Maulana Wahiduddin Khan | Speaking Tree Blog | Dec 20, 2021
In 1946, the Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist Viktor Emil Frankl (1905 – 1997) authored a book called Man’s Search for Meaning, and over the years, many books with similar titles have been written. During the more than three hundred years of the printing press, billions of similar books have been published in different languages and if a common title were to be given to all these books, it would, without doubt, be: In Search of Meaning.
A human being, by nature, is a seeker after meaning. Everyone tries to find answers to his questions, for everyone is born with an enquiring mind. And, it is this quest which has resulted in the writing of so many books on the subject, in both fictional and non-fictional genres. All, directly or indirectly, have as their central theme the quest for truth.
When an individual reaches the age of maturity, his first concern is to earn his livelihood. He takes up various kinds of jobs or engages in different types of economic activity. And when he becomes engrossed in some venture, he has a period of satisfaction. Then, gradually, a time comes when he realizes that his job is not giving him what he had been looking for. Certainly, his work puts bread on the table but, as Jesus Christ once rightly said: ‘Man cannot live by bread alone.’ (Matthew 4:4) To earn one’s bread is everyone’s first need. But, ‘bread’ can satisfy only one’s physical requirements; it fails to give one intellectual satisfaction. This is the main cause of frustration and despair experienced by almost everyone today.
According to the Big Bang theory, the universe came into existence about 13 billion years ago. Just being in possession of this fact causes everyone to think: ‘Billions of years ago, I was a non-existent entity in this vast universe. Then, I was born and nature made me part of the population of the world.’ Almost every person, consciously or unconsciously, yearns to know how and why he came into existence. There are few who have not frequently reflected on existence, trying to understand the meaning of their presence in this world.
When a person is born, he immediately finds himself in a world with a life support system which he personally did not struggle to create. He then realizes that nature potentially had an entire technology already hidden within it. This technology was one of mankind’s later discoveries, which was developed and refined to the point of being able to create the civilization we see around us.
Then, man questions himself: Who is behind this living drama? What is the relationship between me and that superb artist? Furthermore, there is the question of death: Why does man die and what lies in the post-death period?
If you try to explain this phenomenon, you will find a single, overarching title for it, which in religious terms is expressed as ‘God’. If we accept this term, we can say that, in fact, everyone is in search of God. It is God who gives meaning to all phenomena, and, after finding God, everything falls into place.
Once I was in a crowd where I saw a little boy running around anxiously because he had been separated from his mother. He was crying and continually asking: “Meri mummy kahan hain?” (Where is my mother?) When he found his mother, she took him in her arms. Instantly the boy stopped crying and became calm and content.
This incident illustrates the case of man. Everyone, knowingly or unknowingly, is in search of God. And when he finds Him, he becomes calm and content. But all too often, during this search, when he runs towards various things, he very soon realizes once they come within his reach that he has not found what he was searching for. This has been true of almost every human being throughout the entire history of mankind. It is essential to re-focus his endeavours after mature consideration.
Everyone’s life has two parts. The first part is a comedy, but if the seeker cannot set himself upon the right course, that is, one which will lead him to God, the second part may turn out to be a tragedy. That is because ‘God’ is not something which one has to be told about from outside: it is a matter of self-discovery. God can only be discovered by the individual himself. It is only the self-discovered God that can give you conviction. If you want to make your life meaningful, you have to take up this question on a priority basis. It is only your own study and your own contemplation that can give you your God. The criterion of having found God is that once you have found Him, you should become completely at peace, like the little boy in the above incident.
Jesus Christ once said: ‘Seek and you will find.’ (Matthew, 7:7) This is not so much a religious saying as it is a law of nature. But the ultimate success of the search has an important condition to it, and that is, sincerity. One who is truly sincere in his search will certainly reach his goal.