The Meaning of Life
Because we as humans develop the ability to think rationally and analyze our environment, we want to know why things happen as they are.
Sometimes when we ask questions, and we need answers right away. Other times, the most appropriate response is to consider why we ask questions in the first place. This is particularly relevant for broad and often subjective questions that don't have clear answers.
People wonder about the purpose of life for a number of different reasons. Maybe they are just curious, or they have recently experienced a family tragedy, maybe they are questioning their beliefs, or they are depressed and looking for a new meaning.
The function of Purpose in Life for Someone
Goals can guide life decisions, influence behavior, shape goals, offer direction, and create meaning. For some people, goals are connected to vocation, meaningful and fulfilling work.
For others, their purpose lies in their responsibility to their family or friends. Others seek meaning through spirituality or religious beliefs. Some people may find their purpose clearly expressed in all aspects of this life.
The goal will be unique to everyone; What you identify as your path may be different from others. What is more, your goals can completely change and change throughout life in response to your own priorities and fluctuations in your experiences.
The questions that may arise when you contemplate the purpose of human life are:
• Who am I?
• Where am I?
• When do I feel satisfied?
How to Find the Purpose of Human Life
To find the purpose of human life, you need to do excavations. Since there are so many answers to this question, it is important that you find an answer that suits you.
It should give you enough feeling that it satisfies your need to ask that question and answer it. When you start, it starts with knowing why you want to know the purpose of life in the first place.
As an illustration, some religions set the purpose of human life, in general, has been in their books and provisions, which can be your inspiration to find your personal purpose in life:
The Purpose of Human Life According to Islam
Islam is a response to man's search for meaning. The purpose of creation for all men and women has been: know and worship God.
The Qur'an teaches us that every human being is born conscious of Allah:
And (remember), when your Lord brought out the descendants of the sons of Adam from their sulbi and God took witness to their souls.
"Am I not your Lord?"
They replied:
"It is true that (you are our Lord), we are witnesses." (We do this) so that on the Day of Resurrection you will not say: "Surely we (the children of Adam) are the ones who are caught off guard against this (the oneness of the Lord)"
Or that you may not say, "Surely our parents have been confiding with the Lord for a long time, while we are children of the descendants who (came) after them. Will you destroy us for the deeds of those who have gone astray?" (Qur'an, 7:172-173)
The Purpose of Human Life according to Christianity
Christianity teaches that the universe was created through love by an intelligent power, the Creator. Creation is purposeful, not arbitrary, and therefore the universe is not morally neutral, but fundamentally good.
In this purposeful creation, everything and everyone is essentially valuable. God's design or purpose for creation reflects God's intention that all beings enjoy perfect love and justice.
God worked in human history to fulfill that goal. God created man in the divine image, enabling man to have an understanding of God and God's vast and complex design.
The purpose of life is to love and serve God to help realize God's noble plan for creation.
Solomon, one of the wisest people who ever lived, concluded that it was only vanity that life was focused solely on this world. He wrote this closing word in the book of Ecclesiastes:
"The end of all that is heard is: fear God and keep His commandments, for this is the duty of every man. For God will bring every deed to judgment that applies to all that is hidden, whether it is good, whether it is evil" (Ecclesiastes 12:13-14).
Purpose of Human Life According to Buddha
Since the beginning of time, man has wondered if there is more to life than mere survival, whether there is a higher purpose to life or if life is just an accident of nature.
According to eastern theory, the ultimate goal of life is to achieve perfection and eventually join the One (sometimes called God) after a painful pilgrimage in the Buddhist world that materializes.
All living things are perfect, but they don't know what the Buddhist monk said.
There is a part of every creature's system that is pure, wise, omniscient, and perfect, but to be self-conscious, this part (or monad), needs to be cast into the world materialized and incarnated many times first as a mineral, then as a plant, an animal and a human being, in a process that lasts billions and billions of years.
In each of these cycles, the monad acquires new faculties, such as instinct, sensation, emotion, intelligence,
etc. At the end of the journey of evolution through many rebirths, one will become fully aware of one's own perfection and will become ready to join the One, or Unity - pure perfection.
So, for Buddhists, the purpose of human life is to be perfect through many incarnations.
The Purpose of Human Life According to Hinduism
In the earliest layers of Hinduism, the purpose of human life was quite easy: the man had to make a proper sacrifice to the gods. The Vedas emphasize that domestic life is the most exemplary model for humans.
One must perform his social duties (which later became the caste system), give birth to children (especially sons), and, in effect, live a decent life. This is known as karma marga, the path of action, especially ritual actions.
The Upanishads significantly challenged this worldview. The sages in charge of these texts rejected the Vedic emphasis on domestic life and the primacy of sacrifice to the gods.
Instead, they argue that there is a higher reality outside of the human realm, Brahman. Humans can eventually become one with this higher reality, but only if they change the way they see and behave in the world.
In particular, the Upanishads stated that people should leave the trappings of the world and begin a life of asceticism.
In this way, they can train themselves to ignore the things of the material world, which only leads to attachment and attachment, and thus creates karma.
If one contemplates the true nature of the self(atman), one can realize that everything that one considers to be self, as "I," is actually no different from Brahman.
Thus one can learn to be in the world in such a way that one is not bound, and thus does not create karma (although still acting). When a person dies, he is free from karma, and therefore is not reborn; On the contrary, this person is freed from samsara. This is moksha, which literally means "liberation," but which really refers to the highest salvation, the union with Brahman.
To achieve this no-karmic state, one must, through intense meditation and philosophical analysis, develop a proper knowledge of the true nature of the self. This road, as most clearly listed in the Upanishads, is known as the jnana marga, the way of knowledge.
Purpose of Human Life
The third way is bhakti marga, the path of devotion. This is probably first described in the Bhagavad Gita, one of the most important sacred texts in all Hindu religions.
In the Bhagavad Gita, the god Krishna explains to arjuna's soldiers that the highest form of most effective religious activity is absolute devotion (in the Bhagavad Gita, this is absolute devotion to Krishna).
The logic of Bhagavad Gita's advocacy of bhakti marga is complicated, but basically, Krishna says that because he, Krishna, is the supreme embodiment of Brahman, all beings, including all other gods, are contained within him.
Thus no action is ultimately not part of Krishna: in the end, all sacrifices are for Krishna, all worship, all good and bad actions on earth. So the highest form of action is selfless devotion, devotion to Krishna, which is bhakti. That is the meaning of human life from various religious perspectives.
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