January 2026 TAT Forum

Just a madman, looking at rocks
Looking at life

What is a life?
Whose life is this?

Dear This
Dear God

I am compelled toward You
Call it a vector
Call it anything – words words words
The tools of my teachers wield me now
And insight has made me a fool

I don’t know if it ends
I don’t know that an end is the thing to want
I don’t know what direction I am moving in
Like a solitary meteor in space
Can a void have direction in the void
Does anything move, does anything happen?

Regardless, I hope I am moving toward You
A fragment in the Whole
Reuniting

What we call spirit is the gold. We are all manifestations of Spirit and that is The Good News, we are all made of gold.

But that is only part of the story. I think of life since awakening as living with dual citizenship.

Spirit knows itself and is what is often referred to as HOME, our final home, from whence we came and what we return to after life in the body leaves.

The human us is the particular piece that has arisen in the world. And each particular has a shape and a role and its limitations within the creation. From the perspective of The World, the magnificent dream of Spirit, any one piece may be significant or not, in the ever-changing landscape of creation. In the long, long term, it matters not at all.

But it is a magnificent rollercoaster of an experience!

It would be easy for this piece of writing to drift into a discussion on the thorny subject of Will, free or not but I don’t want to go there.

What I want to say is that as a human piece of creation within the larger creation I feel intuitively that it matters, not just to me but to the creation to make every effort to be non-harming to the creation. This includes the fauna and flora and environment that I have been blessed to participate in. And, of course, my fellow humans.

I say ‘feel’ rather that think because intuition, for me is how I respond to life. So, our value in our human role matters too. It matters that we are non-harming to our environment. I say, non-harming, the Buddhist phrase rather than the Christian idea of fixing, which I think too often gets co-opted by ego.

An analysis of the idea of non-harming is well worth the effort in my opinion.

“What do you know for sure?” – Richard Rose, “Lecture of Questions.” (This question to me is what keeps me grounded, not postulating my way ever deeper into Never Never Land).

“So I realised at the age of 21 that any of the realisations that I would have to have, anything that I would gain, I wasn’t going to get from a book; I was going to get from a change of being. So I set about trying to wrassle myself into that change of being” – Richard Rose, Peace of Mind: Success Without Regret (click on the “Becoming” topic).

The above three quotes for me hit at the core of this question, “What is the value of a human being?” The hermetic idea of “raising your vibration” which I take as a synonym for “deepening into beingness”, “transcending all of the false to become real”, “becoming what I truly am” etc. So in summation my conviction about the value of a human being is for spiritual evolution. I feel every single person on the planet is living a spiritual life, whether they be conscious of it or not. Death itself is the greatest reminder of this, of which we will all have to face, of which will force the unconscious to at last become conscious. And maybe this question will come to the forefront of their mind on their deathbed, “what is the value of a human being or what has been my value/is my value/will be my value?”

When I hear someone ask if something is good or has value, I hear only half a question. The other half is an implicit qualifier “good for” or “valuable for” an unspoken purpose. I cannot answer what the value of a human being might be unless the person specifies the way(s) in which a human being might be valuable for achieving a particular purpose or purposes.

Some examples of things and activities that are simpler than human beings might make this clearer. If someone asks if hammers or hammering is good, I would say, “Yes, hammering with a hammer is good for fastening two pieces of wood together with nails. Hammers are valuable for that. However, they are not so good for fastening two pieces of wood together with screws. A hammer does not have absolute intrinsic goodness or value, so I cannot say whether hammering with a hammer is good or valuable without specifying a purpose for the hammering.

The same is true for watching TV. Are TVs absolutely, intrinsically good or bad? Is watching TV valuable or a waste of time? Again, the question cannot be answered without specifying a purpose. Watching TV can be good for a number of purposes, including entertainment, learning about world events, and bonding with others. Watching TV can be valuable. However, we know that watching TV can cause many problems. It can distract from other activities that we find valuable. TV adverts can cause us to buy products we do not need. Political propaganda on TV can give us false impressions of reality and stir up hate.

The value of a human being similarly depends upon a human being’s purpose. But do human beings have a purpose? Unlike hammers, which were designed by human beings for the purpose of driving nails, and TVs, which were designed by human beings for the purpose of entertainment and education (among other things), human beings were not designed by human beings for any particular purpose. If we can say we were designed for a purpose, the designer would be the biosphere that created life for the purpose of perpetuating more life. Our purpose is the perpetuate human life by our activities: helping each other, designing environments that support survival, and, of course, having children. We have also selectively perpetuated the life of other species by cultivating plants that we eat or use as decorations, by domesticating and caring for livestock and pets, and protecting endangered species. Also, we have historically perpetuated the life of other species by serving as their food. What is the value of a human being? Perpetuating life is the main purpose, the main reason why we are here. We have been pretty good for that.

Of course we have other chosen purposes for living that go beyond the mere perpetuation of life, and here we find differences according to people’s preferred activities. Artists like to create art, even if it has to practical application to perpetuating life. Scientists and philosophers like to advance knowledge, even if it has to practical application to perpetuating life. The value of any individual human being can be seen in their ability to accomplish any particular purpose.

I wonder, often, if value is an entirely human invention, or at least an invention of abstract thought should anything else be so blessed with such a helpful, and harmful, ability of mind. 

There are valuable pearls, valuable relationships, valuable experiences, and valuable lessons. There are mathematical values, color values, and ethical values. But what is value itself? 

Most often, I think of value in relative, hierarchal terms. Things have more or less value. Do they? Is beauty in the eye of the beholder, or does it exist intrinsically? 

I consider myself lucky to be seen as valuable to my partner, but does that say anything whatsoever about my actual value? It’s presence, absence, or degree? About what I actually am? 

Maybe value, ultimately, is flat. Maybe, as Shakespeare says, there is no good or bad, but thinking makes it so. 

For my own part, I don’t know that I’m all that interested in stories of value anymore, not beyond entertainment or temporal relief, at least. They’re all make- believe, it seems, unless they reflect something true. 

And perhaps that’s the meaningful distinction, truth. We could say, metaphorically, that value exists on a continuum from truth to untruth, with absolute truth being the highest value. If this is the case then we may have a way to answer the value of a human being. 

In this view, a high value human life would be one that is closely aligned with God, with truth. A low value life, by contrast, would be one lost in illusion. 

And yet, is God not the weaver of all dreams and dreaming? Can we be other than we are in this moment? See other than we see? Who created so many “low value” lives, if not Value Itself? 

There is value in these questions, I believe. 

By “possession…of Truth,” the author likely meant the end of a path of going after this thing called Truth, and so it makes sense that the effort or “exertion” made on this path shows the true value (or character?) of a person. Since the type of truth referred to here is the Absolute, the very Truth, it really cannot be possessed by any person. When that is seen through, what “value” is there to be determined anyhow and by whom? That said, at the relative level, whether one likes it or not, there is judging mechanism at play in the thinking mind, and so it would then be reasonable or practical to say a person’s value is determined by his/her degree of sincerity, level of exertion to get to a destination. S/he is judged based on how much is put into this grand life project as opposed to the outcome, whether it be “supposed or real.” So, in sum, this quotation is not saying anything nonsensical at the practical/relative level, but at the Absolute level, because Truth is not a place “to get to” or a thing kept in someone’s “possession,” there is no value there, let alone less or greater value.

Addendum: After a night’s sleep, let me forget all that analysis and just keep on living. 

Well, if you would humor me, my addendum to my addendum goes something like this…

After more sleeping on it, I’m beginning to wonder what the balance is between left brain analysis of sorts and right brain intuition of sorts…where is the line between the analytical mind and the intuitive heart(?)? Where and how do I sit in between these two (if they are two)? How do I live somewhere in the middle so I’m neither too reliant on the intellect nor too lax in the spontaneity? 

Give me another night’s sleep, I might just tell you something out of my mind (and heart both)! Ha! I do hope to speak from that middle ground where I am not too this or too that.. Then, just what might one sound like to be speaking from (not speaking to) the middle? What might one do while resting in and operating from the in-between? Right this moment, what is it like to see it costs nothing to know Truth is nowhere to be and yet it costs everything to get there where there is no there (or here)? 

What is the value of Van Gogh? You could tally up what all of his paintings are worth now. You could tally up all the pain and suffering he caused other people, or the joy and grace he caused other, other people, or maybe even the same people. But what was the value of Van Gogh’s life to himself? He didn’t see much money from his paintings in his lifetime, he didn’t experience fame. He experienced a lot of pain and turmoil. Since his was ended by his own hand during the prime of his life, I would say that Van Gogh didn’t value himself very much at all. 

I don’t think I know what the True Value of a Human Being is. Since value comes from other people, is relative and subjective, it may be the case that the true value of a person is how they treat other people. Really though, I think it’s likely that if there is anything like a True Value of a human, it only discernable by that human, and if “True Value” is something objective, permanent, independent, then it would have to be seen from a much higher perspective than I currently have access to.”

Value is made up—just a fill-in-the-blank of some comparison metric. Is a seeker who seeks more earnestly better than a seeker who doesn’t? What is more earnestly? Is a seeker better than a non-seeker? What the heck is a non-seeker? I don’t want to feel better about my seeking—I want to find.

What is a human being? Just a packet of sensations, thoughts and feelings in an endless void? I’m not trying to be a problem, just genuinely expressing my own frustration because I want to believe that there is something to find, a true solid ground of Being based on the words of teachers. Just finding it hard to trust anything these days. Because my reaction is that if this thing called a human being expires and all there is to show for it is effort and pursuit but no finding, then where is the Rest? When does this roiling individual get to rest—upon death and death alone?

Rant finished (mostly). My last question is: What is Truth? It also feels like a concept. A thing on the horizon. Or something the word could never touch—just a hope wrapped in letters pieced together from purported finders’ words. Is there something called Truth on the horizon that, defined against the entirety of my experience to-date, marks the rest as false? Or just encompasses it all—how do I know I’m not just trying to find the next thing that encompasses all of experience. Again, not trying to intellectualize but asking earnestly—what am I supposed to find that is transcendent of life? What could even be said about it that wouldn’t be taken as a concept?

I’d say that its value is determined by what it becomes. Depending on the conditions surrounding its existence, it might become food for a squirrel, food for microorganisms in the soil, or—if conditions are “right”—it might become an oak tree.

Considering valuation of human beings in a similar way brings up the question of what is the most that a human being can become if conditions are right? Based on my life experience, it is consciously witnessing the absolute state of is-ness and recognizing it as our true identity. Other terms for it are becoming the Truth, Self-Realization, and becoming Real.

And what, we might ask, is the cosmic value of individual Self-Realization? It may be the actual purpose of the cosmos … how what we are at the core of being knows itself.

And valuable for whom? For the person who wants to know his value, in order, perhaps, to feel good about his existence? For the people he serves? What about for those he doesn’t serve or who doesn’t know he exists at all?

Here’s another perspective to consider. It’s from the play Shipwreck by Tom Stoppard, spoken by a character, a father who lost his son: “Because children grow up, we think a child’s purpose is to grow up. But a child’s purpose is to be a child. Nature doesn’t disdain what lives only for a day. It pours the whole of itself into each moment. We don’t value the lily less for not being made of flint and built to last. Life’s bounty is in its flow, later is too late.”

Christianity, among others, also teaches that human beings can know God because they share something in common with God. That’s a possible answer to their value right there. Instead of asking what my value is, though, the more useful question for me is what I really, truly want, and how to live a life that expresses that today. Later is too late.