Evening Hour With The X-Man: Session III –
The Meaning of Life

Day 22 – 11:39 PM (Guest Quarters)

Entry Preface: Master Exxel (pronounced ex-ul) is one of Zentauria’s standout leaders and most beloved figures. He’s on the Council, has an office at Town Hall and seems to be in the middle of anything really important going on. And since my being here is an unprecedented, experimental endeavor, Exxel has been assigned to be my main advisor/confidante throughout my season. This is fine with me, since I love hanging out with him. This guy emanates a sense of spiritual centeredness and wisdom that I’ve never experienced to this extent. Yet, he’s extremely warm, likable, even funny, so it’s easy to see why he is so well-respected around here.

Exxel (a.k.a. “X” or “The X-Man,” as I often refer to him) has deep bloodlines to the island’s original Shaolin monks, and at least one person from every generation of his family has had a major leadership role in Zentauria. Exxel is 92 and in phenomenal physical condition, reportedly never having missed a day of school or work in his life due to illness. He has a salt-and-pepper crew cut, thin framed glasses and he’s always dressed simply, in some kind of martial arts pants, a loose-fitting shirt and sandals. Always. Even for important meetings, speaking engagements and local television. Pure monk, right? At the same time, he holds the highest degree blackbelt in a number of Kung Fu styles and has been one of Samson’s key teachers through the years. Plus, among other things, he is a revered painter, fluent in eighteen languages, a prolific author of more than 200 books, and a master musician who plays nine different instruments on a world-class level.

One of the coolest things about X is his actual physical presence. He moves purposefully and deliberately, with no wasted movements, and always with a striking sense of awareness about him. He seems to be cognizant of every single detail about every single thing within a 50-foot radius of where he stands at any given time. This is a hard thing to explain, but if I had to sum up his whole state of being in one word, it would be present. And when he walks into any room, you can actually feel the vibration lift. Yet, there is not one spec of any sort of calculated, external charisma. This is something profoundly internal. He is saintly.

Our get-togethers were informal. We met at his office in Town Hall, every Monday night at 8:00 PM (also known around here as the “evening hour”). His office is a large, rectangular space with the better part of three walls comprised of classic Euro bookcases, tightly lined with tons of old titles, like a library. A bubinga wood desk sits regally in the middle of that part of the room. The fourth wall is a meditation shrine, with dozens of candles, a number of religious effigies and several red velvet cushions. There is a sitting area in the middle of the room where two hot cups of tea wait for us on a small antique table between a couple of gold and purple 13th century thrones. (No shit…actual thrones from some English castle.)

X has a way of making you feel like you can totally be yourself, without any sense of judgment from him. So I was as brutally authentic and honest as I could possibly be about anything we discussed. He would always look directly in my eyes, carefully considering every word I spoke, usually with that concerned father expression. Occasionally, when I would really go off, I think my take on things amused him. His gaze would lighten into the same look you might affix on an acrobatic monkey in the jungle. Sort of a “Look at that monkey go, swinging from limb to limb…fascinating how they do that, isn’t it?”

That said, I’ve come to learn that Exxel had a surprising reverence for those living outside of Zentauria. He recognized that our plight was actually much harder because our support system, cultural directives, lifestyle principles and available resources were a fraction of the Zentaurian’s in terms of living the self-actualized life. So I think a part of him was as intrigued by how I managed to do what I did, as I was to learn the same about him. It was always an intense, exhilarating and transcendent hour.

He let me document our conversations with my digital recorder. There were nine sessions in total. Here is the first of three partial transcriptions that I’m including in this journal:

The Meaning of Life

Me: So…in broad strokes, we have each made a conscious, calculated decision to come back into this physical realm, on planet earth, in this particular incarnation, with some kind of big picture agenda.

Exxel: In broad strokes, yes.

Me: So we are not really here to learn, per se, because, in essence, we are already coming from an enlightened place – on the other side – a place of great understanding about who we truly are, right?

Exxel: Correct.

Me: Therefore, if anything, we are here to try and remember who we really are…that we are each individual expressions of a greater Oneness…the single source of energy - an infinite intelligence - that comprises it all.

Exxel: Correct.

Me: And I’m sure this has probably been said somewhere else, but we are each like an individual wave in the ocean; all part of the same entity, but an individualized experience of the grander Whole. Is that fair to say?

Exxel: That’s fair to say.

Me: So it’s not like life is some kind of soul school, where we go through this series of tests and come out on the other side as a higher, more evolved soul?

Exxel: Not exactly, although it’s been said that, with each incarnation, your soul essence is enriched, and we are all collectively one step closer to a re-merging.

Me: A re-merging? Is that a point in time when every individual wave recognizes that it is, in fact, part of the Whole?

Exxel: Yes.

Me: But we’re pretty fucking far from that point in time, aren’t we?

Exxel: By earthly standards of linear time, yes, it would seem so.

Me: Isn’t this merging the ultimate goal?

Exxel: There is no ultimate goal. There’s only the joy of process, of practice, of engaging the journey, one moment at a time.

Me: Interesting. So the ol’ it’s-about-the-journey-not-the-destination-thing applies to the big ‘macro’ view of life, as well as to all of its daily little ‘micro’ components?

Exxel: Indeed, as does most everything else.

Me: Say what?

Exxel: If you look at a large stalk of broccoli, it’s comprised of bite-sized pieces that look like smaller versions of the large stalk. The macro view of broccoli – the whole stalk – is really the same as the micro – the individual part that you break off and throw in a salad – only just a little smaller. But to understand the biological structure of the whole stalk is to understand the biological structure of the individual piece.

Me: Heavy. So in the same way that the main point of our life here is about the journey, so, too, is the main point of whatever particular endeavor we happen to pursue or engage while we’re here?

Exxel: Correct, because there is a complex web of ancillary things – events, experiences, revelations, and encounters – that is set in motion with every decision you make along the way on a journey. And it is really all of these things that comprise the actual fabric of your life experience, more than anything else.

Me: But doesn’t everything we do contain some kind of endpoint result that we’re striving for? And to some degree, aren’t we all driven or motivated by the prospect of reaching this result?

Exxel: First of all, everything we do does not always have some neat and tidy, end-of-the-story, well-defined outcome, or involve the quantifiable attainment of a goal. And to the extent that it appears to, the experience of this result is more like the juicy exclamation mark at the end of a beautifully crafted sentence. But again, even these results are part of a bigger picture journey, just as the exclamation mark is part of a larger paragraph. Because if there is anything we’ve learned in the study of the human experience, it’s that few people loiter around for long in the afterglow of an achievement. Their attention is soon diverted to an adjacent mountaintop, or even a neighboring mountain range, so to speak. In fact, a reliable recipe for an unsatisfying experience here is to make your life all about collecting these outcomes, without being mindful of all the nuances involved with the process of achieving them.

Me: So maybe we’ll reach an outcome and maybe we won’t?

Exxel: Oh no, you’ll always reach some kind of outcome, on some level…the law of cause and effect will ensure that. But it might not be exactly how you envisioned it. Or if it is, you might not feel like you thought you would feel in reaching it. Or if you do, it might not last as long as you thought it would last, or the fundamental meaning you initially assigned to the outcome shifted over time, or there were other unforeseen outcomes that happened as a result. Or maybe the outcome or achievement was even more gratifying than you expected, but for different reasons than you imagined. There are a million variables. The point is, life continues…it keeps moving…and depending on the level of consciousness you have when attaining any result or goal, that will determine what kind of impact it will have on your experience in the present moment.

Me: Okay. So what’s the point of it all?

Exxel: What do you think is the point of it all?

Me: For the One Force, of which we are all a part, to interact with Itself, so that – in any given moment – It might experience the ecstasy of Its own magnificence.

Exxel: Sounds good to me!

Me: So what would you say is the meaning of life?

Exxel: I wouldn’t.

Me: Why?

Exxel: Because it’s too broad of an ideal to define in a singular explanation.

Me: How so?

Exxel: Because if we’re truly living mindfully, we’re reinventing, readjusting and redefining our meaning of life from one moment to the next. So whatever answer I gave you in this moment, I would likely have to amend it in the next moment.

Me: Okay…but just out of curiosity, what would you say is the meaning of life in this moment?

Exxel: The joyful and mindful conversing with Bobby Rock.

Me: Fair enough. But isn’t there some kind of unifying theme that drives your experience from one moment to the next?

Exxel: Only the cultivation of love, peace, joy, excellence, beauty and wisdom.

Me: So isn’t that the point, then?

Exxel: That’s a ‘unifying theme,’ as you put it, but it still doesn’t tell us the point. But there’s really no point in trying to find the point of it all, because if you mindfully practice the cultivation of these higher tenets, then the ‘point of it all’ will find you in every moment.

Me: Nice!

© 2009 Bobby Rock

 

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