Why Are We Here?

The ultimate question for many people is: Why are we here and what are we supposed to do now that we are here?  Discussing this question is a fool’s paradise.  And I am a fool.

I recently read a rather scientific and philosophical article about this.  It was well thought out and intelligently written, and yet somehow unsatisfying.  So I thought I would take a turn at engaging this question.  It is likely whatever I say you will think me wrong.  I sincerely invite you to comment back and engage on this topic, to correct me.

I have wondered about this question all of my life.  Where did I come from? Where was I before I was formed in my mother’s body?  Did I exist at all before then?  And where am I going when I die?  It seems like we emerge from some unknown void and then return to it.  In the meantime, there is this amazingly beautiful, crazy and short life wherein we experience joy and pain, love and amazement.

The traditional religions have their stories to explain all these things.  Yet are there any of us, even if we believe in what traditional religions say, who have not sat alone and awake in the middle of the night wandering outside those stories and wondering if something absolutely different might be true?  (Who among us has not had a ‘dark night of the soul’?)

One answer I have frequently heard is that earth is a school for the development of souls, and that we enter into this life with deep forgetting about what came before this life, so that we can work on a lesson plan to develop our souls during the course of our lifetimes.  People who believe this idea also often believe that anything that happens to us in life, that is set before our attention, is part of the lesson plan.

Some people claim to remember what came before this life they are now living.  Sometimes there have been stories of children who can recount in detail the details of a former life.

Another answer that is sometimes given is based on the idea that the consciousness of God exists in all things, and that God is indeed closer to us than the pulse in our own necks (Islam).  Some people who believe that God lives within us believe that we are here to witness and participate in the unfoldment of creation.  We are the eyes of the universe looking at that universe, and through each of us God sees His creation in a way that could only be seen through our eyes.

Thinking of this story about why we are here I am reminded of Mother Teresa, who said that when she served the poor she looked into their eyes and saw Jesus.  Or the story that tells us that we should be kind to strangers because that stranger may indeed be an angel.

There are stories people tell themselves about why we are here that are not based in a belief in God or a spiritual practice.  Many atheists believe that our being here is an outcome of evolution.  That we are a glorious kind of experiment, accident.  An atheist might tell you that the meaning we have is the meaning we make during the course of our lives.

Still others would say that the reason we are here is simply to be kind.  As the Dalai Lama has said, “My religion is kindness.”

Joseph Campbell, that great explorer of things spiritual and religious, talks about living in the great mystery.

And what a great mystery it is!  In this moment, you and I are together through these words exploring this question together.  Are you sure about where you came from before you were born and do you absolutely know what happens when we die?  Here we are, embraced and bathed in this great mystery of being, the odds of any of us coming into existence so incredibly small- breathing and thinking and wondering!

Like Walt Whitman I celebrate, I sing the body electric and I also acknowledge the soul sublime.  (My experience tells me of the soul, yours may whisper something different to you.)

Kurt Vonnegut in “God Bless You Mr. Rosewater” says, “"Hello, babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. At the outside, babies, you've got about a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies—God damn it, you've got to be kind."

Perhaps few of us will resolve this question of why we are here and what we are supposed to do with our lives, now that we are here.  Most of us will remain held and surrounded by mystery and unknowing.  If that is our fate then perhaps we can appreciate the mystery and the journey without having to absolutely know what all of this is about.  And since we are fellow travelers all in this boat together, as the Dalai Lama and Kurt Vonnegut suggest- it seems the best response to life and our unknowingness is kindness.

What do you think?