more I could have covered. But it was wonderful to find scientific proof that actually life has purpose and to look at people who’ve been influential and challenge some of the ideas as well. So hopefully you found value in this. I’m guessing no more questions for today. So I will simply say as ever, but let’s not take it for granted, as ever, understand that making choices means you’re demonstrating your free will and as we’re learning in that book, that free will is kind of what underpins you as a spirit, spiritual person.

[01:18:47] So consciously in a kind of awake sort of way, be present and keep making good choices. God bless you and I’ll see you next week.

[01:18:57] And yep, it’s goodbye from me and it’s goodbye from Jesse who’s lying down there.

[01:19:05] Thank you for being awesome and joining me for this episode. I’m truly grateful. As a spiritual person. I hope it inspiring to realize that you’re not alone and that more and more like minded people just like you are enjoying this live show. This means that you’re part of a growing and awakening community and together we’re all finding the way back to God, going deeper than just ideas and beliefs to experience firsthand real spiritual awakening. This is a journey of the heart, not the head.

[01:19:40] So take this moment to just become a little bit stiller, more present, more neutral.

[01:19:49] Now notice what you notice when I ask you this question.

[01:19:56] What in this particular episode has been most useful?

[01:20:03] Now who in your life at this particular time would benefit the most from knowing this too?

[01:20:09] Maybe it’s one person, or maybe it’s more than one, but because sharing is caring, it’s really nice to know that you can actually share this show with them and therefore help them.

[01:20:20] This show is completely free to enjoy and benefit from. Now, speaking of free stuff, if you’d like other useful, helpful, helpful spiritual resources, then head on over to thewaybackgroup.org there you’ll find all kinds of free resources, articles, eBooks, MP3s, guided meditations, and a whole load of other stuff that’s completely free and waiting for you to discover it. So that’s all for this episode, but your journey and my journey continues.

[01:20:52] And so I look forward to having you join. Join me next week for more revelation and exploration into spiritual things. And together, let’s make more sense of life, not just for us, but for our loved ones so that we can help them too.

[01:21:09] So remember to subscribe and hit the notifications so that you don’t miss out. Who knows what we’ll be discussing next week and the next question or topic might even be yours. Perhaps there’s a reason you’ve been guided to this show.

[01:21:23] So God bless you. And remember, real change starts when we put into practice what we’re learning so that we go from thinking and doing to finally being.

[01:21:42] So take what you’ve learned today and keep on being the best version of you.

[01:21:47] God bless.