Awakening

Joseph Campbell: The Goal and the Meaning of Life

picture-360The goal of life is to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.¹

Life has no meaning. Each of us has meaning and we bring it to life. It is a waste to be asking the question when you are the answer.²

People say that what we’re all seeking is a meaning for life. I don’t think that’s what we’re really seeking. I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonances with our own innermost being and reality, so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive.³

The experience of eternity right here and now is the function of life. Eternity isn’t some later time. Eternity isn’t even a long time. Eternity has nothing to do with time. Eternity is that dimension of here and now that all thinking in temporal terms cuts off…. the experience of eternity right here and now, in all things, whether thought of as good or as evil. Heaven is not the place to have the experience; here is the place to have the experience. When you realize that eternity is right here now, that it is within your possibility to experience the eternity of your own truth and being, then you grasp the following: That which you are was never born and will never die.²

  1. Excerpt from Joseph Campbell, A Joseph Campbell Companion: Reflections on the Art of Living.
  2. Excerpt from Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth.
  3. Excerpt from Joseph Campbell, Pathways to Bliss: Mythology and Personal Transformation.

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~Joseph Campbell was an American mythologist, writer and lecturer, best known for his work in comparative mythology and comparative religion. His work is vast, covering many aspects of the human experience.

Excellence Reporter 2015

6 replies »

  1. The True Meaning Of Life: “And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” – Jesus Christ- John 17:3

    Knowing God personally is life. That is what gives life meaning. To know God personally, is to possess eternal life.

    If there is no God, then life is nothing but random coincidence, which ends in loss of consciousness, and your present existence has no meaning.

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