A human being’s purpose is to preserve his soul. To preserve your soul is to grow it, to expand it. This expansion happens through love.
“For I have come down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him who sent me. This is the will of my Father who sent me, that of all he has given to me I should lose nothing,” it is said in John (6:38–39), i.e. to preserve, grow within myself and bring to the highest possible degree of divinity that spark of spiritual life which was given to me, entrusted to me, like a child to a nanny. So what is needed to fulfill this? Not the satisfaction of lust, not earthly glory, but labor, struggle, hardship, suffering, humiliation, persecution, that which is spoken of many times in the gospel. And this very thing which we need is sent to us in a variety of forms, in amounts both small and large. We need only accept it properly, as work that is joyful to us because it is necessary, not as something annoying, something that disturbs our animal existence, which we take for life.
The works of the righteous are seeds, which sometimes lie still in the soil of history, but when they receive warmth and moisture, when they absorb new, healthy juices and fresh energies, these seeds begin to sprout, blossom and bear fruit; but that which is sown by violence and untruth withers, decays and disappears without a trace.
— The Talmud
What is man born for but to be a Reformer, a Remaker of what man has made? A renouncer of lies; a restorer of truth and good? Imitating that great Nature which embosoms us all, and which sleeps no moment on an old past, but every hour repairs herself, yielding us every morning a new day, with every breath a new life?
— Emerson
The purpose of human life is both personal self-perfection and a service to the work that is being carried out by the whole of humankind.
While there is still life in a human being, he can perfect himself and serve the world. But he can only serve the world by perfecting himself, and he can only perfect himself by serving the world.
To perfect yourself means to transfer your self more and more from corporeal life into the spiritual, for which there is no time or death, and for which everything is good.
There is but a single step between me and a five-year-old child. A terrible distance separates a newborn from a five-year-old. Between an embryo and a newborn lies an abyss. And it is no longer an abyss that separates non-existence from an embryo, but an unfathomableness.
From childhood until death, whenever it may come, the human soul is growing, becoming ever more aware of its spirituality, moving closer to God, to perfection. Whether or not you know this, whether or not you want this, this movement is taking place. But if you do know and want that which God wants, then life becomes free and joyful.
