Wednesday, November 16, 2011

the meaning of life...

Just reading a blog wherein some 'free' bods talking about the meaning of life.
Here is a take on it....
Q: what is the meaning of life ?
Hmm, first thought is that mind needs/wants to give meaning to everything. That's what minds do.
A cliche'd response is "life is it's own meaning".
This presumes that there is a thing called life (a noun) and that meaning (purpose) is intrinsic to it.
'Life' like 'Truth' is one of those words that are used as a noun but don't actually exist. An anomaly in our language.
'Life' is what we call the process of 'Living'. It's a language convention. It's uncritical thinking that leads to believing a language convention actually has literal meaning as a thing.
What is 'Life' ?
Is there a thing called 'Life' separate from a person (mind/body)?
If there were no people on this planet we would say that there was still life here. The plants and animals are the obvious 'living' things.
So now it becomes a little clearer that what we call 'life' is the process of coming into existence, growing (or evolving) then dying (after which, there is no life left)
Less commonly considered would be the life of a rock. Technically it comes into being from some process (compression or a volcano etc) gets moved about by various means, gets eroded back to dust (dies). There is no evolution during its 'life-time'
Clearly the process between birth and death is what we mean by 'life' when we consider plants and rocks (animals may fit here or with the following...) but when we talk about humans, we are referring not to what takes place internally, but what happens TO them. "Life did that to him." etc.
If 'life' doesn't exist as a separate thing, then obviously is can't do anything to anybody.
Life is just as much an illusion, a story, as Self is, therefore is is impossible for meaning to be intrinsic to it. Meaning can only be ascribed to Life. It is just part of the story that is constructed by mind (thoughts)
Of course all of the above is from this limited mind perspective, so it is absolutely NOT a complete view.
There are those who claim to recognise Oneness that say there is purpose to it all....

Can life have meaning,
when happenings called living,
only happen now.