meaning of life?

Answer 1

The philosophical question "What is the meaning of life?" means different things to different people. The vagueness of the query is inherent in the word "meaning", which opens the question to many interpretations, such as: "What is the origin of life?", "What is the nature of life (and of the universe in which we live)?", "What is the significance of life?", "What is valuable in life?", and "What is the purpose of, or in, (one's) life?". These questions have resulted in a wide range of competing answers and arguments, from scientific theories, to philosophical, theological, and spiritual explanations.

These questions are separate from the scientific issue of the boundary between things with life and inanimate objects.
Popular beliefs
"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. The responses are shown to overlap in many ways but may be grouped into the following categories:

Survival and temporal success
...to live every day like it is your last and to do your best at everything that comes before you
...to be always satisfied
...to live, go to school, work, and die
...to participate in natural human evolution, or to contribute to the gene pool of the human race
...to advance technological evolution, or to actively develop the future of intelligent life
...to compete or co-operate with others
...to destroy others who harm you, or to practice nonviolence and nonresistance
...to gain and exercise power
...to leave a legacy, such as a work of art or a book
...to eat
...to prepare for death
...to spend life in the pursuit of happiness, maybe not to obtain it, but to pursue it relentlessly.
...to produce offspring through sexual reproduction (alike to participating in evolution)
...to protect and preserve one's kin, clan, or tribe (akin to participating in evolution)
...to seek freedom, either physically, mentally or financially
...to observe the ultimate fate of humanity to the furthest possible extent
...to seek happiness and flourish, experience pleasure or celebrate
...to survive, including the pursuit of immortality through scientific means
...to attempt to have many sexual conquests (as in Arthur Schopenhauer's will to procreate)
...to find and take over all free space in this "game" called life
...to seek and find beauty
...to kill or be killed
...No point. Since having a point is a condition of living human consciousness. Animals do not need a point to live or exist. It is more of an affliction of consciousness that there are such things as points, a negative side to evolutionary development for lack of better words.

Wisdom and knowledge
...to master and know everything
...to be without questions, or to keep asking questions
...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 understand and be mindful of creation or the cosmos
...to lead the world towards a desired situation
...to satisfy the natural curiosity felt by humans about life

Ethical
...to express compassion
...to follow the "Golden Rule"
...to give and receive love
...to work for justice and freedom
...to live in peace with yourself and each other, and in harmony with our natural environment
...to protect humanity, or more generally the environment
...to serve others, or do good deeds

Religious and spiritual
...to find perfect love and a complete expression of one's humanness in a relationship with God
...to achieve a supernatural connection within the natural context
...to achieve enlightenment and inner peace
...to become like God, or divine
...to glorify God
...to experience personal justice (i.e. to be rewarded for goodness)
...to experience existence from an infinite number of perspectives in order to expand the consciousness of all there is (i.e. to seek objectivity)
...to be a filter of creation between heaven and hell
...to produce useful structure in the universe over and above consumption (see net creativity)
...to reach Heaven in the afterlife
...to seek and acquire virtue, to live a virtuous life
...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 discover who you are
...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

Philosophical
...to give life meaning
...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 know the meaning of life
...to achieve self-actualisation
...all possible meanings have some validity
...life in itself has no meaning, for its purpose is an opportunity to create that meaning, therefore:
...to die
...to simply live until one dies (there is no universal or celestial purpose)
...nature taking its course (the wheel of time keeps on turning)
...whatever you see you see, as in "projection makes perception"
...there is no purpose or meaning whatsoever
...life may actually not exist, or may be illusory )
...to contemplate "the meaning of the end of life"

Other
...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 participate in the inevitable increase in entropy of the universe
...to make conformists' lives miserable
...to make life as difficult as possible for others (i.e. to compete)

Answer 2

Thanks for asking the most important question of you life. In a nutshell
We are not this material body, IE; Race, color, nationality, Religion, mind, intellect, senses, job, etc. We are all eternal spirit souls, part and parcel of the Supreme Soul, also known as Krishna, Allah, Jehovah, Vishnu, etc. We never die, only this mortal body dies.
This material world is not our real home, it is called Maya (illusion) and is temporary and full of misery, only one fourth of the souls come here, and the rest are enjoying blissful eternal loving relationships with our Maker named above. We fell here due to envying Gods position. He gives us free will to love Him or not and He made this world for those who want to try to be seperate from Him (wich is actually impossibel because He is everywhere. After many lifetemes one becomes frustrated and board and wants real happiness. So they seek out Truth. When we are sincere God reveals how to get back to Him. Those who are intelligent, take up the process of self realization (Bhakti Yoga) which begins with the chanting of the Maha Mantra (the great mantra for deliverance from all sufering and misery), which gives one real peace, happiness and reality. Then at the end of life they can give up all material attachments and return to the eternal Kingdom where there is no more birth, death, old age, or disease and be eternally happy. I am so glad I know what to do now.
For info. Go to harekrishnatemple.com Read Bhagavad Gita- As it is by Bhaktivedanta Prabhupada asitis.com you can read it on line.

Answer 3

Life means living...day to day ...year to year,whilst trying every second and minute of that time to find the definitively answer!
Everyone goes through it and after all the searching..heartache and all the rest that Life brings...we end up still trying to find what it is...however enjoy the Journey..it definitely is a one way ticket trip!!!

Answer 4

The meaning of life is to fulfill our full potential for developing, experiencing and providing love, joy, peace, kindness and wisdom as our contribution to the human experience. We do this in imitation of those same gifts freely given to us by God. Through the practice of these virtues we expand our knowledge of our shared consciousness with God. This shared consciousness survives and forms the basis of our life after this life.

Answer 5

You could say.. to live, to create purpose, the only explanation is a spiritual one, you live and develop into a person, however good or bad you are when you die is how your afterlife will be, it is a only real explanation, otherwise, why would..if there was no god, would nature evolve.. we're born, we die, nature knows when we are born that we will die, so what is the point, why does nature care if our species carries on, it is smarter to try to make us live longer and longer as we evolve, and then create offspring as an extra, as a bonus, not as life's purpose

Answer 6

The meaning of life is: to gain control upon matter.
By deceit of life matter behaves only by its inner properties because control has been lost upon it.
A dead man cant synthetise polyvinylclorid, cant build a house, etc.

Answer 7

To Live

Answer 8

The meaning of life is different to every person, because we all interpret things differently.

Answer 9

Every living thing, be it a bacteria, a fungi, an insect or a human. We all do one thing while we are alive, which must be why we live. Life propagates. No deep meaningful reason. Just to mulitiply.

Answer 10

Life is a travel to reach your real self

Answer 11

The Monty Python's film?