Why Are We Here?

By Peter Perkins

Why are we here? I know it is a big question. Something that has plagued minds for years. It might amaze my fellow Americans to hear the answer is not to pay taxes and die. I know for many years, I have heard this question answered with exactly that response. Were here to pay taxes and die. So before I get to my own answer to that question, I would like to take a moment or two to discuss the many empty answers and outright falsehoods we may have been taught over the years in regards to this question.

When I say “Why are we here?” I mean “Why are each of us here?” Is there some purpose, some reason to it? Do we all have a purpose? Yes my fellow humanity, yes we do and yes there is.

What I Was Taught in School

When I was going to school any kind of spiritual questions (Even in Catholic School) were often answered with dogma or derision. In catholic school this question was answered quite simply we were here to toil to suffer, to make up for some original sin, and make amends for being so bad that God’s son Jesus needed to sacrifice himself for all our sins. What a wonderful reason for being here eh? The question didn’t have much better of an answer in non-denominational schools that I attended. Unlike catholic schools in which we at least had a reason for being here, though certainly not a very pleasant one. Public schools taught me there was no real reason for us to be here. Not only were we merely an evolutionary abnormality; I was taught the earth itself was merely an anomaly – a mistake. Life came about simply by a string of amazing coincidences. We just happened to have water; we just happened to be just the right distance from the sun; we just happened to have a magnetic shield and an atmosphere to protect us from the sun. Hundreds if not thousands of random variables just magically fell into place to allow life to develop on earth. The funny thing is even with all these magical coincidences that lead to life on earth, we were told in science that there was no god, no creator.

So how about ourselves? The question of why are we here then as humanity – instead of merely why life is here. Once again my teachers felt almost uncomfortable with this question. We evolved from apes, there was no real reason why we are here. Just as earth had been an amazing anomaly, I was taught we too were mere chance. Just another animal that evolved different then all other animals.

As you can see both answers to “Why are we here?” seemed unsatisfactory. Either we were here to suffer and die for the sins of unimaginably ancient sinners or we were here as a fluke, as some cosmic mistake or random occurrence.

So then with both these answers, how is it that we have come to the common answer of “Why quite naturally were here to pay taxes and die”? An answer which is said almost as a joke and yet it hides the resentment we have of the shallow answers we have been given over the years. Who does such an answer serve other than the government? Out of the two answers we are given in school, only the catholic answer that we are born to toil and suffer pairs up so nicely with the thought of pay your taxes and die – and while your at it, a nice little tithe to the church would be good for your soul as well.

We are taught that we are living in the best of times, with automation, machines, and modern conveniences. That we have more leisure time than vast generations before us. I know that I was taught the people of the distant past had no time for anything other then the constant struggle for survival. While the people of the past certainly planted crops or hunted and did not have washing machines, or hair driers, they certainly seemed to have enough leisure time to produce amazing works of art.To as a society, build things like the pyramids and other great stone monuments. If cloth and pottery were as rigid as stone I would think we would see many more examples of not only the leisure time that was had in the past, but the time people had to think on spiritual questions like, “Why are we here?”

Contrast that with how we spend our leisure time, quite often it is zoned out in front of our televisions; taking that latest call on our blackberry, hours after work is over from the boss making a special request. Or sitting before our computers making money for various sites merely by clicking through and getting bombarded with advertisements. We might have leisure time but are not encouraged to ask such silly questions as why are we here.

In the past if you pointed to the pyramids as an example, of what these people had the time to build, look at the beautiful artwork and magical ceremony they had time to develop. The professor would often scoff and say all these things were the product of slave labor.

One could look at the Amish in modern times. Their barn building tradition in which the whole community would get together and miraculously build a barn almost overnight for members of their community. No housing problem here, no massive foreclosure signs in Amish communities and yet they seem to be doing just as well without all the headaches of wonderful modern society with all its leisure time, and stimulus bailouts.

Times are changing, just recently online in a Yahoo article on Egypt, they came across vast evidence that the people of Egypt built the pyramids, not a slave force of labor. Small burial tombs around the pyramids for the workers were found. As well as vast cafeteria like buildings where rich meals were brought in for the workers.

So too is science, after a long time scoffing at religion, coming to the same conclusion that religion had. We were not some random dice roll at the begining of time. There is some creative force whether you want to call it god, the singularity or something else to soothe the ego of past scientists. It is becoming more apparent that we are all part of the same source of energy that created everything. The stars, the planets, the comets, the vast universe we see around us.

Many old religions posit life is but a dream, an illusion. Quantum science is coming to this conclusion as they push forward into new discoveries. We are all energy, not matter, though we are very condensly packed energy. Everything that is matter, indeed everything made up of atoms and atoms themselves are energy.

Remember that line in school that earth was just an anomaly – a single planet in all the cosmos where a fluke chance allowed life? Look now at how new planets including water worlds and possible planets of life are being found monthly now.

All I can say is “Hurray!” for the modern era, with all it’s problems, we are still living in blessed times. A child can now ask, “Why are we here?” and though in dogma they will receive the same answer that has been given for years, in public schools at least there is a brief pause before the same rhetoric of evolution and random luck is given out. If your lucky and in some progressive school you might even hear an answer other then the ones we have been given as we grew up.

So then I come back to the question of “Why we are here?”

The answer is simple, we are here to spiritually grow. We are all one, all part of the same energy of creation and yet we are here each having experiences that allow us to grow, to progress and learn to be more of ourselves.

It is in the living that we give answer to that question. By living our lives, by having our experiences, by chosing how we percieve all that we experience we are creating ourselves.

One person may see themselves as having a handicap and decide to limit themselves, another may look at it as a challenge to overcome. Each of us through our experiences here distinguish ourselves as unique divinely beautiful beings. We all come from the same energy but living our lives we paint the canvas with a portrait of who we are. We must learn who we are before we can reach out from that canvas, grasp the paintbrush and start to paint into creation the world around us.

We are here my friends, to learn who we are, and then once we know ourselves we can direct our efforts towards co-creating the world around us. All things start first as ideas, we imagine something and then bring it into creation. We are here to co-create the world around us and beyond. First though we must get a sense of who the artist is and our experiences here give us a perfect opportunity to define the artist.

Peter