A some point, we all wonder what is the purpose of life here on Earth. This is one of the greatest mystery. To each his own and we should seek our own answers. I have developed my own idea and I share it here.
Invariably we all fall back on our religion for an answer. The four greatest religions of the world today, in terms of numbers of followers, are Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and Buddhism, in that order. These 4 provide scope and guidance to understanding the purpose of life..
Hinduism is the world's oldest religion, which started between 2300 B.C. and 1500 B.C. in the Indus Valley, near modern-day Pakistan. Despite living in close contact with Hindus, I really know little about the religion. I think Hinduism is the most complex of all religions. Most adherents probably understand ritualistic and mythological concepts. The higher levels of cosmological systems, metaphysics, karmic cycles, etc., are beyond ordinary folks.
It teaches the 4 purusharthas which are goals. What I know is that Hinduism has the Godhead called Brahma which is unlike the monotheistic Abrahamic God of Judaism/Christianity and Islam. Brahma is perceived more in abstract terms. It is this great Oneness that we all return to one day when we passed on our physical form. There is one mystery I find of great interest in Brahma's abstract form. A flock of birds, such as migratory birds, when in flight, can all change in the same direction simultaneously. Similar observations were made with a huge shoal of fish. How could this happen? How did they maintain instantaneous communication? The only explanation is that when they are enmassed, they somehow create a single consciousness. This is basically what Brahma is about. A single huge omnipresent consciousness of humanity that we all return to.
But no matter, Hinduism does not provide me with a meaning for life.
Buddhism started in the late 6th century BC somewhere at the foothills of the Himalayas. It is in reality a doctrinal way of living based on the teachings of Siddhartha Gautama. It is no doubt a breakaway from Hinduism whose influence is strong in the karmic doctrine. Buddhism is a metaphysical inquiry anchored on a belief system of a circulatory repetition of karmic life. Its purpose is to seek release from this cycle through enlightenment. Buddhism is unique to all the other religions in that there is no divinity.
If offers a purpose to life. In the current physical lifeform, one's job is to master the 4 Noble Truths. The aim is to achieve Nirvana to escape this cycle. However, in trying to tell the great story of humanity, Buddhism has no explanation for the beginning of life. You are suddenly in this endless cycle of birth and rebirth. After you are enlightened, you are no wiser how life started on Earth. It is a story of humanity with no beginning nor end.
Islam started in the late 7th century AD, 600 years after Christ. I need to put on kids' gloves here. Which is a pity because I think everyone should be able to discuss anything freely, but respectfully.
As Buddhism grew out of Hinduism, Islam grew out of the Levant which had a strong Judaism, Christian and gnostic influence at the time. Reading off the Quran, one wonders if the God of Islam is the same as the God of Isreal? It does seem to make the case He is the same God of Abraham. Patenting Quran as the immutable copy of the original book in heaven, Mohammad as the last prophet, and Christ is only a prophet and not a Son of God, Islam monopolises the high horse. Muslims may feel they have version 2.0 and the joke is on Christians who have been misled. Ayat 4.157 which denies Christ's divinity is one example that has Muslims gloating. (See my previous blog).
The Quran seems to have incorporated many bits and pieces from the Old and New Testaments, from minor gospels not included in the Bible, and tales ancient Hebrews tell one another. It opens itself to criticisms of the abundance of anachronism in the Book. Indeed, there are many surahs that are indecipherable. One may be forgiven to feel there is some kind of usurpation, plagiarisation and hijacking going on. To Christians the disparity in spiritual ideology makes it very clear. Allah is not YHWH.
Muslims' passion for daily prayers, fervid dedication, is something other religions envy. Muslims' raison d'être is very simple. Life's purpose is set out in the Quran. Surah 51.56 : "I did not create jinn and humans except to worship Me." Man's purpose in life is to worship God and submit to him totally. In fact, the English translation of 'worship' does not quite get it right. The Arabic word لِيَعْبُدُونِ 'liaebudun' calls for a total submission of will to God, to accept a bondage as a slave to his master. The total commitment and adherence to this bondage is the essence of the ideology, their faqwa. In fact the very word 'Islam' means submission. This submission serves to inhibit any internal challenge to interpretation. 'Liaebudun' basically puts the question of 'free will' to rest - there isn't any.
Christianity came 600 years after Buddhism and 600 years before Islam. The best way to see Christianity is as a forking of Judaism. To understand what Christianity offers as the purpose of life, we need to view the Old and New Testaments separately.
In trying to determine what our Life's purpose is, I am not too keen on what great writers of philosophy nor what the church says. They all say God has a plan for each one of us, we don't know what it is. If you tune in to prosperity preachers like Joel Osteen, God wants us all to be rich. I want to find out what I feel God wants of us. And I think we have 3 purposes.
In the Old Testament, there are 2 clues.
In Exodus 20.5 "Thou shall not make yourself an idol in the form of anything in the heavens above, on the Earth below, or in the waters beneath. You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I The Lord your God, am a jealous God.". What does this mean? God's jealousy is not out of envy. The heaven, Earth and waters and Mankind, are all His Creation. We cannot give away our allegiance for things that God created for us.
God wants our adulation. When He had finished His Creation and saw it was good, why did He then want to create mankind in his image? The answer is very simple. His creation would be meaningless with no one to appreciate it. God wants us to appreciate his Work. This is our primary purpose #1. We are here to enjoy and appreciate God's Creation. This is something I understood from very young. When people sees only a tree, I see beautiful shapes and colours, I see beauty in the mundane, I see macro and micro, I want to sleep with the sound of raindrops pattering on the roof.
This short story of Isaac Ashimov illustrates the point. We are God's audience.
In the short sci-fi story "The Last Question", author Isaac Ashimov wrote in 1956 about how an analog computer called Multivac was asked what happens when the sun dies. It had no data to compute an answer at the time. Eventually, the sun died one day. By and by every living thing died. All except Multivac, which by then had become a super powerful computer whose location is unknown (cloud computing??). It cannot die because it had one question to answer. All alone in the darkness the computer continued to work on the question. It took a hundred years to crank out the answer. But there was no one left to tell the answer to. Everyone had died. Still, Multivac cannot die because it needed an audience. It took another hundred years before Multivac found the solution to the problem on how to tell the answer. It will do so by way of demonstration. It then took another hundred years thinking about how to do it. Finally, when Multivac was ready, it said....... "LET THERE BE LIGHT ....." |
In Genesis, God looked at his creation "And God saw that it was good". Then he created Mankind in his own image and tells us “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” Our purpose #2 is in black and white -- procreation and take steward of the environment and living creatures.
Next, we need to understand what the New Testament is about.
It is a story of the Fall of Man in the Garden of Eden. This Original Sin now imposes a huge problem for Man. As we are now all stained with Sin caused by Adam and Eve, we can no longer be in the presence of God's Holiness. It requires great sacrifice and pain for redemption of this Sin. For God so loved us that He sent His only Son Jesus to show us the Truth and to die on the cross to take away our Sin.
It is from Christ that we learnt of God's plan for us ... an eternal life with God Almighty in Heaven.
The essence of being a Christian is to believe in the Fall, that we have sinned, and believe that Christ is our Lord and Savior who shed blood on the cross to atone for our sins, thereby making salvation possible for us, so that cleansed of Sin we are redeemed and can have eternal life with God in heaven.
Going back to the Garden, what is the lesson of Adam and Eve. God is omniscient, surely He understands the mind of his Creation. Surely He understands the fallibility of humans? Why then did He allowed the Fall of Man? This is easy. God in his infinite Mercy, gave us Free Will, the inalienable Right to choose. A predetermined life would have been meaningless, both for us and for the forced adulation He will receive.
The New Testament gives the primary purpose #3 of life .. to grow the wisdom of understanding the Truth, the Way as Christ taught, so that we can return to be with the Creator. And here is the beautiful part. We exercise Free Will. There is no one to force anything on us. We make our choice to follow the Way of Christ or not. Today as we speak, a high percentage of folks in the Western world, especially the United States, reject God and are taking the Sodom and Gomorrah path.
No religion has a monopoly on teaching Man how to live his life. To be fair, there is a major convergence of all religions on constitution of civic and moral righteousness. As to spiritual ideology, there are huge differences. May Free Will prevail. Amen.
Declaration: I am Roman Catholic, baptised. As a late comer to the faith, I didn't' go through the normal grooming process as most kids do. I had the initial guidance on Catholic Catechism. After that I am basically on my own with some online assistance. It is obvious the way I see my purpose in life is highly personal. I think I am right by the Book.
