Meaning of Life

This essay is an attempt to answer what people mean When they ponder about the meaning of life. A large majority of writings on life’s meaning talk of it centrally to indicate a positive final value that an individual’s life can exhibit. Most of us searching for an answer to the meaning ultimately want to know whether and how the existence of us over time has meaning.

Most religions along with Hinduism lay stress on Dharma as the guiding principle to find the true meaning of life. Buddhism, Jainism, Christianity, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam are all remarkably akin to its value. Dharma actually means that which upholds this entire creation. It is a Divine law that is inherent and invisible, but responsible for all existence. Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, Kant, and Spinoza are all striking examples in the history of Western philosophy for the high pedestal on which they have placed morality, duty and righteousness, and adored them all as the only means to the attainment of the true meaning of life.

The meaning of life is deeply mixed with the philosophical and religious conceptions of existence, consciousness, and happiness, and touches on many other issues, such as symbolic meaning, value, purpose, ethics, good and evil, free will, the existenceof God, the soul, and the afterlife. Most of the answers to the Question of the meaning usually culminate with the achievement of ultimate reality, or a feeling of oneness with the supreme, or a feeling of sacredness. Ultimately, as the Dalai Lama has said, ‘the purpose of life is to be happy and to make others happy.’