After my husband died of a 13 year illness I spent a lot of time reading, meditating, doing yoga, hiking, etc and here's what I learned; life is purposeless and meaningless. When we die it is over unless there was something huge we did. My husband was a brilliant NASA engineer, but his work is not "his", it belongs to NASA. We live then we die and it does not matter one little bit what we do in that time. It would be nice to think we would at least aspire to be moral and ethical, but greed and stuff are what is lauded and that is another reason humans and their lives do not matter.I feel for her and I understand why she and so many others feel this way. Her sentiment is due to the underlying message that our culture is giving us -- namely that we are biological machines with no set purpose apart from living this one life. The Universe just is, there's no meaning behind it, there's no reason for it. We live our very brief lives, and that's it.
But I think she is very wrong. I feel that our lives and the Universe are ultimately mysterious, and we are all on this adventure. That perhaps part of the mystery will be revealed when we die. I feel that life is exciting and even though it may appear to be dreary and monotonous, that this is illusory. We get a brief glimpse of how things truly are during moments like mystical experiences.
I can see why you would say that those mystical experiences would reveal a greater truth hidden, after all, they invoke feeling nearly never felt. I've had a few of these on either side, extreme irrational fear to the point I started seeing and hearing things and great joy that gave me a warm feeling long after it had subsided. But these things are things any human could feel, they could happen to anyone, anywhere. A feeling of great wonder is in no matter proof of that same great wonder. You feel the universe is mysterious, but that in no way is proof it is. It is possible many things could happen, things like an afterlife, a reincarnation, space travel, an infinite wandering soul. But for every possible reality, there are an infinite amount we will never experience. And from what I can find about the world and the universe, it certainly doesn't seem that special.
ReplyDeleteI never claimed my feeling constitutes a proof, nor evidence come to that.
DeleteThe issue is that people have effectively been brainwashed via a scientific education into believing that our lives and the Universe are innately without meaning. That there is no afterlife, no free will etc. I have many reasons to dispute this belief that I have outlined in various blog posts.