*Purpose of Life* (exploration part 1)

Ahh~~* Taking a deep breath, filling my lungs with prana, I contemplate my existence. What am I, who am I, what am I doing here, in this place, in this life. If indeed I am alive... is it a dream? Lucid imagination of One Mind? The play of the divine? What is my part, my role, my destiny in this flow of sacred energy...

Purpose is the biggest question - every philosopher has wondered - every man and woman of dreams - every artist - every spiritual - every saint - every person who's ever suffered has always asked this question. Why??

I myself have asked this question, over and over till I would find myself seeping into existential depression....

Viktor E. Frankl, author of "The Doctor and the Soul" and "Man's Search For Meaning" expresses how each person needs and yearns to have a sense of purpose, and it is this sense of purpose that propels us forward. He survived the Jewish holocaust and concentration camps while writing that book, because he had a purpose to finish it. He saw that it wasn't initial health that determined if someone lived or died, but instead their sense of purpose and meaning of life. When there is a perceived lack of sense of purpose, then people do not engage in anything, they don't support their life... the light in their eyes fades, and the mind goes into sadness, and the body withers from life force till there is nothing left. No point to the breath...

More than food, more than water, more than even breath... we need purpose. That's why we create families, communities, cultures, religions, philosophies of life, ways of life, reasons for doing things, make roles and careers and genders, and norms and goals... But even that does not satisfy the deepest most piercing question of ultimate purpose... Why do I exist even at all?

I've consulted my father on the question, when I was 9 years old "Papa, why do we exist? Why are we put on this Earth?"... he replied "To learn" advance in the spiral of spiritual evolution.

I've consulted the self-help books, they said "To better yourself" and "Everything happens for a reason although we might not know what that reason is".

I've consulted the books of many religions and they said "To be the gatekeepers of God's creation, to be devotional, to be find salvation, to find enlightenment, to praise and serve God and God's creation".

I've consulted the words of saints who said "You come here as something, to become nothing"... "You came out as an expression of God's infinity, and you shall return back to Him"... "Simply to remember your essence"... "To Play within the Play"... and "To Love"...

In this breath, I absorb these words and let them mix within my chemistry like sweet wine, sipping mystery. Flowing waves of mind and body, vibrating core of raw existence.

I might not know why - but I know that I am.