Who Are We Really and Why Are We Here?
“Who are we really and why are we here?”
This is the eternal, spiritual question and people have searched for the answer to it for thousands of years.
The figures for spiritual beliefs are that approx. 75% of people in the world believe in a universal spirit entity, or God in one form or another. For most religious people, their God is the specific God of their particular religion.
Depending on your beliefs, we either get only one shot at a physical life, or if you believe in reincarnation, many shots until all our lessons are learned.
To simplify the spread of possibilities, there appear to be 3 main choices you can make for the answer to who we are really:
Choice 1.
We are individuated spiritual beings, who are actually part of one universal, spirit entity i.e. God. This God and its energy permeates everything in the Universe.
We individuated (split off from the universal entity) so we could experience existence and the Universe from an observer perspective. The physical world we know and live in is just one realm of many.
We act as individuated entities (“souls”) until we reunite with the universal spirit entity at the completion of our personal journeys.
As individuated spirit entities we are in temporary physical form here on this planet in the physical realm. Whichever realm we are in, the objective is to experience the Universe and to learn a set of lessons as part of our personal evolution on the path to reunification.
Choice 2.
We have a spirit/soul, but the only true God is the one dictated by my particular religion. The only way I can ensure the survival of my soul and potentially, a life in Heaven after death, is by following the prescription and directions of my religion.
Otherwise, after this one life, my God will judge me and condemn me to an eternity in Hell or Purgatory or a similarly awful place.
Other religions are wrong and follow the wrong God. My God and my religion are the only true God and religion (even though the teaching have been translated and interpreted by man). If my religion wants me to persecute or kill people with a different God or religion, then that must be right.
Choice 3.
If you don’t believe in God or spirit, then you really have nothing to worry about! 
You are a random piece of self-aware protoplasm, on an inconsequential planet, in the outer reaches of an ordinary galaxy.
None of it matters, so just party on while you can . . . . .
Why Are We Here?
Most spiritual people and many religious practitioners agree that the purpose of our life on Earth is for us to gain a learning experience in this physical realm, as part of our progression through the various stages of existence.
Our ultimate goal is for our soul (individuated spirit) to achieve re-unification with the universal spirit, having experienced and learned from the mysteries of creation on the journey.
And especially to learn how love is the ultimate energy in creation.
In learning about love, we probably also have to experience the opposite see Good vs Evil and Light vs Dark.
The Case For Reincarnation
There are many books on this subject, especially those where people recount one or more past lives. Buddhists in particular have a sophisticated and well documented process for describing death and reincarnation. For example, they have a process to check whether a particular baby is the reincarnation of a previous spiritual leader.
Personally, I prefer the same approach described on this site to assess the probability of extra-terrestrial beings (aliens) existing.
The Universe is more or less infinite. We have no idea how it was created and as far as we can tell from scientific study, it has existed for billions of years and will exist for billions more.
In such a vast and long lived Universe, it seems extremely unlikely that God, who we can assume is a wise and loving entity, would expect us to:
- Learn all the crucial lessons of life in all its aspects, in one short attempt in a seriously, difficult-to-manage, human vehicle that lasts only 70 years or so.
- Be judged forever afterwards on those efforts.
If we assume that God is indeed a loving, wise and all-powerful entity, that assignment seems an extra-ordinarily harsh demand.
Free Will
It appears that free will is one of the fundamental conditions of our life experience, in this physical realm at least. At the end of the day it’s absolutely your choice whether to awaken (spiritually) or not, how you conduct yourself and the lessons you receive as a result.
There’s no intrinsic right or wrong in the choices you make, although obviously they impact other beings, which leads us to the subject of Good vs Evil and Light vs Dark.
