Bibliotherapy Extracts on the "MEANING OF LIFE" for reflection, consideration

 

Meaning and purpose in life,

 “The meaning of life is whatever you ascribe to it.

Being alive is the meaning”

Joseph Campbell,  

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“Our prime purpose in this life is to help others. And if you can’t help them, at least don’t hurt them.”The Dalai Lama

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“There is not one single big cosmic meaning for all; there is only the meaning we each give to our life. An individual meaning, an individual plot, like an individual novel, a book for each person.”Anais Nin 

All available at: https://medium.com/@successmagazine/the-meaning-of-life-in-15-wise-quotes-a4e0db4b4e64

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“My dog doesn't worry about the meaning of life. She may worry if she doesn't get her breakfast, but she doesn't sit around worrying about whether she will get fulfilled or liberated or enlightened. As long as she gets some food and a little affection, her life is fine”

Joko Beck. Available at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/joko_beck_538152?src=t_meaning_of_life

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“There is an internal landscape, a geography of the soul: we search for its outlines all our lives. Those who are lucky enough to find it ease like water over stone, onto its fluid contours, and are home.
Some find it in a place of their birth; others may leave a seaside town, parched, and find themselves refreshed in the desert. There are those born in rolling countryside who are really only at ease in the intense and busy loneliness of the city.
For some, the search is for the imprint of another; a child or a mother, a grandfather or a brother, a lover, a husband, a wife, or a foe.
We may go through our lives happy or unhappy, successful or unfulfilled, loved, or unloved, without ever standing cold with the shock of recognition, without ever feeling the agony as the twisted iron in our soul unlocks itself and we slip at last into place.”

Fiction Book: Damage by Josephine Hart: J. Hart (2003) Damage. Vintage books: London, 1-2p

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“He knocks at all doors, strays and roams,

Nay, hath not so much wit as some stones have,

Which in the darkest nights point to their homes,

        By some hid sense their Maker gave ;

Man is the shuttle, to whose winding quest

              And passage through these looms

God order'd motion, but ordain'd no rest”.

Poem: Man by Henry Vaughan Verse 4Source: Vaughan, Henry. The Poems of Henry Vaughan, Silurist. vol I. E. K. Chambers, Ed. London, Lawrence & Bullen Ltd., 1896. 169-170

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 “………But often, in the world's most crowded streets,   

But often, in the din of strife, 

There rises an unspeakable desire 

After the knowledge of our buried life,  ...

…And we have been on many thousand lines, 

And we have shown, on each, spirit and power, 

But hardly have we, for one little hour, 

Been on our own line, have we been ourselves;     

Hardly had skill to utter one of all 

The nameless feelings that course through our breast, 

But they course on for ever unexpress'd. 

And long we try in vain to speak and act 

Our hidden self, and what we say and do      

Is eloquent, is well—but 'tis not true! “…………..

 Only—but this is rare—  …………..

 …..   A bolt is shot back somewhere in our breast 

And a lost pulse of feeling stirs again!      

The eye sinks inward, and the heart lies plain, 

And what we mean, we say, and what we would, we know, 

A man becomes aware of his life's flow, 

And hears its winding murmur, and he sees 

The meadows where it glides, the sun, the breeze………….

 

Extracts from Poem: The buried life by Mathhew Arnold :

M. Arnold (1852) The buried life Available at: https://poets.org/poem/buried-life

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“An aged man is but a paltry thing,

A tattered coat upon a stick, unless

Soul clap its hands and sing, and louder sing

For every tatter in its mortal dress,………..”

 Extract from poem Sailing to Byzantium:  Yeats, W.B (1989)  The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats Available at: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43291/sailing-to-byzantium

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 One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice --

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voice behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do --

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

 Oliver, M. (1963) The journey, In: No voyage and other poems. Available at: https://maryoliver.beacon.org/2009/11/new-and-selected-one/index.html