When considering the question of the meaning of human existence, a comparison with that of animals is revealing.
Unlike animals, humans are beings capable of development. Animals cannot develop; they can only adapt, and even then only to a limited extent and only on a material level. Their lives have no higher spiritual level. The life of an animal consists of behavior that serves exclusively for self-preservation. The lion in its pride lives by hunting for food, consuming and digesting it, resting and gathering strength, reproducing, raising and protecting its offspring, eliminating internal competitors, and fighting against external intruders. It cannot break out of this program: for it, the meaning of its existence is to exist.
In the same way, human behavior is also almost exclusively controlled by this program of survival. It is its animal heritage. The substantial difference between humans and animals is that humans—as the only living beings—have a second program beyond this purely material one: It is the counterpart to self-preservation, it is the preservation of others. The essence of this second program is indifference, which manifests itself as love for others or universal love:
“You shall love one another as I have loved you, that you may love one another.”
(John 13:34)
This is the difference between this and the animalistic love for oneself and one’s own offspring (Leo Tolstoy: preferential love). Love for strangers is the divine love for everything and everyone, as shown in the parable of the Good Samaritan. Jesus refers to the principle of this indifference as “love for one’s enemies” (Matthew 5:44). He demonstrates this in the form of absolute forgiveness in his attitude toward the torturers who nailed him to the cross (“Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Luke 23:34).
If people were to follow the admonition to love their neighbors as themselves, they would treat their neighbors, competitors, opponents, refugees, etc.as they would treat themselves: As a result, others would treat them in the same way if they themselves were refugees. That is the Golden Rule. Then the world would return to its original state of paradise without fear, worry, hatred, deception, theft, robbery, rape, murder, massacre, and war.
In contrast to animal self-preservation, love for strangers is the visible form of spiritual love, regardless of whether it is conscious or unconscious. Its instruments are intuition, conscience, and inspiration. Animals do not possess these qualities.
Preserving strangers is part of “seeing with the heart” (St. Exupéry: The Little Prince). It is the counterpart to selfishness and aims to preserve the entire world and all human beings. Its central form of expression in practical life is sacrifice, primarily the sacrifice of self-referential consciousness, of egocentricity.
Jesus accomplished this 180° turn in a particularly striking way. When Adam discovered his self-reference or self-love in the story of creation, he wanted to “be like God” (Genesis 3:5). Jesus then showed the return from material ego consciousness back to spiritual consciousness – “to the Father” (Luke 15:18). His turnaround is specifically a departure from self-preservation in the form of crucifixion.
In doing so, he demonstrated humanity’s capacity to develop toward the true, because indiscriminate, preservation of fellow human beings. But despite this guiding ideal of all (!) wisdom teachings (see Chapter 1), for 99% of people, the meaning of their existence remains their individual existence, for most of them exclusively.
The opening sequence of Östlund’s film, with the telling title “Force Majeure,” impressively shows how overwhelmingly the instinct for self-preservation rules humans and how powerlessly they obey it: A Swedish couple is on a skiing vacation in the Alps with their two children. The family is sitting on the hotel’s open roof terrace having lunch when a huge avalanche rushes towards the hotel. It pushes a massive wall of snow mist in front of it, the front of which engulfs the terrace. While the mother grabs her children, the father panics and flees. However, the avalanche itself comes to a halt in front of the hotel. After the storm has subsided, the mother confronts her husband. At first, he denies not caring about his wife and helpless children. But when she shows him her cell phone recording, he has to admit that he did indeed abandon them. Neither of them understands why he acted this way. This is the beginning of the plot, in which the protagonists subsequently try to understand their behavior, but above all blame each other.
Some reviews of the film refer to either healthy instincts or pathetic cowardice, or even emotional coldness, as well as other interpretations. The reviewers do not even come close to understanding the fact that the instinct for self-preservation, as the basic program of our animal ancestors, is at work in every human being, as in this case in both parents. Like an animal mother, the mother’s first instinct is to protect her offspring. In such a case, most other people would have done nothing else but save their own skin or, like mothers, their children in a broader sense. The couple does not understand that it was not the father as a person who acted consciously, but his animal self-preservation program that controlled him. People remain on the visible surface and do not see the background for human behavior.
The search for the answer to the question of meaning is made more difficult by the way people deal with the commandment of charity, which is the subject of all (!) wisdom writings (see chapter 17): They understand it literally as neighbor and thus as devotion, dedication, and even sacrifice exclusively in relation to fellow human beings in their immediate environment, such as partners, children, parents, friends, etc. This view of things can also apply to members of one’s own ethnic group or nation.
But this form of “preferential love” for one’s immediate environment – in stark contrast to Jesus’ love for strangers – is also reproduced by most other mammals within the context of packs, herds, flocks, etc., at least for a time. As mentioned, it is the animal form of love.
The texts of all religions, on the other hand, command the opposite, namely selfless advocacy for all others, which is often referred to by the foreign word “altruism.” However, this human form of selflessness – for example, towards children – all too often manifests itself as hidden self-reference: for it merely reproduces our animalistic legacy of self-preservation, because it only protects our own offspring and is thus nothing more than self-preservation in an extended form. This can be clearly seen, among other things, in the fact that billionaires publicly toy with the idea of donating 99 billion of their 100 billion fortune, or that donors allow their large or small contributions to be displayed with their names on a ticker at the bottom of the screen during TV crisis coverage of disaster images. This “positive” expression of egocentric self-preservation is practiced by at least 99% of people. If this percentage seems exaggerated, consider that in a village of 500 inhabitants, for example, there would have to be five spiritually enlightened individuals following the example of Mandela, Gandhi, or Mother Teresa in order to live out the aforementioned sacrifice. For this only works with spiritual consciousness, the essential feature of which is precisely this conscious sacrifice. This does not primarily mean the surrender of material values, but rather that of egoism, of self-reference in every small and large action in everyday life and especially in dealing with enemies:
Jesus enumerated this in detail in the Sermon on the Mount, including absolute and unconditional forgiveness and the awareness that before one attacks the speck in another’s eye, one must recognize the log in one’s own. Above all, however, he commands love for one’s enemies, which has nothing to do with love in the conventional sense (see chapter 17), but consists “only” of the realization that the divine core exists in every human being, regardless of whether they are aware of it or not. Not.
That is why this central holy book of Hinduism says: “Sacrifice is the law of the universe.” (III, 15) And the core of sacrifice is the animal consciousness of unconditional self-preservation into which we, like our parents and their parents, etc., were born.
Nevertheless, the commandment to sacrifice the ego does not sufficiently clarify the goal. Jesus answers this question about the meaning of life on the earthly stage:
“Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect!” (Matthew 5:48)
Plato already recognized what perfection means: it is the highest form of being in life, shaped by spiritual consciousness (see the Sermon on the Mount). Plato calls it the “world of ideas.” It contains no more evil, which Buddha famously described as freedom from suffering. Its defining characteristic is immutability, because there is nothing left in it that could be changed. Humans can almost completely recognize this level of spiritual consciousness and life on the earthly plane and consciously develop it to the point of perfection that is possible for them.
Admittedly, the level of the material world is fundamentally imperfect because there is nothing in it that could be unchangeable or unchangeable, not even the hardest granite rock. But Jesus, with the Sermon on the Mount and, of course, with his way of life, demonstrated perfection through renunciation of the ego as the meaning of life clearly enough.
Goethe described this with the choir of angels as follows:
“Whoever strives with all their might, we can redeem.”
(Faust II, Mountain Gorges)
The concept of the meaning of existence as that of existence has been expressed for millennia as unconditional self-preservation, as self-centeredness (ego). It leads to disruption and increasing decay in all areas of life; we are all witnesses to it, perpetrators of it, and victims of it. Throughout human history, we see how friendships and almost all marriages break down or at least become desolate, and how violence, crisis, catastrophe, war, and death have always been and are even more so today.
Of course, there are always strong aspirations, especially among young people, to “make the world (!) a little better.” However, it does not occur to them that this has never worked, because despite all social legislation and the electrification of cars, people continue to lie, hate, and cheat as before. Above all, however, they fail to see that this world has not only a material axis, but also, and above all, a spiritual one.
In order to reverse this reversal of meaning, the founders of religions entered the stage of history 3,000 years ago. They made it clear that the goal is to develop toward the perfection of destiny (Mt. 5:48). This means, first of all, a conscious shift toward the preservation of all other human beings (Mt. 5:44). This can only be achieved by expanding purely material consciousness to the spiritual level.
Anyone who looks back on human history in general will see that there have been significant harmonizations of human life over the course of history, from the invention of the wheel to flying, from female genital mutilation to the MeToo movement, from slavery to democracy. What remains hidden is that all these growth processes have remained limited to the material level and have not changed the “war of all against all” (Thomas Hobbes: De cive). This applies, among other things, to the unconditional pursuit of retribution – people use the word “justice” to avoid the word revenge. It also applies to the prosperity of some at the expense of others, as well as to love for one’s own people and resentment toward others. (Exceptions are the spiritual growth processes since the emergence of religious founders, but these few percent of spiritual maturity have not changed much in the generally disastrous state of coexistence.) As I said, people want revenge and they want selfish self-realization, which they call freedom. They want unconditional self-preservation and also say openly that “ultimately, everyone is their own closest neighbor.” They do not recognize the unity of the fingers on the hand. The principle of overcoming self-preservation through devotion to the most distant “neighbors” has been clearly demonstrated by such beacons as Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Father Kolbe, Janusz Korczak, Mother Teresa, and many others, but hatred of migrants of all kinds, aversion to other ethnic groups within one’s own population, and, of course, hostility toward the evil neighbor have not changed since the beginning of our history.
The animalistic goal of existence, that the goal of being is to be, has naturally refined itself in the course of evolution, namely in the direction of a more tolerable existence in an increasingly pleasant form. In doing so, people do not want to see that it does not work, neither in marriage nor at work, neither in the school classroom nor in the village, neither in the city nor between generations nor in the coexistence of peoples. It is precisely the “war of all against all,” as Thomas Hobbes put it. And nothing has changed in this regard in the last 12,000 years of Homo sapiens. The idea that the goal of existence might not be to exist like animals, but to have a higher purpose, as pointed out in the Bible, Gita, Koran, Pali Canon, or Tao Te Ching, plays no role in the lives of the aforementioned 99%, hardly in their consciousness and certainly not in practice.
Humans remain stuck at the material level and, as a rule, understand perfection only in social and technological terms, in which they want to see the salvation of the planet. They have no idea about saving humans from humans (“A man is more of a wolf than a man to another man if he has not yet discovered what that man is really like.” (Plautus: Asinaria), and they know the Sermon on the Mount but do not follow it. All efforts at “progress” through “technological openness” and similar visions of the future only obstruct the vertical path to salvation.
The central illustration of the spiritual principle of the path to meaning is the parable of the prodigal son: His original state is a life with his father on the spiritual level. The son leaves this level and descends to the level of the material world, taking his material goods with him, but without losing his spiritual sonship (intuition, gut feeling, inner voice). There he squanders his possessions and ends up in absolute misery. Only then – cf. chapter 13 on the function of suffering in human life – does he recognize the cause of his downfall (“sinned against heaven”; Luke 15:21). He then decides to take the path to liberation from his suffering, to return to spiritual consciousness and thus to the “Father” (Luke 15:18).
Jesus expresses this more clearly:
“To the Father in me.”
Luke in particular emphasizes the view of the hand in the glove:
“Behold, the kingdom of God is within you!” (Luke 17:21)
The reference to the situation of our present world at the beginning of the 21st century is obvious: The term “squander” refers to the overexploitation and burning of our planetary resources, resulting in climate catastrophe. This reckless egocentricity is further exacerbated by the equally reckless treatment of migrants, which is the opposite of the Samaritan’s indiscriminate love, as well as the opposite of Jesus’ love for his enemies and thus the aforementioned sin against heaven.
(In relation to migration policy, this does not mean opening one’s own national borders without restriction, which would ultimately lead to the collapse of the entire system, but rather the indiscriminate care of all for all, especially for those in need there.)
The self-preservation program in its rather harmless form can already be seen in the distorted faces of soccer fans in the stadium with every goal, every victory, and every defeat, when their own self-affirmation is enhanced by the goal or endangered by the defeat. But it has a much sharper effect on people’s everyday lives: This can be seen in the “creative” handling of income tax returns, in all neighborhood disputes, legal disputes, and marital wars, and continues with collective fraud on a massive scale, such as the Dieselgate scandal involving German car manufacturers, and also the systematic cover-up by the churches of the misdeeds of countless offenders and crimes within their ranks. At all levels of the church hierarchy, one can see what the self-preservation program does to the dignitaries.
All these manifestations show that these are not specific characteristics of one group or another, but rather the universal ego as the embodiment of the self-preservation instinct in its respective guise. However, the list of examples of how this human program works is far from exhaustive with the examples of lying and cheating mentioned above: From the genital mutilation of millions of women to mass rape, civil war, wars of aggression, and genocide such as the Holocaust (Hitler: “The Jews must go.”), all human behavior is subject to this drive to ensure one’s own survival. As I said, it is our animal nature, which Goethe clearly describes in Faust I as “more animal than any animal” (Auerbach’s Cellar). Animals do not build concentration camps.
Jesus answered the question of meaning with perfection and the parable of the Prodigal Son, in abstract form with the return from material to spiritual consciousness, in concrete form with the renunciation of the absolute instinct for self-preservation – through crucifixion – and the turn towards the preservation of all. What he did not show was the associated consequence of freedom from suffering. This was taken up by other founders, above all the Buddha. First and foremost, however, it is the tangible experiences of all those who have embarked on the path away from the ego.
As far as freedom from suffering is concerned, it does not mean that these spiritually purified seekers are now spared all the inconveniences and personal crises of our good-evil world.
Rather, they too experience some of life’s vicissitudes, even if these no longer have a massive character or any effect.
Hermann Hesse describes an example of concrete freedom from suffering in one’s way of life in his novel “Siddhartha” in the chapter “Among the Child-People.”
Those who seek the answer to the question of the meaning of human life cannot avoid the intermediate position between the animal behavior program of self-preservation and the divine program of self-sacrifice and preservation of others: the instinct for one’s own survival: animal, survival of all: God. In between: humans with their free will.
(translation by software)