IS THERE A PURPOSE, AS SOMETIMES LIFE SEEMS PURPOSELESS?
From the narrowness of one’s mental analysis, everything in life seems purposeless. The idea of purposelessness is the very idea that has put man forth into a search for life. What is seemingly purposeless to me now, could it contain a purpose? If we believe in manifestation or creation, as all Theologies and Scriptures would say, then the Divinity that one knows about, experiences or even believes that he exists or that exists must be purposeless too.
Could we ever tell ourselves that all creation and universe are without purpose? If everything is without purpose, what is necessary for the higher value of life? What is required for great personages like Jesus, Krishna, and Buddha to take birth on this earth to teach higher principles? What purpose is there? Why should all this be happening? Why should you be suffering? Why are you not integrated? What purpose is there? Is there something missing in our lives that we are searching for? Why are we here at this Course, for example?
Because we are searching for something, we are searching for a purpose. That search might not be a conscious search. The mind is a funny animal. The mind can delude you to say that all this is purposeless. The mind will say that, but if we ask ourselves deep within ourselves, then we feel there is something, and we are trying to find what that something is. There again, the question arises, “Who am I?”
Suppose your mind thinks everything is purposeless and that everything is floating around without aim, object, hazardously, or in chaos. In that case, we are wrong because the very scientists who would say that, in the next breath, also tell us that everything exists in accurate precision.
The usual analogy of the flower growing: the sun is there, the air is there, minerals in the ground are there, the fertiliser is there, yet there is some coordinating factor that brings all these various things to the seed in its proper proportion to make this flower grow. What is that force that coordinates? The purpose of life is to find the essence and the meaning of that force. To find the meaning and the nature of that force, we also need to know what the essence is in us, and when we see the essence in us, we also know the essence in others.
IF WE REGARD IT ALL AS A MANIFESTATION, THERE IS A PURPOSE
The theory about the black hole is beautiful, but do you know that many more holes existed before the present black hole of the cycle? The universe is an eternal thing because all matter is infinite, too, and it goes through this process of flux. People of Theology will say that all this creation is an expression of God. Who requires expression? God does not require expression. Anything involving expression is imperfect, and if Divinity is considered perfect, why should it express itself? An artist paints a picture to find perfection in his expression. A composer composes to see perfection as an expression in its composition. So, you require expression; you must be imperfect and lead yourself to perfection. That is where certain forms of theology do not convince scientists.
But if we should regard it all as a manifestation and not a creation, it is a different angle from how we would look at things. The angle would be such that there is a purpose even in purposelessness. There is a purpose if we view things in the sense of manifestation. Then, we could use the analogy that the fire does not create heat, but it is the nature of the fire to give off heat.
MAKING YOUR OWN LIFE SMOOTHER, IS THAT NOT A PURPOSE?
My friend has said God is good, yet he finds evil in that goodness. What has seen evil, God or you? Is evil not a conception of your mind, or is evil the conception of God’s mind? Good or evil are two ends of the stick we have spoken about, the ends of polarity, for there is no evil in existence to the person who has transcended the pairs of opposites. So, when we speak from a very, very limited point of view, if we talk from the finite mind, which is incapable of appreciating the infinite, then that finite, limited view will see separations, will see divisions, will see good and will see evil.
Evil and sound are a conditioning of the mind. Because of the collective conditioning of individual minds, a whole social thing is built up whereby society determines what is good and what is evil. That is the creation of man’s mind. Divinity is so above it that it is not concerned with your little goodness and evils. But when you are in the relative aspect of life, and you can weigh, you can discriminate what is harmful and not dangerous, and then you try to proceed to that which is harmless and not toxic, thereby making your own life smoother. To make your own life smoother and to make your own life integrated, is that not a purpose? I ask you, “Is that not a purpose”? How can we ever say that life is purposeless?
THE RELATIVE PURPOSE OF LIFE IS TO FIND HAPPINESS
The relative purpose of life is to find happiness. It is a straightforward word but the most difficult thing to attain if we keep thinking everything is purposeless. If the ultimate is purposeless, then the relative must be more purposeless. You have to admit that. If we are trying to find purpose in this life, the purpose constitutes a totality within ourselves where we can function as a total being and not as a fragmented person torn apart. If the purpose of this life is to bring together ourselves, our minds, our hearts, our souls, our spirits, or whatever you want to call it, then the ultimate purpose is served.
THE ULTIMATE PURPOSE IS TO RE-EXPERIENCE THE SILENCE
No holes in that sphere go beyond the small or giant black holes. There are no holes. Physics can only reach a certain level because physics is appreciated only by the mind, and the imperfect mind can only reach a level of imperfection. What we have to do is to stop the bus and get off.
Where we are inspiring hope in the Hearts of men, these scientific attitudes break down the hope of everlasting life and the realisation that eternal life is the ultimate purpose. These black and white holes will always go on and on. That is the nature of the universe to forever remain in flux. But we who have come from that black hole will enter the black hole again, but it will not be the same black hole. Then, philosophically speaking, where are you travelling to, where have you come from, and where are you going? Nowhere. You progress from here to here.
When you say, “I have come from God, and I am going back to God,” then you are measuring it in terms of your mind, which can only think in terms of time and space while that is beyond time and space, and whatever is beyond time and space, there is no coming and neither going. You are just there.
In the world of particles, in the world of matter of the relative universe, there is this motion because, without motion, the universe cannot exist; it will crumble away. In this evolutionary process, we do not travel a distance. The little atomic particles that compose our system might travel and be in a state of flux, the changing self that forever has to keep on changing and changing and changing that might travel within the framework of the mind in time and space, but that which is changeless travels nowhere. It is always there. It is forever present, and because it is forever present, meditation teaches us to know of the presence. Meditation teaches us to know of the presence of that which is present. So, what happens is that this little atom, this little molecule that swirls around in its evolutionary space, is just swirling around in the silence. The ultimate goal, the ultimate purpose, is to re-experience the silence, which you can call by any name you like. Call it Divinity, God, Godhead, call it whatever you want.
IF WE REGARD THIS WORLD TO BE PURPOSELESS, ONLY CHAOS CAN COME ABOUT
Reaching the ultimate goal of silence, you will realise that this whole universe is just a dream, which is what the purposelessness of all existence means. But we are saying that now is only a mental conception, which is senseless and carries no weight. Because saying everything is without purpose is just told by a tiny little mind, and we all know that ninety percent is dormant, and we are not even using ten percent of our minds. But when we have come to the realisation and entered the silence, which is our true nature, we have gone nowhere, travelled nowhere. We have been in silence all the time, and we experience this silence again. Then, reaching that silence, all this noise and all this chaos of the universe becomes non-existent. When that is realised, we say this is a purposeless dream, but not until then. If we regard this world and all this existence to be purposeless, only chaos and suffering can come about, and only another dozen Hitlers can come about. It will destroy the entire structure of not only this world but also this whole solar system, not only the whole solar system but also the whole galaxy and the whole universe. And our minds, the little bit we have put into use, can never destroy the universe’s structure. So even that effort is purposeless. When we reach the ultimate purpose, it is a purposeless purpose. It is a causeless cause. It just is indefinable, inexplicable, a radiation of bliss, bliss, bliss. That is the purpose, and that is what we have to aspire to, not with a sense of everything being purposeless, despondency, but with that great knowingness.
CONTENTMENT CAN ONLY BE ACHIEVED THROUGH GOODLY, GODLY VALUES OF LIFE
I do not say believe; believe if you must. If you have that devotional temperament, believe. If you have the intellectual temperament, enquire. If you do not have the intellectual or the believing temperament, then just live in the sense of doing good and being reasonable. That is all. Do not enquire, do not believe.
That is another way, and all these ways have a purpose: to find self-satisfaction and contentment. How many of us here, if any, could say that I am a thoroughly contented being? If I cannot say I am a fully contented being, my purpose would be to find that contentment. Contentment can only be achieved through good, godly values of life where we become supportive of the environment and ourselves so that we, in turn, get supported by the environment, which is usefulness, purpose and not purposelessness. In the end, everything dissolves in a dream, but we have not yet reached that end. We will cross the bridges when we come to them. Then I shall tell you, you are right.
… Gururaj Ananda Yogi: Satsang UK 1978 – 09
