Have our lives a meaning or purpose?

I am absolute no expert in Psychology, Philosophy and Metaphysics or such and my English is not of the best quality, my speed to formulate a full reply equals the speed of a very fast snail, so I am therefore not even capable of giving fast and much replies, so I apologise for that.
But I am curious of your views about the following questions, and this is the right forum for that I suppose?

Do you think that there is “yes” or “no” a meaning or purpose of such why we are here and that when it is “yes” it’s logical that there must be a god or some sort of creator, that you have a soul or such that is the reason for that meaning or purpose?

I assume hereby that when it is “no”, there is no real purpose or logic for having a soul or such or even a god or a creator in my opinion.

Here is my view for “no” until I was around 60 years of age.

After you are born you make a start with living your life, despite the attendant or received qualities and circumstances such as, of where you are born, being poor, rich, sick, healthy, ugly, beautiful, bad, good, unhappy, happy, have a short or a long live or whatever.
But none the less, that besides whatever it will be of the above, and that some things can’t be changed by you, you sorely can influence some of them, so you are in a way absolute capable of living your life as good or bad or acceptable as possible.
But no matter how you lived your life and whatever you have done or experienced it you won’t be judged or compensated for it in any way.
So when your time is come you had it and it’s over forever.

I am almost 62 years now but until I was around 60 years I was convinced that it was the above, with no doubt whatsoever.
I absolute didn’t/could not believe in a god or a creator of such, despite that I prayed to him [God] in some occasions, [bizarre isn’t it].

From around my 60 years of age this view changed very drastically for reasons I keep only by myself for the time being.

Here is my view for “yes” as I now believe.

When you are born you have a physical body with your “personal” soul attached/installed to it in some way, and you make a start with living your life, despite the attendant or received qualities and circumstances such as, of where you are born, being poor, rich, sick, healthy, ugly, beautiful, bad, good, unhappy, happy, have a short or a long live or whatever.
But none the less, that besides whatever it will be of the above, and that some things can’t be changed by you, you sorely can influence some of them, so you are in a way absolute capable of living your life as good or bad or acceptable as possible.
But in this case, no matter how you lived your life and whatever you have done or experienced, you will be judged for it and possible be compensated in some way.
By who or whom a person will be judged after his/her deaths I leave to anyone’s personal believe.
But the outcome of that must be definitely of great importance for your soul and your possible next live?

So what is your view?

This short post has takes me four hours to create.

Your likes/dislikes, talents/weak points and the general personality and place of birth are the startingplace of your personal purpose in life, i believe you choose it before birth and play it out. Evil and good are both choices that you can take without ending up in some hell or heaven afterwards and you (your soul) evaluates your life when done so the only judgement you'll get is from your(higher)self.

Why should being a psychopath not be a problem for you? Because you being evil in this life gives someone else the chance to deal with your (suposed) evilness and grow spiritually or get some insight in the whole deal. In the grand sceme of things one life could be pointless but afterwards the realized pointlessnes was the experience that you decided on so that was the point.

It's my believe that we are splinters of some universal entity that at some point decided to be the ultimate MPS (english) patient only in a very material sense.

Good to see that when you are somewhat less youthfull you can still re-arrange your beliefs in such a drastic way

Hi Harman, thanks for your reply.

Originally posted by Harman
Your likes/dislikes, talents/weak points and the general personality and place of birth are the starting place of your personal purpose in life, i believe you choose it before birth and play it out.

I think also that there is indeed a possibility of choice for such a challenge, but how am I or you, or how good I or you be you aware of that choice I or you make then?
So that I can improve in a way my souls level so to speak with fulfilling that challenge successfully.
I ask you this because I personally and I suppose anyone else, have absolute no feeling or recollection in anyway whatsoever that I have before this live another live or to make it more complicated many many other lives.
Even not in my dreams, and I dream every night, there is absolute nothing I can refer to as something recognisable for that.

What’s your take on that?

You can spend an entire life time speculating on what life means, but whether it brings you closer to the truth is another matter. Your imagination is limitless and what the truth is in regards to life, the universe and beyond is anyone's guess. You could live a thousand life times and still only have 5% of the complete picture.

I've had a few spiritual experiences including OBE's that were truly liberating and wonderful, but even then I find myself no closer to the truth, simply because there is just so many possibilities to explain the experiences that I've had. We are like a gold fish in a bowl. Can the gold fish even interpret or comprehend the reality outside of the bowl and even when it thinks it knows the answer, something happens or something comes along that shatters it's world view. One thing is for certain, if you want the answers, the place to start looking is within. Goodluck I hope you find what you're looking for.

Originally posted by spacevisitor
Hi Harman, thanks for your reply.

You are more than welcome , i love these topics.

I think also that there is indeed a possibility of choice for such a challenge, but how am I or you, or how good I or you be you aware of that choice I or you make then?

I'm not sure what you are sayng here so i'll give a go at rephrasing it, if i'm wrong let me know ( you can PM me in your native language btw if you want to clear something up )

I aree that there is indeed a possibility of choice for such a challenge, but how are we to be aware of that choice we make then(before birth)?

So that I can improve in a way my souls level so to speak with fulfilling that challenge successfully.
I ask you this because I personally and I suppose anyone else, have absolute no feeling or recollection in anyway whatsoever that I have before this live another live or to make it more complicated many many other lives.
Even not in my dreams, and I dream every night, there is absolute nothing I can refer to as something recognisable for that.

What’s your take on that?

I think you can find and succeed in accomplishing your challenges in life by listening to how you feel in your gut about things. Because of your base-settings at birth you will have certain preferences growing up, upbringing will reinforce or diminish certain traits but i believe that ignoring those things will cause a person to not be what he can be.

I mean if you are born with a kind heart but you get a harsh upbringing, in the worst case even abusive you may choose to protect yourself by hardening yourself.

In that hardened state you may choose to get into a profession that relies on being a hardass to succeed. You may even be good at it but at a certain point in time you develop a stress related disease because of it. (just an example)

I think you can find yourself in the moments of silence, not meditation necessarily but it is an option.

To take me as an example because thats easiest for me . My qualities and weak points has made me perfect for a life of relative solitude and slow-going in life. Taking it easy while everybody around you is running around being a captive of their agenda (that's how I see it, it does not have to be like that for those doing it) is pretty hard sometimes because you get behind in the material sense and sometimes you doubt yourself.

But i know that when i have a busy period in my life with birthdays, hollydays and going out in general i'll develop a short temper and get moody quite easily so it is just not something i can keep up for long. Where i to ignore myself i could blow a fuse or maybe just go into the deep end and go fullblown crazy, who knows? I'm all for self-betterment but not if i have to trade my base-charactaristics for it, use your talents and try to develop the weak points or choose a path that does not need those, i for one will never ever go into the financial business because i realy do not care for money, i need it to live without handouts but i do not know what i have on the bank at any given time so me being an accountant will kill my soul while another just flourishes at the same idea.

If you consider that more than 50% of the existing diseases are stress related (can't find a direct source just now, sorry) you can see that a lot of people are living against their original nature and collapse at a certain point. So do you want to pursue your goal? Do what feels right and deal with the challenges that come upon your path. If it feels wrong it is wrong (for you).

Something like that i think. Maybe i'll have a totally different view on life in a few years/decades but this is what works for me at the moment.

Hope this helps

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Harman]

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Harman]

Originally posted by Harman
Your likes/dislikes, talents/weak points and the general personality and place of birth are the starting place of your personal purpose in life, i believe you choose it before birth and play it out. Evil and good are both choices that you can take without ending up in some hell or heaven afterwards and you (your soul) evaluates your life when done so the only judgment you'll get is from your (higher) self.

Yes, we are judged on the Other Side by our higher self and The Light.

I generally agree with the above appraisal.

Our purpose in life is exactly what we choose for it to be and a wasted life can motivate the soul to strive toward a more productive existence later on. Most people do not have a higher purpose because they have not chosen to have one.

Neale Donald Walsch did a wonderful job of addressing this issue in this pertinent clip from The Secret on DVD.

Originally posted by Harman
It's my belief that we are splinters of some universal entity that at some point decided to be the ultimate MPS (english) patient only in a very material sense.

Dissociative identity disorder?

Never heard it put quite that way before but the general understanding you are espousing about a universal entity dividing up its consciousness into many personalities is a belief shared by a number of people in ATS.



EDIT: Put in better clip.

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Paul_Richard]

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
I generally agree with the above appraisal.

[...]
Neale Donald Walsch did a wonderful job of addressing this issue in this pertinent clip from The Secret on DVD.
[...]
Dissociative identity disorder?

Never heard it put quite that way before but the general understanding you are espousing about a universal entity dividing up its consciousness into many personalities is a belief shared by a number of people in ATS.

Thanks , That walsh person is one of the people that set me on this path to be honest, even if he turns out to be some fraud it doesn't matter, his ideas are sound. And the MPS analogy is a personal favorite of mine .

The fact that the universe with its laws seems to have been designed by something not random, I think its at least possible there is more to this existence than we realize.

I think when 10000 coincidences are the reason we are able to exist here, it becomes interesting.


[edit on 19-6-2008 by Copernicus]

I think our purpose here on this earth is to have fun!
Something like this:
Life is a game.
Planet Earth the server.
Your body is your avatar.
There are different ways to 'level', some are right, none are wrong.
The difficulties are getting enough money for your basic needs and having the patience to skill your professions.
But as an old gamer said:
RL (Reallife) is the game you play when the PC is off:
The graphic is cool but the story is crap!
The player can alter the story:

You are the Player!
Have fun and good luck!
Samuel 2007


Please let me explain:
If you don't believe in the above mentioned eternal soul theory and that we (our souls) 'chose' to come to this earth (my personal opinion, BTW), then how about a different view:
From a Jewish/Christian point of view. (My guess, change the word 'God' for "Allah' and you might even have the Islamic view!)
According to the Old Testament (copied off Jewish scriptures):
God created the earth and then man.
He only created man, when everything else was perfect!
He created this earth, and everything on and in it for us!
The only job he gave us was to look after it.
(I don't like using the word 'it' in reference to God, because I think 'it' is a rude word for any living entity. The Almighty God, is most likely not only Allpresent, Allmighty and Omnipotent but also without gender)


I personally do believe that some of us have lived before and think I have actually had 'flashbacks' out of previous lives.

@ why don't we remember? Maybe because it's part of the rules. Although so-called 'indigo-children' seem to be able to 'cheat'!


Samuel

edit to add: we are not only here to look after the place but also to live our lives to the full and to make the most of it. IMO whilst harming no one else...

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Aldolas]

No, there is no ultimate goal to life. We exist because the universe exists, and vice-versa, but it's not part of any grand scheme. It's just a pointless curiosity. A random happenstance. Unless you want to argue that existence is inherently more valuable or important than non-existence. I personally don't see how it could be.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard

Yes, we are judged on the Other Side by our higher self and The Light.

Oh boy, that's just great. I have a feeling when I get to the other side my higher self is going to slap me silly and ask me what the hell I was thinking!

Our purpose in life is exactly what we choose for it to be and a wasted life can motivate the soul to strive toward a more productive existence later on. Most people do not have a higher purpose because they have not chosen to have one.

Why does it have to be so complicated that we would have to select a higher purpose? Isn't just existing challenging enough?

Personally I don't think we have to be or strive to be anything than what we are since each person has an existance as unique as a fingerprint.

As long as a person carries on with the intention of causing no harm to any other person, that should be just dandy in my opinion.

I think I have told you about the dreams I've had of being confronted by people who have some sort of enourmous contract for me to sign, and my always fleeing the scene!

Could be I suppose, I am not living up to my earthly potential for meaning or purpose!

reply to post by Enthralled Fan


True, you don't have to do anything and even if you botch everything up there is no problem and you will not get any punishment or whatever when you die, at least that is what i think. If you are fine with who you are at this moment it could be that you are doing things just the way that higher you planned for ya, who knows? But on the other hand if anyone is doubting the way his or her way is going it could be smart to ponder it and see what you turn up with. I know enough people that do not give a rats ass about 'the meaning of life' and have a grand time of living it. When you look at their actions and emotions you see they are living the way THEY want to and you cannot disagree with that.

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Harman]

Originally posted by kindred
You can spend an entire life time speculating on what life means, but whether it brings you closer to the truth is another matter.

Hi kindred, thanks for your response.
I think that my changed opinion of my previously “no” view in my today’s “yes” view if you understand my saying has bring me really a bit closer to the truth.
But therefore I have also some new mixed feelings too.

Originally posted by kindred
One thing is for certain, if you want the answers, the place to start looking is within.
Goodluck I hope you find what you're looking for.

For some of the answers that is definitely true.
Thanks for your encouragement.

Originally posted by Harman

Originally posted by spacevisitor
I think also that there is indeed a possibility of choice for such a challenge, but how am I or you, or how good I or you be you aware of that choice I or you make then?

I'm not sure what you are saying here so i'll give a go at rephrasing it, if i'm wrong let me know ( you can PM me in your native language btw if you want to clear something up

)

I agree that there is indeed a possibility of choice for such a challenge, but how are we to be aware of that choice we make then(before birth)?

Thanks for your PM offer, if needed I will do that.

Your rephrase is exactly how I meant it.

Thanks Harman, the rest of your remarks are indeed very clear to me so they really helped.
But now as I said in my first post I get already the problem with answering all the replies in a short acceptable timeframe so sorry for that.

Originally posted by spacevisitor
Thanks for your PM offer, if needed I will do that.

Your rephrase is exactly how I meant it.

Thanks Harman, the rest of your remarks are indeed very clear to me so they really helped.
But now as I said in my first post I get already the problem with answering all the replies in a short acceptable timeframe

so sorry for that.

Don't worry about that spacevisitor, i'm happy to let my brain fart as long as it is helpfull for ya . This kind of thread tickles the brain and that is a good thing

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
Yes, we are judged on the Other Side by our higher self and The Light.

Originally posted by Enthralled Fan
Oh boy, that's just great. I have a feeling when I get to the other side my higher self is going to slap me silly and ask me what the hell I was thinking!

Near-death experience research - something you should look into - points to many being highly critical of themselves.

So...yes...if you truly need a good slapping, then expect to feel like a royal jackass during your life review after you have crossed over.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard
Our purpose in life is exactly what we choose for it to be and a wasted life can motivate the soul to strive toward a more productive existence later on. Most people do not have a higher purpose because they have not chosen to have one.

Originally posted by Enthralled Fan
Why does it have to be so complicated that we would have to select a higher purpose? Isn't just existing challenging enough?

Life is indeed challenging enough.

After we have overcome the "life being challenging" hurdle, if we live long enough, we eventually come to the point whereby we ask ourselves:

Is this all there is?

Then we begin to seek deeper meaning in our lives.

In doing so, we find our own higher purpose.

Why?

Because a higher purpose leads to greater emotional satisfaction, here and hereafter, beyond just managing to survive and exist.

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Paul_Richard]

"Life" as you mean it, that is the time between birth and death of the body, is emprisoned by mind made concepts such as "meaning", "purpose", and "life."
The "life" that is inside you, that space inside that connects you to everything, that has no opposite, no beginning and no end, that is the "I" in you and not the "me" in you. This "life" requires neither meaning nor purpose or any other mind made concept to exist. It simply requires awareness. With awareness nothing else is needed.

Originally posted by Paul_Richard

Near-death experience research - something you should look into - points to many being highly critical of themselves.

So...yes...if you truly need a good slapping, then expect to feel like a royal jackass during your life review after you have crossed over.

Interesting. Yes, I have heard of people finding criticism upon near death experiences, but have yet to come across a sample of anyone describing their higher selves doing it. I'll have to look into that.

Out of curiousity, when addressing our higher selves, what will they look like? Will they look just like us?

After we have overcome the "life being challenging" hurdle, if we live long enough, we eventually come to the point whereby we ask ourselves:

Is this all there is?

Ok, how about people that are born wondering this? I have been, for as long as I remember, so I don't think the profound question just comes with age.

Then we begin to seek deeper meaning in our lives.

I gave up searching for my life to have a deeper meaning. Too much work. I think I'm just supposed to learn how to "go with the flow."

In doing so, we find our own higher purpose.

Why?

Because a higher purpose leads to greater emotional satisfaction, here and hereafter, beyond just managing to survive and exist.

I think the purpose of my life this time around is not to take things so seriously that it cripples me.

Thanks for the reply. Your posts always show a great deal of thought, even if I don't always agree with them.

edit to fix quotes
and one more time because I am quote challenged here!





[edit on 19-6-2008 by Enthralled Fan]

[edit on 19-6-2008 by Enthralled Fan]

reply to post by Harman


Yes, thanks for your reply as I tend to think that way quite a bit. I have enjoyed my life but find that it comes with some sense of resposibility to give a rats patootie because I know I don't like when people step on my toes just so they can enjoy themselves with no care!

"Have our lives a meaning or purpose?"

I HOPE so or check me into the nearest mental hospital w/ the best drugs available!!

i HAVE to believe there is some reason or i would fall off the edge of this "cliff" i seem to be standing on.

There is a couple i know that i admire greatly and i am constantly asking them this very question to hear their answer repeated to me as i need to hear this often. Their answer? "there may very well BE no purpose, but if we lose the HOPE that there is, then we lose the motivation to continue."

Whether there is a purpose or not, i have to maintain the HOPE that their is. it is all that keeps this COMPLETELY SINGLE SOLO mom going!!!