Why Do I Exist?

Café-Salon Philosophique #13

May 9, 1998

No. of Participants: 30

Topic: "What is the reasons for my existence? What purpose does God have in my life? What is the point of my being alive? What is the basis of this urge, or from where does this urge arise? Is there a biological reason for this or is it a message from God?"

Samuel began the evening by greeting everyone to Cafe and by reminding us to emphasize the question rather than the answer. "Wonder allowed, rather than worrying to arrive."

Carron started the evening's discussion by sharing her views on man's need to seek God through religion and relating to us the evolution of man in search of deeper meaning, Throughout the ages, Society has used religion as one of the cornerstones for practicing and interacting with God. Religion to many, provides "the sanctuary" for one to seek silence and stillness in order to meet the "true essence" or feel "connected to God." For many, this might be the only way for finding the time to become quiet and still.

Carron then stated, "that there might be a biological basis for us to seek and know more about life" - To exploring and understand our world. She then discussed the evolution of man, referring to the Stone Age period of the caveman. Because of primal instinct, they were driven to learn, explore and survive. This lead to a natural selection process, "survival of the fittest." There had to be some kind of biological changes occurring in the neuro-circuitry of the brain in order for this evolution to occur.

Stan said he believed that there is a chemical process that takes place in the brain to coordinate and produce an "organic evolution" of sorts. He also believes that "intelligence drives the biology."

One Cafe goer stated that "we need to place less emphasis on our selfish, needy, greedy selves and learn to look at the whole picture" - The state of humanity today. We need to continually question our thoughts and actions and identify those things that may be "ego based" only.

Stan stated that "sometimes this is hard to do when the world has made money the source of power." Money is only a true source of power if one understands objectively about money and knows how to handle it wisely. If the will for money takes over as the whole reason for one's existence, then you are being used by money rather than using money to produce values. Victor Frankl, the author of "Man's Search for Meaning" stated, "Once the will for money takes over, the pursuit of meaning is replaced by the pursuit of means."

Discussion then moved to Samuel asking, "If there was such a thing as perfection?" and "What do we think is the next step in our evolution?" One Cafe Goer stated that "maybe we are a just biological experiment that is just running it's course." One thought perfection to be wholeness while another said that maybe "we are just striving towards self perfection but doing nothing to achieve it."

Many people within the group were satisfied and content with saying that they were "fine being mediocre and average, and following along with the masses like sheep." They continued to discuss how they didn't have the inner will or drive to work towards perfection. BUT, there was a small minority that felt that we are here to discover "perfection in all things."

Samuel expressed how he thought that "following along like a sheep" was an "insult to the human intelligence" and that "this is the sad state of humanity today, where very few truly make genuine effort to discover how to become leaders over their own lives." We then discussed how we were born into a world of chaos and how we have to work towards finding the real reasons for our existence by "putting things in order." We must learn to avoid outside distractions that lure us from our path, and control our "primitive" nature and emotions in order to succeed at becoming what we intended to be.

Samuel brought up that "there are people who are chaos producers" who intend to keep things stirred up and distract us from are natural harmony. He then asked us how many people we knew that were truly focused? and also if there is a pattern for our development and unfolding. We pondered a minute in silence to reflect on these questions and then one person stated, that "they didn't think we have a purpose in life." Others answered that "they truly didn't know why we were here." Someone else said, "that they knew we were here to learn from experience in order to evolve."

Conversation then moved toward working to define what God was and in general, the meaning of life. All believed that the power of love was necessary in order to exist here on earth. One person related how we need to separate fact from fiction. Samuel then asked group members to define the reason for their existence, if they knew it. Responses were: "To know," "to improve," "to raise consciousness," "to help others through chaos," "to survive and reproduce," "to understand and improve myself," "to enjoy life," "I don't know," "I don't have a purpose." "For the betterment of the world," "to achieve wholeness," "to discover and facilitate knowingness," "to learn, love, play and generate," "to have a good time," "to learn about love," "to form a circle," "to be a sheep," and finally, "to be cool."

In order to have a meaningful existence, one must first have the will to live. One must then establish values and a purpose for living, then, separate fact from fiction. Search for that which is genuine and authentic. We are all unique individuals, and although we like to rationalize that we need to "go places," and have other "things or people" in our lives, we sometimes find excuses for not spending good quality time alone for learning about our "true essence." We then remain restless and unsatisfied with life's events.

Samuel then asked us to decipher this puzzle - "What is the most difficult but yet the easiest" thing for us to do in this life? One stated, "to know thyself and to be thyself." Samuel stated that this was true and added that his friend, Shakespeare once said, "to be OR not to be that is the question." And Samuel says, "To be AND not to be," that is the answer.

The meeting was well attended with various people coming and going. Our next meeting for Cafe-Salon Philosophique will be Saturday, May 23, 1998 at Barnes &Nobles at 2915 Pearl St., Boulder, CO beginning at 7:30 p.m.

Our topic of conversation will be: "What do you envision life to be at the turn of the century? What is your vision of the world in the next ten years? What kind of life do you imagine we are we going to have? Are we going to survive the chaos? Is there going to be any chaos? And after the chaos, what then? And why is living so difficult, but yet so simple?

Reported by Alessandra