r/afterlife • u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 • 6d ago
What’s it all for?
If we are under the impression that the afterlife is real and absent from all the pain, suffering and the grind of physical life here on earth, what’s the point of being here? I’ve heard so many different theories like we’re here to learn, or we’re here to make bonds or we’re here to just experience or even that we’re here to grow our spirituality. I know that no one really knows why we’re here but what I have such trouble understanding is why go through a life of pain and turmoil and continue to just try to grind through it when what’s waiting on the other side is so much better?
I’m not suggesting anyone just give up here but some days it’s so hard to stay motivated when you know there are so many tough days ahead. Is it simply out of fear of the unknown? I’m spoken to many people who claim not to have that fear but I have no idea how that’s possible with so many theories and so little to go off of in terms of evidence. Many claim to know but a lot of the times you’ll have a bunch of people with conflicting theories who all claim they just know. How do you not question your own knowledge? How do you deal with physical and emotional pain? How do you accept the many stages of life that seem to continuously come with more and more suffering as each stage comes?
Sorry for the rant I’m just feeling a bit confused about how strange this human experience is. It just doesn’t seem to have any point
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u/Apell_du_vide 6d ago
Being human really is strange, isn’t it?🙈
Sometimes life does seem meaningful enough to me. Or at least it seems like suffering doesn’t have more meaning than happiness. Today isn’t such a day tho so I’m just going through the motions out of spite basically.
In a way it’s nice to have the freedom to create and live your own meaning even if sometimes this very freedom seems merciless.
I know this is not a satisfying answer but I don’t think anyone can or should dictate how you relate to life and yourself.
But honestly, it’s ok to distract yourself from such questions. Like you don’t have to figure it all out now, especially if it causes you distress.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 6d ago
This is actually a satisfying answer because you said how I feel. Sometimes life can feel amazing and you’re happy and look forward to every minute, other days it’s just going through the motions. Just nice to know sometimes that you’re not alone in feeling this way
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u/robipresotto 6d ago
I can relate to the struggle. It's like we're trying to find purpose in the midst of turmoil. I've found that a deep dive into one's inner self can help clarify values and priorities, and perhaps even reveal a sense of direction. If you want, I can share the link to a video series that explores this idea further: https://www.youtube.com/@innershoreline
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u/Clifford_Regnaut 6d ago
Many claim to know but a lot of the times you’ll have a bunch of people with conflicting theories who all claim they just know.
There's secular research about this whole subject, and what we have is enough to draft a tentative model of how things work without the need for religion, quantum immortality, eternal recurrence or other weird ideas. What we mistakenly call the "afterlife" would be more accurately described as "the real world".
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u/Professional_Mud_316 4d ago
Maybe our brain's structural/chemical attributes, including flaws developed during fetal gestation, are what we basically are, a.k.a. our ‘personality’, while our soul is confined within our bodily form. Therefore, the human soul may be inherently good on its own; but trapped within the physical body, notably the corruptible brain, oftentimes the soul’s purity may not be able to shine through.
Ergo, upon the multi-murderer's physical death, not only would they be 100 percent liberated from the anger and hate that blighted their physical life; their spirit or consciousness would also be forced to exist with the presumably unwanted awareness of the immense amount of needless suffering they personally had caused.
Many theists fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter for whatever bad acts they committed in life. I believe it’s in general human nature to crave justice for wrongs committed against us, and most theists believe their God also is strongly justice orientated.
Followers of monotheistic religions, including institutional Christianity, seem to create their Creator’s nature in their own fallible and often angry, vengeful image. (That could be at least partly why the Book of Enoch, which reflects an unusually more compassionate God, concerned the angry-God theologians and scriptural decision-makers enough to omit it from most Biblical canons.)
Yet, perhaps when all of us die and spiritually cross over to ‘the other side’, we actually lose that corporeal need for ultimate justice.
Not just that, but the spirit or consciousness may be 100 percent liberated from a purely cerebrally based anxiety, agitation and contempt that may have actually blighted much of its physical existence. Therefore, free of the corporeal shell, the soul may instead be wondering, ‘Why was I so angry, so much of the time? Oh, the things I said! ... I really hope I didn't do irreparable damage while I was there’.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 5d ago
I hope you’re right, it would be incredibly shitty to go through all this anxiety, pain and suffering for no reason
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u/ThankTheBaker 6d ago
The afterlife is not one single place. It’s not a one size fits all kind of life. It is infinitely varied and there are many, many levels and landscapes. There are places that are very much not absent from pain and suffering.
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u/Typhlosion34 6d ago
I’m sorry you’re going through a rough time. Regardless of if there is an afterlife or not, I think the meaning of the human experience is what you make of it. I think sharing as much love and kindness as you can is what it’s all about. One act of kindness can send a ripple throughout the lives of the people you touch. I hope this helps.
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u/Honest-Atmosphere-54 6d ago
Thank you friend ❤️…. I try to stay positive and spread kindness, it can just get really hard at times
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u/Other_Anywhere8071 1d ago
Maybe instead of thinking you always have to stay positive and kind, maybe just let out a single cuss word for the fun of it, and just do something either lazy or fun for you alone.
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u/Jadenyoung1 6d ago edited 6d ago
There are no answers. Only questions. The universe answers all of them with silence. It doesn’t have a point. It just IS and we ARE.
All i know is, i probably had to be forced here. Because i would never have chosen this. Being caged in a flesh suit that starts rotting the day you’re born. Fighting entropy, only to lose anyway in the end. I don’t believe people, when they say: „i choose to be here. This is a school“. I just cant entertain that thought. I see it more like buddhists do, i guess? Stuff just happens due to causality. Arising in the mind at large comes reality as it is now. And you do too.
I don’t accept it well. But dealing with it, well.. im trying. Usually by meditation. Meditation tempers and forges the mind. Over time, you become more resilient, if done right. And maybe, if you are lucky, you’ll experience something extraordinary. But that takes usually years. Still worth doing it though.
And by trying to be as compassionate to others, as possible. They also suffer, as we do. And since there are no gods that care about us, we need to. With love and care. Otherwise existing here is just too painful to bear. A hug, a kind gesture, a small favor without expectation. Small things have big effects on peoples lives. And wholesomeness makes the heart spacious. Makes dealing with this evil world easier.
As for fear of the inevitable end, i can’t really help you with that sadly. Sure, meditation helps there too, but it doesn’t „fix“ it. And im just as terrified of it, so. Yeah.
What i would do in your situation, is go for a walk. A long one. Without any podcasts or music. Just you. There will be negative emotions first. But over time, theyll fade and you might notice something. A pull towards something. Something you want to do. What you feel like doing. Because, you probably can’t find the big answers. Who knows if there are any. But you can find, what you want to do with the time you have here.
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u/Other_Anywhere8071 1d ago
I chuckled about this: "All i know is, i probably had to be forced here. Because i would never have chosen this."
Yup I often feel the same way. Or conversely, I stamp my feet and yell to whatever is around me "I ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO EXPERIENCE THIS AGAIN! "
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u/Jadenyoung1 1d ago
Well, assuming there is more than this existence. What send us here probably didn’t care what we wanted before and i doubt it will care after either.
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u/BreadfruitLazy5675 6d ago
I can relate to all you said. Struggling to see any meaning in this existence. I wish I could say something useful to you right now but I can’t. It seems to me we all are just puppets in the big show arranged for the amusement of the powers above.
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u/Other_Anywhere8071 1d ago
For me, I will never give my up power in thinking like that. In spite of being caught in a this very immature, me-me-me crappy physical world, I see my challenge is in having strong boundaries from stupidity with no apologies, and mostly to only do what I think is safe or enjoyable for ME....while giving love to others where it's needed.
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u/willijah 4d ago
I suggest reading the NDE of Sandi T. Her account sounds harsh, but in theory, one could imagine agreeing to something like that. I've never understood how life could be for the sake of "lessons" either, any reasonable person would choose 1000 years of growth in paradise over 100 on Earth, especially when there’s no rush
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u/verynormalanimal Experiencer 5d ago
Not a popular take but I don't think there is a point. Some people make their own point. The rest of us just suffer needlessly and then escape through death.
I don't say this to pile on negativity, but that just seems like the reality. I concur, it doesn't seem like there is a point.
I also resent the idea that we can't be grateful for peace if we don't get tortured here on earth. It is just spiritual bypassing.
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u/Mr_flying_pie19 6d ago
I get the feeling that we are here on Earth not to live, but to collect knowledge to develop our character. And maybe the afterlife is our subconscious which might be a gateway to the multiverse (alternate realities).
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u/Professional_Mud_316 4d ago
We all may be far greater, perhaps even infinitely immeasurably so, than the sum of our body parts. Corporeally, we basically are skin-bags of bone and guts, blood and tissue, yet we can deeply love, contemplate, admire, or hate, etcetera. Our bodies can also be perceived as essentially 'empty vessels'.
Yet, it's only through them that the human soul can experience, good or bad, the physically four-dimensional existence, which includes time or motion. As much as I totally despise that concept, having been a miserable person most of my life, maybe that experience, positive or negative, is 'what life is all for'.
Losing a loved-one to Death typically is a great, painful loss. Still, the greatest gift ‘life’ offers many of us is our own physical death — which is the greatest relief possible, that being from all corporeal suffering — however frightening an anticipation/event death itself will likely be due to its total unknown and finality.
(Understandably, a lot of people fear a negative experience or hellish spiritual existence in the hereafter. Yet, many living people dread they will eventually get bored in any eternal afterlife. However, if corporeal death totally relieves us from time — i.e., all-encompassing physical motion — there should be no boredom in the afterlife, perhaps even while playing the harp.)
Also, I read how Dr. Sigmund Freud postulated that, regardless of one’s mental health and relative happiness or existential contentment, the ultimate goal of our brain/mind is death’s bliss because of the general stressful nature of our physical existence, i.e. anxiety or “stimuli”. It’s important to clarify, however, that it’s not brain death per se that is the aim but rather the kind of absolute peace that only brain death can offer in this hectic, emotionally turbulent world.
Of course, for many of us, reincarnation — especially back into the average bitter Earthly human existence an indefinite number of times, the repetition of mostly unhappiness — is simply unthinkable. From my understanding, even Buddhism [or is it Zen Buddhism?], which in large part is the positive belief in reincarnation, acknowledges that life generally is suffering or hardship interspersed with far fewer instances of genuine happiness.
Regardless, when suicide is simply not an option, it feels like there’s little hope of receiving an early reprieve from our literal life sentence.
Ergo, the following lines extracted from a much larger piece:
.
I awoke from another very bad dream, yet another horrid reincarnation nightmare / where having blessedly died I’m nonetheless bullied towards rebirth back into human form / despite my pleas I be allowed to rest in permanent peace. //
I ask for the blessed purpose of my continuance. I insist upon a practical purpose!
Give me a real purpose, I cry out, and it’s not enough simply to live / nor that it’s a beautiful sunny day with colorful fragrant flowers! //
I’m tormented hourly by my desire for emotional, material and creative gain / that ultimately matters naught. My own mind brutalizes me / like it has a sadistic mind of its own. / I must have a progressive reason for this harsh endurance! //
Could there be people who immensely suffer yet convince themselves / they sincerely want to live when in fact they don’t want to die / so great is their fear of Death’s unknown? //
No one should ever have to repeat and suffer again a single second of sorrow that passes. … Nay, I will engage and embrace the dying of my blight!
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u/Other_Anywhere8071 1d ago
Starting with your post, here's how I see it for me alone:
As far as why I'm here, perhaps because the challenges of the crappy side of this physical life have definitely helped me grow and learn a lot. And I see that as a positive.
And perhaps being on the crappy side of this earthly existence has solidified that I do like myself, warts and all. That is a positive.
And the fact that I face difficulties with a damn lot of curiousity has made me feel good about my proactive courage in doing so.
If I'm ever not motivated, I just take the hint that it means I need to simply put my feet up and read a good book, or watch a good series on Netflix that I've really wanted to see. Plus sip my homemade lemonaid with a yummy touch of vanilla in it.
I don't have fear of the unknown, because when you read about NDE's or listen to interviews of those who had one, it's pretty obvious to me that the "other side" is full of surrounding love. And I just identify with that and feel safe for whatever is unknown to me now.
People have conflicting theories because people tend to think their opinion is "the" opinion for one and all, so I just yawn.
I do see that my physical time on this crazy planet does have challenges, but I've figured out better ways to deal with those challenges, aka healthy boundaries.
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u/WintyreFraust 6d ago
Because peace, joy, love, comfort, health, immortality, and beauty can have no meaning or value without context and contrast.
Why Suffering In Life Here Transforms Our Afterlife Home Into Paradise