What Is the Purpose? Why Am I Alive? Is There a Meaning to Life?

Modern day civilisation suffers from an epidemic of ’emptiness’, a feeling that life has no meaning or purpose. This leads to various coping mechanisms such as dissipation through use of drugs or alcohol, or through consumption of mindless entertainment. For those who do not choose these mechanisms, there are suicidal impulses in some cases, as well as a general feeling of malaise, listlessness, apathy and a lack of care about their lives and their actions. Some seek thrills through high risk activities to try to discover something that awakens them from this torpor. Some simply use this lack of purpose as an excuse to “eat, drink and be merry”.

It is the rare individual who uses this experience, or this more or less constant sense of aimlessness to seek out and find the significance of their lives and of existence in general. These individuals start on a path of discovery. It may begin with a search in one of the scientific fields, exploring first the creation of matter and the universe. Eventually they find energy, and then consciousness if they push this seeking along far enough. Others may seek to find a meaning in the religious or philosophical traditions that have arisen, based on the seeking and efforts of others in the past. Still others go on a ‘vision quest’ or seek within to find out why they have been born, the purpose for which they live and the aim of the life they are leading. This is how the spiritual quest awakens in the heart of the individual and motivates him, drives him, to find the answers that have been missing from his life.

The Mother observes: “One suddenly feels that everything one does, everything one sees, has no meaning, no purpose, but that there is something which has a meaning; that essentially one is here on earth for something, that all is — all these movements, all this agitation, all is wastage of force and energy — all that must have a purpose, an aim, and that this uneasiness one feels within oneself, this lack of satisfaction, this need, this thirst for something must lead us somewhere else.”

“And one day, you ask yourself, ‘But then, why is one born? Why does one die? Why does one suffer? Why does one act?’ … You no longer live like a little machine, hardly half-conscious. You want to feel truly, to act truly, to know truly. Then, in ordinary life one searches for books, for people who know a little more than oneself, one begins to seek somebody who can solve these questions, lift the veil of ignorance.”

Sri Aurobindo and the Mother, Growing Within: The Psychology of Inner Development, Chapter II Awakening of Consciousness, pg. 27