What are we here for?

``What on earth am I here for?'' Even if you may not have phrased a question in those words, within all of us, there is this quest for meaning. Each of us would like to make a difference, find fulfillment. We want our lives to count. Though existence is only brief here, we want to make a contribution.

In his novel, Brothers Karamazov , Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky speaks thus through one of the characters: ``Gentleman...look around you at the gifts of God, the clear sky, the pure air, the tender grass, the birds; nature is beautiful and sinless, and we, only we, are Godless and foolish. And we don't understand that life is a paradise, for we have only to understand that and it will at once be fulfilled in all its beauty; we shall embrace each other and weep.''Another Russian, Leo Tolstoy, searching for the meaning of life, concluded: ''Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God.''

Albert Einstein, Nobel Prize winning scientist: `` How strange is the lot of us, mortals! Each of us is here for a brief sojourn: for what purpose he knows not, though he sometimes thinks he senses it. But without deeper reflection one knows from daily life that one exists for other people—first of all for those upon whose smiles and well being our own happiness is wholly dependant, and then for the many, unknown to us, to whose destinies we are bound by the ties of sympathy.''

These views on life's all–absorbing purpose can all be summarized in one word: love. We are on this earth to express this love to all others and by implication to God who created everything. We may not have a complete understanding of all the issues concerning life, but there is no mistaking that we should have a purpose and that purpose has to do with love.

Rick Warren, a popular author of the West, has written a book, The Purpose Driven Life, in answer to the oft repeated question: 'what on earth am I here for?' He believes with many others that you are not an accident. Even before the universe was created, God had you in mind and he planned you for his purposes. These purposes will extend far beyond the few years you will spend on earth. You were made to last forever.

With most religions, it is an accepted truth that God is love. The author says that because God is love, the most important lesson he wants us to learn on earth is how to love. Life is all about love.

But this learning to love is not as easy as it sounds. It runs counter to the self–centred nature of man. It takes a lifetime to learn it. Khalil Gibran, for instance, is realistic when he says: '' For even as love crowns you/ So shall he crucify you. Even as he is for your growth/ So is he for your pruning.''

''Love should be your top priority, primary objective and greatest ambition,'' reflects the author. This, in turn, means that relationships must have priority in your life above every thing else. St Paul had said that life without love is really worthless. ''No matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I am bankrupt without love.'' Then again, it is not enough just to say relationships are important; we must prove it by investing time in them.

How does love affect human relationships? Through meeting the emotional needs: all of us, in our innermost selves, crave for acceptance, affection, appreciation and approval. Responding to a hurting person with words, feelings and touch constitutes another function of love. Encouraging others in their pursuits of higher goals, supporting people in their struggles and providing appropriate assistance are ways in which love meets life's emotional needs.

The most desired gift of love is not diamonds or roses. It is focused attention. Whenever you give your time, you are making a sacrifice and sacrifice is the essence of love. The author says that love means giving up—yielding one's preferences, comfort, goals, security, money, energy or time for the benefit of some one else. Agrees another author, Walter Rauschenbusch :``We never live so intensely as when we love strongly. We never realize ourselves so vividly as when we are in the full glow of love for others.''

``The person who has made the most spectacular success, but who reaches life's end without learning love has totally failed. Do not envy those in the limelight of publicity, those with scintillating intellects, or those who have accumulated great wealth and all that it affords. If one has not learned love in the process, his life is a disaster, opines Paul E Billheimer, in his delightful book, Don't Waste Your Sorrows. .

We need to hold before us daily that true happiness is not attained through self–gratification, but through fidelity to a worthy purpose and that learning love constitutes that purpose willed by our very Creator for our lives.