The Ultimate Goal in Life

About this poem

“Know Thyself” (gnothi seauton) is the first maxim inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. It is the very goal of self-actualization that is at the apex of Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of motivational needs. This same goal is deeply embedded in Jean-Paul Sartre’s existential phenomenology. It is exhibited in the pursuit of holism and is highlighted in the principle and primacy of enlightenment philosophy, as exhibited in Goethe’s maxim: “Man lernt nichts kennen als was man liebt, und je tiefer und vollstandiger die Kenntnis werden soll, desto kraftiger muss die Liebe, ja Leidenschaft sein” (Goethe in einem Brief an Jacobi, 1812). English Translation: “One learns to know nothing but what one loves, and the deeper and the more complete the knowledge is to become, the stronger, stronger and more alive must be love, even passion.” Johan Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832), in Goethe, letters, To Freidrich Heinrich Jacobi, May 10, 1812. This love, this passionate love, that leads to Maslow’s self-realization and to Jungian Individuation, this love that Goethe speaks of and describes, is realized theologically as the great “repentance” or turning around, the renewal or becoming of a “new self” by renewal of the Indwelling Spirit in mankind through love of, obeisance to, and fellowship, praise, and divine worship of the Holy Spirit, the Three-in-One. From a psychological perspective, Swiss psychiatrist, Carl Gustav Jung, puts it this way: “In the last analysis, every life, is the realization of a whole, that is, of a self, for which reason this realization can also be called “individuation.” All life is bound to individual carriers who realize it, and it is simply inconceivable without them. But every carrier is charged with an individual destiny and destination, and the realization of these alone makes sense of life” (Carl Jung, Collective Works 12, paragraph 330). That ultimate realization, that makes ultimate sense, that last and final psychological and spiritual analysis, is return of mankind to oneness of the human psyche with the Divine Holy Spirit. more »