This is the 3rd in the series about Life’s Meaning and Purpose. There are many people and organizations promoting a variety of ideas about the meaning & purpose of life.

We are constantly bombarded with messages that any emptiness or purposelessness we might be feeling can be assuaged by “stuff” – material goods, experiences, and relationships. This is the message of consumerism, amplified by advertising and social media.

Then there are those who promote identity politics as the panacea – divisions along lines of race, sex, gender, etc. The problem is that the body and mind are not you. You are an eternal spiritual being within the body and beyond the mind. So, redefining the body and the labels attached to them as the self, and trying to ‘become the label’, leads to a lack of fulfillment and resulting unhappiness.

So, does anyone know the purpose and meaning of life? CANanyone know? In short ‘yes’!

Recognizing the inherent limitations of the mind and the four defects (imperfect senses, being subject to illusion, having a propensity to cheat, and the tendency to commit mistakes) which characterize mundane existence, suggests the need for transcendent knowledge, which is beyond the mundane mind and senses. That is the starting point of the journey to self-realization.