This page is part of “Meaning”, which is part of “Creating a New Positive Religion or Spiritual Tradition”.

This is still a DRAFT.

An open question, not a fixed answer

Many religions give a definitive answer to the question “What is the meaning and purpose of life?” The answer comes with the tradition, and believers are expected to accept it. (See examples.)

Lumessianity takes a different approach. It does not claim to hold The One True Answer to this question, yet it considers the question to be one of the most important questions a person can ask. Viktor Frankl argued in his famous book Man’s Search for Meaning that the search for meaning is a basic human drive, and that people who have a sense of meaning can endure almost any hardship. Frankl also held that meaning is not handed to us from outside: each person has to find it in their own life and circumstances.

At the same time, Lumessianity does not leave each person to grapple with this question alone and from scratch. Instead of a fixed answer, it offers two things:

  • Possibilities for answers: ideas about meaning and purpose drawn from philosophy, psychology, spiritual traditions, and people’s own experience.
  • An environment: A guided place where the question and its possible answers can be explored freely. In this environment, each person is invited to explore these ideas, adopt what resonates with them, modify it to fit their own life, and set aside what doesn’t. Anyone may also come up with new ideas and share them with the other people, so they can be discussed, refined, and added to the collection.

This is not meant to be merely an intellectual discussion, as it might be in a philosophy class or in schools of thought such as existentialism. The aim is also to emotionally inspire people to adopt lofty answers of their own, for example placing joy, and kindness and service to others, as central pillars of the meaning they choose for their life. An answer about the meaning of life should not only make sense to the mind. It should also emotionally resonate with the person, so that they feel inspired and uplifted by it. This matters because it is emotion, more than argument, that moves people to action.

In this way, the question of meaning is something we explore together, while each person remains free to reach their own answer.

You are the one who determines your life’s meaning

The one who determines whether you feel that what you do is meaningful is you alone, not some external factor. For example, in the eyes of society, being a doctor and healing people is seen as important and meaningful. But for the doctor, what matters is that he himself feels that practicing medicine is meaningful to him. Perhaps he studied medicine only because his parents pushed him into it, and he himself would much rather work in a different profession?

That is why it is so important to dedicate time to ourselves: to clear a window in our busy schedule where we can be alone with ourselves, in order to discover: Who am I? What do I feel? What do I want? What are my preferences? Am I actually doing what I do only to please others, because that is what is expected of me? Perhaps because it is the usual, comfortable, socially expected path? Or am I listening to myself, examining and experimenting with different options, in order to discover the path that is right especially for me?

This is also related to the concept of personal sovereignty in Wellism.