(Dr. Viktor Frankl)
An Antidote for meaningless.
Dr. Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s search for meaning answers:
Why do we need a meaning for our life…?
Viktor Frankl survived the holocaust in concentration camps as a Jew.
And describes how and why he could survive WWII.
10 years before he went into the concentration camps, Frankl developed Logotherapy to give our life a meaning under all circumstances.
Nietzsche: As long as a person has a why to live, he can bear almost anything.
Frankl found it wasn’t necessarily the strongest people who survived in the camps, it was those who had meaning, and even when they suffered tremendous pain…
Because they had access to the inner world of spiritual freedom. Or self-transcendence of human existence.
Most prisoners lost their lives because of a lack of meaning and not from a lack of food or medicine…
Suffering ceases to be suffering at the moment if finds a meaning.
There exist 4 ways to find meaning in our lives.
1. To find meaning is by doing work that feeds the soul and brings fulfillment. For Frankl was it to rewrite his script that he wanted to be published and to give lectures on what he learned from surviving the concentration camps.
What skills can you do that is unique and only you can do so meaningfully?
What is the task that is waiting for you?
2. To find meaning in the people we love.
Frankl wanted to see his wife again, so he survived, but not his wife.
Love is the highest goal that we can aspire to…
Only through love, we can be saved…
Love is something that goes beyond the physical presence of those who’ve touched our lives.
How can you express meaning and purpose through the people you love in your life?
Spirituality and faith in the Lord are essential to find meaning in our lives.
And everybody needs to work hard to develop spirituality or faith in the Lord through contemplation like meditation and prayers.
Frankl surrendered his life to the Lord and gained total faith in the Lord. But Frankl could not mention as a scientist that he was praying and had faith in the Lord. So, he overtook the interpretation of Synchronicity from the Psychologist Jung and integrated that into his Logotherapy.
3. Synchronicity
When Frankl arrived at the Concentration camp, he found in the pocket of his prison cloth, a piece of paper with Jewish prayers… He interpreted that as a message from the Lord to pray seriously for hours every day until his death.
This incident is described as Synchronicity.
Synchronicity is a meaningful coincidence that happens when an event in the outside world matches up with an inner state of the mind in a way that has meaning.
4. Facing our suffering…
Even if we are in a situation that is hopeless, we lost the ones we love most or even everything… our freedom our families…
When almost all hopes are lost, our life can end… We have to get our hopes back…
If we open up our hearts, for the beauty that is around us, be it a sunset, flowers, or trees, we will be inspired and get our hope and faith back.
For Frankl had been just these moments of total beauty that gave him the power to survive.
And these moments can only happen when we contemplate!
My Video: Why do we need a meaning for our life? https://youtu.be/hRr-ckJUcLY
My Audio: https://divinesuccess.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/Podcast2/Why-do-we-need-a-meaning-for-our-life.mp3