Some thoughts about 'the meaning of life'

But how can I learn anything from life to life without retaining my experiences? If it's an underlying personality trait then I'm pretty much screwed in your scenario. And then to give me free will, and no real knowledge of what it all means? That is cruel. To be judged to be good or evil by standards I can never know. I'll side with Lucifer on this one, better to reign in hell.....

@Forell

And thats why were always searching for the answer my friend.

@memoir

Thank you so much for your post i think your situation is one i have found myself in before. You look for the meaning every where and nothing feels right and everything feels wrong. Whats the point of finding the meaning to life when you feel this way.

It wasn't until i started to define the rules to my own liking and defining my own path. (Not following religion or someone else's belief structure basically) Make your own religion for you and know one else. Take bits and pieces you like from where ever you like and make it your own. You be the judge of whats right and wrong.

I have been much happier doing things this way and its how i arrived at posting this thread today. Maybe trying this might work for you as well.Peace.

@WorldShadow

Very interesting. I don't think i could go along with your belief structure but interesting all the same. I'm not completely sure what to make of your post actually. Could you elaborate some more?

@the titor experience

Wow that was pretty deep even for this thread and i thank you for that. I think your completely right. The idea of finding yourself in every way including spiritually instead of following a path set out.

The idea of being judged or graded doesn't seem to fit with a lot of people responding to this thread. This is where my thoughts differ my 'ego' tells me what is the point of finding yourself in every way if this pursuit leads to nothing once your there.

I think once the time comes it will be known that learning this experience was for a reason. I don't think we do 'all of this' just to get to the end and then what?

Wish iwas as articulate as you at expressing my views in writing

@Mdv2

Thanks for posting i'm glad my own belief structure is so common on ATS. This has blown me away. Most people i know, that i talk to, think im nuts when i start telling them how i think.

Not sure about the suicide issue you bring up though. Thats something i haven't quite wrapped my head round yet.

@csulli456

I agree with you actually what if every great teaching we know about is wrong and we have complete belief structures stripped away. You'd be lost. And that is why i agree with finding your own paths and beliefs, like i try to instead of believing in a view of society, believe in the view of yourself.

@DimensionalDetective

I like your thoughts. I think there is a possibility you might be correct. This is an idea im going to have to mull over myself. Is this belief structure based on a concept or did you come up with it yourself?

@Dulcimer

Hi Dulcimer i have a family friend who thinks the same way. Do you believe in spirits or a soul with that sort of belief structure?


@almighty bob

This is great i can see a theme developing here as i read down these replies. The general consensus seems to be that the manifestation of a spirit to flesh is generally accepted. The differing views come from the opinions that:

We are here for fun and there is no real meaning accept experience.

Or we are here to get to the next level so to speak through gathered experience.

Interesting!

@IMAdamnALIEN

Hey thats actually quite cool that you came up with your idea the same as i did. Who knows maybe some one/thing is planting seeds

Originally posted by Totalstranger
But how can I learn anything from life to life without retaining my experiences? If it's an underlying personality trait then I'm pretty much screwed in your scenario.

I'm not of the opinion that it works like that. And its a bit of up in the air topic to be getting into semantics but basically its a learning experience for the soul. A soul that came here to learn the difference between good and evil it has no concept of right or wrong to have a flawed personality trait in the first place.

And then to give me free will, and no real knowledge of what it all means? That is cruel. To be judged to be good or evil by standards I can never know. I'll side with Lucifer on this one, better to reign in hell.....

Now come along now there is no need to be like this find what works for yourself don't side with anyone or their views not even mine lol. Do and feel out what works for you.

Take from that what you will.

Summary

To summarise i guess my biggest message is i don't believe in religion. I believe in picking and choosing whats right for yourself and going with it. No rules to abide by set by someone else.

I know for a lot of people this wouldn't be right for them but then thats their choice that they feel comfortable with which is great i just prefer to do it this way.

So far the general consensus is we are here to learn experience and evolve into something else because of it or we are here to experience a bit like a holiday no real meaning accept the joy of doing it.

Keep the posts up everybody i'm really enjoying this one.

My opinion of the meaning of life is simply 'to experience'.

Why would you read a book? Play a video game? Same reason. The experience. Another word we could associate life with is 'drama'.

Life... It's like a dream, but we get really immersed in it. It's the ultimate 3d experience.

If anyone judges us when this is over, it'll be ourselves, not some vengeful god. And I don't think it'll have to do with how good or evil we were... but rather the quality of our experience as a whole.

i think we are here because we are needed by "something or someone" more complicated then we ever imagined, for their survival or purpose to be present

Originally posted by Argos

@WorldShadow

Very interesting. I don't think i could go along with your belief structure but interesting all the same. I'm not completely sure what to make of your post actually. Could you elaborate some more?

I have had many NDE, OOBE and can report your conscious form continues into the universe of darkness and light. The first time I was shocked and afraid. The second time it was more curiosity. The third time I tried to analyze it than in another experience I was brought before an enormous light with spheres of light traveling into and out of it.

There came a time, in the second or third visit I realized I felt a body, but could not see a body. I felt as though I was still a physical being with arms, legs, eyes and every sense I knew but now could not use. After returning to the universe of darkness I realized I was bathed in a luminance white light with absolutely no sense of direction in the blackness.

Returning again another time, I realized I donot need air, warmth, food, water or any of the sensual life sustaining material I had required in the mortal realm.

Let me make one thing very clear. I am not religious and do not believe doctrine or a 2000 year old book. I donot believe a god looks over our physical realm, I believe we are here because the projection of life calls us in and we must play the part. I, however know things of the real realm of origin and there you will be immortal in conscious form. That is until you must experience another life to reflect back into origins index of infinite knowledge.

Originally posted by Argos
Summary

To summarise i guess my biggest message is i don't believe in religion. I believe in picking and choosing whats right for yourself and going with it. No rules to abide by set by someone else.

I know for a lot of people this wouldn't be right for them but then thats their choice that they feel comfortable with which is great i just prefer to do it this way.

Agree with this. I am not a religious person per se, but I am highly spiritual. I respect everyone's right to follow whatever practice or belief system they choose, but for me, any single dogmatic structure just seems to limit my quest for exploration and finding my own answers to what lies beyond.

Most of my conclusions have come from interaction with the paranormal and deep meditation and out of body experiences. My feeling of being connected to the source and it experiencing through us is both of my out of body experiences, use of tryptaminic tools, and discovery of something referred to by mystics as "the akashic pulse" or akashic wind. Robert Bruce, one of the foremost experts on the out of body exploration explains it in better detail than I can. In basic terms, the source, a few times a day, literally breathes in the entire group conciousness / experience of the entire universe (or multi-verses), assimilates it, then exhales back a karmic response, or perhaps even a small set of circumstances or plans to each of its tiny sparks of energy / consciousness connected to it.

These are heavy, WAY out there theories or feelings, but many of my personal experiences are leading me towards leaning in that direction. Again, this is only my personal truths as I have experienced, and each of us has our own unique pathway or plans we choose to follow IMO.

reply to post by Argos



I cannot believe in what I do not know.

I choose not to believe in any written religion on earth. However, I hold a small hope that there is something past death.

I do not know what it is.

I believe we are all part of the same energy source which is a conscious entity – a universal consciousness of sorts. To make things simple, I’ll just call this energy source “God”. When I say "God", I don't necessarily mean an all-knowing/all-powerful supreme being that many religions are based on... it's just a name I like to give to this universal conscoiusness which I think is instead all-experiencing.

God is conscious and we are all part of God. When a conscious being is physically incarnated, it is a separate entity with a mind and memories of its own. Then when that being dies the being is no longer a separate conscious entity, but instead its memories and experiences are now part of God. In a way, that being becomes God.

So to me, the meaning of life is to build upon experiences through an infinite number of conscious entities. My reasoning for this is that if I were God, I think the best way to experience everything and understand everything from all perspectives is to physically incarnate into every conscious being in the universe.

I also believe time is eternal. To me, the past, present and future all exist simultaneously. If time is eternal, then I also believe life is eternal. Life has always existed and always will exist, just as God has always existed and always will exist.

That’s my belief for this universe anyway… I’m not so sure about other universes.

[edit on 2-1-2008 by curiousbeliever]

The meaning of life is simple:

The meaning and purpose of life is to know, love, and serve God.

reply to post by sedevacante


Thanks for the input... and it's grand and all... But what is god? Assume I don't know what god is; you've told me to know, love, and serve god. I'm more than happy to know anything worth knowing, and I'll love anything worth loving, but something or someone would have to be pretty exquisite for me to serve - especially never having been even addressed.

It's a funny coincidence that today's google quote of the day is:

"The whole secret of life is to be interested in one thing profoundly and in a thousand things well."
- Horace Walpole

I don't think it really foots the bill.


----------------------------------------

And not to repeat myself - actually to the contrary - to repeat myself, though, this time with the prefix that this is an honest question and not just a patronizing statement:

Why look for something more? Where does your need to find a reason for your existence come from? Don't you find the assumption that your life has a reason seem a little egotistical? We are so small, so very small in the scheme of things... unless, perhaps, purpose and reason is relative and Einstein's idea applied to much more than we thought.

I am not going to get into a long and pointless debate about God, if He exists, etc...

God - your Creator created you with a desire to know, love and serve Him.

If you do not have this desire - it is because you have fogged it with your personal sins and love of such.

Many people claim to be confused when it comes to God and the things of God - but in reality they are not confused, they are in conflict.

God conflicts with their desires for things not of God - so they delude themselves and others with the illusion of confusion.

If one sincerely desires to know, love, and serve God - He will be given all that he needs to do just that.

I think life has a meaning, but the meaning of life is too far complex to sum up in one concise pithy statement. I have met people that have said things like "life is about helping others" or "life is about partying." These views are too simplistic. There are many meaningful things in life that fall outside of helping others and partying.

All I can say is life is about doing good things and not doing bad things. This is not a concise, pithy statement though. It is difficult, if not impossible, to understand or describe exactly what good things are or what bad things are. A non-exhaustive list of good things includes: helping others, partying, education, traveling, enjoying art, meeting interesting people and having discussions with them, having a family (a family can take on various forms), being healthy, enjoying the excitement of cities, enjoying the tranquility and beauty of the wilderness, and romance. A non-exhaustive list of bad things includes: being ignorant, harming others, harming yourself, and not working to realize your full potential as a human being.

reply to post by sedevacante


No no no, I don't mean to take this out of scope. I'm not asking you to prove a gods existence, I'm asking you to define god. I'm not subjective or objective about god whatsoever. As I stated earlier, anybody who claims to have spiritual understanding cannot lead me to my spiritual understanding. What I'm asking is; what does 'god' mean to you? Is it an interpretive personal relationship with your surroundings? Is it a big dude sitting a'top a cumulus throwing lighting bolts?

Originally posted by Kruel
My opinion of the meaning of life is simply 'to experience'.

Why would you read a book? Play a video game? Same reason. The experience. Another word we could associate life with is 'drama'.

Life... It's like a dream, but we get really immersed in it. It's the ultimate 3d experience.

If anyone judges us when this is over, it'll be ourselves, not some vengeful god. And I don't think it'll have to do with how good or evil we were... but rather the quality of our experience as a whole.

See thats kind of the same line of thinking i have. I certainly dont think some god will be there to judge me at the end but i do think the experience of life has a purpose. For me that purpose seems to be living through 3d physical experience. So when you look back on the physical world when you are energy you can think to yourself i know what life is about.

Why you need life experience to get to the next bit of our journey i dont know maybe you go forward whether your good or bad??

Im sure these lives we live many times over through the same soul is being done for a purpose. Its my strongest but not finite opinion that its all about good and evil. Whether we get judged or not is something im getting stuck on if im honest.

Is it about experience only or is it about good and evil or both and do we get judged like a test at the end of it by ourselves or by a god figure.

Even when you have it so clear it can become so muddy when thought about in depth. What do you guys think?

reply to post by Dulcimer


See this is me a few years back. There was another poster on this thread the same.

It is the school of a conspiracy theorist to reject the teachings we find out are wrong. We do it so much that alot of the world as we know it is a false top layer and you have to dig a little deeper under the surface to find the truth.

I dont let things go as easily anymore because of this new way of thinking that has come about from researching this planet and whats really below the surface.

Its this kind of thinking that has got me exploring my spirituality again and has helped me to the conclusions i put in front of you all now. I dug a little deeper for the answers and realised the ones i liked were inside me all the time.

Just take this as a story about how being a conspiracy theorist so to speak has helped me from where your at now to where i am now /rant

reply to post by memoir

Why look for something more? Where does your need to find a reason for your existence come from? Don't you find the assumption that your life has a reason seem a little egotistical? We are so small, so very small in the scheme of things... unless, perhaps, purpose and reason is relative and Einstein's idea applied to much more than we thought.

To answer this question i want to reply with a question. If somehow you were given access to the answers. The meaning of life in one shiny little download.

Would you look?

Honestly think about that and let me know.

reply to post by Argos


I wish to congratulate you for not accepting the prepackaged stuff and choosing instead to follow your own belief.

I however do not agree on your view of good and evil or whatever and lean more towards what Lucky Lady was saying, BUT, here is my view in a nutshell.

Warning this is kind of hard to explain and I will probly fail miserably since I am better at thinking than communicating.

I believe that reality is in some strange way a sentient um being (not a good word but the best I got without launching into a paragraph of explaination). I do not believe in good or evil because as far as I can see you do not see it in nature (animals don't hunt and kill each with malicious intent). But anyway, I believe that in a way this life is a birthing process. We are in a sense infant realities in our own right. And when we die we can go off on our own or stick around this one. This isn't to say we (humanity) are by any stretch of the imagination special, but I think our seperation from well nature is part of the birthing process.

I base most of this on the fact that I believe the afterlife is simular to that movie based off the book "What Dreams May Come" (no I didn't just adopt the movie as my belief I believed it before just that movie is the best example I can show).

Anyrate I gotta run for now. Sorry if this made no sense what-so-ever.
Might explain deeper and hopefully better if you wish. (you probly will not)

[edit on 2-1-2008 by WraothAscendant]