Author Daniel Parmeggiani explains how our scientific worldview robs us of our sense of wonder and how that removes meaning, and happiness, from our lives.

My personal spiritual journey began with the realization that all I ever wanted was to feel better – to be happy. I then dedicated my time and energy to figuring out what it really takes to find true, lasting happiness. One of the things I found is that we can’t be truly happy without a deep sense of meaning in our lives. Our lives – our very existence – need to have a profound and lasting meaning and purpose. Simply put, our lives and the reasons why we’re here need to make sense to us. 

As small children, we have no problem with any of this. Our every waking moment overflows with richness, depth, and meaning. Everything we encounter is a wonderful mystery to be discovered. We delight in seeing, hearing, smelling, or touching new things. As long as we are free to play and explore, we feel totally fulfilled.

Later on, however, something goes very wrong. As we grow up, we lose that natural sense of wonder. We cease to think for ourselves or discover things on our own.  That’s because we learn that just about everything on Earth has already been discovered, labeled and rationalized by scientists. Our exuberant drive to experience and explore yields to memorizing cold, hard concepts. Our modern scientific materialistic worldview thus takes over our young minds, effectively zapping much of the mystery and wonder from our experience.

At school we are taught a spiritless, mechanical view of man and the universe. We learn that the universe and everything in it, including ourselves, originated from a purely physical phenomenon called the Big Bang. We are taught that our planet, very possibly, has the only life-sustaining environment amongst the trillions of planets out there. We are told that the “miracle” of life began when single-celled organisms suddenly sprouted in the “primordial soup” billions of years ago and evolved through natural selection and survival of the fittest to what it is today. Furthermore, we find out that we belong to the ape family and that we also evolved through purely natural processes without any need for supernatural intervention from a Creator. We hear about DNA mapping, test-tube babies, and stem cell research. It begins to sink in that maybe life is nothing but a complex interaction of chemicals that can be created and manipulated in a laboratory.

As life loses its mystery, wonder and depth, it inevitably loses its meaning. What could be meaningful about a godless temporary existence? What is so special about life if it is just some accidental phenomenon? Why care too much about anything if it is all going to end anyway? What is the point of it all without a lasting higher purpose? Is this all there is?

In one form or another, most people ask themselves these questions. And the dry, empty, dead-ended picture that science and materialism presents as fact affects everyone at different levels. For the religious, it subtly undermines their faith. For the not so religious, it encourages avoidance and denial through the constant pursuit of entertainment and consumerism. This meaningless worldview also promotes selfish, inconsiderate and uncaring behavior, as reflected by our disregard towards animals and the environment. The incidence of neuroses in industrialized countries is now twenty-four times greater than it was sixty-five years ago, according to the World Health Organization. With this shallow and uninspiring perception of ourselves, and of our world, that pervades our culture, is it any wonder that we’re rapidly losing our minds?

If you doubt whether real meaning is important, consider how you would feel about your life if the things you value and admire the most were shown to have no real value whatsoever—to be essentially meaningless. Deep down, we long for our lives to be significant, for our existence to have depth and lasting meaning, for our time here to be more than a doomed fight for survival. Things were totally exciting and fulfilling when we were small children. Now we want it all to make sense again because, without real meaning, everything eventually falls apart.

But enough of the dark, depressing stuff. Where do we find the sense of deep meaning that is so crucial for real happiness and fulfillment?

We find it in faith.

I’m not talking about the “blind” faith many people have in whatever their Church or their priest tells them, regardless of what common sense has to say about it. I’m talking about real faith, where even if you lack the kind of hard proof that a scientist would consider valid, you still believe in ideas and concepts that uplift and empower you. So reject the dead-ended scientific world view and instead give the sacredness of life the benefit of the doubt. Thinking this is all there is closes all doors and makes us depressed and destructive. Choosing instead to believe that we are eternal, spiritual beings, with an incredible adventure of discovery ahead of us, opens up all possibilities and allows us to dream again as we did when we were kids. Until you can verify this for yourself in your own experience, have faith that it is so.

Finding real meaning makes all the difference in our outlook and well-being, and an unlimited supply of it awaits once we embark on the conscious spiritual path. I invite you to join me on this ultimate journey of self-discovery on April 29th2014, when my book The Magnificent Truths of Our Existence becomes available. Thanks for checking in, and may these truths bring you the perfect happiness, love, and inner peace that you so rightfully deserve.

Do you agree that a sense of deep meaning is essential to real happiness? What currently brings you that sense of meaning and purpose? Please leave your comments below!

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Daniel Parmeggiani
14th March 2014

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