What is the meaning of life?

Answer 1

Another surreal question that has me thinking:

For a child who has been born without sight, to feel the warm breeze across her face is living....

For my ancestors who were born into slavery, and fought to abolish the enslavement of others so that they could be free...so that I was born free...that is living...

Especially, for those of us who question "what is the meaning of life" it's that free will that we are given (innately) to even be so bold to question human, earth, galaxy, or universal life....that is living....

But one thought that seems to perpetuate throughout history in regards to WILL is SACRIFICES....for those in the past, present, and future, it's because of having compassion, love, and appreciation for a fellow being that we all exist. Enjoy and be Safe...(smiles)

Answer 2

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.

So the bottom line is, we only have a temporary meaning to life, to reduce pain and increase pleasure, other than that everything is lost to oblivion.


To be or not to be? "To be" is temporary and "not to be" is inevitable.....

Answer 3

Today, schizophrenia is a normal condition of humans. It may not have been so in the primitive world, but centuries of conditioning, civilisation, culture and religion have made man a crowd — divided, split, contradictory. One part goes one way, the other part goes in a diametrically opposite way. So it is almost impossible to keep oneself together.

The whole effort of Zen is how to drop this schizophrenia — this split personality — and how to become undivided, integrated, centred, crystallised. If you go on living on the periphery, pretending, not really living, you will have many faces, but not your original face.

In Zen they have a deep object for meditation, to find out one’s original face. The Master says to the disciple: “Go and sit silently and find out your original face.” This refers to the face you had before you were born or the face that you will have after you have died — because the moment the child is born, society gives him false faces; the moment the child takes his first breath, corruption starts. The child has entered into the world of politics, falsification, untruth. Now, layer upon layer, there will be many faces.

The clever man has many more faces than the simple man. So whatsoever the need he immediately changes his face. Have you watched? You are sitting in your room and your servant passes by. You have a different face for the servant, an indifferent one. In fact, you don’t look at him; he is not worth looking at. It is as if a mechanism — not a human — has passed. But if your boss comes into the room immediately you are standing, wagging your tail, smiling. You have a different face for your boss. If your wife comes you have a different face, and so on.

Continuously you go on adjusting, manipulating. But one who has an original face has a unity. He remains the same. The enlightened person always shows one face. Not that he is monotonous... he’s just not monotonous. In fact, you are monotonous because your faces are all dead.

He is alive, growing, but his face is his. The face becomes more and more radiant, alive, beautiful, a grace goes on increasing around it, it is surrounded by a light, but, it remains the same face. There is a discontinuous continuity or, a continuous discontinuity. He changes yet he remains the same. He remains the same and yet he goes on changing. You can recognise the continuity and you can also recognise a constant growth.

Growth always happens to the original face. False faces cannot grow, they are dead. You can bring plastic flowers — they cannot grow. You can keep them, you can deceive people, but they cannot grow. Real flowers grow. Only life grows.

If you are not growing you are dead. Remember that each moment should be a growth moment. One should go on moving and yet remain centred, rooted in one’s being. You can deceive others, you cannot deceive yourself. You cannot avoid truth. It is better to face it, it is better to accept it, it is better to live it. Once you start living the life of truth, authenticity, of your original face, all troubles by and by disappear because the conflict drops and you are no more divided. Your voice has a unity then, your whole being becomes an orchestra.

Answer 4

Boy, I've heard that question a thousand times, but never in the pluperfect subjunctive.

There is a LOT of meaning to life. You are so fortunate to have all this information at your fingertips vis-a-vis the Internet. The meaning of life is this:

To learn and to have fun.

Answer 5

To me the meaning of life is to live it to the best of your ability and to have fun, love, and most of all become more responsible and develop a better relationship with God.

Answer 6

Life – it has a meaning and loving purpose - you just have to find your purpose and live it.

I believe every person is here for a definite purpose. Each person is special and valuable; that refers to me, you, your family, friends, in fact everybody! There is a loving plan for each of our lives here on earth and there is no such thing as coincidence. I don't believe that anything in life happens by chance and that every aspect of our lives points to something deeper.

You need to decide now to live for God rather than for yourself. You spend your life on Earth preparing yourself (as best you can) for death. I don't see death as a scary, negative experience, but birth into a bliss filled eternal life with God. I believe that this is something you have to consciously choose or not during your life on earth.

The meaning of life is for us to discover that we are true children of an infinitely loving and merciful God, to find out what our responsibilities are to our Creator, and to fulfill those responsibilities. Each of us is called to affirm, accept and develop the talents God has given us. -

Answer 7

The meaning of life is life itself. That is to say that the true entity of life is life itself.

Answer 8

To serve the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Answer 9

Why does there have to be a meaning? Why do we need a reason to do anything? Why are we encouraged to be nice to people because it's Christmas? Why can't we be nice to people just because we are alive?

If we all did something nice for someone else or for ourselves just because we felt like it we would all be much happier.

Answer 10

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