The Meaning of Life, Nondual Style

A while back I received an email from a listener asking about the meaning of life according to nonduality. He reasoned that if we are not individual selves – if personal existence is an illusion and not real – then what is the meaning and purpose of our human lives. It all seems rather pointless, he reasoned. Those are not his exact words. In fact I cannot find the email, so I am not sure he asked the question in those exact words but that is the gist of it.

I want to address the sense of meaningless of human existence if we are in fact not really individual persons and have no future existence as persons. Some teachers embrace this meaninglessness openly. Tony Parsons for example calls human life “wondrously, gloriously meaningless.” If you have heard Tony on video you can just picture him saying that and laughing. Here is another quote by him. “All that is happening is meaningless, but it is so beguiling and fascinating that the mind is absolutely sure it has meaning.”

That is how Tony approaches this question. He celebrate meaninglessness. Others are not so happy about it. One Amazon reviewer of his book “The Open Secret” call his approach “meaningless nihilism.” I like Tony Parsons. He has a radical and simple approach that appeals to me, without all the religious and spiritual trappings. I like that. The strength of his message is that it is blunt and uncompromising, which is exactly what many people need to hear! 

But I would use different words. Nonduality is expressed in and through everyone differently. People express it differently. I would not use the word meaningless. I do not think that human life is meaningless. In fact it is very meaningful. But it not meaningful because we are persons. It is meaningful because we are not persons. And we sense that meaningfulness not as persons but as nonpersons. Yet this meaning is expressed through persons … like Jesus and like us.

As a Christian I look to the teachings of Jesus. Nothing against Tony Parsons. I think he is great and I recommend his videos and books. But Tony Parsons is no Jesus Christ. I want to look at what Jesus says is the meaning of life. But first I explore where most people seek meaning in life and then compare it to what Jesus says. 

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