“I am in the world only for the purpose of composing. There is no such thing as happy music. My compositions spring from my sorrows. Those that give the world the greatest delight were born of my deepest griefs. Those who are born of grief give greatest delight […]
“The unexamined life is not worth living.“ “Know thyself.“ “We cannot live better than in seeking to become better. The really important thing is not to live, but to live well. And to live well meant, along with more enjoyable things in life, to live according to your […]
Om Namaste! We are taught by the ancient Vedic wisdom that life is too great a mystery, too big a secret, no matter how we would like to live in it. The human who does not think about life, about its meaning, about his place in it, he […]
“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.“ “Man is a goal-seeking animal. His life only has meaning if he is reaching out and striving for his goals. Happiness is the meaning and the purpose of life, the whole aim and end of human existence. And happiness depends […]
“For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the sheltered will never know.” Believe you can and you’re halfway there. Be practical as well as generous in your ideals. Keep your eyes on the stars, but remember to keep your feet on the ground. The joy […]
“There are no words, it’s only music there…” *** ~Antonio Lucio Vivaldi was an Italian Baroque musical composer, virtuoso violinist, teacher, and Roman Catholic priest. Born in Venice, the capital of the Venetian Republic, he is regarded as one of the greatest Baroque composers, and his influence […]
“When love has fused and mingled two beings in a sacred and angelic unity, the secret of life has been discovered so far as they are concerned; they are no longer anything more than the two boundaries of the same destiny; they are no longer anything but the […]
“The supreme harmony of the cosmos is selected in the harmony of the spirit.“ “Life is only a long and bitter suicide, and faith alone can transform this suicide into a sacrifice. In life one must decide whether to conjugate the verb to have or the verb […]
“The animal knows everything, but cannot say it. Man can say a lot, but knows nothing.” “Joy and happiness are the children of love, but love itself, as the moving force, is patience and compassion. Love is the root of life. But she does not come just […]
“We are all littered with trash, and yet underneath that the twinkle of the True Self flickers.” “First of all seek the Kingdom of God and its truth. If you work for the body, you must work for the soul too. Your heart needs to be cultivated […]
“Days, years, centuries pass as a shadow and we all approach our end. The life of man is a book, and every day of his life is one page of the book. Every book has an end, and human life has an end too. On the pages of […]
Excellence Reporter: Master Wu, what is the meaning of life? Master Wu: I came into this world bringing nothing with me, not even any clothes. When I depart, I will not be able to bring anything back with me. For more than 40 years I have been meditating […]
“Art has always been a weapon in the struggle of man against matter, threatening to swallow his spirit…” “Man is interesting to me for his willingness to serve something higher than oneself, and even for his inability to perceive the ordinary and the philistine moral life. I’m […]
I was asked by Excellence Reporter to answer the question: “what is the meaning of life?” I tormented myself all evening and night, remembering how I have lived and what I had in my life, and what I saw as meaningful in this life. With great surprise I […]
*** ~AUGUST TURAK is a highly successful entrepreneur, award-winning author, speaker, and contributor for Forbes and the BBC. He is the founder of the educational nonprofit the Self Knowledge Symposium Foundation (SKSF). As a frequent guest, Turak has been living and working alongside the monks of Mepkin Abbey […]
Excellence Reporter: Ping, what is the meaning of life? Ping Fang: This has been the question pondering in my heart since childhood. What is the purpose of being human? Is there any meaning to it? I was born in the time of the Cultural Revolution in China – […]
To wisely live your life, you don’t need to know much.Just remember two main rules for the beginning: • You better starve, than eat whatever;• And better be alone, than with whoever. Scholars really have nothing to teach you. But from the soft touch of the eyelashes of […]
Excellence Reporter: Zeenat, what is the meaning of life? Zeenat Potia: I see open, receptive palms. Both receiving and offering the gifts of our collective human existence. For me, this may look like hearing my daughter’s laughter, feeling the warm monsoon rains on my face, allowing myself to […]
The paradox is — we want happiness but we get suffering, and that’s the curse of our desire for (instant) happiness. Modern times are the epoch of the search for happiness and that’s perfectly fine, but when it is not based on meaning, our search very soon becomes […]
On Feb. 13, 1987, I was shown, in a vision, what the purpose of life is and the lesson has never left me. It happened while I was driving my car on my way to work in the city of Vancouver, Canada. I was at the time registered […]
Excellence Reporter: Narayan, what is the meaning of life? Narayan Helen Liebenson: A friend once had an awakening experience and went to a master to ask whether this experience meant he was now enlightened. The master asked my friend: “do you have complete confidence in the indestructible nature […]
Excellence Reporter: Rinpoche, what is meaning of life? Tulku Dakpa Rinpoche: The meaning of life is the present moment. If we are able to be in the present moment, we gain great happiness. Most people think too much about the future and the past to get happiness and […]
“Love begets courage, moderation creates abundance and humility generates power.” “Life means to be living. Problems will always be there. When they arise navigate through them with yoga — don’t take a break. Yoga is like music: the rhythm of the body, the melody of the mind, […]
Excellence Reporter: Igor, what is the meaning of life? Igor Kufayev: Speaking ultimately, Life, as an expression of Being, is beyond any meaning we can ascribe to it. That does not mean that Life is meaningless, but rather that it has as many meanings as there are levels of […]
“The good God does not need years to accomplish His work of love in a soul; one ray from His Heart can, in an instant, make His flower bloom for eternity.” “Every flower created by God is beautiful. That the brilliance of the rose and the whiteness […]
Excellence Reporter: Barbara, what is the meaning of life? Barbara Harris Whitfield: I had a near-death experience many years ago in 1975. The highlight was what is called “The Life Review.” There I saw a cloud with thousands of bubbles and in each bubble was an event from […]
“The more you know, the less you need.” “The hardest thing in the world is to simplify your life. It’s so easy to make it complex. What’s important is leading an examined life. Mastery… is to work toward simplicity; replace complex technology with knowledge, hard work, and skill. […]
Excellence Reporter: Ven. Tenzin Dasel, what is the meaning of life? Tenzin Dasel: That is up to each of us personally to discover and create. From the very beginning of life, we begin to form associations that quickly become meaningful. We are, each of us, the creators of giving […]
“Today the most civilized countries of the world spend a maximum of their income on war and a minimum on education. The twenty-first century will reverse this order. It will be more glorious to fight against ignorance than to die on the field of battle. The discovery of […]
“The minute you choose to do what you really want to do, it’s a different kind of life.” “Dare to be naive Dare to think Dare to go with the truth And dare to really love completely.” “The purpose of our lives is to add value to the […]
Excellence Reporter: T Proctor, what is the meaning of life? T Proctor: The meaning of life is nothing. And from that nothing comes everything. There are still songs to sing, dances to dance and hearts to be touched. There are stars to be born and constellations to be […]
Excellence Reporter: Taco, what is the meaning of life? Taco van der Mark: This is the question which has been on my mind since my childhood. What is the purpose of Life, what am I doing here on this earth? In my teens I remember one of those […]
“You have everything needed for the extravagant journey that is your life. Life in itself is sufficient, self-explanatory and complete. Therefore, one may say without being presumptuous that the experience of experiences is being alive. In a world where death is the hunter, my friend, there is no time […]
“Tear your heart away from everything else; then seek God and you will surely find Him.” “It is foolish to think that we will enter heaven without entering into ourselves.” “It is love alone that gives worth to all things. The important thing is not to think […]
For life makes no mistakes and always gives man that which man first gives himself. “The drama of life is a psychological one which we bring to pass by our attitudes rather than by our acts. There is no escape from our present predicament except by a […]
“Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy.” “The true meaning of existence is disclosed in moments of living in the presence of God.” “Our goal should be to live life in radical amazement. …get up in the morning and look at the world […]
“We focus too much on things and not enough on the intangibles that make this worthwhile; too much on success and not enough on character, without which success is meaningless. I tell you that virtue is not given by money, but that from virtue comes money and every […]
“And with truth comes beauty and with this beauty a freedom before God.” “To be really Bible-Believing Christians we need to practice, simultaneously, at each step of the way, two biblical principles. One principle is that of the purity of the visible church. Scripture commands that we […]
S: Why is it that certain Jnanis have nothing to do with money, while others, like Ramesh Balsekar and Jean Klein have large organizations? What is the reason other Jnanis have nothing to do with money, workshops, publishing books, selling tapes and have no organization to support them? […]
You are — your life, and nothing else. “Life has no meaning, the moment you lose the illusion of being eternal. Life has no meaning a priori… It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose. […]
“The meaning of life is to find your gift. The purpose of life is to give it away.” “The purpose of art is washing the dust of daily life off our souls. Our goals can only be reached through a vehicle of a plan, in which we must […]
“The music is not in the notes, but in the silence between…” “We live in this world in order always to learn industriously and to enlighten each other by means of discussion and to strive vigorously to promote the progress of science and the fine arts. As death, […]
Excellence Reporter: Prof. Kozak, what is the meaning of life? Arnie Kozak: The pursuit for life’s meaning is often a refuge against its utter meaninglessness. Any certainty about life’s meaning, direction, and purpose, ranges from comforting illusion to outright delusion. God is a refuge. Soul is a refuge. […]
“Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.” “There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” “The privilege of a lifetime is to become who you truly are.” As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light of meaning in […]
Dad?” “What?” A small bird rises from a tree in front of us. “What should I be when I grow up?” The bird disappears over a far ridge. I don’t know what to say. “Honest,” I finally say. “One of the most moral acts is to […]
Do not forget that the value and interest of life is not so much to do conspicuous things… as to do ordinary things with the perception of their enormous value. “Our duty, as men and women, is to proceed as if limits to our ability did not […]
“Do we in our time have an answer to the question of what we really mean by the word ‘being’? Not at all. So it is fitting that we should raise anew the question of the meaning of Being. But are we nowadays even perplexed at our inability […]
Excellence Reporter: Master Ian, what is the meaning of life? Ian Cameron: The meaning of life will be different for everyone. No matter how close we are to family, friends or colleagues, you cannot rely on others to give our lives meaning. It is important to realise that […]
“The purpose of human life is to serve, and to show compassion and the will to help others. Only then have we ourselves become true human beings. I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be […]
Excellence Reporter: Shaila, what is the meaning of life? Shaila Catherine: Many years ago a friend said to me, ‘It matters what I do today because I am trading a day of my life for it.’ This became a daily inquiry that helped me overcome a lifelong tendency: […]
“If anyone were to ask me what I want out of life I would say: the opportunity for doing something useful, for in no other way, I am convinced, can true happiness be attained. To leave the world richer—that is the ultimate success.” “The purpose of life […]
“The scientist does not study nature because it is useful to do so. He studies it because he takes pleasure in it, and he takes pleasure in it because it is beautiful. If nature were not beautiful it would not be worth knowing, and life would not be […]
Excellence Reporter: Sarah, what is the meaning of life? Sarah Taylor: What is the meaning of life? We could go at this from all sorts of angles, most of which won’t really matter unless they resonate and help you move through the world with presence, heart, and the […]
“Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself” “All the variety, all the charm, all the beauty of life is made up of light and shadow.” “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That is the only reality in the world, […]
“As soon as you look at the world through an ideology you are finished. No reality fits an ideology. Life is beyond that. That is why people are always searching for a meaning to life… Meaning is only found when you go beyond meaning. Life only makes sense […]
“We are in such a haste to be doing, to be writing, to be gathering gear, to make our voices audible a moment in the derisive silence of eternity, that we forget that one thing, of which these are but parts – namely to live!” (“Walking Tours”, in The […]
“Beyond work and love, I would add two other ingredients that give meaning to life. First, to fulfill whatever talents we are born with. However blessed we are by fate with different abilities and strengths, we should try to develop them to the fullest, rather than allow them […]
“There is not one big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life, an individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.” (Anaïs Nin, The Diary of Anaïs Nin, Vol. 1: 1931-1934) “The secret of […]
“About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one that is only […]
Excellence Reporter: Dr. Habito, what is the meaning of life? Maria Reis Habito: The meaning of life – that is a very big question, not easy to answer. From my point of view today I would say: the meaning of life is living it. Fine, but how? Simply […]
Excellence Reporter: Ven. Courtin, what is the meaning of life? Robina Courtin: There’s a saying in Buddhism that a bird needs two wings: wisdom and compassion. Compassion is the point, but, as the Dalai Lama says, compassion is not enough; we need wisdom. What’s wisdom? That’s the work […]
Excellence Reporter: Henry, what is the meaning of life? Henry Shukman: I’m not too sure about the meaning of life so I’ll start with the purpose. “What is the purpose of life?” a student once asked a master. The master replied: “Play.” The student was disappointed. “I’ve come […]
Excellence Reporter: Gillian, what is the meaning of life? Gillian Reid: When I as much as think of the meaning of life, my heart pounds in response. For me, the sole purpose of the meaning of life resides in being true to the ultimate language of our heart. […]
Excellence Reporter: Dirk, what is the meaning of life? Dirk Oellibrandt: We humans often first look for the meaning of life in order to become aware of what life really is. This will lead us first to self-consciousness. We need meaning if we miss direct experience. As soon […]
Excellence Reporter: Ben, what is the meaning of life? Ben Connelly: I do not know the meaning of life. I have chosen to give my life meaning by making a commitment to healing and liberation from suffering for all. Not knowing the meaning of life is helpful to […]
Before we can ponder the meaning of life, we must first recognize that life is not outside of us, or something happening to us. We are life. The life we live and the life we are, are not two separate existences. When we obstruct this union, we look […]
“Basically, when you get to my age, you’ll really measure your success in life by how many of the people you want to have love you actually do love you. I know many people who have a lot of money, and they get testimonial dinners and they get […]
Excellence Reporter: Bhante G, what is the meaning of life? Bhante Gunaratana: In my view the meaning of life is understanding life as it actually is and liberate oneself from repetition of birth and death. One must understand that between birth and death there are moments of pleasure. […]
Excellence Reporter: Rinpoche, what is the meaning of life? Or the purpose of life if you will? Khensur Rinpoche: Most all of us fall into the trap of believing, at one point or another, that amassing wealth, fame, power, friendships, and even happiness itself is the purpose of […]
Excellence Reporter: Mark, what is the meaning of life? Mark Van Buren: This question has produced billions of answers over the many years of human existence, which makes one think, could there be an inherent ONE meaning everyone can align with? I’ll be honest, I’m not going to […]
Excellence Reporter: Annette, what is the meaning of life? Annette Kaiser: The meaning of life is to become a conscious human being, that loves, what is. At the core this is a way of living, understanding the essence of human existence: “Love says, I am all, Wisdom says, […]
Excellence Reporter: Leonard, what is the meaning of life? Leonard Jacobson: There are many levels to my answering this question. At the most superficial level, I would say there is no meaning to life. We are born. We live our life and remain unconscious for most of it. […]
Nobody needs to ask the question: “what is my purpose?” It will always be found in service. If you can just, for one day, put your attention on making life better for someone else. If you can focus on thinking like that, that’s how God thinks. It’s an […]
Excellence Reporter: Mary, what is the meaning of life? Mary Reed: It would be easy to answer this question by saying that the only meaning of life is that which we give it. But as a mystic, the question feels a little like asking, “Does your mother know […]
There is a story of a student who was with his teacher. And his teacher was teaching him all these truth principles, and how to awaken and become free, but the student kept asking: “Master how long will it take me to get there? How long will it […]
The meaning of life is that it is to be lived, and it is not to be traded and conceptualized and squeezed into a patter of systems. You can never step in the same water twice, my friend. Like flowing water, life is perpetual movement. There is nothing […]
Excellence Reporter: Karsten, what is the meaning of life? Karsten Ramser: The meaning of life is connected to our state of consciousness, therefore it is an individual expression. There does not exist an objective meaning of life. It is senseless, useless and a waste of time to discuss […]
Excellence Reporter: Andreas, what is the meaning of life? Andreas Müller: There is no answer to that question, because there is no one who could answer it. And there is no answer to that question, because there is no such thing as “life” in the first place. All […]
Excellence Reporter: Fred, what is the meaning of life? Fred Davis: The meaning of life is whatever you assign to it. Your life purpose at this moment is to read this sentence. Meaning and purpose both beg the question, “To who?” Life has no inherent meaning or purpose. […]
Excellence Reporter: Rebekah, what is the meaning of life? Rebekah Maroon: My first thought is, what does that question even mean? We automatically think that this question is valid, that there is actually some kind of conceptual meaning that we can find, and then kind of stamp it […]
The meaning and essence of life is to live with Truth, Freedom, Creativity and Happiness! Is to unfold our potential in all aspects of our existence, to create inner harmony and reach a higher state of consciousness; to explore life, learn from experiences, develop our capacities (physical, emotional, […]
Knowing oneself fills our lives with meaning, so when we ask ourselves, “where do we come from?” we respond — to ourselves; and when we ask, “where are we going?” we respond — to ourselves. When answering the “meaning of life” question we can answer in a thousand […]
“Just one more moment, a single moment of rest in the wind… and another woman will conceive me” >> Khalil Gibran, “The Prophet” << What is life? Every human being, at one time or another in his or her existence, raises this question. But do you have an […]
Excellence Reporter: Gilbert, what is the meaning of life? Gilbert Schultz: What is the meaning of life, other than this immediate self aware presence, this unmitigated livingness? Life is spontaneous. The word spontaneous means uncaused. The question ‘What is the meaning of life?’ is based upon an assumption […]
Excellence Reporter: Paul, what is the meaning of life? Paul Hague: The meaning of Life, in my experience, is to realize the exquisite sense of mystical Wholeness, which is the True Nature of all of us. I have come to this realization through the creative power of Life, […]
What is the meaning of the question “what is the meaning of life?” What does “meaning of life” mean? Whatever the answer, it will always be a human mental construct. Every mental construct is created by the human being based on its social, cultural, political, religious, ideological, economic, […]
All events in life are shaped according to the divine plan. What is bound to happen will happen. What is not to happen cannot be brought about by any human effort. On this point Ramana was quite categoric. When Deva Raja Mudaliar questioned him as to whether only important […]
Excellence Reporter: Swaha, what is the meaning of life? Vasant Swaha: The ultimate meaning of life is to realize that you are an expression of God’s love, peace, light. Therefore, be a light in the world. To live as consciously as you can in every moment, and that will […]
Excellence Reporter: Prajnaparamita, what is the meaning of life? Prajnaparamita: This question contains an assumption: life has meaning, we just need to figure out what that is. But does life even have a meaning? Life just lives. It is neutral in itself, expressing itself as it does, in […]
Transforming Difficulties Into Triumphs and How I Came to Create a Self-Help Workbook to Help Others Discover Their Unique Life Meaning and Purpose In 2012 I attended an introductory course in Logotherapy at the University of South Africa. There I met the course leader Teria Shantall and I […]
Excellence Reporter: Dr. Whitney, what is the meaning of life? Leanne Whitney: When the living is in the moment to moment of the body, the fullness of the body and its presence is known. Here. Now. In a world where our musculature and nervous system interacts invisibly with […]
“You’ve got to turn around, Bodhi,” the woman said with a chuckle to her dog. Bodhi was stuck in place, his leash wrapped around a pole. Yet he continued to pull forward anyway. In this situation, even the smartest dogs can’t seem to grasp that continuing in the […]
Excellence Reporter: Regina, what is the meaning of life? Regina Dawn Akers: The meaning of life seems to vary by individual, since each person gives her own meaning to the events and circumstances in her life. Yet, if we look deeper, I think each person ultimately wants the […]
*** ~Allan Morelock My birth took place January 7, 1949 on a small rural farm in East Tennessee, and somehow the pure memory of my spiritual nature was retained as the process of incarnating into human form unfolded. As a child, I remembered myself being free from the […]
When we embrace the Real Beauty of relating as Man and Woman, we are invited into the natural expression of male and female. It is not an idea, that there is a Deep Fulfillment waiting to unfold in their surrender to each other – in their embrace of […]
There is a story about Buddha and the courtesan. One day Buddha and his devotees were going through a forest and they came to a town. The words spread through the town that Buddha was coming. And there was a beautiful home where there lived this courtesan, this […]
This is a question that has come to me many times in different ways. What is the meaning of this life? Or rather, what gives this life meaning? In my early twenties, I met my first spiritual teacher Eunice. She spoke of “being a soul in continuous life […]
Excellence Reporter: Zahir, what is the meaning of life? Zahir Khan: To know thyself is the meaning of life I would say. We can get caught up in so many of the dramas and stories of life that we don’t stop, even for an instant to contemplate or […]
Prior to inquiring into this question, let us first acknowledge that it is impossible to discern or describe the totality of the meaning of life in conceptual terms, from the standpoint of Mind, regardless of the length, depth or breadth of our expose. The best one might do, […]
Excellence Reporter: Andrew, what is the meaning of life? Andrew Cohen: The meaning we give to life is entirely dependent upon the self we understand ourselves to be. All the thoughts that I share here about the meaning of life are given in the context of the different […]
Excellence Reporter 