Someone asked that big question ‘What is the meaning of life?‘ on social media today… here is the response that sprung to my mind — given that a meme or an emoticon didn’t seem adequate…
I do not think that ‘meaning’ and ‘purpose’ are synonymous, and I suspect that life may not have a ‘meaning’ per se, yet it does have a ‘purpose’.
It is also possible that what ‘we’ humans experience, as what we refer to as a ‘life’ (and which is a temporally measured, micro-cosmic period of experiential existence in mortal, organic form), has a particular ‘purpose’ that is relevant only to us as ‘spiritual entities’ in a transitory ‘individualized form’ in the respect that we are (as many have observed) actually ‘all one’… What we appear to ‘experience’ throughout a lifetime as a ‘individual being’ actually contributes to the learning and evolution of the greater whole to which our spiritual essence repeatedly, and temporarily, returns after completing each of the many journeys it must make through a variety of such ‘lifetimes’. The purpose of our ‘soul’s journey‘ through being repeatedly re-connected to individual organic bodies is to make our transit potentially towards enlightenment and ascension …or alternatively towards extinction (as in a candle light being snuffed out) being the final fall into the chasm of eternal darkness should we fail to develop appropriately and do not ultimately realize the futility of attachment to the material world and the fallacy of the concept of ‘self’.
On the other hand there is also the idea of ‘Life’ itself… we temporarily (as described above) experience this ‘force’ as it occurs on this small planet within this particular Universe, when we are ‘alive’ as an organic being… But the ‘purpose of life’ is to ensure the continuity and promulgation of life itself… All of the impetus of Nature, and natural forces have been aimed over 4.8 billion years to diversifying and strengthening the hold that life has on Earth. Mother Earth is fecund and abundant and brings forth new offspring aimed at ensuring that whatever befalls the planet in terms of cosmic and tellurian change that ‘life itself’ will continue to thrive (in one form or another).
Hence — to summarize — the purpose of ‘Life’ itself is to beget and ensure the continued existence of life. But the purpose the experience of life for the Homo sapiens (being the chosen species to host spiritual fragments of The One/The Source/The Monad itself, for the potential developmental benefit to be derived from inhabiting an individualized, short-lived organic lifeform) is to contribute to the growth and enrichment of The Source through learning to become selfless, cooperative, mutually supportive and ultimately exemplars of pure Love.
But then, this is just my own humble opinion… and only another 4.8 billion years will tell!