What’s the purpose of life?

It’s a question that philosophers have been asking for centuries. It’s one of the most important questions a person can ever ask, because once we are clear on our purpose we experience:

  • More energy in our lives
  • Courage to deal with life’s challenges
  • Patience in the time of adversity
  • A better ability to take decisions.
  • What is the purpose of life?
  • What does it mean to know God?
  • Why is there suffering and to face it with courage
  • How to solve the tension between the needs of the Body and the Soul
  • The single most important trait needed for the human soul to mature

Verses mentioned in this lecture:

  • 23:115 “Did you think that We had created you in play (without any purpose), and that you would not be brought back to Us?”
  • 84:6 “O man! surely you must strive (to attain) to your Lord, a hard striving until you meet Him”
  • 18:110 “… It is revealed to me that your god is one Allah, therefore whoever hopes to meet his Lord, he should do good deeds, and not join any one in the service of his Lord.”
  • 2:156 “Surely we are Allah’s and to Him we shall surely return.”
  • 8:24 “O you who believe! answer (the call of) Allah and His Messenger when he calls you to that which gives you life”
  • 4:45 “And seek assistance through patience and prayer, and most surely it is a hard thing except for the humble ones”
  • 2:153 “O you who believe! seek assistance through patience and prayer; surely Allah is with the patient.”
  • 2:183 “O you who believe! fasting is prescribed for you, as it was prescribed for those before you, so that you may guard (against evil).”
  • 2:216 Fighting is enjoined on you, and it is an object of dislike to you; and it may be that you dislike a thing while it is good for you, and it may be that you love a thing while it is evil for you, and Allah knows, while you do not know.
  • 57:23 “No evil befalls on the earth nor in your own souls, but it is in a book before We bring it into existence; surely that is easy to Allah. So that you may not grieve for what has escaped you, nor be exultant at what He has given you; and Allah does not love any arrogant boaster”

Hadith mentioned in this lecture:

  • “People are asleep. When they die, they wakeup.” ~ Imam Ali (‘a)
  • “I was a hidden treasure. I created so that I may be known” ~ Hadith Qudsi
  • “Aql is that by which one comes to worship one’s creator. And Aql is that by which one earns one’s place in paradise.” ~ Imam Jafar Sadiq (‘a)

Selected Quotes from this lecture:

All souls are undergoing a spiritual journey, and the end of the journey which has no end, is to come great consciousness and awakening.

If you with all your learnings and all your experience you cannot come to the conclusion that you have a creator before whom you must bow and you are not able to find a place in jannah, then you have no aql. Then you have jahalah. It does not matter how many PHDs you have pasted on the wall.

When you come absolutely close to Allah it is not a physical meeting, it is a complete suspension of the egoic self and a full view of the radiance and full magnificance of the one and only reality, that is Allah (swt).

Islam wants you to live in society, cause that is where the soul is forged in the fire of suffering and tribulations where it attains these (Godly) qualities.