So, what is answer to the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything? The answer, of course is 42 ;0) (sounds familiar?)
Why are we here? What is the purpose and meaning of life? Why 42? Great questions, but just as in the Hitchhikers’ guide, we might not be able to know the answer. Moreover, these questions themselves may be completely useless. Like asking how many bananas can you fit in 12 minutes or what is the marital status of number 5? The questions themselves do not make sense. Could it be possible that the question Why are we here? is senseless?
I’ve read many attempts to answer it of course and I have my predilection. We are here to learn and to have fun (comes from Illusions by Richard Bach). Precisely the same reasons why we go to the movies or do anything else for that matter. Of course we don’t do everything (unfortunately) for those reasons, but when you stop and really consider the other reasons we do things for, they don’t make much sense. We do things for fame, fortune, habit, recognition… funny cannot thing of many other “mundane” reasons that would not fall into such categories. Clearly love, but I guess love can be included within learn or love in a very broad sense, or perhaps the answer is love, learn and have fun. Those are indeed good answers.
Why do I say the the questions don’t make sense? Well, if we go back to the “life is a dream” principle (which so far seems very plausible) Would we ever ask what is the purpose of a dream? (in fact we do, scientists and psychologists have questioned this for a long time). Some say dreams are repressed wishes, some manifestations of the unconscious, our brain rehashing our experiences (kind of defragmenting our hard disk). Mystics tell us that in dream we visit other planes of existence and that in deep sleep (no dreaming) we go back to the source, nondual, nonbeing. All of which may be true. But still, it does not make much sense to question a dream and its meaning. However that is precisely what we are doing, what is the meaning of such and such experience? and so on. (which in turn fits clearly in the “learn” category of what we are here”) But more to the point, the questions may be valid, but what about the answers? How much can we rely in the answers we get while dreaming? Seers and some therapist would say that we can definitely trust them, that may be the case, but the answers themselves are only valid while you are in the dream. So 42 seems like a great answer to work with.
What if you slept? And what if, In your sleep You dreamed? And then you wake up. From which dream are you waking up? How would you tell? What if you are still dreaming?
