Self-help for spiritual seekers
Humans are a value assigning authority. If there were no humans, nothing would mean anything.
One could say that, hey supernovae mean something as they create the essential ingredients for life. But my question to her would be, who decides that life is valuable? Humans!
We are the sole source of meaning for the universe (unless there are intelligent aliens). That makes us the most valuable thing in the universe. As without us, nothing matters.
Death is certain, life is meaningless. We are running on borrowed time and might die at any moment. We don’t take anything with us. Soon, we won’t even exist.
Well that’s one story. We can choose to tell a different one. Maybe a more apt description is- we can tell the same story from a different angle.
Somehow big bang happened. Laws of physics started to reign supreme. Time began. Things condensed and stars, planets etc appeared. One planet got some acid and stuff that can pass its data to the next generation. Natural selection took in charge. Soon there were life everywhere. Humans appeared. They have feelings and everything else, things that the other animals have. But they also think. Which is simply learning from the past and planning for the future.
But, some of them started suffering from their haunted past or glorious past they no longer have (or stand to lose) and worrying about the future.
This defeats the purpose of learning and planning. We learn and plan to make our experience of the world better. Latching on to the past just produces unnecessary suffering. Worrying about the future is wrong as death is our future. Entropy is real. Everything, even life will be taken away from us. All we truly have is the present moment. And the lessons from our past and our ability to plan for the future.
This makes us human.
If the purpose of a shoe is to shield it’s owner’s feet from the ground and the purpose of a dog is to be a dog, our purpose is to learn from the past and plan for the future. While we live in the moment.
They aren’t at odds with each others. The lessons aren’t in the past, they are with us now. They plans aren’t in the future- they are here with us right now. Now is when we apply the lessons and take action for the future. Life is now.
Then I conclude, the purpose of my life is to live in the moment while I apply lessons from the past and take proper action for the future. Because we can. Because this is our feature. The purpose of a pen is to write because- it can write. That’s its best feature.
Do I like this purpose? Well mostly no. I’d rather contribute to something that would last forever. But sadly, we haven’t come across any such thing that needs my help. Like, laws of physics may last forever, but how to I contribute towards it? It doesn’t need my help!
Real gamers play the game because of the challenge. All the golds and rewards are for the newbs. Rewards are there to keep the newbs interested in the game.
But, real gamers get the worth of their efforts from the challenges they face. Adulations may or may not come, they are not the focus.
Life is a game. It’s hard. The only thing I as a consciousness get from it is the experiences. But, even a monkey has experiences. It’s not worth the human experience when you consider the hardships each of us face.
But, the only thing the human experience gives that no one else offers is difficulty. It’s hard to justify living this life. Humans are like the hardest difficulty in the game of Life for consciousness. It’s not just hard because of the sufferings, but also for how impossible it is to stay conscious. It’s so easy to lose yourself in the chaos. That’s the real difficulty. And that’s a challenge worth undertaking.
Jesus took the sufferings of the human form voluntarily. That’s acceptance- one of the portals Eckhart Tolle talks about. Their is power in taking the troubles voluntarily. That’s what the cross refers to.
The opposite is pain, anxiety or boredom etc. These emotions make you feel bad so that you know you are doing something wrong.
It’s unstable. Life can’t be all happiness all the time. Suffering is inevitable. If your goal in life is happiness, then suffering makes life meaningless and makes you wanna suicide.
It can easily be manipulated. You can be happy doing drugs, watching Netflix, gambling or wasting money any other way. All of these are bad in the long run and a waste of human life.
Wrong. Purpose of life is not happiness. Happiness is just another emotion. The purpose of human existence or life in general has to be greater than just feeling one emotion all the time. Even if that emotion feels good.
RaihanRiad 