September 22, 2025
Albert Einstein was asked what he considered the most important question facing humanity. His surprising answer: “Is the universe a friendly place?” He went on to explain why this question is crucial: Because those who think the universe is not friendly are forced into the belief that “our lives have no real purpose or meaning.” He felt this would be a tragedy for anyone who adopted such a belief.
The reason this question is central becomes clear when you realize it is one of the primary issues all the great spiritual teachers spoke about: Do our human lives have meaning or not? And if they do, what is it?
The answer influential spiritual teachers have given through history is unanimous: Yes, our lives have meaning. After giving this answer, they went on to explain why they had come to this belief, and to describe what they believed that meaning to be. They also pointed toward the Source from which meaning comes.
The world’s wisdom traditions grew out of their teachings, and the vast majority of human beings through history have followed their guidance and answered yes. Most scientists, philosophers, and wise men and women in every field of endeavor have done the same.
Concluding that life has meaning does not suggest, however, that we are destined to get everything we want. Our basic urges and desires are the source of most of our wantings, and no wise person ever said that all our urges and desires would be met. In fact, the wisest teachers have said repeatedly that we cannot have a fulfilling life if we focus primarily on getting what we personally want.
Why not? First, because every living thing dies. From bacteria to human beings to whales, all physical things that are alive have a limited lifespan. Even solar systems and galaxies seem to have a limited lifespan. So, along with every other living thing, our physical bodies are going to die. At the same time, we humans are quite imaginative, so we can always come up with more things to desire than we will ever have time to achieve, no matter how long we live.
Further, every one of us will get sick, be injured, suffer losses and defeats. So will our loved ones and friends. Suffering defeat, loss, and getting injured and sick are very seldom what we want, yet these events keep happening for all of us, whether we are good people or not, whether we like it or not. This is part of the nature of having a human life.
Does this suggest the world is meaningless? Or, instead, is there something worth living for, working toward, struggling for — perhaps even suffering or dying for — that life is about, something that can ultimately give our lives meaning in spite of unwanted difficulties? If so, where does this meaning come from? What is the source of meaning? And how do we find it?
Approaching the Question Today
The way most people encounter this issue today comes in the form of questions such as: Is there a reason for living, a purpose for my life beyond just getting my personal wants and desires met any way I can?
For some it comes up when they ask: Since the material world seems to be governed by laws that we can understand through science, is there anything more? Is there anything beyond the purely physical dimension that might give meaning to my life?
For others the question arises around whether there are any values they should live by, or whether they can do whatever they can get away with. Or put in a positive way, are there values that are a part of the fundamental fabric of the universe itself, just like the laws of science, that would help me be in harmony with the larger pattern within which I live? If so, what are they, and how do I get in touch with them?
Whether we like it or not, choices about these questions cannot be avoided. Each of us is either living for ourselves, striving only to fulfill our basic urges and desires, or we are living with an intention toward that which seems truly meaningful. We are either trying to be true to a set of values that will aid us in fulfilling our life intentions, or we are just doing what we want, whenever we can get away with.
Of course, few of us do make one final choice early in life and it is over. Instead, we alternate at various times between different choices. We make decisions each day, and at various times we will be on one side or the other. The side you choose regularly, however, will have radical consequences.
Another complication is that any decision can be made consciously or unconsciously. You are always making important decisions, whether they are being made consciously or not.
A decision remains unconscious when we always try to get what we personally want without asking ourselves whether we are doing the right thing, or the considerate thing, or the kind thing. Decisions are also unconscious if we just go along with whatever we were taught without working it through for ourselves. Or if we just go along with what the people around us say we should do. Some people go through their whole lives this way, without ever making a conscious decision about the fundamental questions.
Having to make these kinds of choices is not just a modern dilemma, of course. All human beings have always been making these choices. Until modern times, however, most cultures were organized around a specific wisdom tradition, and everyone in the culture grew up learning the same meaning and value system. This made it easier in some ways. If you were born into a culture that had a healthy set of meanings and values, then going along with what you were taught meant you were living by a system that worked reasonably well.
Still, every individual had to choose whether to actually follow the meanings and values they had been taught. We humans are creative creatures, so we can always find ways to act as if we are living by deeper values while coming up with nice-sounding ways to justify trying to get what we personally want. In fact, a common human trait is to do what we personally want while rationalizing our behavior without acknowledging our real motives — even to ourselves.
By this behavior, many who came before us through the centuries were not actually true to any values or meanings. They gave lip service to the values of their culture while living only for themselves. Further, the more unconscious a person is about the choices they are making, the more likely it is that unconscious drives will take over.
Further, some past cultures were unhealthy, so living by one of their meaning and value systems did not make for a healthy life. The messages of the wise ones have been understood and taught many different ways through the centuries, and there are thousands of different interpretations of their original messages. All these interpretations differ radically, even within the same religion, so how do you know which is accurate?
A further problem is that, far too often, various interpretations have been made to serve the desire for power and wealth of religious and political leaders. Messages that were first given to inspire the best in us have been used to defend corrupt actions, to justify one group’s abuse of power over another, and even one group’s right to take for themselves the land, wealth, and the freedom of others. Yet these self-serving interpretations are not, and have never been, true to the teachings of the founders themselves. In fact, they are in direct conflict. Still, many follow them.
The difficulty, then, is knowing whether your culture is healthy or unhealthy. The only way is to become conscious enough to decide for yourself, which is one of the reasons the wisdom traditions emphasized “Know Thyself.”
Even if your culture is healthy, to go along with what you were taught is not a conscious path, so your freedom is limited. And if you were born into an unhealthy culture, the only path to meanings and values that are healthy is to rebel and find your own way, which is another reason the founders of the wisdom traditions taught the importance of gaining wisdom for yourself. Only if you have your own direct experience will you know what is most ultimately true and right and good.
Fortunately, in every age there have been a few who decided to make an effort to work out the answers for themselves. Some were ordinary folks, some became wise spiritual teachers within an existing tradition, and others reformed and revitalized an unhealthy tradition. A few became the founders of new wisdom traditions.
Every influential founder such as Jesus, Socrates, the Buddha, Confucius, Muhammed, and the Indian sages who wrote the Vedas had been raised in a tradition. Each had been taught a system of belief. They each took what they had learned and began from there to work out the answers for themselves.
At some point, each felt they had a direct experience with the Source of values and meanings. After consolidating what they had learned from those experiences, they shared their messages, and as those messages resonated down through the centuries with billions of people, they became the wisdom traditions we have today.
The Name of the Source
The difficulty of naming the Source of existence has always been with us. The earliest humans puzzled over the origins of the universe in which they found themselves. Living in tribes around the globe for tens of thousands of years, they often looked at the sky, and at the natural world around them, and wondered where they came from. Although they were widely separated, there is a common thread in their answers. Most believed that all things — people, animals, plants, rocks, rivers, even weather patterns — are alive and interconnected through Spirit. Some referred to it as the “Great Spirit” in which all things are unified.
They did not, however, think they could define it clearly, so they told stories and used myths and metaphors. One thing that all agreed upon, because it seemed obvious, is that the material objects in the world could not be the ultimate source of everything. The physical world and the material objects in it could not have created themselves, so all our ancestors pointed toward a Source beyond matter alone.
We humans have always been curious, so as time went on the civilizations that left us written records continued this quest. But they found it difficult to pin down the Source of things in a few words, so they continued to rely on stories and myths made up of metaphors, myths, and analogies, just like the cultures that came before them.
They also relied on the experiences of the wise men and women among them who reported having a direct experience of a larger reality, and whose lives seemed to reflect a deeper understanding of the best way to live. And they used the words these wise ones suggested to refer to the ultimate Source of all things.
In this way, the people in China began to refer to the Source of everything as the “Tao,” but they also knew this word was far from clear, for as the Tao Te Ching says: “The name that can be named is not the true name.”
The earliest Hindu sages spoke of a supreme, all-pervading reality called “Brahman,” but thought of it as beyond description by words.
The Buddha said the Source of his wisdom was awakening to the full truth, the ultimate reality, the “deathless” reality of Nirvana — but few understood what he meant.
Early Greek culture had a view similar to that of tribal peoples, but Socrates and Plato developed a more complex philosophy, describing a “Transcendent” dimension that gave rise to the Good, the True, and the Beautiful. Aristotle called the beginning of all things the “Prime Mover,” but did not think he understood it — only reasoned that it must exist.
In the earliest Jewish stories, when Moses asks, during his dramatic encounter on the mountain who or what he should tell the Israelites was sending them the message he brought back, the answer is usually translated into English as “I Am That I Am.”
As time went on, the early Jews often used “YHVH” to refer to this Source, but considered the word too holy to be pronounced, and certainly did not think they knew the meaning of that word precisely. The Hebrew Bible also uses Adonai, El, Elohim, Shaddai, and Tzevaot at various points to refer to the Source of existence. But these names, if translated accurately from Hebrew into English, would all be different, and suggest somewhat different meanings. Which, then, is the right name for the Source?
Jesus often used the Aramaic word Abba when describing the Ultimate (which in English would be like saying “our affectionate Father”). His most precise description when translated into English is simply: “God is love,” leaving each of us to determine for ourselves what this phrase actually means. Later Christians and then Muslims used words in English and Arabic that derive from the same Proto Indo-European root Dyeus, which means something like “supreme deity.” (The Hebrew word YHVH derives from an earlier word meaning something like “chief deity.”)
It is obvious, then, that one factor in the difficulty of understanding the origin of all things is that the wise men and women who gave us guidance lived in different cultures and spoke different languages, so they used different words. It seems likely, however, they were pointing toward the same thing. It is also valuable to keep in mind that all indicated the Source could not be captured by words, whether religious, philosophic, or scientific.
The Christian mystic Meister Eckhart emphasized the danger of focusing on any word, saying the greatest barrier to God is trying to force God into one’s personal conception. Eckhart himself used several different terms, such as “Transcendent Being,” but he always kept in mind that the words were not the thing itself. In fact, he declared that the final barrier to God is thinking you can accurately perceive and capture God with any word or image.
The reason is simple: Any words you use are just your own personal conceptual understanding. As modern research has demonstrated, no one can really know what any other person means by a word that is not precisely measurable, like an inch or an hour. So words like love, beauty, honor, virtue, and truth have different meanings for each person. This is certainly the case concerning someone else’s word indicating the mystery of existence. Every other person’s understanding will be somewhat different from your own.
The consequence is that if you become attached to your own personal understanding, you are bestowing upon yourself the power to be “the one” who can pin down and capture the Ultimate with your conception. Meister Eckhart’s point, then, is that anyone who believes they have the “right” word and definition has created a god according to their own personal image, but no one individual has the power to create the Ultimate itself. This means that anyone who believes in their own conception has created a false god, and that conception is their barrier to experiencing God.
A further difficulty is that conceptual understandings are always changing, just as are the meanings of words in every culture. Most individuals have understood words in different ways during their lifetimes. So to focus on one word or phrase and think you have pinned the Source down with your preferred word at any point in time is to make that word an idol.
No word can fully capture that which is beyond words. Words can be a tool to refer to the mystery, but all words are only tools, not the thing itself. If you worship a tool, the tool has become an idol.
The Difficulty Remains
The difficulty of understanding the Source of existence continues in the modern age. A number of philosophers have put the issue as: “Why is there anything, rather than nothing?” If there was once nothing, there has to be a Source for anything at all to have emerged.
To this day, no one has been able to explain why the universe exists, or to name the Source of existence in a way that most other people can accept. Not through spiritual words, nor through science.
Those who have adopted a materialistic worldview refuse to accept the answer of the wisdom traditions, or the one given by all those through the ages who have had a direct experience of “something beyond” matter itself. But that forces them to provide an explanation for the existence of the universe, as well as for the laws science takes for granted to explore the universe. Where did these laws come from?
Materialists keep trying to come up with a creation story to replace those of the wisdom traditions, but so far their attempts are just words or images that have no clear meaning.
One of those creation stories is the “Big Bang” — but what does that mean? What existed before that event? The “Big Bang” has proved to be a useful scientific theory as a starting point for some calculations, but it tells us nothing about first origins, and nothing at all about how the “laws of nature” magically appeared. When you examine it closely, the “Big Bang” is actually a metaphor pointing toward something we do not understand, for as Wendell Berry observed: “What banged? Before banging, how did it get there? When it got there, where was it?”
Another attempt that has gained some support is the “Many Worlds” theory, which proposes that there are countless other worlds, or universes, in addition to our own. One problem here is that it is just a hypothesis without any scientific evidence at all. Further, even if it is true, it only pushes the origin of all things further back into the unknown — for where did all those other worlds come from?
Today, the most common materialistic answer is that before the Big Bang, there was the “Singularity.” That word, however, is just a placeholder that highlights the real mystery: Where did the Singularity come from? As Einstein said: “A singularity brings so much arbitrariness into the theory that it actually nullifies its laws.”
These concepts are useful for scientific calculations and for suggesting theories about matter and energy within the world of material things — which is what science does well. But these concepts do not explain the Source of matter and energy, nor do they tell us where the “laws of nature” came from. Science can function perfectly well without answering these questions. That is not its task.
Science takes the existence of matter, energy, and the laws of nature for granted, and then does its work by trying to understand these things. This is quite valuable, but it is not helpful to simply observe that material objects exist when trying to understand where and how the universe first originated. The result is that science leaves these fundamental questions unanswered.
Science works well in the areas in which it operates, but that does not mean it is the right tool for dealing with all areas of life. I do not know how to apply science to questions about who I will love, the friends I should make, the sports I will enjoy, or the creative endeavors I will undertake. (Deciding what I should care about is not the task of science.)
Materialists assume that the five senses are our only source of knowledge, and anything that can’t be measured and studied by science does not exist. But there is no reason to make these assumptions; there is certainly no proof for them.
They are therefore trapped in a circular argument, because they assume only matter and energy are real, and then conclude that everything in the universe must have a materialistic explanation. But they offer no explanation at all for why we must start with their assumption. There are other alternatives.
To answer the questions of existence in materialistic terms you must first answer this: Where did the matter, energy, and the laws that govern them come from in the first place? Until this can be answered, anyone who holds a materialistic worldview can only do so as an act of faith.
The Continuing Urge To Find A Name
In an effort to get around the problem of names for the Source that have not been universally acceptable, new words and phrases have been offered by those who have made a serious search themselves. For instance, William James pointed out that all wisdom traditions recognized an “Unseen Order” in the universe. He also suggested the term “Higher Power” to describe the realm that transcends the ordinary, and from which the scientific and moral laws that govern the universe arise.
Modern Catholic priest and writer Richard Rohr calls it the “Cosmic Christ.” Carl Jung spoke of the “Numinous,” which is “inexpressible, mysterious,” but can be “directly experienced.” Friedrich Hegel called it simply “Reality,” within which he included all beings as well as all of nature.
Mircea Eliade, a highly regarded historian of religion at the University of Chicago, called it the “Sacred,” and said that every one of the hundred or so cultures he studied recognized it as the place from which values and meanings arise. Baruch Spinoza, who strongly influenced Einstein’s thought, spoke of “God or Nature,” equating God with the inherent laws that govern everything in the natural world. Paul Tillich thought of it as the “Ground of Being.” Other philosophers have used the terms “Universal Wisdom,” “Pure Consciousness,” and the “Absolute.” Bill W, the founder of AA, referred to it as a “Higher Power.”
An influential wisdom teacher in India, Ramana Maharshi, captured an essential point this way: “Soul, mind, and ego are mere words. There are no true entities of that kind. Consciousness is the only truth. Forgetfulness of your real nature is the real death; remembrance of it is the true birth.” In his view, “Consciousness” is the underlying reality, and your real nature is “That.” He also said that the English Bible phrase “I Am That I Am” captured its essence better than any other phrase he knew.
Another modern Indian teacher, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, said the “I Am” phrase is the best description in words he has heard of the highest Reality. He felt that phrase to be a good abstraction of the mind for what he experienced in his deepest states of pure awareness.
To emphasize again, the highest reality is beyond our limited capacity for conceptual understanding. It is beyond any language, so the names we use can only be pointers toward that which can never be captured in words.
Even those who have had the deepest profound experiences are subject to the limitation of language, as evidenced by the fact that the things they say are often confusing to those who hear them. For instance, the Gospel of Luke says that when Jesus was teaching: “The disciples did not understand any of this. Its meaning was hidden from them, and they did not know what he was talking about.”
If his disciples could not understand what Jesus was saying much of the time — even though they were with him every day — how can anyone today think they understand what he had to say with great clarity? Especially since we speak a different language, and everything we know has been filtered through many different translations and interpretations over the centuries.
We can, of course, use his words as guidance to arrive at our own best understanding. The same is true of the messages of wise teachers in other traditions from the distant past. Their words provide inspiration and guidance — but to gain greater wisdom we must seek our own direct experience.
The fact remains, though, to communicate with each other about this central issue in our lives we must use words. If we are going to help each other move toward fulfillment we have to use language, and we must speak from within our own culture using the words of one language. So there will always be many different names for the Highest Reality. When we use any of these names, however, it is crucial to remember that they can only point toward something that is beyond words.
The Path of Direct Experience
Since no one has been able to clearly define the Source of existence for thousands of years, it quite possible our human capacities for thinking and reason are not capable of grasping the whole of it. And why, exactly, should anyone believe we are capable of answering this question with our thinking minds, with reason, or even with science? Perhaps these tools are not the right approach. Where is it decreed that we should have this ability? Who or what gave this decree?
Still, we cannot help puzzling over the origin of all things. The “Big Bang,” “Many Worlds,” and the “Singularity” are not helpful for this, however, because they are certainly not scientific explanations, but new words to refer to an ages-old mystery.
There is no agreement among the wisdom traditions about the exact right words either. But ancient words such as the “Tao,” “Prime Mover,” and “God” are still valuable, because the wise teachers who had direct experiences of the mystery used them with an understanding that they were just pointers toward that which cannot be captured in words.
Perhaps both materialists and people within all the religious traditions would be wise to heed the counsel of one of the most revered Jewish scholars of the modern era, Rabbi Adin Even-Israel Steinsaltz. He warns against thinking that there is any right name or right understanding of the unknowable, saying:
“THE HOLY ONE, Blessed be He, has any number of names. All of these names, however, designate only various aspects of divine manifestation in the world, as these are made known to human beings. Above and beyond this variety of designations is the divine essence itself, which has not, and cannot, have a name. We call this essence, or God-in-Himself, by a name that is itself a paradox: ‘the Infinite.’”
Even Plato, whose combined written works are considered the most important in all of Western philosophy, did not think he could reason his way to an understanding of the source of existence. (Plato’s influence has been so great that philosopher Alfred North Whitehead quipped that “all philosophy is a series of footnotes to Plato.”) Yet even Plato believed that the Ultimate could only be directly experienced, never pinned down in words, saying:
“No treatise by me concerning that final realm exists or ever will exist. It is not something that can be put into words like other branches of learning: only after long partnership in a common life devoted to this very thing does truth flash upon the soul, like a flame kindled by a leaping spark, and once it is born, there it nourishes itself thereafter.”
If Plato couldn’t define it, it is highly unlikely that any of us will find the exact right words or be able to clearly define the Source of our existence. And yet, when a person has a direct experience of “something more,” there is often a need to try to speak about it.
This was true in ancient times, and it is true right down to this day. Such was the case with a member of the U.S military who was stationed in Iraq. Her name was Natalie, and she was severely injured when a roadside bomb exploded beside the truck in which she was riding. As the event unfolded, she had a profound experience, and then later tried to put what she encountered into words. For her, those words were “All That Is.” She explains:
“‘All That Is’ can be perceived simultaneously as a force and as a consciousness that exists within each individual consciousness and yet is separate from each consciousness. It might be called God, but the ideas of gods that we have are a pale and incomplete shadow of the ‘All That Is’ that I perceived. We project an idea of a god or gods upon that infinite creative consciousness, which inevitably limits our understanding of the ‘All That Is’ in ways that reflect the limited comprehension that we have of ourselves and the physical universe.”
Some of us will have these profound experiences ourselves, and if we pay attention, they will provide guidance for our lives. But until that happens, we still have to make important choices, beginning with whether our universe has meaning and if there are values it is important to live by — or it is just a large space filled with material stuff that is empty of meaning and values.
My own experience suggests that all the words and names are pointing toward the same mystery, a mystery that is ineffable and undefinable. But each of us must come to our own sense of the Source, our own realization of the truth — if we are to truly know what it is.
For me, the ultimate Source is God, the Absolute, the Cosmic Christ, the Tao, Nirvana, Great Spirit, the Infinite, Brahman, and many more words. And it is none of them, for words can only suggest the possibility of the “something more” that can only be experienced.
This mystery does exist, however, according to all the wisdom traditions. And it is the fundamental Ground upon which the underlying harmony of the universe rests. This is true for the scientific laws we have discovered about the functioning of the material world, and it is true of the moral laws that can guide us to a fulfilling life.
I believe from my experiences that anyone who listens with their heart, their intuition, and their mind will receive guidance on how best to live. But the Source will never be pinned down in a box of words by anyone, for any words we use are just our own preferred designations and not the thing itself.
Since we must use words to communicate with others, however, it is crucial to acknowledge their limitations and use the words we prefer with humility. And to respect the words others prefer. The same humility is crucial for our favorite interpretations of “truth,” as well as for what we say to others about that which is right and good, for the Source of all things and “the truth” can never be captured by language.
The Source of Values, Meanings, and Virtues
The wise teachers who founded the wisdom traditions all agreed that there is a Source for the universe, and all insisted that the values and meanings they taught came to them by personal contact with this Source. Through a direct experience of “something more,” they gained access to wisdom about how to live. Further, they said that what they had learned applied to everyone, for this deeper wisdom is a part of the way the universe functions.
Over the centuries, the views of these wise men and women have been interpreted in any number of ways, but the commonality in all is that there is “something” beyond the material realm that gives rise to values and meanings and which we would be wise to make the center of our lives. Each also offered virtues that would be helpful to practice in organizing toward those aims.
We are not forced to embrace these values, virtues, and meanings, however. We have a choice. But the wisdom traditions tell us that following a path that involves meaning, values, and virtue is the only way to a truly fulfilling life.
Einstein expressed his choice in his non-scientific writings, and by demonstrating in the way he lived that there are moral guidelines that are essential to follow. Although Einstein was not considered very religious, this great scientist was firmly on the side of the wisdom traditions concerning the central importance of meanings and values. He insisted that there is order in the universe, and that a moral dimension is part of that order. He put his view quite poetically:
“I’m not an atheist. … The problem involved is too vast for our limited minds. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see the universe marvelously arranged and obeying certain laws but only dimly understand these laws.”
As each of us tries to answer the most important questions for ourselves, it is valuable to spend time reading and listening to the guidance of the wisest teachers, especially those whose answers have been helpful and inspiring to millions through the centuries. As William James said:
“The study of the mystics, the keeping company … with their minds, brings with it as music or poetry does a strange exhilaration, as if we were brought near to some mighty Source of Being, were at last on the verge of the secret which all seek. The … actual words employed, when we analyse them, are not enough to account for such effect. It is rather that these messages from the … transcendental self of another, stir our own deeper selves in their sleep.”
The noted Canadian psychiatrist R.M. Bucke followed this path. For several years he had been studying various wisdom teachers and meeting with friends to discuss what they were learning. After one such evening, he was riding home in a carriage (this was at the end of the 19th century), and he had this experience:
“I did not merely come to believe, but I saw that the universe is … a living Presence.” “I saw … that the foundation principle of the world, of all the worlds, is what we call love.”
After this direct experience, his life did not change immediately. He still had many decisions to make. But he trusted his vision and began to organize his life around the choices toward which the vision pointed — and his life gradually changed quite dramatically.
The Dilemma of Being Modern
In stable cultures in the past, a higher percentage of people accepted the values and meanings they had been taught than is true in modern cultures. In these earlier times, the vast majority of people lived out their lives surrounded by those with whom they shared a value and meaning system. There was trade and some interaction between cultures, but this seldom challenged the belief systems of the vast majority.
Since everyone around them had been taught the same thing, there was less likelihood that anyone would question the accepted teachings. Some of these belief systems worked well, and when this was the case, a significant number had healthy and fulfilling lives. Other cultures worked only marginally well. Some were broken and became dysfunctional. In these cultures, life was more difficult for most everyone, and unrest eventually led to change.
But even those early cultures that worked well have not survived into the modern age, for they could only continue as long as groups of people were separated from each other to a sufficient degree. For both good and ill, an increasing number of us in the world today do not have the option of an isolated, broadly accepted culture. With the advent of rapid communication and transportation, along with dramatic population increases in the last 100 years, few of us live within a single, unchallenged cultural tradition.
Sweeping economic and climatic changes are now a part of the modern world, along with wars being waged with vastly more destructive weapons. These things in turn have forced hundreds of millions into movement around the globe — in search of a new home to support a decent life. The cumulative result is that people from various cultures now live in close proximity to each other, leading to frequent conflicts over values and beliefs, disagreements about which values should be taught in schools, and battles over immigration policies.
We must face these problems, but we moderns have also gained tremendously in the degree of individual freedom we enjoy. There has also been an exponential growth in the opportunity for financial gain. Millions have become wealthy, while hundreds of millions in the middle classes of developed societies all over the world have at least enough money to have a comfortable life and to enjoy modern conveniences. Science and technology have provided easy access to information and developed products that improve the ease and comfort of life.
How can it be, then, that there is so much dissatisfaction today? Why have anxiety, depression, drug abuse, expressions of anger, financial worries, and conflicts within communities and families risen to epidemic proportions. Why are fewer people satisfied and fulfilled than those who lived in cultures in the past.
The most likely explanation is that people in modern societies pay less attention to living by deeper meanings and values. The siren songs of wealth, pleasure, power, and ease of life are strongly alluring in the modern world, and the opportunities seem limitless — or so the messages of all those selling their “improvement” products and ideas tell us.
Yet the core questions about how to live cannot be avoided; they are a fundamental part of being human. We each are forced to wrestle with them one way or another, just as Jacob wrestled with the angel so long ago, according to his story in the Bible. The account is encouraging, for he entered the challenge full of fear and anxiety about his life, but was able to face the challenge with courage and determination, and emerged with a transformed character.
Any one of us can do the same. Each of us will undergo, whether we like it or not, our own struggle over who we will be and how we will live. Each of us must answer, either consciously or unconsciously, the fundamental questions about life:
1) How should I live in this universe I find myself in? What is truly important? How should I spend the time I am given in this life? What is meaningful? What values should I live by to have a fulfilling life?
2) To answer these questions, however, we first have to deal with Einstein’s question: What is the nature of the universe?
We have to decide if we believe that some meanings and values are inherent in the universe, for that affects how we will decide all other issues about how to live.
For myself, I sense that there is a realm of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful that is calling me to align with it, and only if I do so will my life be in harmony. Only in this alignment will I ever be fulfilled.
If a realm of the Good, the True, and the Beautiful does exist, however, it does not force us to align with it. It is a free choice we each make. And make no mistake, whether or not you decide to make the effort to align yourself will have a dramatic impact on your life. And it will also have an impact on other people, perhaps much more than you realize, for each person’s actions affect all those around them either positively or negatively.
In the larger picture, although it might not seem so to you, your answers are of significant importance to all of us, for they will radiate out into the world in which we all live — a world beset by much trouble. If large numbers of us today continue to choose not to be in harmony with the Good, our communities and countries will become increasing unhealthy. And if a community or country that is becoming unhealthy does not turn in a healthy direction, it will eventually fail.
My decision is clear. I sense that there is a Source beyond the veil of my full understanding, one that is common to all. Within it there is guidance for how to live, for how to have a good life, for how any group of people can live together in peace and harmony. But it is not something that forces any of us to conform to it. Instead, it is something that each person must choose. By choosing the intention of moving toward the Good in my own life, I believe I am helping to repair the world in which I live.
Finding Your Own Answers
To return to Einstein once more, his answer was empathic: Yes, our lives have meaning. But he also understood that we each have a choice about what we will believe, which is the reason it is “the first and most basic question all people must answer for themselves.”
Einstein also knew this is not a question that science can answer. He was one of the greatest scientists the world has ever known, but he rejected the notion that science can answer it. He specifically rejected the claim that science supports a materialistic choice. He felt that those who chose Materialism as their answer will be sentencing themselves to a life with “no real purpose or meaning,” even if that is not their intent.
Science cannot deal with this question because it does not have a way to determine values or meanings. It cannot say what will be most valuable to any one of us, what we will believe is worth doing with our time, or what will be meaningful to us.
Neither does science support the worldview of the wisdom traditions, for it cannot prove there is meaning. Whether you will choose to believe life has meaning or not resides in a realm outside the scope of science. The great evolutionary biologist Stephen A. Gould came to the conclusion that the wisdom traditions and science are separate “overlapping magisterium,” so they neither conflict with nor provide proof for each other.
So the choice pulses at the very heart of our lives:
1. Is the universe a vast void, empty of meaning, or are values and meanings embedded in the laws of the universe itself?
2. Is life about nothing more than trying to get what we want for ourselves, or is our personal well-being somehow connected with what is happening to others?
In searching for answers, some people intentionally put themselves into dangerous situations in order to get outside of their normal realities, hoping this will put them in touch with something greater. This was the case with the famous mountain climber Maurice Herzog, who said of an especially dangerous moment:
“There is a supernatural power in those close to death. Strange intuitions identify one with the whole world.”
Moments of deep insight can arise spontaneously. Astronaut Russell Schweickart was not seeking a spiritual experience, but he had one anyway, feeling a profound experience of “oneness” with all his fellow beings while tethered outside his spacecraft looking down on planet Earth.
Before that moment, he had not been engaged in a spiritual or mystical search. But when he was given a few minutes with nothing to do, just floating in space, he had a special moment:
“You look down and see the surface of that globe that you’ve lived on all this time, and you know all those people down there, they are like you, they are you.” He saw himself as an extension of the one universal body, saying, “somehow you recognize that you’re a piece of this total life.”
Similarly, astronaut Edgar Mitchell experienced an “ecstasy of unity” while traveling back to Earth on Apollo 14, saying that when “gazing through 240,000 miles of space toward the stars and the planet from which I came, I suddenly experienced the universe as intelligent, loving, harmonious.”
Although these experiences happened in extreme conditions that most of us will never encounter, they are similar to the words of many mystics who had their experiences through prayer, meditation, or when absorbed in nature. The great American philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson described such an experience in an otherwise ordinary moment when he was “crossing a bare common, in snow puddles, at twilight, without having in my thoughts any occurrence of special good fortune.”
In the next instant, however, he “enjoyed a perfect exhilaration.” From this, he concluded that, just by opening to the natural world around us, we can “return to reason and faith.” He continues:
“Standing on the bare ground, my head bathed by the blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space, all mean egotism vanishes. I become a transparent eyeball; I am nothing; I see all; the currents of Universal Being circulate through me.”
In your own journey, you might be lucky enough to have such a profound experience. But until that happens, you have to make decisions each day about how you will live. Even those who have these profound moments must decide afterward whether to live according to what they experienced, or slide back into their old routines and ways.
As you make our own decisions, you will either do so consciously or unconsciously. Your choice will be unconscious if you just go along with whatever you were taught, or if you unconsciously accept the views of a group to which you belong. It will be conscious if you think through the issues for yourself and formulate your own path. That path might be to consciously choose to be part of an established religious tradition, or it could be to put together a more independent path.
One way or another, however, each one of us is answering the central questions about how we understand life every day, as we make daily choices about how we will live.
Most philosophers, scientists, psychologists, and scholars throughout history — and a vast majority of ordinary people — have agreed with Einstein and answered “yes,” there is an order and meaning in the universe; there are values to be upheld by those who wish to have a fulfilling life.
Those who answer “no,” even if they accumulate great power or wealth, seldom find peace, true satisfaction, or fulfillment. Just look at the faces of successful men and women in the modern world who have not found a meaning beyond accumulating things and have not lived by deeper values. They seem driven, always striving toward acquiring more power, more wealth — using and abusing others in their effort to attain ever more for themselves.
Or for their offspring. Some people, especially as they get older, transfer their own ambitions to their heirs, fighting to keep the throne, or control of a corporation, or a political office in selected hands, even if the designated ones are not qualified or capable.
Throughout history, however, a significant percentage of all human beings have answered “yes,” and then chosen to practice a set of values and virtues to organize their lives toward that meaning. By doing this, they have gradually developed the capacity to focus on what is truly important and resist being pulled off track by every whim and urge they feel.
Among the number who have made this choice are many who faced the most difficult circumstances — war, famine, life tragedies, disease, defeat — and continued on, doing the best they could, helping others, always trying to move toward a higher good, toward the light.
And many of them found fulfillment. For instance, Cicero, perhaps the most influential writer and scholar in ancient Rome, found his answers in practices similar to those of the Stoics, and through his study and initiation into the Eleusinian Mystery tradition. He reported:
“Nothing is higher than these mysteries … they have not only shown us how to live joyfully but they have taught us how to die with a better hope.”
Teresa of Avila is another. She had many physical illnesses, yet worked tirelessly to do what she felt called to do, and to help those who asked for her help. In her book, The Interior Castle, she writes about how she joyfully took on the burdens of her vigorous life, as well as the demands made upon her by others:
“Not only did this not distress me, but it made me so unexpectedly happy that I could not control myself. … I had no desire that they should do anything else than what they were doing, and my joy was so great that I did not know how to conceal it.”
Black Elk, a Lakota Sioux elder who died in 1950, wrote an important book about a vision that led him to his answers. His description emphasizes the central role a moral life plays in finding our own answers:
“When the Light comes from Above, it enlightens my heart and I can see, for the Eye of my heart sees everything. The heart is a sanctuary at the center of which the Great Spirit dwells …. If the heart is not pure, the Great Spirit cannot be seen. In order to know the center of the heart where the Great Spirit dwells you must be pure and good. The man who is thus pure contains the Universe in the pocket of his heart.”
One more example from an ordinary man who was facing several difficulties, including the loss of his farm. His name was C. G. Price, a farmer in England who had been reflecting on his problems but also reaching for a deeper understanding of life. One day he went out to spread straw for the livestock on his farm, and suddenly:
“I seemed to be enveloped in a cocoon of golden light that actually felt warm, and which radiated a feeling of Love so intense that it was almost tangible. I felt that I could grasp handfuls of it and fill my pockets.
“In this warm cocoon of golden light I sensed a presence which I could not actually see, but knew was there. My mind became crystal clear, and in an instant of time I suddenly knew, without any doubts, that I was part of a ‘Whole.’ Not an isolated part, but an integral part. I felt a sense of ‘One-ment.’ I knew that I belonged and that nothing could change that. The loss of my farm and livelihood didn’t matter any more. I was an important part of the ‘Wholeness’ of things, and passing ambitions were secondary.”
Most of us have not had these kinds of dramatic moments to guide us. Nonetheless, we each must continually answer Einstein’s question as we go through our lives. As we do, it is valuable to study what the wisest people who grappled with the fundamental questions through the ages had to say. We are then better equipped to choose our own response.
What will yours be?