Celebrated Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust
survivor Viktor Frankl, was born on March 26, 1905 and remains best-known
for his uplifting 1946 psychological memoir “Man’s Search for Meaning”— a meditation on what the gruesome
experience of Auschwitz taught him about the primary purpose of life: the quest
for meaning. His wife died in the camp and he endured the
unimaginable but managed somehow to convey magical moments in the midst of pain
and loss that speak to the heart.
Where can you run to?
With whom can you take refuge?
To whom will you look?
What country shall you live in?
In what direction shall you go?
At what hour shall you find rest?
What will become of you in the end?
To what will you be faithful?
If you find the truth will you be obedient to it?
“Woe to him who saw no more sense in his
life, no aim, no purpose, and therefore no point in carrying on. He was soon
lost. The typical reply with which such a man rejected all encouraging
arguments was, “I have nothing to expect from life any more.” What sort of
answer can one give to that?
What was really needed was a fundamental
change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore,
we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we
expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop
asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those
who were being questioned by life — daily and hourly. Our answer must consist,
not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life
ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its
problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each
individual.”
Viktor Frankl
If the fire of the love of God is ignited in your heart
You would neither rest nor relax,
Nor be distracted or held back from divine nearness, sanctity
and beauty.
Your longing soul would weep as one bereaved
Longing to determine the truth you would find no peace
Until, God lays bare the divine path before you.
“We were at work in a trench. The dawn was grey around us;
grey was the sky above; grey the snow in the pale light of dawn; grey the rags
in which my fellow prisoners were clad, and grey their faces. I was again
conversing silently with my wife, or perhaps I was struggling to find
the reason for my sufferings, my slow dying. In a last violent protest
against the hopelessness of imminent death, I sensed my spirit piercing through
the enveloping gloom. I felt it transcend that hopeless, meaningless world, and
from somewhere I heard a victorious “Yes” in answer to my question of the
existence of an ultimate purpose. At that moment a light was lit in a distant
farmhouse, which stood on the horizon as if painted there, in the midst of the
miserable grey of a dawning morning in Bavaria.
“The light shineth in the
darkness.”
For hours I stood hacking at the icy ground. The guard passed
by, insulting me, and once again I communed with my beloved. More and more I
felt that she was present, that she was with me; I had the feeling that I was
able to touch her, able to stretch out my hand and grasp hers. The feeling was
very strong: she was there. Then, at that very moment, a bird flew down
silently and perched just in front of me, on the heap of soil which I had dug
up from the ditch, and looked steadily at me.”
Viktor Frankl
PS Words in itallics are paraphrased from the Baha'i Writings
