Introduction

The question after the meaning of life is one of deepest questions that can live in us human beings.

To answer it we have to ask what is life, what is our life, what is life around is, life in the universe, visible and invisible, physical and spiritual.

We also have to ask what is meaning, again it is related to the frame in which we ask the question for meaning, how we define what is supposedly meaningful? for our mundane tasks in our personal life today, for humanity and the planet, for the whole of the cosmos where we fit in?

No answer of this question is satisfactory on its own, the answer is as good as the depth of contemplation about these things by the person who asks the question. So no answer can be given in a short sentence, not a few pages, not a book, because the real answer is a process and an attitude in life.

The answer on Man's most important questions will be dependant on one's worldview that fills in each term

Man fits into a cosmos that consists of ever-evolving spiritual beings (re Spiritual hierarchies) in a great creative evolutionary dynamic (i.e. Evolution). And as a person, as a people, a generation .. we are like drops or waves .. fitting into that larger whole that has meaning much greater than what we can imagine, because everything we can know us was created around us by higher beings with a 'plan'.

Illustrations

Schema FMC00.094 illustrates Rudolf Steiner's coverage on the topic of the meaning of life in two lectures in 1912. The schema below puts the question in a broader perspective and can be approached from various angles. One of which is the 'receiving from above' and the 'giving back upward arrow'. That is: how death, or not-developing one's self, or sacrifice, is 'giving life' on another level, in another way. See also Overview Golden Chain.

The schema illustrates the 1912-05-GA155 lectures, that also describe the apparent 'waste in nature' in the physical world. The schema shows the physical ànd spiritual worlds, because as describes the one flows into the other, they are both connected and actually just one and the same.

We find this back in suffering, sacrifice, death.

And this again we find back for humanity in great disasters of nature, or man made catastrophies such as wars.

The following quote is another illustration of this. Note the caterpillar to butterfly is the image metaphor used for reincarnation, but also for spiritualization: going from an ancient to a new form of life.

Quotes

The meaning of human life is the establishment of the Kingdom of God on Earth, and that means the replacement of the egoistical, hating, dictatorial and irrational things with a life of brotherhood, freedom and reason. Leo Tolstoy

The whole purpose of the universe is unerringly aimed at one thing - you.Walt Whitman (1819-1892)

1908-05-19-GA103 relates the purpose of Man's development during the Earth stage of evolution to the beginning of John's Gospel, and the spiritualization with the Christ Impulse.

.. the meaning of life upon Earth is this:

That men should overcome this darkness of the soul, in order that they may recognize the Light of the Logos. Rudolf Steiner

There are two lectures of Rudolf Steiner's that deal specifically with the meaning of life. From the second lecture:

Thus it is that spiritual beings are linked together. Everything that apparently perishes, gives up its spiritual part to the environment. ...

So our inner nature, through that which it inwardly evolves, is in continual relationship with the outer world, and works in connection with this outer world. This outer world would be condemned to perish, could not develop further, if we did not bring to meet it fertilising germs. Outside in the world spirituality exists, but only a half spirituality, as it were. In order that this spirituality outside may have offspring, the other spirituality that is within us must approach it. That which lives within us is by no means a mere reflection of the other, perceived mentally, but something that appertains to it. It unites with that which is outside us, and evolves further, just as the north and south poles have to come together as magnetism or electricity in order that something may be achieved. That which takes form in our inner world of visions must unite with that which flashes forth from those things which apparently perish. These are wonderful mysteries, which are however, gradually solved, and which show us how the inner is connected with the outer.

Looking Deeper

The focus of most discussions centers around the 'what'. What we can observe and measure, repeatedly, is within the bandwidth filter of our senses and intellectual thinking, in short our current state of (sensory) consciousness. The 'why' and 'how' are not answered, no matter how long or deep the discussions about the 'what'. We know a lot of small little 'whats', but these are by applying the scientific-material paradigm in a reductionist experiential framework.

• Reductionist because it studies and analyses by dividing the whole into components: the human body into organs, etc as in medical science .. matter into molecules, atoms, and elementary particles as in chemistry and physics.
• Experiential because the facts need confirmation through repeatability, drawing laws of behavior eg the laws of mechanics (gravity), thermodynamics, electricity, magnetism .. we know how to calculate gravity and electromagnetism by its laws, and apply it .. but we don't know what it really is, as in: how it developed, how it works, and why it is there, as it is .. what is the reason for it, the place in the whole.

Furthermore it is difficult to scale the human experience in our limited life duration to the whole of history and evolution of time scales we can not contemplate experientially, hence our logical thinking is trapped into 'foolish extrapolation'. Last there is the challenge of the Johari window: you don't know what you don't know.

So the question about the 'meaning of life' bounces off on the limitations of our human faculties and the framework within which the questions are asked, which is necessarily human and limited, and unable to answer the question .. given the fact some higher form of intelligence than human must have created in some way all that is there (irrespective if you fill that in from a perspective of mineral science or religion).

Hence, the question of Meaning of Life, central to philosophy across the ages, cannot really be answered in a living, thinking and operating framework, a worldview that is decoupled from nature, the cosmos, mankind as a whole .. and that does not have a teleological (an account of a given thing's purpose) cosmogony (a model concerning the coming-into-existence (i.e. origin) of either the cosmos (i.e. universe) and/or the so-called reality of sentient beings): a framework or model for the coming-into-existence of the cosmos and mankind, and it's purpose at all levels.

The universal depth and richness of this question is that it really asks the question not of what you deem important for your own selfish agenda in this incarnation, but how things stand for the whole of life and the evolution of nature and mankind.

We can distinguish two types of Worldview from which to consider the question:

• The mineral and material reality 'only' perspective .. which has difficulty with, or can be shown to not be able to deliver a teleological cosmogony
• The spiritual worldview that includes/encompasses the above and is a meta-representation at a level above

Observe: the contemporary buzzword 'the matrix' seems a modern term for 'Maya' as an illusionary world of sensory perception in a material world.

The human mind is not capable of grasping the Universe. We are like a little child entering a huge library. The walls are covered to the ceilings with books in many different tongues. The child knows that someone must have written these books. It does not know who or how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. But the child notes a definite plan in the arrangement of the books - a mysterious order which it does not comprehend, but only dimly suspects. Albert Eintein

Summary

Man is the tenth hierarchy of spiritual beings in a spiritual cosmos where creation, stemming from The three Logoi principles, already put the Evolution of nine classes of Spiritual hierarchies or beings in motion. That whole dynamic is ever evolving as all spiritual entities are ever-evolving and intertwined rather than separate. So Man also is part of that whole and cannot be seen as separate. And the plan and 'meaning of life' for mankind find its origin with these higher spiritual beings who have created the cosmos we know in order to support Man in that development. Man is placed in creation as a free being to co-create the future, we can coin that as Free Man Creator.

The evolutionary goal of Man is to become a spiritual being that can create based on freedom of choice, and out of pure love. In other words mankind will evolve to become gods, to Sacrifice the own being for the creation of new worlds. That is a long way off though. Currently mankind is at the stage of just having received self-consciousness and freedom on Earth, and now in a battle between good and Evil in order to ascent and spiritualize its lower beings into spiritual principles, in short become a spiritual being. Man's transformation and spiritualization, to become a spiritual being functioning on the basis of love, will only be realized in the next three planetary stages of our solar system. Just as where we have arrived today is the result of three previous planetary stages.

War and Caterpillars

The excerpt below is from the lecture "New Foundation", Sofia, January 1, 1943 (translated by Annael) and talks about why war has to exist.

War is a contradiction, the reasons for which lie in the distant past.

Because God transforms evil into good, the war will bring some good to humanity. For humans war brings misery and death, but for the Great Beings it is a [kind] of show. Just as actors die on the stage and are "resurrected" behind the scenes, the same way the participants in the war will be resurrected. God will give them new bodies, healthier ones and more beautiful, with new and healthier legs, arms, eyes, and heads.

People go through great sufferings and will go through great suffering, but after [that], they will rejoice. Suffering is the material for building future human bodies.

Today's people live more for themselves than for their neighbors. They close themselves in their shells and think only for themselves.

The war will force them to open their coffers, to open their minds and hearts, to take out everything they have hidden in them. It will make them give up their selfishness. Selfishness is coming to an end.

The end of the caterpillars' life is coming. Until now, humans have been caterpillars, gnawing leaves and thinking only for themselves. This life is over. In four or five years they should hatch, they should become butterflies.

.."We want to indulge in life." ..

How do you want to indulge in life? As caterpillars, or as butterflies?

You can no longer live like caterpillars - the life of the caterpillars is over!Beinsa Douno

Anthony's Note

Life presents each of us with many twists and turns. We walk, sometimes run, through life so deeply desirous of a guarantee that "things will be okay." This is a futile pursuit that, in the end, will only have us look back upon our life and say with deep inner sadness, "If only I had been more attentive to the moments of my life." We should not sacrifice on the altar of the present moment the forever that we are creating in each moment lived. Only then are we really alive. Faith, Love and Hope: Faith is built on a foundation of Love; Hope is the birth-child of Love.

Within the din of life, one must strive to develop spiritual ears to hear those in the higher realms who reach down to us and desire nothing more than to help humanity reach the heights intended for it by God. ~ Anthony

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