Human life is short, and it is not wise to waste time.
If death is the total annihilation of the human being and the consciousness does not survive the decomposition of the body, then the best one can do is to try enjoying this life and avoid suffering as much as possible. This is the materialistic world view which has many followers. With such mindset one does not worries about God, or any karmic laws of the universe that may judge his deeds after death. For him anything goes, he does whatever he wants, as long as he can get away with it without detrimental consequences while he lives.
On the other hand, if the human being is not only the physical body, but rather a spirit, or a spark of consciousness that survives the death of the body, then it is very important to find out what happens afterwards. If the consciousness can not be killed, then there is a good reason to believe that its existence is eternal. The life span of a human is insignificant in comparison to the eons through which the spirit may continue its existence and experiences. In this case it is more important to make sure that our existence after death should be happy, than the temporary material happiness we might enjoy in the body. For those who take this seriously, the knowledge of the truth about our existence as humans, and beyond as consciousness is very precious. They are the spiritual seekers who are ready to trade the temporary joys and happiness of this world for the greater and eternal happiness of the spirit. They are not free to do whatever they want, not even if they could get away with everything without bad consequences while alive. Their actions, words, and thought have to strive for eternal happiness, which often require renouncing temporary benefits for lasting gain.
Whichever belief system one chooses, it is important to find out the truth about our existence. If there is no life beyond death then it would be stupid to waste time with spirituality, it would make more sense to follow the materialistic goals of life. But, if our existence is not terminated by the decay of the body, then it is foolish to care only about the joys of material life. It is much wiser to focus on our wellbeing after death.
On this site we will seek the truth, map enemies, traps, and blind alleys on the field of striving, and collect some signposts that may lead us towards the goal of every human, towards lasting and completely fulfilling happiness.
Morpheus
MORPHEUS'S NOTES 
You have an interesting way of thinking. Your article on the Wes Penre Papers Hoax was excellent.
Sadly, I am getting older, but I’m still confused. Decades of effort, but I don’t known of any way to overcome the tropes of the Sceptics, thus I have not been able to determine, if life goes on after death. In fact, I haven’t been able to answer any question, I’ve just studied meticulously the answers I could find. University didn’t help either. And so far, my problem has been life, not death. I don’t know how to live, what to do, and everything seem meaningless. In other words, I don’t have any issue with not existing, my problem is with existing. The worst part is that I haven’t enjoyed my life either. Sadness is unbearable and doctors didn’t help at all. I wish to have never existed.
Hope and wish you have better luck than me.
https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Agrippa_the_Sceptic
Based on these few sentences of yours and your philosophy I don’t see any serious reason for despair or chronic sadness. I am not saying that you can’t have other reasons for that, but merely not being able to overcome the tropes of Skeptics is not a valid reason.
You were quite right to mention the most important question one has to answer before consciously choosing a working life-philosophy, life goals, and lifestyle. The question whether your consciousness, your real self survives the death of the body or not.
The hardcore materialists assert that no one came back from death yet to tell us whether the soul survives the death or not. Therefore, they are certain that reincarnation does not exist, because the consciousness is only the product of the physical brain’s activity.
The religious people born into eastern religions like Buddhism and Hinduism are certain that reincarnation exists, because their whole religion serves the only purpose to break out of that endless cycle of births and deaths. They are certain about this, because they grew up in this worldview, and never actually questioned it seriously.
So then what is the truth? Is there any kind of reincarnation or not? Why not ask instead: is there any proof about its existence or not? But when it comes to proof, we usually hit an impenetrable wall of skepticism; or the opposite of it, the overzealous blind belief that takes any claim for granted if it comes from a perceived unquestionable authority.
Therefore, it might be prudent to reduce our demands, or expectations in connection with such ‘proofs’, and consider instead whether we have any convincing information that make the probability of its existence sufficiently high. If you perform a diligent search even on the internet, you will find plenty of plausible information that confirms the reality of people getting reborn again. But of course everybody will have to collect and evaluate the related information him/herself, and make up his/her own mind about this (and other spiritual) matters.
Look at it this way:
– If your consciousness is annihilated at the time of death, then there is nothing really to grieve about, because your sadness or suffering will end once and for all. Things and beings that don’t exist do not suffer, right? You might have reason for sadness due to the circumstances of your present life, but that is only temporary, it won’t last forever (based on materialistic world view).
– If consciousness survives death, then one really has got a very good reason to worry. Not so much about the conditions of this earthly life experienced right now, because that lasts only for few decades, but rather about how he/she will spend an eternity, in happiness, or suffering. This is the most frightening subject that can trump even the fear of death. This is also the reason why quite a few religions exploit exactly this fear, to control the minds of their subjects, and keep them mentally and practically enslaved to the system of control and hierarchy.
You are not alone with this. I would say 99% of people feel the same way, because very few of them think seriously and often enough about death. The problem is almost always the experiences of present life.
Did you ever consider the possibility that life might seem to be meaningless, because it IS meaningless? Is life in solitary cells of a prison not meaningless? OK, human life outside of prisons might not be that explicitly unhappy, but I hope you get what I mean…
Suffering and unhappiness is relative. It depends on the base of reference and development of the consciousness. If someone born into a billionaire family would loose most of his wealth and keep only $1 million, he might get so depressed as to contemplate suicide. While if a pauper born into a family sorting garbage would earn or gain $1 million, he would think himself to be the happiest man in the world… until his reference level of what happiness supposed to be would not rise enough to quench his illusory and temporary bliss.
We agree that nonexistence is far better than existing in suffering. However, you have to consider the possibility, that death might not lead to your nonexistence. So simply dying would not resolve your problem of suffering (and the Eastern religions and spirituality claims exactly this). There are billions of people who did not enjoy their lives either, if you weight the huge burden of toil and slavery for mere survival, against the fleeting very short minutes of joy they might enjoy sometimes.
If you get annihilated at the time of death, then it absolutely does not matter whether you enjoyed your life or not. If your consciousness survives death, and it is eternal, then again for that very reason it matters insignificantly little whether you enjoyed this lifetime or not. The whole eternity waits for you to catch up on that. In either case you don’t loose on this one.
Sadness and depression is an unpleasant state of mind, which is mainly the result of the programming in which one grows up, and the society he/she lives in. Mind is just like a sophisticated supercomputer, it can be programmed, and it IS continuously programmed, whether people notice it or not. Suffering and sadness is a temporary illusory experience of the consciousness while observing a mind and feelings that were programmed for suffering. It can be stopped either by the consciousness stopping to observe this mind and emotions (spiritual liberation, or merger), or a more easily accomplishable way, by reprogramming the mind.
Summary: if you want to stop your depression and sadness, you have to work on consciously and actively reprogramming of your (subconscious) mind. Unfortunately, most psychologists won’t or can’t help you much in this regard, because they were trained to keep the herd within the boundaries of controlled society, and its established norms. These norms often keep people in depression and guarantee that they remain obedient slaves of the system. Pharmaceutical drugs are sold to them instead, otherwise important owners of corporations would loose their wealth and power. Psychologists and the rest of medical establishment were trained to serve the interests of these corporations.
Hi Morpheus,
is there anything you can explain about this really sick world wide lie around the ‘ virus’ and so on?
It has nothing to do with spirituality, and if you read alternative media, you will know the truth around it. I prefer to keep the discussion on this site about spirituality, not politics, health, wars etc.