The Meaning of Life

Why are we here? What is the purpose of our life? Where did we come from? Where do we go after death? Is there life after death or is that the end? These are man’s eternal questions, questions that we all ask and can never get any definite answers. But is that true? Are there no answers or just answers we don’t like?

The Darwinists believe that we are an accident – a sort of cosmic joke – that some errant cosmic particle collided with some collection of inorganic molecules that created an organic molecule. This molecule then mutated through some equally random process and developed the ability to replicate itself. These new organic cells continued to mutate and change into pond scum and ultimately into scientists but with slightly more intelligence. In effect the Darwinists believe that while we may have more intelligence than Chimpanzees, the cousins they claim, we really are just another class of animals. Like the animals we are the product of mating, the circumstances of our lives are serendipitous, our actions have no impact outside of the boundaries of our lives. We are born, we eat, we mate, we reproduce, and we die. We live and die – like animals – with no purpose other than to reproduce the species. This line of thinking is precisely what the atheist has. There is no God, life has no meaning, no purpose, there is no life after death and to think otherwise is wishful thinking.

That brings us to the other side where some believe that we are divinely created by God. That our circumstances are pre-ordained but it is up to us to lead a good and moral life. Lucifer was and Archangel who rebelled against God, was damned to Hell where he rules as Satan, and tempts mankind away from righteousness. Both Heaven and Hell are real although whether or not they are physical places is a little vague. Within this view of life, we have souls created by God, we are born, we live, and we die. But our soul is eternal and on death we are judged by our deeds and go to Heaven or are condemned to Hell and eternal punishment.

According to this view we have one chance at eternal joy in Heaven or through actions an eternal punishment in Hell. This view holds that the circumstance of our one life is ordained by God –but how God chooses those is unknown. So some people are born into poverty or as savages living in savage lands – while others are born into wealth and blessed with physical comfort. On one hand we have people like Hitler, Stalin, and Saddam Hussein who misuse power and commit great crimes. They exercised the free will given to them by God in the most evil way possible and we can imagine they ended in Hell, but what about people like Lenin who commit great crimes while thinking they are doing good? Did Lenin end in Hell or Heaven? Can these people ever redeem themselves? Are these people and their fates just a random choice? A throw of the dice by God where one person wins and another loses? That simply doesn’t sound logical so there has to be some rationale behind our lives and circumstances. God is just and undoubtedly rewards good and punishes bad but he is also forgiving so there must be a pathway out of Hell and to redemption – even for the most evil. And this brings us to reincarnation.

Virtually all religions, other than Atheism, believe in life after death as well as reincarnation. References to reincarnation were stricken from the Bible when it was canonized but some vague references still remain. But there is a growing body of evidence that there is life after death and that reincarnation is real. There has been growing interest in “Near Death Experiences” although what these represent remains controversial. The popular position among scientists is that these are nothing more than hallucinations emanating from a dying brain and prove nothing. But many scientists who study NDE’s are increasingly finding that they truly seem to support consciousness after death.

If we conclude that there is life (consciousness) after death then what does that mean? What is the purpose of our lives? The mystics in various ways tell us that our life on Earth is a form of punishment for leaving God in the first place and then not leading Godly lives. That we come to Earth to develop and educate our souls so that we may one day return to God’s grace. The circumstances of our life on Earth are determined by our actions in previous lives. The law of Karma prevails. We come to the Earth over and over in association with the same group of souls in various combinations but always with the same objective – to correct past wrongs while striving to improve our selves. What is the “Meaning of Life?” This question can only be answered by the individual because the purpose of each life is unique to that individual but over all the purpose is to return to God as his companion.

Existence

The human mind cannot imagine nothingness. Try as we may (and most of us do) we cannot conceptualize the end of our own existence. We ask ourselves: “what would it be like to not exist?” as if to imply we would be capable of observing ourselves in the state of non-existence. The question itself represents our inability to comprehend non-existence. In the words of the author William Saroyan in his final moments of life he asked: “now what?”. Like Saroyan, we also ask this question because we cannot accept the end of learning, enjoying, thinking or life itself.

We not only ask “now What?” but also we ask “Why?” Why does life come to an end and why did we exist in the first place? But most importantly we ask “what?” What was the purpose of our existence? What benefit was there in us existing and finally what value do our lives have?

These eternal questions motivate us to search for answers. We turn to Science, Philosophy and religion in an effort find answers. Science and philosophy often fall short in providing us with answers to these questions. It is only religion that even attempts to provide us answers with responses like:
• We live to do Gods work
• We live to procreate
• We live to better mankind
• We live to progress
• We live to learn
• We live to improve ourselves
While these are profound and noble statements they are not only vague, but they imply that we are here for improvement or to make things better. Perhaps more significantly is the implication that if we are for improvement then there must have been a previous effort that fell short and the current one is imperfect and therefore requires another attempt. Of course the logical conclusion then is that we have lived before and will live again. Most religions and philosophies are rooted in the premise that our existence is less than perfect. The presumption is that man and woman alike have the ability to improve and the goal of this improvement is to bring us closer to perfection. The premise is that we are imperfect and flawed by nature to begin with and through the pursuit of perfection via the adoption of morals, laws, religion, philosophy, etc. we will fulfill our destiny, achieve perfection (although a clear understanding or model for perfection has never been agreed upon) and thereby justify our existence.

Inherent in our mental composite is the belief that there is a purpose to our lives. To live without this belief would render life devoid of hope. It is hope that leads some to believe that life does not end after death. The universal desire to understand the purpose and meaning to life must be considered in our effort to explain existence. It is not possible to examine our reality or perception of our existence without asking the primary questions of any scientific inquiry:

What is existence made of? (what)
How does it function? (how)
What is our purpose and why do we exist in the First place? (why)

The human experience (as we know it) incorporates many obvious tangibles that can be measured and agreed upon. But our existence also has two very clear boundaries, which are the primary representations of the intangibles of our existence. These boundaries are the Speed of Light and Absolute Zero. Beyond these boundaries life cannot exist, and yet we can agree that these are the boundaries of our mass oriented life experience.

However, given that these are limitations of our observable universe does not exclude an existence outside of our space/time continuum. Of course this possibility of another level of existence is automatically rejected because it cannot be observed via any scientific method. But illustrations of these higher energy levels abound in the form of clairvoyance, prescience, psychic phenomena, ghosts, reincarnation, and even near death experiences. All of these things have been observed and demonstrated throughout history but since they exist outside of our existence they cannot be proven via our science, which is limited by our mass boundaries. Simply because these high energy phenomena cannot be demonstrated and proven does not mean they don’t exist.

Life and Death

It is worth noting that reincarnation is a common concept and is found in many religions, with the exception of modern Christianity. But modern Christianity is founded on the Bible which was canonized at the Synod of Nicaea in the 4th Century and reincarnation per se was officially stricken at the Synod of Nice in the 6th Century, where the teachings of Bishop Origen were declared heretical. Origen was one of the early powers of the Christian Church who believed in reincarnation and rationalized it on the basis that if we are created at conception and upon dying we become an eternal spirit then that implies that we existed prior to birth, live, die, and live after death and thus logically are reborn, otherwise the entire process seems pointless. Bishop Origen was defeated in a power struggle with the Church Hierarchy as were the Gnostics who didn’t believe in a priesthood. The decision to outlaw reincarnation was driven by the desire of the early priesthood to secure their power because if our souls have an unlimited opportunity to live and evolve spiritually, the priests could no longer threaten us with damnation and hellfire if we do not do as they dictate.

Prior to this purging of the Bible it was still part of the Christian faith and remained part of the Gnostic beliefs and is found in the Druze Christians today. However, remnants of this philosophy remain in the Bible:

And the disciples asked him, saying, "Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?"
But he answered them and said, "Elijah indeed is to come and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him, but did to him whatever they wished. So also shall the Son of Man suffer at their hand."
Then the disciples understood that he had spoken of John the Baptist." (Matt. 17:10-13)

Then there is this passage:

This is the one ... there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist ... And if you are willing to accept it, he is the Elijah who was to come. He, who has ears, let him hear. (Matt. 11:11-15)

But the Dead Sea Scrolls and other ancient texts are being translated and with these translations some of these purged teachings and beliefs are coming to light once again. Recent translations from ancient scrolls contain text that points to reincarnation, for example:

"Jesus said, 'If they say to you, From where have you originated? say to them, 'We have come from the Light, where the Light has originated through itself.'" The Book of Thomas, Nag Hammadi Texts.

This passage has some interesting points in that it tells us that we come to the Earth from the Light but more interesting yet is the implication that Light is God and that God was self-created. This is addressed in early Jewish texts collected in the Kabbalah and paralleled in the Nag Hammadi texts under “The Origin of the World”. This is a very lengthy text but begins by noting that everybody both gods of the world and mankind say that nothing existed prior to “chaos” or the beginning,and that they are wrong. That chaos was derived from “darkness” which existed always and before the creation of chaos. That all of the immortal beings (souls) had been created out of the infinite and that it was “Wisdom” that divided mankind from the things above.

This concept of an eternal all knowing and always existing God is at the root of most religions, but beyond that lays several other equally interesting concepts. First that the Heavens and Earth were created for man and that all of our reality is essentially a thought projection, that all of the souls in the existence were created at the same time and are eternal, that our physical bodies are actually prisons for out energetic spirits, and that we come to Earth repeatedly to learn and expand out spirituality. However, we are given free will and this means that whatever we do individually and collectively is our responsibility and not driven or willed by God. Our individual conditions are self-determined and the result of decisions made in this lifetime as well as others.

Science and scientists are busy attempting to demonstrate that science has all of the answers and that God doesn’t exist. Unfortunately the evidence for Karma and reincarnation as well as the evidence for God continues to grow as science moves inexorably to the only logical conclusion that science cannot disprove God and that God may be the only answer. It seems logical that reincarnation exists and that we come to Earth repeatedly.