The Quest for Meaning

In the journey of life, if one is given jewel, gold, the whole world, but one does not know the meaning of life, then layers and layers of dust will cover his true nature. The ultimate quest in life is rooted in a deep desire to experience bliss or ecstasy. Most people believe that it's simply a matter of seeking love/attention, which creates a need to feel that you are important to someone. Most people are desperately trying to trigger this euphoria through the application of physical, chemical or supernatural stimulus. A man that is born falls into a dream like a man who falls into the sea.

Is human life just a dream, from which we never really awake, as some great thinkers claim? Or are we stuff as dreams are made on, and our little lifeis simply rounded with sleep? In order to find something, you must know exactly what it is that you are looking for. You must know how and where to search for it then you have to know how to recognize it when you find it. The search and discovery for an “ultimate meaning” comes only as a gift, independent of whatever relative meanings we can achieve.

When you were born, you cried and the world rejoiced. Live your life so that when you die, the world cries and you rejoice. Know that birth is the beginning of sufferings. Recognize it, then one may not feel much hurt and one will not ask for the impossible. When you have a sense of your own identity and a vision of where you want to go in your life, you then have the basis for reaching out to the world and going after your dreams for a better life. When you discover your mission, you will feel its demand. It will fill you with enthusiasm and a burning desire to get to work on it. When you can't have what you want, it's time to start wanting what you have. When we are motivated by goals that have deep meaning, by dreams that need completion, by pure love that needs expressing -- then we truly live life.

When I hear somebody sigh, "Life is hard," I am always tempted to ask, "Compared to what? Life is just a chance to grow a soul. How is one to live a moral and compassionate existence when one is fully aware of the blood, the horror inherent in life, when one finds darkness not only in one's culture but also within oneself? If there is a stage at which an individual life becomes truly adult, it must be when one grasps the irony in its unfolding and accepts responsibility for a life lived in the midst of such paradox. When it's all over, it's not who you were. It's whether you made a difference. When patterns are broken, new worlds emerge.

Is there any significance for life in a Universe of billions of stars that ignore us? Is there any significance for life in a Universe whose dimensions and nature overcome our understanding? Talking about reflection of life is like a passing thing, passes like the mist and clouds to the eyes, so fast, and without one realizing it. Therefore, life is only a short span and it is only one part of our long journeys.

When I consider the short duration of my life, swallowed up in the eternity that lies before and after it, when I consider the little space I fill and I see, engulfed in the infinite immensity of spaces of which I am ignorant, and which know me not, I rest frightened, and astonished, for there is no reason why I should be here rather than there. Why now rather than then? Who has put me here? By whose order and direction have this place and time have been ascribed to me? Insignificant mortals, who are as leaves are, and now flourish and grow warm with life, and feed on what the ground gives, but then again fade away and are dead.