The Purpose of Life

The Purpose of Life

by E. Raymond Rock

If we consider our purposes in life, there are many. Our purpose might be to become a doctor and heal the body or a priest and heal the soul, perhaps a gardener, or a bartender — we all have our particular purpose in life, all helping each other either directly or indirectly. Even if we never have contact with another human being, we have to eat, and that helps the farmer. So maybe we should restructure the question of what is the purpose of life; what we really want to know is what lies at the end of the road — why are we going through all of this?

Even a cursory investigation of life reveals that this life of ours is defined as conflict. Denying this self-evident fact would be an indication of the deepest of delusions because without conflict, existence would cease to be. Every time an object is presented to one of our sense organs (a sight, a smell, a taste, a sound, a touch, a thought), we are in conflict, When universal awareness, which is beyond individual bodies and minds, contacts an object, we become conscious of it through our bodies. Awareness plus an object = consciousness. Until an object is presented to one of our sense organs, we are not conscious, and after we become conscious, we are in conflict.

We are in conflict because when presented with an object, the first thing we do is compare it to what we know from the past, and then we categorize it. Following this, we must decide whether we like the object or dislike it. If we dislike it, we must figure how to get rid of it, and if we like it, we must find a way to secure it. This all happens in the smallest fraction of a second, and every step is conflict, because every step involves decisions.

The root of decision-making is choosing one thing over another. Choice, therefore, defines our existence, and every choice is a conflict. We make endless choices every day, beginning with whether or not we should get up in the morning, then what clothes to wear, what to eat, where to go, and on and on. Without conflict, there would be no action taken to resolve the conflicts, or to carry out the choices that we make.

So, is this the purpose of life — conflict? Or is conflict merely a result of being born with senses? This is a good question, a “catch 22,” and the answer may be a clue as to the real purpose of life.

Could it be that the real purpose of life is to resolve all conflict so that we could be at peace? If this is true, and if life is, in fact, defined as conflict, then it is only logical that the end of conflict, or the peace that we search for, can only be attained outside of life, or existence as we know it.

This would negate our body and minds surviving death, because our bodies and minds are the machinery of conflict. Therefore, at the end of the day, or at the end of the road, perhaps we have to give up this body and mind, our memories and thoughts, our feelings and our senses — if we want to get past conflict. But if we do this, what is left? This is a very fundamental question, and one that might be another clue as to what lies at the end of our road.

What if we could find out what it is that’s at the end of the road while still traveling toward it? What if we could experience what it would be like to be void of senses yet completely aware, but without conflict? What if being in that state could mystically reveal to us the next world beyond existence, so that after it is revealed, we become something quite different from what we were before the experience? But how could we do this?

This must be the way of finding out the true purpose of life. All other ways that we have tried — our beliefs and ideals — have merely kept us in the dark about our destiny, have kept us guessing or relying on someone else’s ideas.

Maybe its time to become really proactive about this inquiry into our real purpose of life. Maybe its time to begin our inner journey, because nobody can ever tell us what is our purpose of life, and that’s the beauty of the true purpose; you must find it for yourself. Then you will believe it.

E. Raymond Rock of Fort Myers, Florida is cofounder and principal teacher at the Southwest Florida Insight Center, http://www.SouthwestFloridaInsightCenter.com His twenty-eight years of meditation experience has taken him across four continents, including two stopovers in Thailand where he practiced in the remote northeast forests as an ordained Theravada Buddhist monk. His book, A Year to Enlightenment (Career Press/New Page Books) is now available at major bookstores and online retailers. Visit http://www.AYearToEnlightenment.com

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