August 2, 2026
Has my life any purpose at all? Does it need to be manipulated either by myself or others so that I might measure up to some kind of a standard? When I am measuring up to a standard I am struggling all of the time.
You know how these standards are set, don't you? Someone takes what they call the average. Average intelligence! Have you ever met someone with an average intelligence?
The average intelligence doesn't apply to anybody. Either you are above average intelligence or you are below average — nobody has 'average' intelligence.
How do you live in this world? Is there a purpose in all this? Must I measure up to a standard? Set by whom? And this fashion seems to be changing continuously. Not only your hairstyle changes, thinking fashion also changes.
I don't know if you are subject to these 'decadent’ cataclysms — decadent in the sense of 'once in a decade' another cataclysm takes over. Now it is psycho-analysis, and now it is primal scream, and now it is transcendental meditation, and now it is…. Every few years something gets hold of us and all of us swing. The standard is changed — which means it was not standard. If it was standard it must be standing. The standard seems to be running and all of us are chasing one another to keep pace with this changing phenomenon. Who sets the standard? How do we discover this?
How do we discover what the purpose of life is, and if there is a purpose at all? And therefore, the first question which seems to be of great importance is for each one of us to ask ourselves, or to ask life itself, "What is your purpose?”
Let alone understanding or experiencing another's feelings (of pleasure or pain heat or cold) one cannot even recall and truly experience one's own previous experience of such feelings or sensations. When someone walks on burning sand, you do not experience the heat on your sole, you cannot even truly remember or revive the feeling. You recall the word which represented the experience to you, and you infer that that expression applies to the other person's present experiences.