meaningoflife

The Meaning of Life

I wrote this essay in 2000 when I was extremely depressed and suicidal. It was the very first complete documentation of all of my metaphysical theories. I still hold many of these ideas to be true, but since then (when I was only 16) my ideas have grown beyond them and I no longer believe that they are necessarily correct. My beliefs now are far more existential. I don't think we can really know the meaning of life as long as we are alive, and there will never be a way to prove that our souls exist after death, or whether Love is really the center of everything. I still believe that, but I'm under no delusions that it is necessarily true. This is just one possibility of how existence could work.

May 2000

The purpose of my life has been to discover the purpose of life.  The answers are out there, if anyone chooses to look for them.  Truth can be found in religion and science as well as books, movies, and music. In particular, the novel Illusions by Richard Bach, the song �Innuendo� by Queen, and the Pink Floyd albums The Wall and Dark Side of the Moon.  Through these works of art, most concepts of the Universe can be understood.  The truth can be found, but only if a person chooses to look.
	In this essay, I will attempt to outline the truth as best I can.  For all who want to know the answers, they can be found here, in this documentation of my life�s work.  However, with this truth comes an entirely different perspective on everything�a perspective that makes it almost impossible to live in this world.  To any and all who may read this, be warned that if you choose to believe the truth, it will change the way you perceive everything.  The purpose of this essay is to let all those who want to know the answers find them.  Also, it will serve as a solid document containing all the theories I�ve spent my lifetime finding.  Finally, it should serve as a suicide note, for once I am finished, I plan on leaving this world.
Three Dimensions of Thought
	To understand this essay, you must understand the differentiations between dimensions of thought.  There are three dimensions of thinking.  The first is 1-dimensional thought, which is what most people of this world use to do most of their thinking.  This is the thought produced in your brain, and it covers everything solid and concrete that is absolutely and undisputedly there.  In 2-dimensional thought, there is more than what is simply there.  Most poetry and song lyrics are 2-dimensional, containing metaphors and symbols, which represent things different from what they are on the first dimension.  Then there is the third dimension, which is simply the truth.  It is logic where there is none, like in a dream.  All dreams have meaning, but only in the third dimension.  This essay explains the concepts of third dimensional thought, but using first dimensional language, which limits the amount of truth I can convey.
	What is written on this paper is the truth, no exceptions.  If you choose to believe any of what I say, you must believe it all, because there are no contradictions when it comes to reality.  The more complicated the answers to the meaning of life become, the further from the truth they are.  There are only three true statements that can be made to apply to everything, and I will explain each of them in detail.  The only three fundamental truths of the Universe are:  1- Life is experience, 2- Existence is infinite, 3- Fate is a choice.
Life is Experience
	There are three elements that make up the whole of existence.  They are space, time, and life.  There must be space for anything to exist, for without matter, there would be nothing.  That�s the most obvious truth there can be.  But what fewer people will accept because it is beyond 1-dimensional comprehension is that there are infinite types of matter existing in the universe.  The universe consists of far more than merely planets, solar systems, and galaxies, but of everything imaginable.  There must also be time in order for there to be existence.  Without time, nothing would change, and matter would be like a still picture frame, or a film paused at one point.  It is obvious that time must exist, but it is less commonly believed that there are infinite types of time.  Things change all around the universe, but in an infinite number of ways.  Time can also be moved faster or slower, forwards or backwards, or stopped.
	So then, what is the meaning of life?  Couldn�t the universe exist without living creatures to experience it?  If a tree falls in the forest and nobody is around, does it not make a sound?  The answer is no.  In order for the universe to exist, there must be souls in existence, moving in, out, and around it.  The meaning of life is experience.  Emotions, despite popular scientific believe that they originate in the mind, come straight from the soul.  Without living souls to experience space and time, and feel the emotions these inspire, neither could exist.  And just as there are infinite types of matter, and infinite ways things can change, there are infinite emotions that can be felt.  The most powerful emotion, though, can be felt everywhere at every time throughout the universe, and that is love.  Truth and Love are the only things that remain constant throughout existence.
	Our lives take us into the Universe, into any part we choose.  We have an infinite amount of lives to live, an infinite amount of experiences to have.  Before we begin a life, we decide what experience we want to have, and we enter the universe in the space and time where we can have that experience.  In these lifetimes, we are free to do whatever we choose, and we are free to change our minds about our decisions, unless we choose not to allow ourselves to change our minds.
	Richard Bach uses the word �illusion� to describe the lives we live.  This is a very accurate perception of the truth.  Time, space, and life, are all illusions.  Nothing that goes on anywhere, at any time, or to anyone affects the underlying �reality.�  Reality is divinely indifferent.  It doesn�t care what experiences we choose to have, what times and spaces we choose to feel emotions at.  Richard, in his book Illusions, analogizes our lives to motion pictures.  We walk into a film knowing what we�re going to experience: romance, horror, action, comedy, fantasy, etc.  But what happens in the film doesn�t affect what happens around us, only our emotional outlook on things.  We can choose any film we want, and we�re free to change it, see it again, or walk out in the middle.  Our lives our films, and we are the actor, director, producer, and screenwriter.
Existence is Infinite
The being referred to as �God� is actually an infinitely different amount of beings.  God is a character created my man to explain the inexplicable.  Recently, in this world, man has turned to science to explain the order of the universe.  God and science are both names for the same thing:  an explanation of time and space in the illusion.  In reality, God is simply a being in which all emotions of every soul are felt at once, all time, all space, and all that has ever been exists in God.  In short, God is existence.
	The Is, the combination of all time, space, and life, of everything and nothing is incomprehensible to a singular soul.  How all things that exist can be combined in one presence is a phenomenon incapable of being understood.  The phenomenon of omnipresence, of existence everywhere and nowhere, lies beyond the realm of dimensional thought.  God exists on the fourth dimension, a plane of infinite existence that stretches through the realm of everything and nothing.  God creates all time, space, and life.  It is a part of every soul, and every soul is a part of it.  It has no past, present, or future, it resides in no location, its emotions belong to no one, it just Is.
	This does not mean anyone else�s perceptions are wrong.  If a person believes that God sits on a throne in the clouds, and punishes the wicked whenever they do wrong, they are absolutely correct, because it�s what they believe.  Truths we hold in the illusion are the truths of our perception.  Whatever we believe is the truth, is truth in this lifetime.  What I outline in this essay are the truths of the entire Universe, that do not differ, but it is your choice whether or not to believe them.  If you decide not to believe what I say, then what I say is not true.
	God is existence.  Existence is infinite.  What does infinite mean?  Well, on the first dimension, infinite existence means that if you sent a space ship on a course to the edge of the universe, it would never reach it.  On the second dimension, infinite existence could suggest that a soul could live forever, and never experience everything.  Both these explanations are correct as far as the truth goes.  But on the third dimension, what infinite existence means is that anything a soul could possibly imagine, anything at all, exists somewhere and at some time in the universe.  
All a soul has to do is imagine a world, and the Is creates it.  A soul could imagine a world where there is no God, and the Is will create that world, and that world will in fact have no God.  Another soul could then imagine the very same world that is ruled by a God, and the Is will put that soul into the very same world as the other soul.  Only for this soul, the world will have a God, or two, or infinite, however many are specified by the soul.  Two souls living in the same world, but with two different perceptions.  Both are right, because of the one truth that holds true for all truths: Existence is Infinite.
Pink Floyd touched on this very truth in the album Dark Side of the Moon, probably without knowing it.  Throughout the medley of music, songs come on with lyrics of both dimensions.  �Time� and �Money� have very 1-dimensional lyrics, while �Breathe,� �Us and Them,� and �Brain Damage� journey into 2-dimensional logic.  But the very last song, �Eclipse,� is one of the rare works of art that stretch into the third dimension.  The last two lines of the song are �and everything under the sun is in tune, but the sun is eclipsed by the moon.�  Translated into 1-dimensional terms, this means that everything you experience really happens, but eclipsed by the moon.  The moon being a symbol for Truth.  The dark side of the moon is a place where there is no truth.  Everything happens, but it is only truth under the shadow of the greater truth, that Existence is Infinite.  The last thing said on the album, very faintly, says it all: �There is no Dark Side of the Moon really.  Matter of fact, it�s all Dark.�  There is no world where nothing exists; the entire universe doesn�t exist.
Fate is a Choice
So now comes the time to face the unpopular side of this philosophy: freedom.  We have the freedom to do whatever we want to do.  We decide what we want when we come into this world.  We are shown everything that will happen before it happens.  We then enter the illusion, and forget all other lives we�ve had, all other truths we�ve known, all other realities that have existed.  Unless, of course, we choose to remember them, as Jesus had, but I won�t get into that.  While inside the illusion, we are free to change our minds, stop the film, turn it off, or do whatever we want.  But in most lifetimes, we don�t let ourselves do that.  The fact is, whatever happens to us, happens because we wanted it to happen.
	Evil is an illusion.  There is no evil, only that which exists in a soul�s imagination.  Some souls choose to live their lives as a bad guy, and there is nothing wrong with that, because any victims they claim are only victims because they chose to be.  There are no conflicting desires.  Everyone gets exactly what they want.  If a soul chooses a life of persecution, they will get it, and all the rich drama that comes with it.  Of course, they want to be persecuted, but they don�t want to want to be persecuted.  If a father of a murdered girl understood that his daughter died because he wanted her too, the emotion would be lost on that.  The concept that crime and injustice exists because we want it to is not an easy thing to accept.  The universe is a perfect place, and everyone experiences exactly what they choose to experience.  The perfect universe is a concept impossible to accept for all those who choose to be victims, and that is okay.
	Fate is the current that carries us along in this world, which I call Millennium Earth.  In this world of finite things, there will be an end.  Every event that has ever happened leads to the end of the world, a judgment day in which evil and injustice will be obliterated, and the human race can live in harmony.  When that day comes, each soul will make a choice: to believe in the truth offered to them and live eternally, or not to accept, and perish.  Those who believe are those souls who are in existence today, living free to move in and out of the illusion at any time or place, and having every experience they desire.
All these concepts can be found in the lyrics of Queen�s song �Innuendo�, and in my book of the same title.  This end-of-the-world saga is the truth of this world, but merely an innuendo to the whole truth of the universe.  There is no death.  Even those who choose not to believe and perish are still free to change their minds.  All events are causes that lead to the one effect: judgment day, but nothing makes it so we can�t change these causes.  All paths lead to life, no matter what paths we choose.  We can change whatever we want, but in the end, the fate of our world remains the same, and the truth does not stray from the one fact that Fate is a Choice.  In �Innuendo� Queen sings of all the truths of the world, all the injustices of life, and then makes the bold statement to stand out: �You can be anything you want to be.  Just turn yourself into anything you think that you could ever be.�  This concept of truth behind truth can only be understood on the third dimension, and cannot be accepted on the first.  It is the hint made by Queen, by Richard Bach, by Pink Floyd, and by me.  �Through our sorrow, all through our splendor, don�t take offense at my Innuendo.�
Millennium Earth
We all live in different worlds, but we all share this one space-time I call Millennium Earth.  The world around us is currently home to six billion souls.  I call it Millennium Earth because this world exists only at this time, and only at this point in space.  All our history, from the prehistoric age, to biblical times, to the last century, was all different worlds.  Even now, each individual soul lives in its own world with its own truths and own choices.  We all have one thing in common: we chose this space-time.  We all have one thing uncommon: why we chose this space-time.  Based on my own observations and experiences, and a little help from the �bleeding hearts and artists,� I have come up with my theories as to why we live the way we do.
	Society in Millennium Earth is designed to divide.  Pink Floyd calls it The Wall, which is a very accurate symbol for the divisions created by us in our worlds.  We use The Wall to divide people from each other, people from themselves, and to divide the illusion from the truth.  Everywhere there is crime, hunger, hate, disease, and countless other �injustices of God.�  Bad things happen to good people because it�s their choice.  We all came hear to live in a world with The Wall.  I chose this life to have the experience of tearing down The Wall, and seeing the truth behind the illusion.  Most people will not have chosen this life to do that, so they will not want to believe the truths I tell them, and that is okay.
	It is possible to live �Outside The Wall.�  In any illusion, the wall can be torn down, and the underlying truths of infinite existence, purpose of life, and choice of fate can be seen.  Once this is understood, and it can be seen that nothing is real, we can change the illusions to our liking.  We can perform magic, but only if we let ourselves.  In the past of space-time, people who lived beyond the illusion performed magic and were called wizards, witches, or prophets.  In Millennium Earth, no one chooses to do that.  Because I know the secret of the illusions, I can perform magic, but I don�t want to, or I would have chosen a world where this was possible.  Before I came in, I decided not to let myself perform any miracles.
	Outside The Wall are the people who love us.  Inside The Wall, we have those we love, but they take on different forms, those of our friends, our lovers, and our family.  They are our spiritual family.  There are infinite members of each family, and there are infinite families.  We choose which members of our family we will enter a life with, and which parts they will play.  A lot of the time, our actual family contains none of the members of our spiritual family.  But we are always in the same world as our soul mate, a cosmic partner with whom we are connected to beyond the realm of emotion.  Sometimes we choose not to find our soul mate, or we choose for them not to recognize us.  In this world of suffering, very few people allow themselves to love their soul mate, and that is okay.
	This is a perception that is not easy to live with, but is the truth.  Very few people who live inside The Wall would like to believe that they only struggle because they want to.  That is because Millennium Earth is specifically set up to do everything it can to block the truth that we are free.  To be free and happy, all you have to do is stop struggling.  As a guide to living this way, simply follow three rules: 1-Don�t do any work unless you want to, 2-Quit any organization you do not want to be a part of, 3-Don�t respect anyone who does not respect you.  Respect is an understanding of another soul�s decisions, an understanding that whatever they choose is the right choice.  These rules are the rules of a fool, but a fool who knows the truth.  You won�t get very far in this world by living by that code, but rest assured, you will get what you want, as long as you understand that you want even those things you don�t want.  As Led Zeppelin says in my favorite song of this lifetime, �Yes, there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run there�s still time to change the road you�re on.�
	So once you stop living inside The Wall, what happens?  Pink Floyd laid it out precisely in The Wall.  Once you say �Stop!  I wanna go home, take off this uniform and leave the show,� you will find yourself to be �waiting in this cell because I have to know, have I been guilty all this time?�  Following will be the trial of your lifetime.  As everything that has ever happened to you, everyone you�ve ever known, all the bricks in the wall come back to build themselves around you, the worms will eat into your brain.  But in the end, the worms (the people who judge you) don�t matter, because you decide the verdict, and though it sounds terrible to �tear down the wall� you will do it, and �the ones who really love you� will �walk up and down Outside the Wall.�
	Basically, there will be consequences to your actions, but they will be whatever you choose them to be.  It is possible to live a life without consequences, but we don�t want to.  Millennium Earth is for those people who want to struggle.  For those of us who change our minds, and decide to stop struggling, there is always the option of suicide.  If there is anything that all religions, philosophies, and societies of Millennium Earth agree on is that suicide is wrong.  But in reality, suicide is just walking out when you�re finished.  Millennium Earth can�t allow people to accept this as a reasonable choice, because if we can just end our lives, our struggles don�t seem reasonable.  But all death is suicide, because we�ve all chosen to die at some point.  And it is a perfect world, so nobody dies without their consent, and the consent of all others.  Any pain brought to anyone�s life by death or suicide is there because they have chosen for it to be there, and that is a truth that Millennium Earth will never allow them to accept.
	Death is not the end.  You can always come back and try again.  You can choose to return to a world identical to Millennium Earth, but with the ability to perform magic, and to remember previous realities and lives of your choosing.  It can all be done.  Anything you can possibly imagine can and does exist at some place and at some time with some emotion.  Believe that, and the rest will follow.  Or don�t believe it.  Whatever you believe is true, is true.  Whatever you decide the answers are, they are.  Whatever you decide God is, it is.  Whatever pleasure or pain you want, you can have.  Whatever you decide to be real, will be reality.  Nothing really exists anyway.  In the end, only Love is real.  So make your choices, and enjoy the experiences.

I wrote this essay in my second year of college, and I still agree with most of the things in it. This was an attempt on my part to write a more structured, logical argument about the basic mechanics of how the universe works. It's basically a metaphysical argument which illustrates how Existence must be structured if all things are connected as one. Although I don't use any qualifiers in this argument and what I say still isn't necessarily true, I believe it to be the closest theory to how everything actually works that I've developed..

A Meditation on the Meaning of Existence - October 2003

There are two ways to approach the world we live in that determine our perspective.  You can either believe that the Universe is inexplicable and incomprehensible to us, or that we do in fact have the capability to understand the underlying structure or meaning, to truly grasp the nature of Existence.
	Those who would say that we can not understand the universe can have many convincing reasons for believing so.  Some might say that the human minds which we use to contemplate Existence are merely clumps of organic matter which have formed randomly through evolution, and we can not know the meaning of our Existence because there is no meaning.  Others might say that an omnipotent being or a God formed the world and that we are incapable of understanding his designs because he is of infinite intelligence and we are not.  Finally some might say that while there may be a structure to Existence that can be deduced through science, we have neither the tools nor the mental capacity to do so.  We are limited by our senses, and since there may be more to Existence than we can sense, it is impossible to know everything.
	However, there are those who believe as I do that we do have the capacity to understand the nature of Existence, and we can do so through the tools of logic and reasoning.  It may seem that this idea is wishful thinking.  After all, nobody wants to be forced to accept that no matter how hard we try, we can never really understand our lives.  We can never be sure that anything we do has the slightest significance, because the concept of Importance is relative.  Something of the utmost importance to one person may easily be of no consequence to anyone else in the world.  So without a definite perception of reality to measure our thoughts and actions against, how can we judge the importance of anything?  If we have the capability to understand the absolute nature of reality, to find the Truth that exists independent of our own perceptions, we have the capability of attaching importance to the things in our lives, and I believe that all of us have a basic desire to feel that things are important, that our lives matter.
	So when I say that there are absolute truths from which we can deduce the nature of Existence, I will admit that this may merely be a product of my own hopes and fears.  The structure of the Existence in my mind may wholly be a product of wishful thinking, and my logic tainted by my perspective.  There is always doubt, no matter how logically sound and compact a metaphysical theory can be.  How can we be sure that the rules of logic are absolute and not subject to change?  But if we accept the concept of hypothetical syllogism (if A implies B and A is true, we can be sure that B is true) then we can take what we are given and deduce from it a sound theory of the nature of Existence.
	I will now meditate on the nature of Existence by finding what I know to be true and making deductions from this foundation.  I must start by finding a given.  What can I be sure is absolutely true?  At first I am tempted to believe that I can be sure of nothing, but I realise this is false.  Even if I can not be sure that there is a world outside of my mind, I can be sure of my own mind.  Even if I can doubt whether anything I am conscious of is real, I cannot doubt my own Consciousness.  That is not to say I cannot doubt the Consciousness of others; I can not be sure that others think, but I can be sure that I think because it can not be denied.  I must think in order to deny I think, so such an idea must be false.  Ren� Descartes recognised this concept: Cogito ergo sum.  I think, therefore I am.  It is undeniably true.  It is Absolute, a given that I can be sure of.
	The problem is that with only one given I can not make any deductions.  All I know is that I am conscious.  It does not help me to understand anything else.  Why do I think the things I do?  Why do I experience what I experience?  Why is Existence the way it is?  Descartes had the same problem, and his solution was to make an argument for the Existence of God and deduce all he needed to from that.  His flaw was in never getting past his assumptions; he believed that because his ideas are given to him by God and God would not lie to him, his ideas must be true.  I will not spend time refuting Descartes because that has already been done.  I merely wish to make clear that my theory makes no assumptions and takes nothing for granted other than logic itself.  If I can find that any deduction I make comes through assumption, I can no longer trust my deductions.
	So how do I find the other absolute truth with which to build this theory?  What can I be sure of other than the fact that I think?   The answer is equally simple: I can be sure of Existence itself.  I think, but I do not think of nothing.  I think of things.  I know that I am conscious, and I know that I am conscious of an Existence.  There appears to be a world that I perceive through my senses.  Whether or not this world exists outside of my mind is un-knowable, but it indubitably exists inside of my mind.
	So now I know that I am conscious and that Existence exists.  I must now clearly define these ideas.  Consciousness is simple.  It is the means by which I experience Existence.  It can be called a mind, a soul, or a spirit.  It is my true identity for I can not separate myself from it.  Existence is more simple, though perhaps more abstract.  It is the only thing that necessarily exists due to itself.  Existence must exist.  The idea of Existence not existing is a paradox.  I know there is an Existence because I exist.  If there was no Existence, I would not exist, and thus could not be conscious nor think of Existence.
	But I still need a clear definition of Existence.  To simply say that Existence is what exists does nothing.  I will then say that Existence is everything I am conscious of.  Existence is everything I experience.  This is not limited to the world around me.  Existence is not the same as the Universe.  I am conscious of far more than what comes to me through sense perception.  I am also conscious of things I have sensed in the past but no longer do.  These things still exist, but as part of my memory and not the world I sense.  I can also be conscious of abstract ideas which do not come to me through the senses.  These things exist, but in my imagination.  So Existence is whatever I am conscious of at any instant, whether it is a sight, sound, smell, touch or taste, a memory of a sight, sound, smell, touch or taste, or an imagined sight, sound, smell, touch, or taste.
	I now have a solid foundation for which to make deductions as to the nature of this Existence I am conscious of.  I will now consider Existence and its necessary properties.  First of all, I must decide whether Existence is finite or infinite, and I will do this by disjunctive syllogism (considering both possibilities and finding the right one by disproving the other).  I am not inclined to believe that Existence is finite, so I will consider the possibility that it is.  If Existence is finite, that means that there is a limited amount of things that I can experience.  It means that Existence must have begun with an initial idea with which I because conscious, and will end once I become conscious of the last idea.  However, Existence can not begin or end.  Existence must exist because it would be a paradox for it to not exist.  I cannot imagine a time before Existence, because anything I would imagine would then exist.  There may have been a time before the universe began, but Existence was still there.  Even a completely empty void of black nothingness is something.  Just as Existence must exist, non-Existence can not exist.  The Existence of non-Existence is a paradox.  Because a finite Existence would mean that non-Existence must exist, Existence can not be finite.  Therefore, Existence must be infinite.  There can not have been a beginning, and there can be no end.
	So now that I have decided that Existence is Infinite I will return to my definition of Existence and add to it the definition of infinite.  If something is infinite, that means it is limitless.  So I cannot limit Existence to merely what I experience through sense, memory, or imagination.  Existence, I will now say, is everything that I have the potential to experience through sense, memory, or imagination.  This means that Existence is all that exists or can exist.
	I must secondly decide whether Existence is Singular or Plural.  This is perhaps the simplest thing to figure out.  Existence must be singular because there can be no such thing as a plural or separate Existence.  Since Existence is all that exists or can exist, there cannot be more than one.  Any �separate� Existence is merely a part of the same Existence, that which is everything in limitless possibility.  There can be plural universes just as there can be finite universes, but even two universes or dimensions impossible to reach from one another are both part of Existence because they both exist.  Existence, which I have already found must be infinite, can only be singular, because by being infinite it includes all things that have the potential to exist.  Therefore, there must be only one Existence.
	Before I apply this idea of Singularity to my idea of Existence, I must ask one more question, this time not of Existence but of Consciousness.  I am sure that Consciousness exists, and there can be no Consciousness without Existence, but can there be Existence without Consciousness?  I imagine that I am not conscious and the answer becomes clear.  If I was not conscious, there would be no Existence to me.  If nobody is conscious, there can be no Existence.  Existence and Consciousness both depend upon the other.  Consciousness is a function of Existence, and Existence a product of Consciousness.
	So Consciousness must be singular as well.  If there were multiple Consciousnesses, that would mean multiple Existences.  Since Existence is defined as everything I am or have the potential to be conscious of, a separate Consciousness would infer a separate Existence, even if this Existence is completely identical to the one perceived by the first Consciousness.  I have already proven that there can not be a separate Existence, so I know that Consciousness must be singular.  Just as a separate Existence would merely be a part of the greater, larger Existence, a separate Consciousness would only be part of a greater, larger Consciousness.
	I now come to my largest conclusion: that if Existence and Consciousness are both singular and dependent on the other, they must in fact be the same thing.  Existence is everything I can be conscious of, and the only thing I can be conscious of which I know must be true is that there exists only One Consciousness of One Existence.  Thus Existence itself takes on a Final and more absolute definition: It is a Consciousness of Existence.  Consciousness is nothing more than the self-awareness of Existence.
	I can now come to a startling series of conclusions:  I am conscious, therefore I exist.  I have Consciousness, therefore I have Existence.  I am Consciousness, therefore I am Existence.  I am not this body or this clump of matter called a brain.  I am a conscious entity, a part of the one singular Existence that experiences itself through one singular Consciousness.  Once I bring in the concept of infinity, the concept becomes complete.  If Existence is infinite and Consciousness is Existence, then Consciousness is infinite as well.  I have the capability to be conscious of a limitless amount of things.  I have existed forever, and I can never cease to exist.  I am one with Existence, and though I am not conscious of all of Existence at one instant, I have the potential to be conscious of anything Existence can possibly be.  Put simply, whatever I can imagine can be true.  My Consciousness is an eternal phenomenon which is experiencing all that Existence has to offer, all that it can imagine.
	So how do I get from an eternal, omniscient and omnipotent being to an apparent assemblage of substances forming a brain and body?  To figure this out, I will perform a simple thought experiment.  I imagine that I wake up suddenly in complete darkness.  I have no body and no memory.  I am nothing and nothing surrounds me.  All I have is my Consciousness.  I am nothing more than a thinking entity that exists.  I came from nowhere and I am going nowhere.  I have no purpose or understanding of any concepts inherent in a human mind.  The only thing I know is that I am.
	So what do I do?  Do I float in nothingness for eternity, never becoming aware of anything but the absolute darkness that surrounds me?  Or do I start to imagine things?  Clearly, because I am a thinking being, I will begin to imagine certain concepts.  These concepts will be simple at first.  I may label the darkness around me as �black� and consider the possibility of other forms of darkness that are not black.  I can invent the concept of �white,� and imagine the nothingness around me to become this new thing.  I have now created the concept of difference.  From there new concepts will arise such as the changing of black to white.  The concept of time arises as a means to allow things to become different.  I can imagine that there can be more than one thing at the same time.  I can imagine that in the same Existence around me there is something black and something else that is white.  From that may follow the concept of plurality and the idea of matter.  I combine matter and time to imagining very primitive universes, perhaps where two particles come into Existence, meet, and then die.  I will imagine new universes with concepts growing from things I have contemplated in old universes.  Each universe I create is still a part of my Existence, my own Consciousness.  This may go on for awhile until I discover the idea of interacting with my own creations.  I will create a body for myself with which to sense these universes and even participate in them.  I can even create two bodies which interact and participate with each other, imagining first that I am one conscious body and then that I am the second.  I can experience the same universe multiple times from multiple perspectives.  These universes become more and more complicated, but I am always aware of the basic rules which govern them because these are the rules I have created for them.  Until finally I come up with the idea of temporarily forgetting the rules, and experiencing one of my created universes without realising that I created it.
	The only flaw in this thought experiment is the fact that imagination comes from memory.  While I can imagine something that does not exist, such as a white sky, this is merely the result of putting together two concepts that exist in my memory, the concept of white and the concept of sky.  This does not make the above scenario impossible, however, because this being at the centre of existence does not think with a human mind.  This being, which can be called Existence itself, or God, contains all memory and imagination simultaneously.  There was no point at which it started to imagine things.  Everything it creates was already created.  It just chooses what to be conscious of.
	I now have the grounds for an explanation of the nature of Existence.  I am a conscious entity, imagining a universe of unbelievable complication, and I have chosen to experience it through a single mind that is divided in an essential manner from itself.  I can not understand the universe and all of the properties which my imagination has given it, but simply by knowing that I am conscious of an Existence, I can understand the nature that exists at the core of this universe.  The universe is nothing more than one of an infinite number of creations of a core Consciousness which I am one with.  Everything that is conscious is one with this being, existing separately only in its imagination.  I am the same as you.  We are the same as everything else.  I am the being which Existence has made conscious at this point in infinity.  Everything else is conscious at different points in infinity, or at least has the potential to be.  Existence need not spend an entire duration of a universe as every particle or assemblage of particles that it is made out of.  In fact, none of these particles exist unless Existence is conscious of them.  There really is no outside Universe to me at this point in Existence because now all that Existence is conscious of is my brain and everything it senses, remembers, or imagines.
	So what does this mean?  What is the value of this information?  What good does knowing this do other than provide for some peace of mind as to why Existence exists?  How can I use this to deduce the meaning of my Consciousness as this body?  I exist in this space, in this time, in this life, but why?  Does Existence just cycle through an infinite series of possibilities?  Do I live the same life over and over again repeatedly with only one aspect of Existence changing with each cycle?
	This would be impossible because it calls for a chaotic Existence.  How does Existence decide what to do next?  From the sea of nothingness, how do I decide what to do next?  I cannot merely choose spaces, times, and lives at random.  I can only imagine concepts that stem from previous concepts.  If I have not yet come up with the concept of colours, I could not place myself in a world rich with colours.  When I am finished with a life in one universe, I could not merely choose to start a new universe with rules completely different and incomparable to the rules of this one.
	So to better understand Existence, I will imagine that it has a shape.  The shape is of a single point of light with infinite branches emerging from it, spiralling around, and finally plunging back into the point of light.  The spirals of light branching out from Existence are the lives I live.  The universes I create.  The experiences I imagine.  Each one takes me on a unique path, each intersecting with countless others, but they all end up back at the core of light.  Birth can be imagined as the point at which these spirals emerge from the core and death when they return.  Prior to and after death, I am one with Existence, I am back in nothingness, and I understand every aspect of everything I imagined which has taken place in that life.  These lives, however, are not limited to birth and death, nor must they be tied to organic material.  Lives can be merely of spirit, floating through the created universe but hardly participating in it.  They can begin as Consciousness in a human body, and continue after the body dies.  Sometimes the Consciousness can understand the nature of the universe it has created, and sometimes it can not.  Sometimes the Consciousness can control the universe it has created, and sometimes it can not.  Existence is infinite, so all of these possibilities must be true.
	But since Consciousness takes on these human forms in this area of Existence, it becomes human.  When the spiral of a life with a human mind plunges back to the light, it does so retaining everything it was conscious of as a human.  It chooses its next life based on all it has experienced from its previous life.  If I have lived a life of great suffering, having no control or understanding of my destiny, when I return to the core and am able to choose what my next life will be, I will probably choose one of great happiness, with complete understanding of what I have created and the ability to control and change it.  Conversely if I have just lived a life in a paradise filled with joy and happiness, the next life I choose will probably be one of great suffering.  This keeps Existence in balance, and creates meaning in a meaningless Existence.  My life now is the result of what my previous life left to be desired, and my next life will be the result of what this life causes me to imagine or want.
	There are no limits.  I can be everybody that exists in this space or at this time, in a universe where the abilities of man are limited, and I am nothing but one of a billion.  In one life as a man I might believe that Heaven exists and when my body dies I will find myself there although I shared the same space and time with a man I also am who did not believe in God or Heaven.  The world around me depends on what I believe because that is what I am conscious of.  I used to believe in God as a humanlike deity, and in that part of Existence, there really was such a God.  Just because I no longer believe this does not make it wrong, it merely makes it wrong now.  I can not judge anybody for believing in such a God because for them, such a God does and will exist until something happens to change their mind; alter this Consciousness.  I can not do harm to any man without doing harm to myself, although when I am the person receiving that harm it is only because that is at a point in Existence where I desire harm.  I must give up my conceptions of an absolute right and wrong because every injustice is committed by me against me.  Morality can only exist in my own perception, and I can trust that if I do what I believe to be good in this life, I can probably reward myself in the next.  The only true judge of my actions is me, and the judgment is different as the life and the perspective is different.  The Consciousness remains the same.
	So there is only one thing left to do before I put an end to this meditation and leave with that peace of mind we all desperately crave, and that is to attach some importance and meaning to the Existence around me.  I can not do this through logic, but that is precisely the point, because in order to achieve this peace of mind I must consider how I value emotion more than logic after all.  In applying my new perception of Existence to my existing ideas about emotion, I come out with a deeper understanding of both.  I believe that Love is an emotion that transcends matter and the biochemical reactions of the brain�that True Love is something that reaches deep into the core of Existence.  Love is the One Emotion of the One Consciousness of the One Existence.  All other emotions are merely parts of Love, and to feel the deepest Love would be to feel all possible emotions at the same time, to know all of Existence simultaneously.  When we feel Love towards anyone or anything, we are feeling the ultimate appreciation of the Existence of that person or thing�we are feeling Existence through them.
	This makes Love the Purpose of Existence, and it is also the purpose of this writing.  My point is this: Every universe you create, every life you live, is just designed for you to experience Love in any of its infinite variations.  Your next life will serve to balance the Love in this one.  Suffering will become joy, or happiness will become sorrow.  Whatever you are feeling at any moment is the purpose of that moment.  Whatever emotions we may have we should appreciate and not grieve over, because we have all the time in Existence to feel everything else.  We are all part of the same soul�s never-ending journey to experience Love in all of its infinite possibilities.

This essay is my most recent, and it expands upon what was written in the previous essay to apply my metaphysics to the rest of the human race. This is more of an ethical argument than a metaphysical one, merely my opinions about what people ought to do if my theories are true (or even if they aren't). The opinions written here are my own, but I believe I share them with many people around the world. Hopefully you are one of them.

The Existential Experiment of Human Experience - March 2005

The question of why we are here is as old as thought itself.  What is the meaning of life?  What is the purpose of man�s existence?  However you phrase the question, it has been asked by nearly everyone who has ever lived, but never given a definite answer.  Instead we have only an incomprehensible amount of possible explanations for our existence, ranging from random chance through evolution to creation by an omnipotent God.  No answer can be proven completely correct or incorrect, and the Ultimate Truth will be slightly different depending on whomever you speak to.
	In this essay, I will offer another possible explanation, one I believe to be closer to the deepest level of truth than any I have come across in religion and philosophy.  I will examine what it means to exist, and focus primarily on what it means to exist as a human.  Finally I will give my opinion as to what the implications are for humanity at this point in our history, and what I believe we ought to do about it.

Part One:  Concerning the Nature of Existence

The Core Assumption � (If God Exists)
	In previous essays I have outlined a metaphysics for how existence must work.  I started from two indisputable statements and deduced my conclusions based on this.  The first is Descartes� cogito ergo sum, I think therefore I am.  No matter how much doubt I can have about the nature of my existence, I cannot deny that I exist because I am conscious.  Secondly, I know that I am conscious of something.  I call this thing Existence, which is everything I am conscious of, everything I experience or have the potential to experience.  From there I deduce that Existence and Consciousness are dependent upon each other, that both are Infinite in that they can not begin or end, and that they are both singular in that there can not be multiple Existences.
	However, these deductions rest on an assumption which I did not see in the earlier writing.  Existence may not be infinite, singular, or dependent upon consciousness.  The assumption I made without realising it is that all things in Existence must be connected somehow.  That behind the world that makes up what we sense (the 1st dimension) and behind all of the meanings we attach to it (the 2nd dimension) there is a 3rd dimension of Absolute Truth, where All are One and everything exists eternally.  This concept of a fundamental connection between all things is God, and I can not prove that it exists.
	All I can do is to base my entire philosophy on an If.  All I can say is that if God exists, certain things must be true.  If God exists, it must exist infinitely, without limitation, without origin or destination.  If God exists, it must be singular, only one point at which everything comes together.  And If God exists, it must exist through Consciousness, the means by which it becomes aware of itself.

The Mechanism � (How Existence Works)
	Imagine yourself waking up in an empty void with total amnesia.  You have no memory, no idea what you are or where you came from.  You have no body and no senses, and your only awareness is that you exist as some sort of thinking Being.  This can give you some idea of what it is like to be God.  But unlike God, you are limited by a brain and thus can not imagine anything unless it comes from something in your memory that you have already experienced.
	God imagines without memory.  It is constantly imagining new possible modes of existence by a process which can be called Creation.  It creates universes and particles which compose them.  It imposes rules on these particles and decides how they will interact with each other.  Finally it experiences its creation by becoming conscious through these particles.  Consciousness is God�s manifestation of itself in its own creation.  It can be conscious as an atom, a collection of molecules, a living organism, or a human.  
	The only mode of existence we have any experience of is to be conscious as a human.  The only thing we can be sure of is our own consciousness.  We can not be sure that the universe we live in is real, whether our bodies are real, or even whether other people are real (for the purposes of this essay, I will assume that other people are real and do have consciousness).  The interesting part is that we share the same condition with God itself.  It knows nothing other than that it exists, and that it is conscious of its own existence.
	One of the best ways I have found to understand consciousness comes from Jean-Paul Sartre, who defines consciousness as a nothingness which he describes as Being-For-Itself.  Existence without consciousness is Being-In-Itself.  There is no substance to consciousness, it is essentially nothing.  Nothingness comes into the world through Being-For-Itself.  A conscious entity is not the thing that is conscious.  I am not a human being.  I am consciousness.  I am nothing.  I have only one function: to experience.  The world I experience, which includes my body and brain, is Being-In-Itself.  I am not my brain, I am only conscious of my brain�s activities.
	This is the fundamental division of Existence.  God is Being-In-Itself, the sum total of everything that Exists.  God is Existence.  I have no direct experience of being God because I exist now as a Being-For-Itself and am limited by the rules which govern the particles that compose my brain.  I can only imagine Being-In-Itself as an awareness of every particle in Existence and what it does from the beginning of time to the end.  But there is no beginning or end, and time itself is nothing more than an illusion of Being-For-Itself.  Everything in the past, present, or future exists simultaneously, an incomprehensible, unfathomably complex tapestry of Being.  Only God can see the whole design, and only as a Being-In-Itself.

The Limits of Being-For-Itself � (Divided Consciousness)
	So if we accept that God exists as this infinite, singular entity which is constantly creating the world and experiencing it through consciousness, why do we have no awareness of it?  If there is a grand design beneath it all, why are we blind to what it is?  Why, when we look deeply enough at Existence, does it seem so inexplicable and absurd?  If we are God, and we created our lives, why do we have no understanding of this?
	We must look at our mode of existence as a Being-For-Itself, which comes with certain fundamental limitations.  First of all, something can not exist as a Being-In-Itself and a Being-For-Itself at the same time.  Something can not be both a body and the awareness of a body.  We can use Heisenberg�s Uncertainty Principle as an analogy.  According to this quantum theory, you can not know the location and the velocity of a particle at the same time.  If you know its location, it is static and you can not measure its velocity.  It you measure its velocity, it is in motion and you can not determine its location.  This means that you can not observe anything without changing it.  When you are not looking, every particle exists as a wave, in an infinite amount of possible locations.  As soon as you look, it becomes a particle again, existing in only one location.
	So if we apply this to all of Existence, we reach a startling conclusion.  As God, as Being-In-Itself, everything exists as a potentiality, a mere possible mode of existence.  As a human, as Being-For-Itself, God chooses among these infinite possibilities to create an experience.  It is constantly choosing what to experience at every instant, and we exist as the awareness of these decisions.  But without any direct experience of Being-In-Itself and the infinite possibilities at our disposal, we can not be aware of why any such decisions are made.  You know that it chooses to create this world and that it chooses to experience this world through you, but the reason is hidden.
	So now we understand the fundamental limitation on our existence.  We do not know the meaning or purpose of our lives because we can not know.  We do not understand the complete mechanics of how the universe works because we are unable to know as a Being-For-Itself.  We can not both understand and experience the universe at the same time.  If we accept the God hypothesis, we know there must be a grand design, but we know that we are unable to see it.
	And finally we come to a very important realisation.  Existence is not absurd.  But to any Being-For-Itself, it must appear absurd.

Part Two:  Concerning Freedom

The Past and Future � (Constant Creation)
	So now we come to another problem which has plagued philosophers for centuries, which is the problem of free will.  Do we have the power to change things?  Or has the future already been decided?  Have the laws of physics already determined everything that has and will happen to the universe?  Has God already determined the fate of every particle in Existence?  Or is there an element of chaos involved which makes the fate of the universe uncertain?
	If my hypotheses concerning God are true, the answer to this question is simpler than it seems.  Existence is not something that has already been created, but something that is constantly creating itself.  Our lives are not written before they begin, but as we live them.  There are infinite possibilities concerning both the past and the future.  As God experiences the world, it chooses among these possibilities.  And if we are connected to God, if we actually are this God, it means the power to choose does rest within ourselves.
	To better understand we can look at this from a much smaller scale.  Consider just one human life.  When a person is born, there are limitless possibilities as to what he or she can do with their life.  All of these possibilities exist.  Somewhere in Existence is a successful life full of happiness and prosperity.  Somewhere in Existence is a life for the same person, but one of suffering and despair.  Somewhere in Existence is a life that continues for a century and is filled with great accomplishment.  Somewhere in Existence is a life that is cut short early on without any chances for achieving its potential.  As this person lives, he or she is constantly choosing among all of these possibilities until each potential experience becomes an actual experience and only one of an infinite number of paths is followed to the end.
	The future is already written, but it is not the only version out there.  Every possible future is already written, but we have the power to choose among possible futures.  The future is not already chosen.  We are constantly choosing it.  In the same way, we are constantly choosing the past.  We select which experiences matter to us, which will shape us and be our reasons for our possible futures.  The only difference between past and future is that to the human mind, time is linear and we can not physically change the past.  But we can change our perception of the past through the act of remembering and forgetting.
	Now the question is who is doing the choosing?  Does the God in ourselves already have a plan for where we are going, or does the preference of our own mind have an effect?  If you see everything as the effect of a cause, then our minds have no control.  Behind every action there is a motive, and there is something which has caused this motive, something which has caused the cause, and on and on back until the universe itself began.  (Note that Existence and the universe are not the same thing.  While the universe can be singular, finite, and completely independent of consciousness, Existence can not.  All possible universes are contained in Existence, and are only experienced through consciousness).  But when you consider the process of making any decision, you will see that we not only choose the action, but the motive as well.  Any action is a combination of the motive, the act itself, and its consequences.
	We have chosen to be conscious through the human mind.  We have chosen to experience a life of senses, thoughts, and emotions.  We are constantly looking at this experience and evaluating it.  Our minds may like what they see or they may not.  God is not indifferent to our feelings.  It is experiencing them and it knows what we like to experience and what we do not.  While it is true that if someone is suffering it is only because they have chosen to suffer, it does not mean they are incapable of choosing something different.  Existence is constantly creating itself, just as we are constantly creating our lives.

The Responsibility � (We are in Control)
	So now we have come to the burden of freedom.  If humans do have free will, and we are in control of our own lives, we must take responsibility for what we do.  We are not simply passengers riding a train along the cosmic track of existence.  We are ships sailing on the vast sea of possibility.  The wind of our natural instincts may affect our direction, the port from where we departed may determine how far we go, and other ships may stand in our way of reaching our desired destination, but we control our own vessel and can move about in any direction we want within these limitations.
	As God, there are no limitations to freedom.  Existence contains all possibilities.  A universe without gravity, a world full of magic, the realm of heaven or hell, anything you could possibly imagine and more.  God has already imagined these areas of Existence, and is capable of experiencing them at any time it chooses.  However, if you are reading this you exist in a world that does go by certain laws and rules, and is full of barriers and limits to what we can do.
	You are capable of moving a mountain if you simply decide to allow yourself to do so.  You can walk on water, fly through the sky, go back and forth through time and across the universe.  There are no limitations as to what can exist.  However, it would appear that this world has certain rules and principles which we are simply incapable of breaking and always will be.  When we choose to do anything, we can only choose to do something within the realm of possibility in this particular world.
	But a moment�s thought would indicate that even within the laws of physics, even with all of the restrictions of nature and the capabilities of the mind, there are still an infinite amount of possibilities which can be realised.  We�ve made it from the bottom of the ocean to the surface of the moon.  We�ve created machines that can allow a person to communicate nearly instantaneously with someone on the other side of the world.  We�ve written extremely thought-provoking books, painted incredible images, composed unbelievably beautiful music, and on and on.  We�ve done all of this within the restrictions of matter.  We have proven what we are capable of, and we are all capable of doing much more.  All we need to do is choose an experience to create, and make it happen.

Part Three:  Concerning Humanity

The Implications � (All are One)
	Now we can take a look at what all of this means to us.  If everything is connected at the most basic level, if everyone is just a part of an omnipotent God, it means every sentient being shares the same consciousness.  The same thing is inside everyone.  The force that looks out from behind my eyes is the same force that looks out from behind yours.  At some point in Existence, you are me.  At this point in Existence, I am you.  Every time you look at a stranger, you are looking at yourself at a different point in Existence.  Every time you watch the news, you are seeing what has happened to yourself at other points.  There is no life that you have not lived or will not live.
	Humanity is a fascinating phenomenon.  As God, we created it.  We started the universe and from the infinite possibilities we could have brought into existence, we chose humanity.  We did this as One being, but have separated ourselves into billions of different beings.  The One being is inside all of us right now, has been in all our ancestors and will be in all our descendents.  Humanity itself is conscious, but we are only aware of this consciousness through one human-being at a time.
	Though we are only aware of one universe at a time, there are an infinite amount of universes existing simultaneously.  We live in a world where the universes interact with each other.  Animals live in their own universe, and we can not imagine what it would be like to be conscious as an animal, but we are conscious of them.  Every cell in our body is its own universe, which we also can�t imagine but can observe from our universe.  Even an atom, with its nucleus and electrons bouncing in and out of existence, is a universe on its own.  Earth itself is a universe, the solar system, the galaxy, all the way out to what we call the universe�these are all different modes of existence, simultaneously affecting one another at all times.
	We need to look at humanity as its own universe.  The human experience is something we all share, and it is an experience so unique from any other universe that we can hardly find a definition for ourselves.  What other species concerns itself so fully with matters of emotion and abstract concepts of thought?  Do trees care about what other trees think of them?  Is an atom able to look at itself and wonder how it got there?  These experiences, as far as we know, are uniquely human, and Existence has chosen for us to have these unique qualities.
	Our most unique quality is communication.  Other species can send signals to each other, and even be taught how to do things.  But humans are the only species with the ability to think on the second dimension, to consider the meaning of things, and to have the tool of language, which allows us to share these two-dimensional ideas with each other.  As billions of separate consciousnesses, we have the ability to combine and share experiences and ideas with each other in a way that nothing else we have any knowledge of can do.
	So if you take what applies to one human and expand it to include all of humanity, you will have the same basic rules.  The human race as a whole is Being-For-Itself.  It is not the cells that compose us or the chemical processes which control us, but the collective consciousness of the entire human race.  And just as an individual human being has free will, so does the entire species.

The Revelation � (Life as a Dream)
	One of the peculiar things about free will is that until you fully understand that you have it, you are not completely free.  Until you understand that you do have control over your own life, you will not feel that you do and you won�t truly be in control.  It will be as though you are out on your ship in the middle of the ocean being blown about by the winds of fortune, not realising that the wheel is right in front of you, just waiting for you to grab hold of it.  Until you are aware that you are God, you will not be God.
	The best analogy for the point I�m trying to make comes through dreaming.  Here is a world completely created by your mind.  You go about your dream, riding the stream of consciousness and experiencing all of the impossible things that happen in dreams without really questioning any of them.  Even the most bizarre occurrence makes perfect sense to us when we are deep in a dream.
	But sometimes there comes a point when we recognise the bizarre nature of what is happening around us.  We can see the absurdity of a particular event, and realise that the world we are experiencing is not real.  Once we make that discovery, our dream becomes lucid and we become the God of our dream.  As soon as we understand that we are creating reality, we gain the power to change it.
	The same thing happens in our waking lives if we come to the realisation that our experience of reality is nothing more than our awareness of what�s happening inside our head.  There may be a world out there, but we know nothing of it.  We only know what our senses are telling us, and our senses are flawed and imperfect.  Once we understand that it is all in our heads, the world and the world�s creator, we understand the kind of control we have.  Our fate is not up to some deity looking down on us from high above, but is up to us.  God is not somewhere out there disconnected from us, it is inside of us.  God is what we are, and creating our lives is what we are doing.
	As of right now, the human race has not yet become lucid.  Most of us float by unaware that we have any control over our existence.  We look at history and see certain patterns repeating themselves over and over, and feel that we have no power to alter those patterns and are doomed to continue along the cycle until we no longer can.  Humanity itself is a ship, floating down a river with no one at the helm.  Many will say that God is at the helm, that He knows the destination and is taking us there for better or for worse.  But this is inaccurate.
	These people wonder why God does not simply reveal himself to us.  They will wonder why God has not made his plan known to us so that we can follow it.  The answer they come up with is that God just wants us to have faith.  But this answer comes from an inaccurate perception of God.  In fact, God does reveal itself to us over and over again, but not as a voice from above. Rather it reveals itself from within.  Every time we come to a revelation about the nature of Existence, we are looking through the eyes of God.  Every time we make a decision to change our lives, we are deciding this as God.
	So the God of humanity is really just the collective human spirit.  It is the combined whole of every human experience from the time we evolved into intelligent beings until now.  Human history is the sum total of every decision God has made not for us, but as us.  And just as we are not aware of where we are going, neither is God.  This has not been decided yet.
	We share this world because the God inside of us has chosen the same time and space from the infinite possibilities for us to share.  At other points in existence, God has chosen other histories, and there exists completely different worlds contingent upon the choices we have made.  Every time we make a decision, we move the entire world into another possible future, as even the smallest action will have incomprehensible ramifications in the distant future.  There exists another universe for every other choice anyone has ever made.  We share this universe because this is the one we have all chosen.

The Decision � (Our Collective Choice)
	So if we look at all the possible futures of humanity, we can see that there are two basic outcomes to how it happens.  Either we eventually lose the ability to sustain ourselves as a species and we become extinct, or we find a way to overcome the obstacles to sustainability and create a world for ourselves which will be able to endure forever, perhaps until we evolve into beings of pure energy.
	But what most of us fail to realise is that the choice is ours.  We have the freedom to choose which path we go down, and we have the freedom not to choose.  But until humanity as a whole becomes lucid and realises it is the master of its own destiny, this choice will never be made and we will most likely destroy ourselves.  Unless we can come together for the common purpose of ending suffering and reaching to achieve as many possibilities as we can in this universe, we won�t.
	When a person looks at their life, there are a number of possible perspectives they may have, but all of these fit into three basic categories.  They can say that their life is flawed and should be improved, that their life is flawed and needs to end, or that their life is perfect as it is.  Albert Camus wrote that the basic question of philosophy is suicide.  William Shakespeare wrote what is arguable the most famous line in literature: �To be or not to be�that is the question.�  The same question applies when a person looks at the whole of humanity.  They can say that humanity is not perfect but we should try to make it better, that it will never be perfect and is better off destroying itself, or that things are perfect how they are.  Any person�s answer will change countless times over the course of their life, but usually one perspective is the dominant one.
	It is a decision we all must make, and one we are all making at every moment.  God looks from behind our eyes and decides whether or not it likes what it sees, and what it wants to do about it.  Those who are inclined towards creation will strive to improve their lives and the world as a whole.  Those who are inclined towards destruction will want to kill themselves or others.  And those who are inclined towards simply appreciating what is there will not want to change anything.
	The problem from humanity�s standpoint is that it seems virtually impossible that we would all be able to agree on one outlook.  I believe that most people are inclined to believe that the world should be improved, but there are many out there who believe it can�t be improved or that life is a curse and the best way to exist is to not exist at all.  Even if we all were to become aware that the decision is ours, there is no guarantee that we would all make the same decision.
	And that is our dilemma as a species.  We have lived billions of lives in suffering and sacrifice, and each of those lives has existed because we�ve chosen for it to exist.  Perhaps the point to being alive is to suffer, in which case we should not try to improve things.  Perhaps the most valuable kind of experiences to God are those of despair, where it looks upon its own creation in agony and disgust, cursing its own existence.

Part Four:  Concerning Love

The Chemicals in Your Brain � (The Physics of Emotion)
	The only way to even begin to approach this dilemma is to look at the reason we are here.  Since we already know that we are choosing our unique human experiences, it should not be difficult for us to decide why we are choosing them.  To do this, put the whole of humanity aside for a moment and focus only on yourself.  Why do you do the things you do?  Why do you choose to have the experiences you have?  Is your motivation Love?  Power?  Money?  Comfort?
	This answer will differ for everyone, but it is always tied to some basic emotion.  People do not seek power or money for its own sake, but for the feeling that comes with it.  The chemistry of the human organism dictates this.  Neurons are connected in certain ways which make up our understanding of the world, and unless we actively try to break those connections they will continuously reinforce each other.  The brain produces peptides for every emotion and sends them throughout the body where they enter our cells through receptors and cause physical changes to happen.  Certain emotions are pleasing to us while others are not.
	The curse in all of this is that we are designed to maintain the status quo of our own lives.  When one emotion is the dominant one, our cells will have more receptors for those peptides than others.  Our bodies become addicted to these emotions, whether they are pleasing to us or not.  If we spent our childhood suffering we will subconsciously seek to recreate that suffering over and over again, and we will get ourselves into situations that will get our brain to produce whatever peptides our bodies crave.
	Most decisions are made on this subconscious level, just like the experiences created in a non-lucid dream.  If we approach someone we find attractive in an effort to connect with them, we may not be realising that we are only doing this to experience rejection, an emotion that countless previous rejections have made our bodies crave.  If we do something to make ourselves wealthy or powerful, we may not realise we are only doing this to experience the emotions that come along with it.
	In my previous essays I have made a large mistake concerning my perception of emotions, Love in particular.  I refused to accept them as simple chemical reactions, wanting so badly to believe that they were deeper than particles, and had meaning in and of themselves.  Unfortunately to do this I must bring myself to ignore science and well accepted facts.  Because I do not want my philosophy to be based on assumptions that are provably false, I will give this one up and accept that all emotions, even those as powerful as Love, are nothing more than my experience of chemical reactions taking place between my brain and body.

The Silver Lining � (Experiences are Chosen)
	However, there is no reason to despair when faced with these facts.  Just because emotions are made of chemicals does not mean they are meaningless.  It is true that Being-In-Themselves, they have no meaning.  They are simply combinations of different particles which behave a certain way when they react with one another.  But as a Being-For-Itself, just as I give meaning to everything else in the world, I give meaning to my emotions.
	And when you consider that as God we choose to create emotions, you realise they are not so empty after all.  The human experience is one of emotion.  We do not directly experience these chemical reactions taking place.  We are not conscious as a peptide or a cell, but as a human-being which experiences in a very unique way the result of these chemical reactions.
	We designed all of them, from anger to sadness, from love to fear.  We chose to create a being which feels these emotions, and we chose to feel them.  Love may not be, as I once thought, a deep feeling of connection to the centre of Existence through whatever object of Love you hold, but it is still something very powerful which I have chosen to create and experience.
	Everything in the world, when looked at objectively, is devoid of meaning.  As a Being-In-Itself, God has not attached special significance to any particle or assemblage of particles in Existence.  The universe is nothing but matter reacting to other matter, completely indifferent to what it is doing or why it is doing it.  Only as a Being-For-Itself, only when nothingness comes into the world through consciousness, is any meaning attached to it.  And emotions are what give our lives meaning.  These chemical reactions make up the whole of our experience, and therefore when it concerns our lives, they are the most meaningful things to exist.

The Reason We Are Here � (The Value of Emotion)
	So we cannot dismiss emotion as a meaningless chemical process in our brains.  They are our experience, they are our reason for choosing the lives we choose and the motivation behind every decision we make within our lives.  God has created us to experience emotions.  It has created you to experience your emotions.
	Now you can reconsider the question of why you are here.  What is the purpose of your own individual existence?  Simply figure out which emotion is your greatest motivator and there you have it.  For many, power is the great motivator.  Those people are here to experience power.  That is why they choose their lives and why they choose to do the things they do within their lives.  Since as God we simultaneously experience every life at once, we know that at many points in existence, we are here for power.
	Many other people, including myself, will say that Love is the greatest motivator.  Whether it is a shared connection between two people, or simply an overwhelming desire for another person, the reason we are here is to experience Love.  And when it comes to Love, perhaps more so than any other emotion, there is an infinite variety of ways to experience it.  One person�s experience of Love is going to be completely different than another�s.  Love may be connected to the ultimate happiness for some and to the ultimate sorrow for others.  But we value Love above all else, illusory as it may be, and it is the reason we choose to be us, to experience the lives we are experiencing.
	Now it becomes clear just how great a value our emotions have.  They are not simply a by-product of our existence, but the very reason for our existence.  They are the motivation behind every decision we as human-beings make, including the initial decision to create be a human-being in the first place.  Therefore, they must be the motivating factor behind the decision humanity is faced with as a whole.

Part Five:  Concerning Our Future

The Right Decision � (Why We Should Try)
	So now we finally return to the same question we asked ourselves at the very beginning: Why are we here?  We know we are here for experience, and each individual is here to experience certain emotions in certain ways, but how can this be applied to humanity as a whole, and what does it mean for our future?
	Clearly we are not all motivated by the same thing, we do not all share one desire, and we do not all have the same ends in mind for our species.  So how do we make this decision as to where we as a species should go?  Why should we even attempt to bring humanity together in pursuit of a single purpose?  If we are already choosing this world filled with suffering, why choose differently?
	There are no correct answers to these questions.  I can only give my opinion and try to support it as best I can.  I believe that we ought to make the decision because we are capable of making it.  If enough of humanity can become aware that the decision is ours to make, we will have no choice but to make it.  And once we choose to make it, we should choose to move in the direction of Love rather than hate.  Happiness rather than sorrow.  Comfort rather than suffering.  Strength rather than fear.
	Consider the act of praying, the process by which a human asks God for something.  When most people pray, they believe they are speaking to a separate entity from themselves.  Some believe they get no answer.  What they do not realise is that God hears every prayer, as God is within the one praying.  When you ask God to do something for you, you are only asking yourself to do it.  You can not wait for an answer from God.  You must answer yourself.
	As a collective whole, the God in ourselves is the God of humanity, and when people pray for an end to the horrors of the world, they pray to all of us.  We are God, and it is up to us to answer these prayers.  If starving people pray for food, manna is not going to fall from heaven, but it could easily come in aid packages.  If oppressed people pray for liberation, a lightning bolt is not going to strike their brutal dictator, but we can liberate them.  If warring nations pray for peace, God is not going to achieve it for them.  They can only achieve it themselves.
	So many people are suffering and calling out to us every day.  They are looking at the world and asking for God to change it.  As God, only we can change it.  Only we can end suffering and achieve peace and sustainability before we destroy ourselves.  Assistance is not going to come in any other form.
	But why choose to create lives of suffering anyway?  If people do not want to experience all this pain, why choose to live such horrific lives and endure such unspeakable experiences?  We have all had these experiences because we have all been everybody.  When you see a child suffer, you should know that at some point in existence you are that suffering child, and are experiencing all of the despair the child feels.
	We have chosen to experience suffering, but that does not mean we must continue to do so.  If our own individual lives are unsatisfactory, if we find that the life we have chosen is not giving us experiences we desire, we can choose to change them and to have those desirable experiences.  We can do the same with the human race.  Listen to our own cries and answer them.  Create a world in which we no longer must endure these horrors.  We are capable.  Friedrich Nietzsche wrote of the superman, a new generation of humanity which creates its own values and forms it own future.  We can become this.  All it takes is the decision, and that starts with the realisation that this decision is ours.

The Grand Experiment � (How We Can Succeed)
	When we consider striving for this kind of success, we must consider what it means to succeed.  What will a world without suffering be like?  How can emotions retain their value without their opposites?  How can we appreciate happiness without sorrow?  How can we appreciate life without death?
	If we do eventually come together in the shared understanding that God is inside all of us and we have control over our own destiny, we must do our best to shape that destiny correctly.  Perhaps a world without suffering is not a world worth living in.  But until we have tried, we won�t know.  If we create a Utopia and don�t like it, as long as we realise we have the power to change it, it is never too late to change.
	Right now we are nowhere near that stage, and should only be concerned with spreading the knowledge that this goal is not a dream but is in our capability to reach.  If we ever get to the point where we can make the decision, we can take it from there.  But we must never forget how things began.  We must never abandon our awareness of pain or we will not appreciate pleasure.  We must always hold on to our knowledge that we are the creators of the world, and that before we realised this we suffered for thousands of years and through billions of lives.  If we can find a way to do this, to create a world without suffering and to maintain our appreciation of it, we will have succeeded.
	God is like a scientist and the world its experiment.  Each individual life is an experiment in existence.  The question it is constantly asking itself is what can exist?  What can I experience?  The question we need to ask ourselves in humanity is what are we capable of experiencing?  What possible worlds can we bring into existence?  We need to become the scientists, choosing our own modes of existence and experiencing the outcome.  We may never be able to create a perfect world, but I firmly believe we should try.  Perhaps we will create a world that falls apart, but as long as we remain aware that we are in control, we can try again and create another one, full of whole new experiences for new generations.  Generations we will ourselves experience, down to each individual life.
	Why should we continue as we�ve done for thousands of years, blindly following a God that we�ve been falsely interpreting all this time as a separate entity from ourselves?  We�ve already had the experiences of war and hunger and human suffering.  And as long as we retain our belief that we have no control, we will just continue along this endless spiral, living the same lives of pain and suffering over and over again until we finally end up destroying ourselves.  Why not try something new?  If the meaning of life is experience, why not try to create as many possible experiences for ourselves as we can?  For better or worse, we will know that we are trying, and that we are all in it together.
	The change has already begun.  It is already under way.  I am not the only person who has had these ideas.  The great thinkers have been reaching similar conclusions for centuries, though certain aspects differ from person to person.  The Enlightenment of the 1800s brought ideals of human equality of freedom.  We are now undergoing a new Enlightenment.  We are heading towards a stage where atheism can reconcile with the belief in God, where we can combine the scientific with the spiritual.  The world is already changing as Christianity and old religions lose their hold.  People are communicating faster and farther than ever before, and new ideas are easier than ever to spread.  If these ideals continue to spread, and the tenets of existentialism become more widely understood and accepted, we are well on our way to a new paradigm of human thought.
	It starts with you, right now, as you finish reading.  You now have a choice to make.  Do you accept what I am telling you?  Will you choose to take this as a catalyst for changing your own life and helping others to realise they are capable of changing theirs?  Will you share in my goal to spread the awareness of the nature of existence, and help bring humanity closer to truly understanding why it is here and what it is capable of?  Or will you dismiss it and continue down the path you�re already travelling on?  There is no right or wrong decision.  Neither path is superior, although I believe one is preferable to the other.
	It all starts with Hope.  Deep down, I believe we all Hope that there exists something greater and deeper than the particles which make up our bodies and the world.  That there is something looking out from behind our eyes other than an empty neuro-chemical process called consciousness.  That consciousness is eternal and One with Existence.  If you share this Hope, then I hope you will help me to spread the word, to help humanity understand the nature of this dream, to become lucid and alter it.  There is nothing stopping us but our own decisions.  I have made the decision to live for Love, and to try and bring about a world where this is the dominant experience.  I can only hope you feel the same way I do, and together we can choose a brighter future from among our limitless possibilities.

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