Each age has to create a new God. Not that God dies, but the notions of God die. Now man is left in a vacuum, in an existential vacuum. The old gods have gone, and we have not created new gods. The old temple is a ruin, and we have not built a new temple. Each age has to search again and again, and rediscover God in its own way – that’s why life seems to be meaningless. And now the old God cannot be revived, the old God cannot be given breath alone. That’s what churches, priests are trying to do: trying to breathe into the dead God. It is not possible; man has become more grown-up. Man needs a more grown-up God. Man needs a God who can fulfill his requirements which are now.

Krishna fulfilled some people’s requirement then, five thousand years back. Jesus fulfilled some people’s requirement two thousand years back. Moses’ God was not relevant to Jesus’ time. Jesus’ God cannot be relevant to yours. Things change, but man cannot live without God.

By “God” I mean “meaning.” You can forget the word; the word does not matter. Man cannot live without meaning. He needs to feel that what he is doing has a relevance, that whatsoever he is doing contributes something to the total joy, the total beauty of the existence. Maybe his effort is small, his hands are tiny, but still he is not irrelevant to existence; he is required. He is fulfilling a certain need, that brings meaning to life. When you are fulfilling a need, there is meaning. And with meaning there is joy. When you are not fulfilling any need, you can disappear and there will not be any change in the world; you can be replaced easily, thrown away, and somebody else will do the work. You are only a function – anybody else can fulfill it – then there arises existential vacuum. Then you start feeling pain in the heart. Then why go on living? For what? What is the point of it all? Then there seems to be no point, and it drives people crazy.

I understand your question. You ask: “Life seems to be so meaningless. Why?”

It seems to be so meaningless because you have not yet taken hold of life. You have not created anything that can give significance to it.

Eliot says that man is hollow. Yes, that is true, man is hollow, but so is a bamboo hollow. But when the bamboo becomes a flute there arises meaning. And so man can become a flute. But you are not flutes, you are simply hollow bamboos.

About modern man Eliot says

Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion….

This is his description: “Paralyzed force, gesture without motion….” That’s how Anderson must have looked in his own eyes, kneeling on a dusty road. He must have cut a very ridiculous figure.

Shape without form, shade without color,
Paralyzed force, gesture without motion….

Then your life seems to be like a wasteland, a desert where no river flows, no trees grow, no birds sing…nothing happens. It is a nightmare. One goes on and on…and nothing happens. And one day one falls down and disappears into the dust – dust to dust….