The Purpose of Life
The Purpose of Life
Abstract
Humanity’s many religions largely share a common goal – to define the purpose of life. It is a critically essential concern that’s not unique only to people of faith. Even atheists or agnostics, who straddle the border, share this primary defining human need. Hence, the human preoccupation with traits and values that make us what we are and define us. Underlying such imperatives is the fact that that our ability to survive and thrive depends on how we define the purpose of our existence. The human, no matter how imaginative and strong, remains vulnerable and dependent on collectives such as families, clans, religions and even nations. These essential collective entities evolve common languages, cultures, cuisine, music, values of interpersonal and communal behavior — the ingredients of a common ethos. Religions thus provide the unifying glue of a community. Why we are here? What is the purpose of life then becomes the primary question of a people. What values define our existence? And what exactly do we owe to our community that makes life possible?
This essay addresses some of these existential issues from the Sikh point of view with the goal of promoting an ongoing conversation.
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THE PURPOSE OF LIFE
I am minimally computer savvy, yet recently almost a hundred e-mails filled my inbox, each indulging in some micro-fine hair splitting on “The Purpose of Life.” Some are book length papers on the question. And this entire bagful inundated my inbox in less than a few days.
These are Sikh sites, so they largely dissect the idea from the perspective of Sikhi. But sometimes they lean for comparison on other religious systems that surround us. Mine is a brief take today that should equally engage those who are religious-spiritual or simply spiritual minus any over-riding religious label. It may even apply to those who are agnostics or atheists.
Why frame my view by deliberately leaving out religion?
Although religions mostly parse life exactly for this purpose -– the paradox of the goal or purpose of existence — it is undeniably true that a large segment of humanity is non-religious or is at the ever-shifting borderline between faith and reason. I add that I will lean on Sikhi to define a purpose to life.
If there is a purpose that’s common to all humanity, then it should be able to stand without necessarily leaning on one or many religious systems of mankind.
If the purpose of life is to meet God or merge in Him at death, then why wait on a good thing. Surely, the sooner one dies the faster will be the union, and that seems to dismiss any overarching long-term purpose to life. Dying early would surely reduce the time available to accumulate more sins! Similar reasoning prevails if at the end of life there is a heaven or hell waiting for us, as many religious systems insist. They seem like differing versions of “Waiting for Godot” and perhaps equally without hope. I would think that the “Day of Reckoning” doesn’t have to wait for the uncertain and unwelcome time of death, but instead it occurs every moment of every day.
The models of heaven and hell that occupy most religions are universally and uniformly unrealistic but remain a tribute to human imagination and its yearnings. To be living for heavenly (decidedly unearthly!) reward seems childishly unrealistic regardless of what one is hoping for -– a heavenly court with a seat near a prophet, for instance. Think of the Sistine Chapel – Michael Angelo’s unparalleled artwork dating from 1477 to 1480 of The Last Supper with a precise seating arrangement for Jesus and other Christian Saints next to next to an imaginary physical form of the Creator.
Then there is heaven with promises of enjoying an endless company of beautiful sirens (for men) and what (hunks?) for women. Don’t forget that the Creator, in the Sikh view, has no form, shape, color or gender in the Sikh view – “Roop na rekh naa rung …” as we read in the Jaap sahib. Then, of course, there is hell for non-believers or those of the “wrong” faith, perhaps like Dante’s Inferno. And we have reduced the Creator to very human dimensions — somewhat like a boss of all bosses or perhaps an arbitrary, inconsistent parent. I recommend Mark Twain’s Letters from the Earth as a wonderfully creative but instructive riposte.
My purpose today is not to sell you a particular model of heaven or hell but to foster a spirited discussion. I assure you, from our differences we will learn.
Sohan Singh, a Britain-based Sikh, has written a neat little book titled The Real Purpose of Life detailing the Sikh perspective on the matter. Read carefully the Guru Granth Sahib. Instead of promoting a largely imaginative model of life after death, it talks clearly of Jeevan Mukt, a concept that speaks of liberation while living a life (“Aap pachhanae manu nirmal hoe; Jeevan mukt har pavae soi,” p. 161) that is well and productively lived – a life attuned to a perspective that is bigger than the self (“Aap gavaaye seva karay ta kitch paaye maan,” p. 474). And that beckons an unmatched purpose of life.
And then I think of the variety of systems –- religious as well as secular non-religious ways of life — that humans have evolved over eons. A quick survey will convince us of a commonality of core beliefs and practices that transcend what we commonly encounter — stark differences between the many religious models. The differences among them are raving mad is how I would put it.
If religions have given us a purpose larger than life they also have, as their critics assert, willed us the Pandora’s Box of war, hatred, pestilence, destruction and so on, in an endless supply.
And then there are the non-religious models of human development. Some stem from politico-economic necessities, others flow from psychological underpinnings of human behavior – ego, anger, envy, lust, greed, and their counterparts, but also those that define their kissing cousins on the other side of the coin – love, kindness, charity, loyalty, and their ilk. Don’t forget movements like capitalism, socialism, even communism that address matters of economic inequality.
They, like religions, give us hope and sometimes the opportunities to dream big but they too, carry their boxful of potential troubles with them.
There are ongoing discussions on the purpose of life on Gurmat Learning Zone (GLZ); many perhaps destined never to end, but they will surely take a breather now and then.
I want to submit to you a model that both the religious-spiritual minded and the non-religious could equally embrace without feeling diminished or left out. Yet, I will draw on Sikhi to make the case.
My perspective here starts with the obviously self-evident fact that at birth, we inherit the world as it is — the good, the bad and the ugly. This has always been true, as it will always be.
True that technology was not as advanced millennia ago or even 500 or 100 years ago as it is today, but the wheel had been invented, along with many other things that made life remarkably easier and richer. The car, computer and telephone did not exist in quite the form that we have today. Today’s generation has much more complexity to its life along with the instruments and pathways of convenience that were not available then. And the next generation will do even better in such matters. Our inheritance includes not just the technology, but also the cuisine, art, music, technology, and history etc. that make a culture. This is self-evident.
My point, however, is that at birth we are atop a certain rung on the ladder of humanity’s achievement, march, and progress because we are at a certain point on the timeline of human existence. Where exactly? It depends on our education, resources, opportunities, and personal talents, as well as our cultural context and constraints. This, then, defines our place and our moment. At birth, we inherit a full bucket.
Look again at the rung of the ladder of existence that we are on at birth or at any given time of our life. There have been thousands of years before us – and perhaps many, many more to come. We did not have to invent the simple but versatile wheel. Now, that is a debt that we are born with. How and to whom do we pay back this debt that we inherited at birth? How then to treat what makes life possible, our Earth Mother, known to us by her many a moniker –– Terra Mater, Tellus, Gaia, Panchamama, Prithvi, Dharti — the Mother of a myriad names. (Terra firma and Terra not so firma as in California with its earthquakes – my brand of quixotic humor). Her singular voice rumbles through our endless variety. There is only one way to nurture this mother — leave the world a bit better — even an iota of progress matters.
This, then, becomes the purpose of life, simply stated.
But what exactly do we mean by the recommendation of leaving the world at least a bit better? How will we define progress? I leave the details to my readers at this time; it is, however, something that should be a primary goal of education, whether religious or secular. |
The goal of human societies — religious or secular – remains unchanged. Both recognize that the puny human alone is too slow and weak to escape or manage the existential threats that surround him. Safety and progress demand the creation of coalitions into families, sangats, congregations, religions and collectives, clans, tribes, and progressively larger groupings, including nations.
The collectives make it possible for us to survive and thrive. They enable us to harness nature and its forces to our will and needs. Ergo, our desires must be progressive and goal-oriented.
Religions – their practices and traditions — often provide the glue of connectivity.
The traditions that morph into religious codes and laws of society bind a people together. In time, such traditions become sacred, and then good people will live and die for them. That is what social scientists tell us. There is strength and unmatched collective power in a community that transcends individual initiative and achievement. That’s why sangat is supreme.
Bhai Gurdas reminds us that some sangat will liberate us ; some sangat will consign us to hell (Kahoo ki sangat mil Jeevan mukt hoe; kahoo ki sangat mil jamput jaat hae.)
Fair warning: sometimes the glue sets and hardens to the consistency of cement or Krazy Glue and then rather than binding people together, it imprisons and chains them.
Here I have focused on the common goals of humanity regardless of which religion, if any, or culture we follow, or which language or definition of God claims our fealty. Then why do the religions differ so vehemently, even violently, in their assumptions and processes?
This baffled me until I looked at the trade that I have plied all my life. Look at education and how we impart it. The fundamentals of mathematics or anatomy (I teach anatomy) do not change very much from country to country or from one school to another. But often different school systems differ in how they teach, where they place their emphasis, or how they cover the territory. What shapes the teaching is the language, cultural context and economy, even socio-political realities. Yet the student is expected to master largely the same material and put it to similar use in life.
Let different schools (of thought) compete as they do even in religions, but we need to recognize the common ground which makes life possible, even magical.
A fragment of an old poem from my school days comes to mind. In “To Althea from Prison” Richard Lovelace reminds us that:
Stone walls do not a prison make, Nor iron bars a cage.
I absolutely do not mean to split the purpose of life from the fundamentals of Sikh core values. Guru Granth Sahib, the scripture of the Sikhs, pointedly challenges us in a manner that applies to all – those of any religious persuasion or none. It says: “Eh sareera merya iss jugg meh aye ke kya tudh karam kamayya,” (p. 922). In other words, this challenging line forthrightly asks us what footprints we would leave in the sands of time. An iota better would be sufficient.
In support of this I further offer you Immanuel Kant’s critical imperative as a criterion that asks us to subject an action to a simple test: If everyone did what I am about to do would that be alright?”
And the Guru Granth further tells us (“Ghaal khaaye kitch hatho deh; Nanak raah pahtchanay se,” p. 1245): From an honest living share your rewards; in that, says Guru Nanak, is found the true path of life.
Sikhi fully embraces the progressive meaning of this teaching with a life inseparably connected to the One Creator of all creation.
That, to me, speaks timelessly of the primary goal of life. It is and will always remain the unfinished business of life.
2018 GGS Conference, San Jose
About the Author
I.J. SINGH came to the United States in 1960 on a Murry & Leonie Guggenheim Foundation fellowship. He received a PhD in anatomical sciences from the University of Oregon Medical School (now Oregon Health Sciences University), and a DDS from Columbia University. He is a professor emeritus of anatomical sciences at New York University. He serves on the Editorial Advisory Boards of the Sikh Review (Calcutta) as well as Nishaan (New Delhi), and writes a regular internet column on Sikhi