Note that if the question was "What should be the purpose of human life?" then the answer would be quite different from what I am going to say in this post. But if asked what IS the purpose of life, then sadly...
There's no purpose behind life. We are habituated to think (and conditioned to believe) that everything has a purpose, a reason behind its occurrence. But that's not true. Nothing in the universe has any purpose behind it. There's no inherent meaning in the universe. Whatever meaning there is, it's the creation of human mind; strictly speaking, a delusion. It's another thing that humans can not live without meaning, and for that it's rather necessary to assign some purpose to life.
Say you throw a pebble into a pond. It produces ripples in the water. The poor ignorant fishes are now asking each other what is the purpose behind these ripples. They are wondering if these ripples have inherent meaning for them. But you know that these ripples mean nothing. They are a result of your whimsical random act of throwing a pebble into the pond. In doing so, you had no other motive but to merely throw a pebble. You didn't even intend to create those ripples. So the ripples, and anything else that might result out of your act of throwing a pebble, is an absolutely random consequence. It may scare some fish, or kill some, or tear some leaves off the water-plants, whatever may happen. And the fishes who observe it will find a reason, will assign a meaning to this occurrence. Because that's how their minds are habituated to function.
Our existence is just like those ripples. Our lives, are ripples. Random. Without any meaning, reason, or intention behind it. What's worse, we don't even know who or what has created these ripples, and how it all has started. All we can know – that is, if we choose to come out of our delusions and be truly honest to ourselves – is that we don't and we can't have a clue about these existential matters. That's just the way it is.
There's no purpose behind life. We are habituated to think (and conditioned to believe) that everything has a purpose, a reason behind its occurrence. But that's not true. Nothing in the universe has any purpose behind it. There's no inherent meaning in the universe. Whatever meaning there is, it's the creation of human mind; strictly speaking, a delusion. It's another thing that humans can not live without meaning, and for that it's rather necessary to assign some purpose to life.
Say you throw a pebble into a pond. It produces ripples in the water. The poor ignorant fishes are now asking each other what is the purpose behind these ripples. They are wondering if these ripples have inherent meaning for them. But you know that these ripples mean nothing. They are a result of your whimsical random act of throwing a pebble into the pond. In doing so, you had no other motive but to merely throw a pebble. You didn't even intend to create those ripples. So the ripples, and anything else that might result out of your act of throwing a pebble, is an absolutely random consequence. It may scare some fish, or kill some, or tear some leaves off the water-plants, whatever may happen. And the fishes who observe it will find a reason, will assign a meaning to this occurrence. Because that's how their minds are habituated to function.
Our existence is just like those ripples. Our lives, are ripples. Random. Without any meaning, reason, or intention behind it. What's worse, we don't even know who or what has created these ripples, and how it all has started. All we can know – that is, if we choose to come out of our delusions and be truly honest to ourselves – is that we don't and we can't have a clue about these existential matters. That's just the way it is.
Hi Darshan,
ReplyDeleteYour thinking is very true,
There is no reason behind human life, BUT what I think, It is only apply at the time when you born,
The life you are living - may be with parents, family members, society, friends, wife, child etc... you are connected with someone at every angle of your life,
This connection may have not any reason, but this factor (may be of love, hate, duty) is something, you can say it a reason to live - life.
You can not go away of that reason, also if you want to,
The person who can do this, may have no interest in life, may be go to make end of the life, because without reason we can not do anything, that is what our mind are set to,
- Ketan
(khinglajia@gmail.com)