What is the meaning of life?

 Human life is not a meaningless space between birth and death in which we try to have fun and forget about troubles

The search for the meaning of life is a problem familiar to many. Some materialistic scholars and philosophers believe that all attempts are futile. Well-known atheist Richard Dawkins, for example, is convinced that people are “disposable survival machines” whose only purpose is gene transfer.

In addition, according to this theory, there is little meaning in life. We can try to create it - through religion or altruism, for example, but all we actually do is follow our genetic and neural program. Even our consciousness and experience may not exist at all or maybe a shadow of our brain activity.

However, I share another unpopular opinion - that life still makes sense. In the book Spiritual Science, I suggest that reducing human life and our behavior to purely genetic factors is absurd.

We are not just ghostly entities living in machine-like bodies in a world indifferent to us. Human life is not a meaningless space between birth and death, where we try to have fun and forget about troubles.

The idea of the meaninglessness of life is a distorted view of a " sleeping" person

I believe that human life and our world are much more important. However, I am not at all religious. On the contrary, my views are based on scientific research that has studied the last 10 years of people who have survived what I call " transformational experience caused by suffering."

Such experiences include the incurable stage of cancer, the experience of bereavement, severe disability, the loss of everything due to addiction, or a close encounter with death.

These people have something in common: having experienced severe suffering, they seemed to wake up. They stopped taking life, peace, and other people for granted and gained a strong sense of appreciation for everything. They talk about the preciousness of life, one's own body, loved ones, the beauty, and wonders of nature. They felt a new connection with the universe. They became less materialistic and more altruistic. Property and career growth have lost their significance, while love, creativity, and altruism have become much more important. They felt very “ alive.”

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One woman whose cancer was in remission said: "I was so lucky to live on this planet and be aware of it." The recovering alcoholic said that he was encouraged by the knowledge that he was part of something much more miraculous, more mysterious.

The man who nearly drowned told how he had a feeling of gratitude for any little things, not only for the stunning beauty of a flowering tree but also for the beauty of very insignificant details.

Another of our respondents, who survived the transformation after a bereavement, described that his sense of life has shifted from the goal of earning as much as possible to become a good person. He added: “Prior to this, I did not have the real meaning of life. Now I feel that the meaning of life is learning, growth, and experience. ”

Awakening

It is important to emphasize that none of these people was ( or did not) become religious. They were not “born again,” as some Christians say, although many feel that they have acquired a new identity, right up to the feeling that you are a new person living in the same body. Also, the changes were not temporary and in most cases persisted for many years. In general, transformation can be described as the acquisition of a new meaning in life.

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Fortunately, we do not have to endure great suffering in order to experience a similar effect. There are other temporary states where we can experience the taste and meaning of life. I call them the "experience of awakening."

Usually, this happens when our mind is quite calm, and we feel agreement with our inner world. For example, when we walk outside the city, swim in the ocean, after meditation or sex.

At such moments, you may feel that things are right. We can look into the sky and feel in it something benevolent, the harmony of the atmosphere. We can feel the landscape around us, the trees and the fields filling with colors. Feeling it between us and other people is like a bond filled with warmth and love, rejoicing that we are alive, and feeling gratitude for it.

In other words, we gain the meaning of life when we “ wake up” and absorb life and the world more fully. In this case, the idea of the meaninglessness of life is a distorted and limited view of a slightly " sleeping" person.

In the highest and purest forms of existence, we feel that meaning is always present, but before that we somehow missed it. When our awareness intensifies and our feelings “ open up”, it seems as if you are returning home - to the point. So what is the meaning of life? Simply put, this is life itself.

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