What is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

"What is the meaning of life?" is a question many people ask themselves at some point during their lives, most in the context "What is the purpose of life?" Here are some of the many potential answers to this perplexing question:

Survival and temporal success

* ...to accumulate wealth and increase social status
* ...to advance natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
* ...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future human
* ...to compete or co-operate with others
* ...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
* ...to die having succeeded in your purpose
* ...to gain and exercise power
* ...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
* ...to live
* ...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction or asexual reproduction
* ...to protect one's family
* ...to pursue a dream, vision, or destiny
* ...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
* ...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
* ...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means (see life extension)
* ...to complete your list of life goals
* ...to find something to believe

Wisdom and knowledge

* ...to be without question, or to keep asking questions
* ...to find out the meaning of life
* ...to expand one's perception of the world
* ...to explore, to expand beyond our frontiers
* ...to learn from one's own and others' mistakes
* ...to seek truth, knowledge, understanding, or wisdom
* ...to try to discover and understand the meaning of life
* ...to understand creation

Ethical

* ...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
* ...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
* ...to achieve rebirth in the Pure Land
* ...to become like God, or God-like
* ...to be rewarded for your deeds
* ...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. God)
* ...to express compassion
* ...to follow the "Golden Rule"
* ...to give and receive love
* ...to live in a way that you don't harm yourself and don't harm your environment
* ...to work for justice and freedom

Religious and spiritual

* ...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
* ...to die and become a martyr
* ...to live in peace with each other, and in harmony with our natural environment (see utopia)
* ...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
* ...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
* ...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
* ...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
* ...to serve others, or do good deeds
* ...to turn fear into joy at a constant rate achieving on literal and metaphorical levels: immortality, enlightenment and atonement
* ...to understand and follow the "Word of God"
* ...to worship, serve, or achieve union with God
* ...to disprove the existence of a or all all gods

Other

* ...to find true love
* ...to achieve self-actualisation
* ...to contribute to collective meaning ("we" or "us") without having individual meaning ("I" or "me")
* ...to find a purpose, a "reason" for living that hopefully raises the quality of one's experience of life, or even life in general
* ...to live, and enjoy the passage of time
* ...to have fun
* ...to participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
* ...to make the conformists' lives miserable (see non-conformism)
* ...to participate in the chain of events which has led from the creation of the universe until its possible end (either freely chosen or determined, this is a subject widely debated amongst philosophers)
* ...to relate, connect, or achieve unity with others
* ...to resolve all problems that one faces, or to ignore them and attempt to fully continue life without them, or to detach oneself from all problems faced (see Buddhism)
* ...to seek and find beauty
* ...as there is no intrinsic meaning to life, to each individual, the "meaning of life" is whatever he/she decides it is. In that sense, every point above is potentially valid.
* ...an answer to the question "What is the meaning of life?" is that it is just simply being able to ask the question, "What is the meaning of life?" (see Sri Sri Ravi Shankar below)
* ...to determine a set of goals based on an individuals belief in the meaning of life and work towards the attainment of those objectives.
* ...a combination of any of the above.
* ...42

No purpose, and therefore...

* ...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
* ...just a series of events
* ...just nature taking its course
* ...the wheel of time keeps on turning
* ...the cycle of life
* ...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
* ...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever (see nihilism)
* ...who cares?
* ...because nobody will ever love you.
* ...life may actually not exist, this is all a surreal dream.

But most importantly

* ...not to die.

Answer 2

Beyond all recognition.

This question is a burning one. It deserves solemn approach. But I think that one problem is that most of us are unaware of the true sanctity of the question- as well as the greater sanctity of the answer.

If there is one, the answer is probably preternatural.

What one means when asking the question is subject to interpretation. Do you mean the subjective (personal) or the objective (humanity collectively) meaning of life? In order to address the question properly, certain clarifications are needed first.

If we could have direct contact with the divine- that is, God- perhaps he would allow us to make such an inquiry. But that does not mean that we would be capable of even understanding the answer. Human intelligence is finite. The answer to this question may be so complex that it would not be sensible to us.

Another problem that exists is the fact that some of the questions we ask have answers, others do not, and some of the answers will forever remain obscure to us. There is a dignity about the quest if we dare to ask these things about the cosmos. We venture out into the unknown, bravely, seeking out the truth of the divine.

What then, is the meaning of death?

We have to be willing to accept a harsh truth. We must go to our graves not knowing certain things. The not knowing is haunting to our minds. We are confronted by something so vast and ineffable that we cannot make sense out of it all.

But it serves a deeper point for us to have confronted our inquisitive natures. Life is a wasteland when we refuse to carefully reflect upon the larger questions that beset us.

Answer 3

The meaning of Life ... is Life itself. It cannot not be anything else - nothing more and nothing less would suffice to explain what Life actually is. We must not consider Life as a question. For Life cannot be understood as a question when it is, and should be, the answer to all things we are. I can ask, or should ask - who am I? The answer is not someone else or something else however brilliant and lovely tat might be. The answer is myself and only myself, I am what I am nothing else can ever be what am. I may not be able to answer this very essentially personal question simply for all to understand and even for me to realise fully all the time or even at times. But this is the right way to approach proper way to search and there is no other better way. I must know my self as is said before - know thyself.

The meaning of Life are the same for all to understand but no one can tell the other what Life is all about even when someone does understands fully in simple words. The meanings of the life however vary according the person whose life is in observation. In this case no one else can ever find out what someone's life is, has been or will be. We can gather only slight acquaintances with the lives of each other to variable levels of intimacy, but we are all alone within the great expanses of our self. And this loneliness runs great lengths before we ever reach the essence common to all humanity and creation. Before that this is a long and lonely journey. And along this journey it is good to know each other as much as we can.

MORE PERSONALISED BUT LESS SCOLARLY MEANINGS OF LIFE: The meaning of life right now could be to give yourself a break. Go and get a nice sandwich, pour yourself a cup of teas or coffee, and then have some good rest. The meaning of life, and even the universe and everything in it would have changed by then. An then you will need prepare yourself to accept what life has in store for you afresh a its meanings. Get your self ready for yet another update upon all things in life around you, and you never know that might very well be your best wish.

Answer 4

However tiring the question may be, repeated many times over, the fact remains that for 5000 years men have been seeking an answer for this eternal question. The answer has , so far, been not a straight forward one . But it only pointed a direction to the seeker of the question.

The sum and substance of the result SEEMS to be that the meaning of the life is be happy always. And that happiness is nowhere to be found outside of the seeker.

SelfKnowledge is the key to find the meaning of life. ( atleast I am seeking it, for my life`s meaning.)

Answer 5

Life means to be alive, consciously , alert, fully, in the present.
Even school teachers speak this great truth (themselves unaware of it), when they caution the inattentive children in the class saying " You... You... Yes , yes, it is You ! Where are you ? Be here , in the class ! " ! !
The teacher as well as the inattentive child , both know that they are physically present there, all the sense organs working fine ! And yet, both clearly understand what they mean !
So, life is about remaining in the present moment fully. Whenever we are lost somewhere, our life too happens in that somewhere, with our physical body just vegetating here ! Just look at the miserable people, or when somebody is miserable, they are not in the present.... they would be just brooding over some unrealised wish, dream, desire ! Children are joyous , what ever they are doing, and anything seems to make their life joyous.. be it a toy Car, toy Plane, they enjoy it equally ! We calculate ! That makes the difference and adds meaning to life !

Answer 6

Ok. Good question.

First, there is not "a meaning" free in the air or wherever to some go there and get it. It is constructed by every person.

Second, in Portuguese we have to possibilities about asking about that: the first is: what is the sense (direction) of life? and the second: what is the meaning of life? These two questions help the answerer to respond with a bigger understanding.

The sense is forward; to the front; to what is virtually possible to be done (potenciality); the meaning is what the totality of things that you today (your actions, thoughts...) signifies to you.

So these two dimensions (what you do and what you are supposed, to do, what you can and wish to do with/in you lifetime), when knew consciously by the concrete person, help the person's understanding create/establish a meaning for his or her life.

Got it?

Again, sorry for the mistakes,



Ie - B r a z i l

Answer 7

Seems as though everyones got a different view on this one.

I personally think "the meaning of life" is TO EVOLVE!!

Also appreciating everything about being alive!! Every last little thing. Life itself is a gift! But i feel that their is a higher inteligence of beings out there (in the vast expanse of the universe) that is watching over us and keeping a close eye on our progress. They were like us many millions of years ago but they've evolved way ahead of us, and are so far advanced now that they will soon come back to visit us and we will all then find out the REAL meaning of life.

Curioser and curioser...

:-)

Answer 8

first of all its a wrong question to start with. The MEANING of life is the time between birth and death.

you should be asking WHY we have a life. What is this life for.

If i were to compare what life is like i'd say life is like a baking a cake...it will be as sweet as the ingridients you have, your ability to use the ingridients, your expectation and your efforts. Some people are born lucky and have better life than other who suffer....

best answer or what!

Answer 9

You can make it mean what you want, or as meaningless as you want.

Personally I feel the only course of action/being is to be fully alive in he here and now. To make manifest that little piece of the universe that is within us all. And to help other people to do the same. When you are dying you should have no regrets - then you will know that you have lived fully.
To

Answer 10

42

Answer 11

9x7=42, I always did think there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
Either that or there is no meaning it just is
or
It is the personification of God
or
it is an experiment being performed by a vastly superior race which looks at how suffering affects lower life forms

or
It is a complicated algorithm designed to start the hyper-drive in a interstellar space ship