The Quest for ‘ultimate' Meaning

The loss of life’s meaning is a product of individual fulfillment and materialism. The latter merely defined as the theory or attitude that physical well-being and worldly possessions constitute the greatest good and highest value in life. The actor-turned-governor of the State of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, makes an important statement about what has become known as the ‘Meaning of Life’:

For me life is continuously being hungry. The meaning of life is

not simply to exist, to survive, but to move ahead, to go up,

to achieve, to conquer. (http://www.saidwhat.co.uk/thearticles

/meaningoflife)

We are constantly under the command of economic forces and our unconscious, yet, simultaneously, we live in a world that presents us with endless choices: our “infinite”

wants versus a “finite” world. Surely, our obsession with individuality and self-interest further leads us to a vague perception of life and its purpose. For life to have meaning, one must cease the relentless pursuit of self-gratification, for it is in the act of sharing beliefs and embracing the divine commonalities of the human race that the meaning of life resides.

First and foremost, faith, an archetype of belief, cannot be passive for it is an active, and most importantly a unifying protest against a world which elevates greed and ego above altruism. "The single greatest protest against such a universe is monotheism" (“History of Violence”), declares Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. It is this very belief in a singular divine-existence that lays the foundation for Judaism and Islam. Many of the Jewish thinkers, such as Maimonides, Solomon Ibn Gabirol, Saadiah Gaon al-Fayyumi and Abraham Ibn Daud, wrote in Arabic and were heavily influenced by the work of early Muslim thinkers (“History of Violence”). Maimonides, for example, was highly inspired by the metaphysics of Abu Nasr al-Farabi and Ibn Sina; Ibn Gabirol leaned towards Ibn Arabi and the Sufis of Andalusia (“History of Violence”). While these Muslim thinkers worked in the Islamic idiom, they saw their thought in universal terms. How we treat ourselves determines how we treat all others. That is why they deliberately based their ethics on a humanism that was universal. Those, aforementioned, great Jewish thinkers share this position with their Muslim counterparts regarding humanitarianism: