Search For Meaning

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty

Everyone at some lucid moment of his/ her life says when asked, What are you thinking (or doing) - I am searching for meaning. The Buddha did the same and before him many others wasted a lifetime, searching for meaning. In the post - Buddha generations too people have searched for meaning. If someone sought the meaning of Thunder, another the meaning of death. Sadguru has tried to find out the inside story of Death. Viktor E. Frankl's meaning is -"say yes to life inspite of everything". A condemned prisoner stays awake nights on end, before climbing up the gallows, to find meaning of his own fractured reality. All men of power, spiritual or political, search for meaning. And some men like Caligula declare Two truths as their discovery: Men die and they are never happy. So what is this meaning? The meaning of meaning!

 

If search for life's meaning is a human obsession, meaning has no meaning, for man's search for meaning is endless. Poets, philosophers, and almost all suffering men search for meaning. If Shakespeare says "life's but a walking shadow," an idiotic tale without significance, another poet says "tell me not  in mournful numbers life's but an empty dream." This goes to show that meaning is never universal; whoever finds whatever meaning is circumstantially justified. Each life has a meaning, if it remains undiscovered, the search will go on in another life: That is why we are led to believe in reincarnation. Most people, however, wait for a Messiah, a redeemer to give a meaning. The Messiah changes from age to age, from divine incarnation to political incarnation. We all wait for a Godot to validate our lives.

But what is this meaning? If the meaning is, Sansara is unreal and life is a lie, we deny identity. Each man at every stage of civilization tries to find the meaning of his self (and soul), which in modern terms is identity. 'Who am I' is the question in every thinking man's mind. Buddha - Ashoka - Descartes- Einstein and all of us quest for our identity in the context of the larger reality of the world. If Arjuna threw the Gandiba away it was because he could not be certain about his identity in the context of the reality he faced at the Kurukshetra battle field. Each man is an Arjuna in his own battle field of life. The meaning he has of his life is often self - negating. And for that, he waits for a Krishna to reveal to himself his identity. But in the new world we cannot expect a  Krishna to sing a new Gita for us. We have to find our own meaning to go forward in life. A man living in the present day world confronts several contradictions vitiating the meaning of his identity. He lives in a country he calls his motherland. He is born to a culture, a language,  an economic class, a climate. He is at times moved by patriotism, nationalism but he understands liberalism, universalism as higher values.  His first conflict comes from the question: Am I a Hindu (because my father was one, an Indian, an Odia or I am a Man, a proud member of mankind?

If I am a proud member of mankind, what is the source of my pride? This question jams the mind. Am I not responsible for all the horrible wars, murders, rapes, conspiracies and thousand other things which shame my species? Am I not responsible for climate change? Am I not responsible for poverty, hunger, inequity and also this Covid? These questions kick my sense of identity away from world consciousness to my own existential self. As an Indian now I am worried about the Chinese incursions into our territory and the Indian and People's Liberation  Army standing in eyeball to eyeball confrontation. I am also worried about the GDP tanking 23.9% and the jobless youth savouring their anger in cold resignation. And the rich and mighty indulging in drugged fancies ruining the youth.  My national identity is now in doldrums.

Many people thought and also think today that identity is not for the present but for the future. They argue that man leaves behind something like a story, poems or inventions helpful to man, posterity will remember with gratitude,  and that identity is the most authentic. Many people do that. But when today you hear people say that  Vande Mataram is not worth singing, you doubt the identity of a creative man. Others argue: why not the man who designed and built the Mahanadi bridge be remembered with reverence by posterity?  People, in general, enjoy the benefit of a genius's labours. A poet is remembered, if at all by a few but the bridge actually serves the people for hundreds of years. The derived idea is man should forget his self and dedicate his life to men who need the selfless service of others. If this is true of grace and identity how many Indians remember a single name out of the six hundred Covid Warrior doctors who died in 2020? What meaning emerges out of our reality is a story of two breaths.

I believe, the meaning of life is to live it with full concentration. If by living well and truly I can bring smiles in other faces I know what I am. If posterity remembers me that is their goodness - I won't be there to share the joyful remembrance of my work. Meaning was always contemplated over human suffering. Don't make your suffering meaningless.