What is a Good Life? #128
The Cosmic Force of Questions with Shai Tubali
📣 What is a Good Life Course - 1 place left 📣
If your life feels like it’s missing a sense of meaning, belonging, or even the feeling that it’s truly yours, this may be of interest. Over the past four years, I’ve interviewed nearly 300 people around this question—one-on-one. I’m now offering a 5-week online course for a small group of 8 people to explore this same question together in July. Click here to find out more.
This Week’s Podcast
On the 128th episode of the What is a Good Life? podcast, I’m delighted to welcome our guest, Shai Tubali, Ph.D. Shai is a philosopher, author, and teacher whose work bridges mysticism and academic philosophy. He explores how expanded states of consciousness can transform individual lives and influence our collective future.
Shai holds a doctorate in the philosophy of religion and his academic publications include The Transformative Philosophical Dialogue (Springer, 2023) and Cosmos and Camus: Science Fiction Film and the Absurd. As the author of numerous books on inner transformation, his writings have reached readers in 14 languages. He has also developed several original, meditation-based methods for psychological transformation, including the medically researched Expansion Method.
In this conversation, we explore profound questions about the nature of existence, the power of inquiry, and the tension between knowing and not knowing. Shai reflects on his journey of self-discovery, the absurdity of life, and the importance of embracing both reflective self-consciousness and the interconnectedness of all beings.
This episode emphasises the significance of living an examined life, where questions lead to deeper insights and a more profound understanding of what it means to be human.
The weekly clip from the podcast (4 mins), my weekly reflection (3 mins), the full podcast (66 mins), and the weekly questions all follow below.
1. Weekly Clip from the Podcast
2. My weekly reflection
There is a beautiful tension that Shai raised in this interview.
“It is like the constant tension between the wish to know, the wish to understand, the wish to access life's hidden knowledge, and of the infinite ocean of not knowing. There is an unknowable, there is an unknown, and there is the known—and there is a tension between these three that is activated by the question. So for me, questions are like a cosmic force.”
He suggests that if we can begin to accept this tension and learn to live with questions—even those that are essentially unanswerable—questions have the capacity to bring us to insight. That is, if we don’t look for relief from the energy of the question.
Another tension he alludes to is:
“Between this tremendous reflective self-consciousness and that kind of biological wrapping or biological package, and this tension between the limited and the unlimited, between the mortal and expanded consciousness, transcendence and biological impulses.”
Shai referenced a kind of frame for interpreting this.
He explains that his view of life as absurd began during his master’s research, particularly through studying Albert Camus and The Myth of Sisyphus. He came to see absurdity as an inescapable part of life—constituting 50% of human experience—stemming from the disconnect between our search for meaning and the silence of the universe.
Absurdity, in a philosophical sense, refers to the conflict between two fundamental aspects of human existence:
The human desire for meaning, order, and purpose, and
The apparent indifference or silence of the universe in providing any.
Camus’ image of Sisyphus eternally pushing a boulder up a hill became a metaphor for embracing this struggle with dignity—and even happiness.
In this frame, mysticism then complements absurdity as the other 50%. Where absurdity reveals life’s limitations and ultimate meaninglessness, mysticism offers transcendence—a sense of oneness with the universe and a deep, intimate experience of life. Our reflective self-consciousness is both a curse (reminding us of mortality and futility) and a gift (enabling transcendence and bliss).
If The Myth of Sisyphus was the image for absurdity, then perhaps the sentiment he read from an Osho book—of “making your being a prayer”—might serve as an image for the transcendent.
If you follow this newsletter regularly, you’ll know I don’t usually go into the guest’s perspective in such detail, but I found this to be extremely helpful.
He was able to articulate something I’ve long felt and experienced, yet never quite stated so clearly.
In my more layman’s way of understanding, it makes me think of how moments of oneness and connection—with another, with the world around me, or within myself when I feel a bright sense of alignment—allow me to sit with the implicit tensions of life.
They don’t allow me to escape the absurdity of life, but maybe to meet it with a glint in my eye or a wink at the universe. A kind of playful nod to the absurdity of it all.
At the same time, those moments don’t free me from my humanness. I can feel a sense of awe in wondering why we exist at all, or marvelling at the diversity of species on the planet—and then, just as quickly, find myself judging someone near me for something utterly trivial in the grand scheme of things.
How incredible that my heart can feel boundless and closed within moments.
It makes me think of the highest expressions of my consciousness and spirit, and also the base biological instincts I carry—the fear wired into my brain.
It makes me think of the earnestness with which I explore and try to understand, only to eventually meet the impossibility of an unanswerable question—and laugh out loud at myself for trying again.
What I really appreciated about what Shai shares is that the roles of the absurd and the mystical aren’t there to cancel one another out.
Both are ways this life can be experienced.
“It’s just that there are two approaches to the very same experience—that kind of distance from life, our ability to be mortal, but also think about the time after our death, for instance.”
I find this life incredibly absurd—increasingly so, as my inquiry into life continues.
I find this life filled with a profound sense of oneness and connection—increasingly so, as my inquiry continues.
That’s about as much sense as I can make of it right now.
This morning that may seem playful, tomorrow it may torment.
Such is this life.
To sign up to the What is a Good Life? Course
3. Full Episode - The Cosmic Force of Questions with Shai Tubali - What is a Good Life? #128
4. This week’s Questions
Is there an important question you're currently avoiding because of the tension that comes with not knowing the answer? How might you accept this tension?
What do you presently find most absurd about life?
About Me
I am a coach, podcast host, and writer, based in Berlin, via Dublin, Ireland. I started this project in 2021, for which I’ve now interviewed nearly 300 people. I’m not looking to prescribe universal answers, more that the guests’ lines of inquiry, musings, experiences, and curiosities spark your own inquiry into what the question means to you. I am also trying to share more genuine expressions of the human experience and more meaningful conversations.
If you’re interested in exploring your own self-inquiry through one-on-one coaching, joining my 5-week What is a Good Life? group courses, or fostering greater trust, communication, and connection within your leadership teams, or simply reaching out, feel free to contact me via email or LinkedIn.