Spiritual and mystical views

Mitch Albom wrote about his dying professor Morrie and their last lessons together in the bestseller Tuesdays with Morrie in which some interesting questions were raised. Albom's life as a writer was until then in vain because he chased the wrong things in life: bigger houses, bigger cars, and bigger paychecks. No matter how big they were, they still could not fill his emptiness. The reality that we all have to confront eventually is the same thing Morrie realized when he learned he had Lou Gehrig's disease: that the world was as green and as alive as before he contracted the terminal illness. The world does not stand still nor come to an end just because you do. The professor's experience haunted the author in his ego-centric view of life, and inspired him to change. Albom learned from Professor Morrie that the true meanings in life are in the giving, the loving and the sharing of what you've had, which in turn live on by being passed down from generation to generation.

The Book of Light  presents the nature of God and the purpose of creation. According to Michael Sharp, God is consciousness and the purpose of creation is to have fun (alleviate boredom). Creation exists "as a dream inside the mind of God" and we are all Sparks of the One Creator Consciousness. The Book of Light

The Urantia Book offers a point of view on the vast meaning of life by reconciling humankind's innumerable problems with discrepancies between creationism, evolution, cosmology, modern science, philosophy, history, theology and religion.

James Redfield gave his perspective on the meaning of life in his book The Celestine Prophecy, suggesting that the answers can be found within, through experiencing a series of personal spiritual insights. In his book God and the Evolving Universe: The Next Step in Personal Evolution (2002), co-written with Michael Murphy, he claims that humanity is on the verge of undergoing a change in consciousness.

Another answer was given by Neale Donald Walsch in his trilogy Conversations with God, in which he asserts that the purpose of this present creation is for That-which-Is (God, Spirit) to know itself experientially rather than merely conceptually, by creating of itself a billion billion individuals who interact, and learn, and thus can rediscover, through actual experience, their divinity by experiencing and exploring it in this world.

Mythologist Joseph Campbell, in his famous The Power of Myth interviews with Bill Moyers, answered the question in the following way:

People say what we're all seeking is a meaning for life. I don't think that's what we're really seeking. I think what we're seeking is an experience of being alive so that the life experiences that we have on the purely physical plane will have resonances within, that are those of our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive..

The purpose of life in the words of Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, renowned spiritual leader and founder of the Art of Living Foundation:


One who knows, will not tell you! And anyone who attempts to tell you, please know that they don't know! But this much I can tell you... this very fact this question has arisen in your mind, you are lucky! Many people just live life without asking what is the purpose of life. This question itself is like tool, a vehicle for you to go deep into life... the quest for reality!


Mystical views
The view of mysticism varies widely according to how each speaker describes it. In general the view is broadly that life is a happening, an unfolding. There is no duality, it is a nondual worldview, in which subject and object are the same, the sense of doer-ship is illusionary. This view is central to Buddhism, and is also found in certain non-dual sects of Hinduism. Atheists such as Susan Blackmore and Sam Harris have recently advocated mysticism through rigorous meditation as the only reliable way of attaining sure knowledge of our subjective experience.

For a clear summary of one mystic's view on the meaning of life, see the article on Ramesh Balsekar, or the article on Mysticism.


 Humorous and popular culture treatments
The very concept "the meaning of life" has become such a cliché that it has often been parodied, such as in the radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams, later released as a novel, a television series, a film, and a computer game. As the story goes, an advanced race of hyper-intelligent pan-dimensional beings (mice) builds a gigantic computer called Deep Thought to find The Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

Seven and a half-million years later, the computer gives the answer: "42". After giving the answer to an (unsurprisingly) under whelmed audience, Deep Thought explained that the problem with the answer was not the answer, but that no-one really knew what the question was. (It may be worth noting, that later on it is revealed to Arthur Dent, that the answer and the question cannot be known at the same time. In the book The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, it is found that the question is: "What do you get if you multiply six by nine." The answer would be 54 in base ten, but 42 in base thirteen.) In reference to this series, "42" is commonly provided as an honest answer if someone feels the word "meaning" is too vague. Joe Bob Briggs miscommunicated this in one of his columns as "43". In one strip of the parody comic "Sev-space" it is inquired "why the number 47 constantly shows up on the monitor?" it is then stated that "42 is the answer to life, the universe and everything... But you get 47 if you adjust it to the inflation." This is an obvious reference to the "Star Trek" series where the number 47 is heavily featured .

Or maybe there is no meaning to life; that is, "What you see is what you get", as portrayed in the comedy film The Meaning of Life: you are born, you eat, you go to school, you have sex, you have children, you grow old (if someone doesn't kill you first), and you die, and in Heaven every day is Christmas. At the very end of the film, Michael Palin is handed an envelope, opens it, and says nonchalantly: "Well, it's nothing very special. Uh, try to be nice to people, avoid eating fat, read a good book every now and then, get some walking in, and try to live together in peace and harmony with people of all creeds and nations."

In The Simpsons episode "Homer The Heretic", a representation of God tells Homer what the meaning of life is, but as usual the one who really wanted to know (the viewer) is left disappointed. The dialogue goes as follows:

Homer: God, what's the meaning of life?
God: Homer, I can't tell you that.
Homer: Why not?
God: You'll find out when you die.
Homer: Oh, I can't wait that long.
God: You can't wait 6 months?
Homer: No, tell me now...
God: Oh, OK... The meaning of life is...[Theme music starts and the show ends. The creator's original idea was that a commercial would come after this scene and before the credits, thusly having the commercial interrupt God's explanation to humorous effect]
In the Peanuts comic strip Charlie Brown explains he thinks the purpose of life is to make others happy, to which Lucy responds that she doesn't think she is making anyone happy, and—more importantly—no one is making her happy, so someone isn't doing their job.

Paul Gauguin's interpretation can be seen in the painting, Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going?

In Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, Bill and Ted end up meeting God. Before being admitted into his presence, St. Peter (billed as The Gatekeeper on IMDb) asks them what the meaning of life is, and they reply "Every rose has its thorn. Every night has a dawn. Every cowboy sings a sad sad song.". These are the lyrics to a song by Poison, a 1980s glam rock band.

Another popular belief is that the meaning of life is to die, according to comedians and other types of media. In a similar vein, antagonist Smith in the final part of The Matrix trilogy, Matrix Revolutions, tells the protagonist Neo that "it was your life that taught me the purpose of all life. The purpose of life is to end."

In the movie Judge Dredd (1995):

Warden Miller: So tell me, Rico, what is the meaning of life?
Rico: It ends.
Conan the Barbarian, in the film of the same name, when asked, "What is best in life?" responds, "To crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentation of their women."

In several different media, the theme of finding one's individual path is revealed. For example, Coelho's "Alchemist" and the movie City Slickers both present a similar theme: the meaning of life is an individual journey to find one's own "path". In this context, the "path", similar to what is defined in Buddhism as the "4th Noble Truth", and is best explained simply as the overall way one chooses to lead their life. It is a different answer for each person, and the only obligation one has in life is to find his or her path.

Due to the apparently overwhelming "knowledge" of the MSN Messenger chat bot Smarter Child, its creators have claimed that the meaning of life is one of the most common requests from its users. The algorithm has since been tweaked so that instead of responding with a generic message, it replies with a humorous "ask Ken Ma" and a smiling emoticon. There has been speculation as to whether or not Ken Ma is a real person, whilst one common theory is that the name is an inside joke amongst the developers of the chat bot.

In his book "A Man Without a Country", Kurt Vonnegut sums up life with the words: "We're all here to fart around. Don't let anyone tell you any different!" Although it could be said that he believes the meaning of life was stated best by his son Mark whom he quotes in two books, stating, "We are here to help each other get through this thing, whatever it is."

George Carlin has once said that the meaning of life is "to find a place to put all your stuff". In another skit he speculates the meaning of life is that the earth wanted plastic which humans pollute the world with.

One popular phrase is "The meaning of life is 'to live': it's in the dictionary" which, although technically incorrect ("life" is a noun while "to live" describes a verb), has both a humorous meaning, and a more serious one, implying that the answer is to enjoy the ride.

 

Scientific Approaches To The Meaning of Life  Entropy and Life  What is Life?   Philosophical views on the meaning of life 

Religion and Religious humanism   Spiritual and mystical views  Cosmogony   Abiogenesis  Emanationism   Eschatology

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