5. Dez. 2025 05:33 -
Question: It is very important for a person to feel that their life has meaning. Is the meaning of life universal for everyone or must each person find their own meaning?
Answer: We all have one meaning of life: to reach the peak of human development and to attain the higher force that created us and governs us. We can draw closer to it, understand it, know it, and become its partners. The meaning of our life lies in attaining this force. According to how creation is arranged, there is no other meaning.
We did not create nature, this world, or ourselves. We exist within a system of laws without determining what will happen to us at any given moment nor our reactions. Absolutely nothing depends on us. So what remains for us within this entire system in which we are like fish caught in a net?
We are embedded in a system of forces that act in all possible forms and combinations with one another on all levels: still, vegetative, animate, and human, and in all times: past, present, and future that connect me with all generations that were, are, and will be. I feel like I belong to them because essentially I am one among billions throughout the many thousands of years of history.
Therefore in searching for the meaning of life, I first analyze the day I am living now, and immediately I discover that I do not understand the meaning. If only I knew the entire process that I and nature are undergoing. But how can a small person know such lofty matters?
In that case, one has to limit oneself to searching for meaning in this temporary, brief life. This means that I no longer ask about its causes and results beyond life and death, but I look only within life itself.
And this is how people live: they want to achieve success, start a family, raise good children, travel the world, become a renowned scientist or musician, etc. Each person finds meaning in what is closest to them.
Perhaps I simply want to have fun, or work only as much as necessary, and in the evening come home and watch television without getting off the couch. That too can be considered a meaning of life.
But the problem is that we do not live according to our own plans. The engine of development continuously turns and rotates us, and pushes us forward in all feelings and qualities, in intellectual, emotional, and inner development. Therefore we change, and yesterday’s meaning of life loses its meaning today. My former childhood dreams have already evaporated.
For example, my grandson at the age of three dreamed of becoming a garbage-truck driver. It seemed to him the pinnacle of happiness: to be the person who controls such a huge machine and makes such a tremendous noise. Today my grandson is ten, and of course he no longer dreams of a garbage truck.
In other words, the meaning of life constantly grows. But does a person living in this world understand what the meaning of life is, or does he or she simply, under the weight of problems, agree with what is? He is not concerned whether there is meaning or not. What matters to him or her is feeling good.
I remember asking my teacher in school about the meaning of life, and I received this answer: the meaning of life is to read a good book, to watch an interesting film…
And a friend of mine, from the age of fourteen, devoted himself to studying the French Thirty Years War. He made it the work of his life and truly became a major specialist on the subject. That is how he found his meaning of life, although later this passion faded.
So everyone finds some meaning in life—in family, in children. But if you ask people what the meaning of their everyday life is, they will not know how to answer, or they will say that the meaning of life is simply to live. If we were born, then now there is nowhere to go; we must live. But for what purpose to live, no one knows. And thus life continues without any meaning.
[220271]
From KabTV’s “New Life 945 – The Meaning Of Life,” 1/9/18