What is the purpose of life?

Question

Is it to succeed? Or to make a difference in life? Or is it more religious, like going to heaven and living in internity with God. Or finding the path to enlightenment. Or is it simply to survive? If so, is it to live in peace and harmony or is it to destroy life itself and make living worthwhile?

Answer 1

Philosophies of Doing and Being

i think probably ther r two ways to play our roles in this world. One, the Male philosophy of existence and two, the female philosophy of existence. These philosophies need not be confined respectively to male and female only as the names indicate. According to the situations provided both these philosophies are practiced by both male and female irrespective of the gender.

The Doing philosophy is all about fixing the aim and then go….get it, whatever happens in between. The Being philosophy is bit reactive. See the circumstances and environment and adjust accordingly to be able to face it, to survive for the time being. One is result orientation and the other is path orientation. probably if we think bit more into it..........

luv and SAI RAM,
jk
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/athmavidya

Answer 2

The purpose of life is to give pleasure to the Supreme life, the Supreme Personality of Godhead. That is the reason we exist. We are His eternal, spiritual energy, and our constitutional position is to serve His desires. At the present time we find ourselves covered by material bodies and minds and therefore bewildered by the illusory energy. In this state we think we are these temporary bodies and minds. With this misidentification as the basis for our consciousness, how can we know what is the purpose of our life? If a madman thinks himself to be someone he is not, how can he understand what he should or should not do? First we have to understand who we are before we can know what the purpose of our life is.

There are basically two paths. One path is to think we are the body and when the body dies we are finished also. In that view, what possible purpose could anyone's life have? If we all return to dust in the end, any endeavor to make sense of life is just a madman's game. Instead of having a true purpose in life, the rationale becomes simply to 'enjoy' life, which is nothing more than animal life.

On the other hand, if we are actually eternal and the body is just the vehicle we have for a few years, then our purpose becomes very clear. Our purpose is to understand our eternal nature and what our relationship is to the Supreme. This is the process of self-realization-- purification of consciousness. The advantage of human life is that we are able to inquire about the Absolute Truth and the purpose of life. The animals and other lower life forms cannot do this. But if in the human life a person doesn't make this inquiry, he is no better than an animal.

This is a very good question and I wish you all good fortune on your journey to spiritual realization.

Answer 3

80% of humanity, the religious folks, don't need to ask the meaning of life, the church tells them....the supernatural explanation. But the rest of us can't swallow religious dogma, because there's no evidence. Nobody can prove that there life after death, that people are tortured or rewarded after life or that there's invisible spirits running around.

I've come to two conclusions recently:

1. Life has no meaning
2. Life has a million meanings.

First, there's a certainty that death and annihilation awaits not only you, but the Earth in general. It's an astonomical certainty that our sun will supernova and leave the earth a burnt crisp, not to mention all the other extinction level events around the corner.

Second, the million things that give us meaning are the pleasurable experiences we can conjure up during the short period we are here on the earth, in the form of the relationships we have with our kids and other people, and the 'housekeeping' types of purposes. What i mean by that are the curing disease, ending hunger, improving literacy, reducing crime, preventing war, helping other kinds of things.

Answer 4

a metaphor should suffice for you today bless you for asking a tough question indeed

if a silver smith has silver ore from which the smith wishes to extract pure silver how shall he proceed ?

the smith first dumps the ore into a smelting pot and places this above a several thousand degree fire after a time the smith removes the pot looks in to find that impurities in the ore have surfaced which he discards. the smith repeats the fiery procedure each time discarding the floating impurities the smith has purified the silver only when upon gazing into the molten silver he sees a perfect self relection

you are the ore, your body the pot, god the smith, life the process
which he extracts and discards all impurites to reveal a soul which is a reflection of divinity

Answer 5

If you believe in God and the Bible then it is to serve and praise God. The Bible says man was created for this purpose and it elaborates on exactly how to do this; though you may vary in interpretation of what you read. It also says that if you don't praise him God will raise up the stones to praise him for you.

But if you think of all the questions above from a religious point of view you will see that the end result is still tied to the testimony of the greatness of God and therefore praising him.

Otherwise, I am still trying to figure it out myself. My boyfriend thinks God is a narcissist if this all he really wants from us. So he says there should be more still.

Answer 6

I dont think there is a purpose until you make one. When you decide what your calling will be is when purpose comes along. Technically, were just a small part of changing one form of energy to another inside the universe. We are the opposite of trees. We take in oxygen and release co2, they take in co2 and release oxygen. We might be a little more complex, but really simple to explain why we are here scientifically. ? good question, no real answer.

Answer 7

The purpose of your life is to survive the best you can. Now you have to decide which is the best way to survive. I found that making the most out of what is available enhances my life. You can get the most out of life by being respectful, cooperative, responsible and appreciative.

Answer 8

From a biological standpoint, the purpose of life is only to survive and reproduce itself. At any cost, except the lives of your descendants.

Answer 9

The purpose of life is to live in harmony and to love yourself and your neighbor. Also, before we are gone, we must leave this earth a better place for those to follow.

Answer 10

Every human has the same purpose. To spread the word of God (the Gospel) to every man, woman, child. To be willing servants to the will of God and have faith in His promises to those who obey and live by His word. This will perpetuate the Return of Christ Jesus which is what every believer yearns for .