What is the meaning of life?

[Star Man]

Life has no inherent meaning. The only meaning it has is the meaning we give it. Look at the world right now. It appears that we humans are giving life the meaning of greed, property, starvation of poor people, competition rather than cooperation, overpopulation, extraction of minerals and oil, warfare, income inequality, poisoning the air water and land, destruction of the environment, and murder. That is the meaning we are giving life. Nothing will change until we honestly admit that this is the meaning we are giving life.

Star Man

[podfish]

Life has no inherent meaning. The only meaning it has is the meaning we give it. Look at the world right now. It appears that we humans are giving life the meaning of greed, property, starvation of poor people, competition rather than cooperation, overpopulation, extraction of minerals and oil, warfare, income inequality, poisoning the air water and land, destruction of the environment, and murder. That is the meaning we are giving life. Nothing will change until we honestly admit that this is the meaning we are giving life.

Star Man

don't be distracted by the ugly squirrels. Your description ignores the majority of things in life. It doesn't have to be all posies and unicorns, though that would be nice. There's still lots left of value.

[Star Man]

don't be distracted by the ugly squirrels. Your description ignores the majority of things in life. It doesn't have to be all posies and unicorns, though that would be nice. There's still lots left of value.

I have to agree with you podfish. The colors of the Tubbs Fire flames and of the Camp Fire flames and the Australian brush fires and the Brazilian matto grosso fires were exquisite. Also, the silence now that so many birds are dead is truly amazing. And too, it was exciting to see the cars swept away by floods in Italy and St Mark's knee deep in water. Same with the flooding across the midwest. Wonderful reflections of the sky in the waterlogged fields.

[kburgess]

That seems to be a rather cynical perspective.
I agree that those things exist, but when I look around to the people in our communities I see a different thing. On a small scale i see lots of positive meaning and value. And yes on a large scale, things rather suck, but that is because we have been living in a banking and corporate run society that has been hell bent on distorting our world through every means possible for the last 100+ years which does NOT represent anything inherent of LIFE.

Thankfully enough intelligent and aware people are using the Internet to reveal the filth and try to get it purged out. Unfortunately the poison does not dispel without a fight. Thus I see that there is a wonderful and positive meaning to life if you care to see it that way, and thus the Meaning of Life is a Choice that you either take on to embody and hold or not.
Thanks, Ken.

Life has no inherent meaning. The only meaning it has is the meaning we give it. Look at the world right now. It appears that we humans are giving life the meaning of greed, property, starvation of poor people, competition rather than cooperation, overpopulation, extraction of minerals and oil, warfare, income inequality, poisoning the air water and land, destruction of the environment, and murder. That is the meaning we are giving life. Nothing will change until we honestly admit that this is the meaning we are giving life.

Star Man

[Star Man]

That seems to be a rather cynical perspective.
I agree that those things exist, but when I look around to the people in our communities I see a different thing. On a small scale i see lots of positive meaning and value. And yes on a large scale, things rather suck, but that is because ....

I hear you saying that on a "small scale...[there is] positive meaning. That's the problem, which you seem to realize when you write "on a large scale things rather suck." Unfortunately and tragically society is a large scale phenomenon. The Indigenous people lived on a small scale and hence they never created global warming, extinction, melting polar ice caps, poisoned air water and land. Sure you can hold on to a wonderful and positive meaning of life. I support that. I practice that. I will be supporting the wonderful life on the day that there's no more food, no water, fires everywhere, and starving people shooting each other in the streets. We small scale people live in a large scale world run by corporations and bureaucracies. Try not to confuse your scales.

[podfish]

I think the comments on this post again reveal the wisdom behind the simple and straight-forward answer to the question posed by this post as given by Douglas Adams: it's 42. Duh. More complicated answers sure don't provide any additional knowledge.

[wisewomn]

[occihoff]

You sound pretty depressed, Star Man.

[Star Man]

You sound pretty depressed, Star Man.

I read over my post and I see only an honest assessment of the situation of the world. The situation of the world is depressing, very depressing. It is sad that half the birds are gone and that most of the insects are gone. That's sad. I think my attitude is positive in spite of the world's situation. So I have to ask you to consider how much of the depression you believe I feel is really your projection onto me. Have you dealt with your feelings of sadness about the state of the world we live in? I reject projections. They are very dangerous. Destructive.

Star Man

[occihoff]

Projection? You actually say right here that what you see in the world is depressing, very depressing. And I don't disagree with you. The world is full of pain and awfulness! And in the course of my life I have had to deal with my own pain. That's why I got so deeply into body psychotherapy! The question is, do we feel the wonder and beauty and joy of life to balance the depressing side, or is the balance tilted too heavily toward sadness and despair? Are we basically happy within ourselves and delighted to be alive, or do we tend to face each day with a certain heaviness?

... how much of the depression you believe I feel is really your projection onto me. ...

[kburgess]

I am not confusing my scales, but only defining the scale that I am using to establish My meaning of My life. Your life and meaning is your own as is the rest of the world. It is not my ideal, but I am not going to take on the worlds problems unless that becomes my task beyond taking care of myself and the ones that I care about. Please do not assume that you know what I am thinking beyond what I say. I know my scales.

I hear you saying that on a "small scale...[there is] positive meaning. ... Try not to confuse your scales.

[sealwatcher]

I think that if we were to fully experience the world at this point in time we would be forced to act. Personal solutions are not sufficient any longer. Greta Thunberg says emissions have not dropped, they have, in fact, grown worse. A sixteen year-old who can foresee the death of our planet while others dither and most are such slaves to the culture, they cannot afford to care. When I see the great uncaring that surrounds me I grieve.

[wisewomn]

Incredibly (to me), someone has taken this cartoon seriously. :-) I suggest that such a weighty topic as the meaning of life be taken a little more lightly (my intention) since none of us can ever really know the one true answer to this question. Notice that Mr. Natural doesn't even slow down to answer the question. He just keeps rolling along with his life.

[kburgess]

I think that like most of us, we are just rolling along with what we are doing, but when asked the question, it is a nice chance to stop and think about it, and then come up with all of our various answers which are more of a reflection of our current state of mind rather than a larger contemplation of life. I think a lot about meaning and value in the context of my daily activities of life and thus it is easy to extrapolate those simple things to the larger one.
Thanks, Ken.

Incredibly (to me), someone has taken this cartoon seriously. :-) ... He just keeps rolling along with his life.

[podfish]

...t when asked the question, it is a nice chance to stop and think about it, and then come up with all of our various answers ....

it is also the case that just because you can frame words into a question doesn't mean that it is one, in the sense of actually having an answer. Why is blue? Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

[kburgess]

Dear Mr Pod,
I am truly not sure what your point is here in this magnificent statement of yours.
I have to trust that there is some wisdom or insight in it as you otherwise would not have posted it, but as of this moment in time, that wisdom and insight eludes me.

Either way, I will try to answer to the best that I can, ...
For me there is a true delight in asking questions just to explore the possibility of finding the answers. It is the process of inquiry for the sake of itself. Yes, there may be an answer in the end, or not. Either way it is an exercise for the mind with its sense of curiosity.

Why to dogs play and sniff out everything they can find?
It is their nature to do do so, and I believe that it is our nature to be curious and exploratory as well, and thus I have something tasty to sniff and explore!!!
Any takers???
Ken, :)))

it is also the case that just because you can frame words into a question doesn't mean that it is one, in the sense of actually having an answer. Why is blue? Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

[wisewomn]

You are probably right about it being human nature for the mind to wander and explore, Ken. Otherwise, why would so many wisdom traditions encourage us to "quiet our minds and still our thoughts?" :-)

Dear Mr Pod, ...

[kburgess]

Hello Wise,
Thank you for your thought.
I think that it is more than just wisdom teachers, but Nature herself!!
It is the function of Nature to seek out everything and fill it with all that it can,
To be abundant and filling beyond need, logic and reason,
To find every possible nitch of opportunity and turn it into food for something to make use of.

If we take that cellular type function and apply it to a psychology, we get exploration, optimization, efficiency, curiosity and more.

Additionally she figured out long ago that constructive cooperation works, and is much more powerful than than any type of large scale competition. That is why before we started transporting species all over the world there was a pretty fair balance of most ecosystems and room for most species to find their nitch for life.

We think that we are super smart, but the true wisdom is in the 3.5Byrs of experience that got us here that is far beyond our cell phones and encyclopedia's.
Thanks again,
Ken.

You are probably right about it being human nature for the mind to wander and explore, Ken. Otherwise, why would so many wisdom traditions encourage us to "quiet our minds and still our thoughts?" :-)

[occihoff]

42? Duh, sorry to be stupid, but I don't get it....

I think the comments on this post again reveal the wisdom behind the simple and straight-forward answer to the question posed by this post as given by Douglas Adams: it's 42. Duh. More complicated answers sure don't provide any additional knowledge.

[podfish]

42? Duh, sorry to be stupid, but I don't get it....

https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-42-hitchhiker

[occihoff]

Yes. The word "meaning" tends to suggest mental or intellectual cognition, whereas life and conscious awareness simply is--it is beyond "meaning." If we speak of "the meaning of life," I think we must understand it as a question more like "what really matters to you?" What is most important to you? What do you live for?

In that sense, the meaning of life for me is the feeling of wonder and awe of everyday reality, the awareness that my existence has miraculously come into being out of nothing into a world of color and sound and thought and feeling. I could never have imagined what the world I was born into would be, then--it just happened. I die at night, and am reborn in the morning! (So far,so good...)

What matters most to me is to do my best to overcome the emotional and spiritual grayness that tends to dampen this feeling of wonder, awe, and delight. It's a long and sometimes arduous struggle, but becoming more fully alive is the "meaning of life" for me.

it is also the case that just because you can frame words into a question doesn't mean that it is one, in the sense of actually having an answer. Why is blue? Where are the Snowdens of yesteryear?

[Rachael_B]

Yes. The word "meaning" tends to suggest mental or intellectual cognition, whereas life and conscious awareness simply is--it is beyond "meaning." If we speak of "the meaning of life," I think we must understand it as a question more like "what really matters to you?" What is most important to you? What do you live for?

In that sense, the meaning of life for me is the feeling of wonder and awe of everyday reality, the awareness that my existence has miraculously come into being out of nothing into a world of color and sound and thought and feeling. I could never have imagined what the world I was born into would be, then--it just happened. I die at night, and am reborn in the morning! (So far,so good...)

What matters most to me is to do my best to overcome the emotional and spiritual grayness that tends to dampen this feeling of wonder, awe, and delight. It's a long and sometimes arduous struggle, but becoming more fully alive is the "meaning of life" for me.

Could not find more appropriate words to describe how I see it.

[Mayacaman]

Perhaps it would be appropriate to bring a spiritual offering as an Answer to the Question on the top of this thread.
Here is what Yashua of Nazareth, the Jewish Holy Man had to say, in a series of parables, on the Question :

https://biblehub.com/matthew/13.htm

[occihoff]

Wow, thank you, Rachael!

Could not find more appropriate words to describe how I see it.

[Star Man]

MARY OLIVERTHE BUDDHAS LAST INSTRUCTION.


“Make of yourself a light”
said the Buddha,
before he died.
I think of this every morning
as the east begins
to tear off its many clouds
of darkness, to send up the first
signal-a white fan
streaked with pink and violet,
even green.
An old man, he lay down
between two sala trees,
and he might have said anything,
knowing it was his final hour.
The light burns upward,
it thickens and settles over the fields.
Around him, the villagers gathered
and stretched forward to listen.
Even before the sun itself
hangs, disattached, in the blue air,
I am touched everywhere
by its ocean of yellow waves.
No doubt he thought of everything
that had happened in his difficult life.
And then I feel the sun itself
as it blazes over the hills,
like a million flowers on fire-
clearly I’m not needed,
yet I feel myself turning
into something of inexplicable value.
Slowly, beneath the branches,
he raised his head.
He looked into the faces of that frightened crowd.
_____________________________________________
As I have proposed, life has no inherent meaning other than the biological imperative to stay alive as long as possible. For we humans the meaning of life is the meaning we give to it. Here is the poet Mary Oliver's offering: "the Buddha's last instruction." Here is the Buddha's advice on the meaning one can make of one's life: "Make of yourself a light." I feel deeply moved by Oiver's poem. The Buddha's exhortation reminds me of the meaning of "the Magdalene" the appellation given to Jesus' wife, Mary. She was Mary Magdalene which means "a light unto my people." In this new year of a new decade let us make of ourselves a light. Aho!

[Star Man]

Dear Readers and Friends,

I had decided against posting this little prose piece until the news came in that Trump had ordered the assassination of Suleimani. Now I fear there is no hope. The insane people have seized control of the government and the weapons of war. I wrote this piece thinking of the Indigenous people of Hispaniola, the Taino. I wept reading this over. Maybe you will too. Star Eagle

The people of Hispaniola knew what the Christians planned for them. The People of Mystery saw it in the Christian's eyes and felt it in their souls. The Christians would lie and then would murder. The people saw into the future. They saw the collapse in 500 years of the environment the Christians would ruin with their greed. The Stone People told them.

The behaviors of the Christians were easiest to read. They demanded that the people give up their beliefs and convert to a faith that was not their own. The Christians gave them no choice, and the people saw that the Christians burned people at the stake for refusing to renounce the practices that had kept them so peaceful and attuned with their world since the beginning of time.

The people decided to take control and so they lined up and said in unison “We reject your religion. We reject your beliefs. We reject money. We reject your greed. We reject you.” Columbus knew exactly what he had to do. “Kill them all! he screamed. “Kill every one!”

The people expected that. They held their children close and attempted to soothe them. “It will hurt, and then it will be over,” they said. “Let me show you how to die,” the mothers said, and they bared their breasts and invited the sword. They tried to keep their faces calm even though the pain was excruciating. They knew their children were watching and needed to know how to die peacefully. When the mothers had been killed, the children stepped forward bravely and as they had seen their mothers do, they pushed their little chests out and invited the sword thrust. The men prayed and sang their sacred songs until the moment the sword cut through their throats.

The old shamans knew that all life is impermanent. They knew the future, that the Spaniards and their kind would one day perish. The women had no desire to be raped and impregnated by the invaders. The men often embraced the women as the women accepted the sword, comforting the women as they crossed over out of this plane of existence.

[Mayacaman]

The assassination of the Iranian general Qasem Suleiman that the president of the United States just ordered, without consulting “our” allies, unilaterally, and without an Act of Congress, is without doubt one of the most outrageous acts of War committed in our lifetimes. No good will come of it. There is no doubt that we, as a planet, under our common sun, are tottering on the brink of the abyss.

Having said that, I don’t exactly get the connection with your own screed, Starman, about the vicious conduct of Cristobal Columbus in Hispanola – except for the correlation between two moments in the long history of Western Imperialism. But you will admit, that you were not there, so your own version of what happened is not an objective rendition of history, but your own subjective story.

One of the best expositions of the human suffering that was engendered by Spanish greed for gold in the New World that followed in the wake of the “discovery” of the lands west of the Atlantic in 1492, is the account in the book “The History of Money in America – From earliest times to the establishment of the Constitution” by Alexander del Mar, who was the in-house historian of the U.S. Treasury Department in the late nineteenth into the early twentieth century.

What happened at Hispanola - and what transpired in Latin America for the next hundred and fifty or so years, was no less horrible than you have attempted to describe. The point at which I beg to differ with your account is in your description of Columbus & Co. - his attendant Conquistadors and Priests of Rome - as “Christians.” In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus was very specific in His teaching about who could be considered a follower of His Way and who is not.

He taught not only not to kill, but also not to be angry towards another human being – even your enemies. He taught non-resistance to evil – the very virtue that you attribute to the Indians of Hispanola, and that we all may attribute to sincere, practicing Buddhists. It is a virtue.

By the yardstick of the Sermon on the Mount, Columbus & Company were not “Christians.” They were gold-hungry plunderers. And one must grasp the salient truth that the so-called “Conversion of Constantine” that took place in 311 A.D., was the equivalent in today’s world of a “hostile corporate takeover.”

In point of fact, the Roman Oligarchy – the Roman Senatorial families - “took over” the Christian Church, which up to that time had been an underground, persecuted religion. Nothing has ever been the same since the Roman imperialist, Constantine, had his bogus vision that commanded him “In Hoc Signe Vincit” before the battle of the Milvian bridge. Becoming the state religion of Rome was the single worst thing that ever happened to “Christianity.” It was the transition from day to night.

Before the Roman oligarchy co-opted “Christianity,” “Christians” didn’t burn anyone at the stake; they were the ones who got burnt. Burning people at the stake was a Roman institution; not a Jewish one; and before the “conversion” of Constantine, “Christianity” was considered by most accounts, a Jewish heresy. As such, and as an underground sub-culture, the original “Christians” did not burn people. No one was killed in any manner for the “sin” of heresy, or any other sin. It just wasn’t done.

No one blames Buddha for the piles of skulls that Genghis Kahn left outside every town he ever sacked, on account of him being a nominal “Buddhist.” – And no one should. Buddha doesn’t condone that sort of activity. It is totally foreign to His teaching.

Let’s be clear about this, and not attribute blame where it should not be. The men who traveled with Columbus – the ones who followed his orders and slaughtered the natives – were the dregs of Europe. A few years later, in the time of Pizarro, they were an even more desperate, greedy, and vicious lot. Many of them were not even Spanish; they were German and Swiss mercenaries & soldiers of fortune. And the priests who sanctified the killings with a few sprinkles of holy water, were not “Christians” either. They were “priests” of Rome.

The people of Hispaniola knew what the Christians planned for them. The People of Mystery saw it in the Christian's eyes and felt it in their souls. The Christians would lie and then would murder. ...

[Star Man]

I don’t exactly get the connection with your own screed, Starman, about the vicious conduct of Cristobal Columbus in Hispanola – except for the correlation between two moments in the long history of Western Imperialism. But you will admit, that you were not there, so your own version of what happened is not an objective rendition of history, but your own subjective story."

I totally get that you disagree with my conflation of Christianity with the barbarism of Columbus. FWIW, Columbus noted in his letter announcing the conquest of Hispaniola that the natives (Arawak or Taino) were ripe for conversion to Christianity.

I agree with you that I was not present in 1492 on Hispaniola. I do have the first person accounts of priests who were there and who wrote in their diaries that Columbus ordered the hands to be cut off of children who failed to bring him gold.

I note that you were not present at the Sermon on the Mount. None of the apostles who wrote about the "sermon" were present on the Mount that day. So please let us not engage in a specious argument about who has the better sources.

I totally agree that my account is my own invention. I wrote that because the mothers are soon going to have to show their children how to die in a man-made conflagration called Global Chaos (ref.: Australia) Or how to drown in a man-made ocean rise.

Capitalists and imperialists have hidden behind the fantasy of Christianity. They have said Jesus said "what you do to the least of me, you also do to me." Behind these words, the capitalists and imperialists slaughtered 5 million indigenous people in North America. I have argued on WaccoBB and elsewhere that humans suffer from an extreme schizophrenia. On the one hand they believe they are godly and christian and on the other they slaughter, maim, and murder.

The reason I published my screed was precisely to expose the hypocrisy of Christianity. I believe you may well practice Christ's ways. I hope you do. Thank you for helping me expose the difference between Christ's teachings and the teachings and actions of Christianity.

Star Man

[Mayacaman]

There is no doubt that there is a "great gulf" between the "Christ's teachings" and the teachings and actions of [so-called] "Christianity." So-called "Christianity" - especially as it has devolved in recent times in America - bears the relationship of a pseudomorph to the authentic, first-century article. My point is simply that one must make the distinction between the two - For the "Church" before and after Emperor Constantine are very different kettles of fish.

Thus we have a term -"Christianity" - which has more than one definition. Like the term "Socialism" it has become all things to all men. The word itself has pretty much been rendered of whatever meaning it once may have had. I think we are in agreement, Star Man, that the powers that be use religion as a means of misleading the sheeple - both in Amerika and elsewhere.

In India there is the RSS - the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh - not so well known but essentially the Vatican for Fundamentalist, evangelical Hinduism. In Israel, there is the Kook faction of the Datim - the sect of the Orthodox who expect that Israel someday will occupy the terrain from the Suez to the Euphrates. -And then there is the Vatican itself - still a potent player in World Affairs.

I just question the appropriateness of using the word "Christian" to describe Christopher Columbus and his plundering thugs. They were the dregs of Europe. Being Europeans did not make them "Christians" - any more than being born in America makes one a "Christian."

P.S. Matthew was present at the Sermon on the Mount, and as a Levite & a Scribe he wrote it all down.

I totally get that you disagree with my conflation of Christianity with the barbarism of Columbus. ...

[kburgess]

The fact that Christianity is not exactly what Christ might have taught is a well hidden Truth.
All the talk of the Bible as God's word is a convenient oversight. Obviously none of us know for sure other than what we might feel as Truth inside of us, and looking at the patterns of life/behavior that work for the longer term.

I have always seen that there is a big difference between Church, Religion, Spirituality and Truth. Each has its own purpose, audience and rules of operation.

Yes I am basically a Christian, but also get pretty tired of dogmatic adherence to the 'Bible' as the Word of God while it may have started as that but has since been crafted and used as the Word of Man for its own purposes.

Atrocities happen, and as we look deeper into ANY action, past or current, there are many layers of deeper understanding that come to light that may put more sense to what does not make sense from the outside. I say this just knowing that all the stuff in the news is pretty convoluted, and that only over time as the Truth gets revealed from independent researchers will any of this make sense. I prefer to keep politics out of this thread, but just trust that there truly is a higher plan in force that will all get revealed soon enough.
Thanks Ken.
ps- As for the meaning of life, no clue on that one other than eat, pray, be kind, live, love, seek Truth and do my best, haha!!

There is no doubt that there is a "great gulf" between the "Christ's teachings" and the teachings and actions of [so-called] "Christianity." ...