Fellow Travelers

Rev. Gregory Gibbs

There are no right and wrong answers, but please take the following multiple-choice test seriously. Each sort of response to the following questions will have its own positive side and will bring with it certain problems.

1. What is the purpose of life?

A. To have as much enjoyment as possible before the inevitability of death.

B. To make progress in self-understanding so that we can go to some permanent heavenly realm where all our needs will be fulfilled.

C. To realize fully the luminous, deathless, utterly free and magically empty non-substantial oneness of all life.

D. There is no purpose to life, it is fundamentally meaningless.

E. To gain as much control over your life as possible. Pleasure cannot be held onto even while we live, but power can, so long as we live. After we die its all over, and the only thing that matters is how fully we took control of our situation.

F. To pass on one's knowledge, sensitivity and sensibilities to one's heirs. Whether those heirs are biological children or disciples of the spirit is not important. What is important is to create a lineage of persons who share one's unique spiritual, aesthetic, social, and political vision.

G. To be as free as possible, to be free from compulsions, both internal (longing, irritability, rage, et.al.) and external restrictions (political forces, social systems, values of peer groups, et.al.) must be thrown off.

H. To put as much beauty into one's life and surroundings as possible.

I. To understand the world in which we find ourselves first. Once we know the world better we can formulate values and purpose.

J. To resolve the problem of our next life (or the afterlife) and to live a humble life of repaying one's indebtedness in this life.

K. All of the above.

L. A,C,E,F,G,H,&J

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