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Why Was I Born?


StarMountainKid

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The Buddha was asked,” What have you gained from meditation?” He replied, ”Nothing!” However, Buddha said, “Let me tell you what I lost: Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Insecurity, Fear of Old Age and Death”

Sorry to hear of your recent losses. There is a way of living that can bring about your aspirations. A way to awaken a human being from the dream that is this life and realise what/who they really are, that is why the Buddha said, ‘I am awake’. This is brought about by meditation, by having union with our true selves. I am not a Buddhist but have meditated from many years and have found an experience of Peace inside myself, from having this experience available, life can become a celebration and gratitude can fill one’s life. The answer is “To know thy self” as so many teachers have said, and meditation is the key, not as a hobby but as a way of life.

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Chaung Tzu. “ How can I tell if the love of life is not a delusion? How can I tell whether a man who fears death is not like a man who has left home and dreads returning? Lady Li was the daughter of a border guard of Ai, when the Duke of Chin first took her, she wept until her dress was soaked with tears but once she was living in the Dukes palace, sharing his bed and eating delicious food she wondered why she had ever cried. How can I tell if the dead are not amazed they ever clung to life?

Those who dream of a great feast may weep the next morning. Those who dream of weeping may enjoy the hunt the next day. While they dream they do not know they are dreaming, they may even interpret their dreams while they are dreaming. Only after they awake do they know it was a dream. By and by there will be a great awakening, and then we will know that this is all a great dream. All the while the fools think they are awake, appearing to understand things calling this man ruler and this man herdsman! How stupid! You and Confucius are both dreaming and when I say you are dreaming I am dreaming too.”

A dream perhaps,but some times a real night mare :) I have tried the meditations for years and it does give one the only break.

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Why was I born, and why now and not at some other time?

This is probably an unanswerable question to ask, but why is my consciousness that I recognize as “me” existing at all? Any why in this present, and not at some other time in the past or future?

Of all the babies born in history, why was this particular one me and not someone else, as all the other babies have been? I have no answer to this question, maybe someone can come up with an explanation.

Astrology.

If I had been born two hours before my time, I would had been comfortable with a bit less attention, but would had wanted more comfort and would stay more in my comfort zone than I do, and would toss more fits when someone tried to pull me out of that zone. If I had been born two hours after the time I was, then I'd put more value in using your brain and talking about things than actually doing something that has impact in this world, moreso than what I do now.

3 days after my time, I'd be more unselfish emotionally but less understandable about emotional boundaries, and would act more rebelliously in life than so conservatively and reservedly.

20 days after my time, I'd be more interested in foreign cultures, all things exotic, maybe a bit interested in mind-altering substances, instead of doing research on more... darker things, and likely wouldn't have as much interest to the unexplained and the mysteries. And I definetely wouldn't be so gullible but would be able to say more easily no to people who try trick me. But would be less offensive in saying that more diplomatic in making my stand about that.

A year after my time, I'd trust my future in the hands of hard work and systemacy instead of simply having a positive view on future, but I'd also be less of a visionary, and perhaps more reserved in being generous to people and in loaning to people.

Three years after my time, I would have a more loose and free-spirited sense of responsibility, but would be more responsible about being truthful and finding about things than I am now (though I'm now more responsible about truth than your average chap if you ask me and my chart). And I'd understand better that you can't be held responsible for other peoples' doings.

But the birthhour has a very big impact on what kind of potentials we get, according to astrology. The 24 hour cycle. After that it's Moon cycles which give very visible differences in three-day cycles but if you observe just a bit, you wont have a problem seeing the difference between Moons that are one day apart. Takes 28 days for that cycle to complete, and then we get Sun, Mercury and Venus cycles, which give very noticeable differences in 30 day span or so, but again you can spot the differences easily in a third of that time. Sun's cycle is a year. And Mars is a bit over 2 years. And Jupiter, 10 or 11 years, a bit over. So on... and one of the outest big rocks circling our solar system now discovered, Sedna, has been estimated/calculated to have a 10 000 year cycle, which is at a very fast phase now because it's a very elliptic orbit. After that we get the equator delineation thing or whatever it is, the cycle that takes around 35000 years to complete if I'm not mistaken.

And then there's all the big rocks that traditional astrologers dont look at. In space there's no two identical moments, and astrological factors are just one thing. Genetics another. How your mother threated herself when you were in her womb yet another.

Edited by Mikko-kun
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Why couldnt I have been born in Japan at the Time they were using samauri's I would have made a great samurai

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I'm not expert on Buddhism, but from what I have learned and experienced has helped me.

Another aspect of meditation is the dissolving of the subject-object duality. The "me" as separate from the "not-me". If I am in the woods listening to the sounds of the forest, am I really separate from the sounds or the forest?

Also, if meditation is an escape from everyday life, even though it makes one feel calm and allow us to contend with daily life in a more relaxed way, there remains this separation between meditation and daily life.

I've read, sitting in meditation is just the way the Buddha sits. In other words, the Buddha is always in a meditative state of mind. This makes life easy and simple to do, as there is no special effort in accepting and dealing successfully with events as they arise.

Lao Tzu says, "I do not contend, therefore no one contends with me." The best way to deal with a situation that is contentious is not to panic, not to react in a similar contentious way. To observe the situation in a calm mindful manner is action that often defuses the situation, and leads to a more positive result. A sort of effortless mental judo. lol

I think a question like mine, "why was I born?" becomes irrelevant in this state of mind. There is just 'is-ness', or what is, a wonderful experience. I still pose questions like this one and speculate and wonder about them, but in the end everything comes back to this every day mind. Not as a refuge, but as the true reality of life and of living.

And not as some ethereal nirvana or sleepiness, but as totally awake and alert and consciously aware of ourselves and our environment.

I think if we live in this true reality, we feel secure no matter what unexpected events may happen next.

Edited by StarMountainKid
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  • 4 months later...

"Of all the babies born in history, why was this particular one me and not someone else, as all the other babies have been? I have no answer to this question, maybe someone can come up with an explanation."

I do understand this question! I have a theory that the matter in the universe that was used to fertilize the embryo and form those first stem cells, represents "you". Any other matter in the universe that is used to fertilize an embryo is NOT you.

Your DNA actually is only you until you die and then when your body dissolves into the dust, you are brought out of existence, same as before you were born. You could be reincarnated only if the very same matter is involved in the fertilization of a new specie and that matter once again facilitates the conception of a conscious living system.

Yes the odds are remote but because time may have no beginning and end, your conscious existence may be perceived as a certainty bound to happen. Whatever that time would be, it would no doubt feel miraculous.

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I perceive our consciousness as being the executive and the subconscious as being the staff. Now executives set policy but the staff still has to make decisions as to details, and it doesn't generally bother the executive about these details except in limited cases.

I never said this arrangement "shows free will," and I don't see how you got that out of what I said. In fact I was just trying to show how it works, and presented no argument in its favor.

There is no question that what we do changes us, as also there is no question that what we experience changes us. We are constantly changing.

The promise of artificial intelligence has been around a long time (in fact I was involved in it about forty years ago when it first began until I realized how futile it is). The excuse always offered for its failure is that the computers are not powerful enough. Now it seems we need quantum computers to do this.

I might have misunderstood what you were saying. I think I can agree with your analogy about the relationship between the conscious and subconscious. I just think what we think of as self, like some observer riding around in the brain observing things is illusion. We are our processes. It's not that we don't make our own decisions, it's just that the brain functions that control our decision are us. It's not that we are controlled by the configuration of our neural net. We are the configuration of our neural net. I still think we are a ways away from anything approaching true consciousness in a computer but I think one day it will be possible. Too have a computer as complex as our brains would require terawatts of power with current tech but our brains just use a few watts. This just amazes me. I think you are right about the quantum computer idea being the key
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  • 2 years later...
On 8/28/2013 at 9:26 PM, Professor T said:

Thought experiment.............

I did a thought experiment once, and played out scenario's where one had the ability to transfer their consciousness from one body into another...

Example... If Star mountain Kid transferred the essence of his self, his being, awareness, consciousness, from his body into say, Ryu's or Frank's body..

What would happen? What would it be like?

In my version of this experiment, Star mountain Kid would cease to be Star mountain Kid.. He would instead take on the entire personality of Ryu or Frank simply because that body & brain is a package complete with it's own personality born of Cultural differences, different education, history, parents, preferences born of individual and social backgrounds would mean his consciousness would be that of being Ryu or Frank, and of always being Ryu or Frank...

I can't personally think of any other outcome that would occur if we had the ability to transfer our consciousness from one body to the next.. Personally, I think this tells us a lot about the nature of consciousness. Perhaps, in essence, it is something shared by all of us, and should never be perceived as something individual to each self?

This is exactly what I thought. Consciousness doesn't have any characteristic, so even though it is transferred to anyone or any other living thing it will not affect the package but it will become the package itself. Mathematically, I can write it as

When

Consciousness = 0 ........ Ryu's brain package= (32+0r) .......... Star Mountain Kid's brain package = (154+0s)

0s + (32+0r) = (32+0) = Ryu brain package doesn't change


 

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On 8/27/2013 at 10:24 AM, StarMountainKid said:

Why was I born, and why now and not at some other time?

Because that is the way the genetic engineering child creation vending machine made you when your parents fed the required genetic materials into the deposit slip. Why now? Ask your parents.

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10 hours ago, Zalmoxis said:

Because that is the way the genetic engineering child creation vending machine made you when your parents fed the required genetic materials into the deposit slip. Why now? Ask your parents.

I've had a hard time in this thread getting my point understood.

Yes, but if my parents instead had conceived the next night instead of that night, would the resultant baby born have been me? Just wondering. My original question is, of all the babies born, why is one of them me? Why is my conscious awareness in this baby and not some other?

There's been a lot of years in the past when my consciousness didn't exist, there was no me. So why all of a sudden here I am now? And in the future there will be no me again.

It's a strange thing to happen, don't you think? For me to exist at all? It's almost as if there is an eternal universal me who is placed randomly into some baby on this planet at some moment in history. I'm not saying I believe this, it just seems incredible that I as my personal conscious awareness exists at all.

 

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19 minutes ago, StarMountainKid said:

I've had a hard time in this thread getting my point understood.

Yes, but if my parents instead had conceived the next night instead of that night, would the resultant baby born have been me? Just wondering. My original question is, of all the babies born, why is one of them me? Why is my conscious awareness in this baby and not some other?

There's been a lot of years in the past when my consciousness didn't exist, there was no me. So why all of a sudden here I am now? And in the future there will be no me again.

It's a strange thing to happen, don't you think? For me to exist at all? It's almost as if there is an eternal universal me who is placed randomly into some baby on this planet at some moment in history. I'm not saying I believe this, it just seems incredible that I as my personal conscious awareness exists at all.

 

I think the you is unique to the body that you have. 

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15 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I think the you is unique to the body that you have. 

Yes, all these esoteric questions and wondering may have nothing to do with it. There is no great mystery. In this sense, my consciousness isn't really unusual, every baby is born with its own consciousness. As you say, it comes with the body.

In this way of looking at it, my self awareness of me is an illusion created by the brain. Not my brain, just the brain in this particular body. It's just brain function. A byproduct of this is we consider our own self awareness to be something special or miraculous and something to get excited about, when actually it's just an illusion of a brain in some body.

 

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I think our selves is an construct. Something we build up over these years. A concept, an idea of who we are. Yet we are not who we are, we are who we think we are.

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7 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

I think our selves is an construct. Something we build up over these years. A concept, an idea of who we are. Yet we are not who we are, we are who we think we are.

Yes, I agree. That's pretty much what I meant by the brain creating the illusion of self conscious awareness. Just a concept or idea the brain creates for itself. In this sense, our particular sense of self and consciousness doesn't actually exist as an entity at all. It's just this particular brain's function.

It's a magic trick of the brain that fools itself into thinking consciousness is something special or real. But the brain knows better. The brain or inner mind knows it's just a deception. The subconscious is amused that our ego or self takes itself seriously.

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  • 1 year later...

I'm not a guy who thinks heavily on these topics but I have a theory of why we were born when we were.

I can slightly remember this but there was a voice that told me I needed to live and I just followed the order to do so. So I assume at this time our presence is needed to stop something bad from happening to others. Ex. I was born to keep my mom from killing herself after she had a miscarriage with my sister.  

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On 27.08.2013 at 7:24 PM, StarMountainKid said:

Why was I born, and why now and not at some other time?

This is probably an unanswerable question to ask, but why is my consciousness that I recognize as “me” existing at all? Any why in this present, and not at some other time in the past or future?

Of all the babies born in history, why was this particular one me and not someone else, as all the other babies have been? I have no answer to this question, maybe someone can come up with an explanation.

If you are still interested in the answers.
You exist because there is a God because we are a multiple manifestation of him. Since God exists always that and you exist always outside of the universe or in a universe where time flows. So you were always in the past and there is in the future you are poured into all periods time and this continuous existence of your Self in time and behind it.

You were born in this family and parents because being in heaven you saw that this is the best place for birth, suitable parents and developing oneself . If you were not born with them, you would have been born somewhere else and conception is in no way here, and you exist independently of your own parents. Why did you were born at this time? Well, your time in the sky is exhausted and for the further development you have chosen these parents and time. And if there is some important goal in life which you should fulfill this only you yourself will answer if you have inner desire which does not give you rest and your life without this goal will be meaningless." I" of every person is Being and not a separate existence of the individual therefore the life of God and all the lives of living beings are connected as one life, one matter, one consciousness in diversity and can not cease to be.The higher self of man (spirit and soul) is indestructible and only mortal shells are decayed (at the moment of evolution) therefore all essences are eternal and will remain so even if the universe ceases to exist.

Usually a person as a child asks why I exist and  why I am myself when he wakes up self-awareness

 

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  • 1 year later...

Whilst there are some things that are right and true in this discussion there is much that is wrong.

We know that God, the eternal and almighty God created all things. We know He therefore created you. The revealed truth from God is that you are separated from God because of your sinfulness. He dwells in complete holiness but this world is corrupt and you were born in corruption. Because of your sin against God and your rebellion against Him you abide under condemnation.

But the good news is that God did not leave us to die in our sins, but gave His Son Jesus Christ to die upon the cross, bearing our sins, to take the just punishment we deserved. God now commands all people, that includes you, to repent, to turn away from your life of self and sin, turning to God in humility, and to believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. Through His sacrifice He promises the forgiveness of sins and eternal life for all who believe. God has given assurance of this and the judgement that is to come by raising Jesus from the dead. This risen Saviour said "all authority in heaven and earth is given to Me" and the Scriptures affirm that "every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God". 

Your purpose therefore is either to entrust yourself to the Son of God, to enjoy God and give Him glory forever; or it is as one who will face the judgement of His wrath in eternal destruction. 

I know Him because He has shown me mercy and grace, and this testimony is true: 

"Whosoever will call upon the name of the Lord will be saved."

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On 8/27/2013 at 8:24 AM, StarMountainKid said:

Why was I born, and why now and not at some other time?

This is probably an unanswerable question to ask, but why is my consciousness that I recognize as “me” existing at all? Any why in this present, and not at some other time in the past or future?

Of all the babies born in history, why was this particular one me and not someone else, as all the other babies have been? I have no answer to this question, maybe someone can come up with an explanation.

Its quite normal to ask why am I here.

 

The real question is whats after. Dying is not a polite subject.

 

Let me summarize it for you.. with a conversation with myself.

Atheists says to me: Hi Brian, when I die, I'm not going to hell.

Catholic me says back: Yeah, I, know you're just going to vanish into nothing.

 

Edited by brian100
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On 8/27/2013 at 11:24 AM, StarMountainKid said:

Why was I born, and why now and not at some other time?

This is probably an unanswerable question to ask, but why is my consciousness that I recognize as “me” existing at all? Any why in this present, and not at some other time in the past or future?

Of all the babies born in history, why was this particular one me and not someone else, as all the other babies have been? I have no answer to this question, maybe someone can come up with an explanation.

For me the answer is.....because my parents didn't have $400.

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On 8/28/2013 at 1:24 AM, StarMountainKid said:

Why was I born, and why now and not at some other time?

This is probably an unanswerable question to ask, but why is my consciousness that I recognize as “me” existing at all? Any why in this present, and not at some other time in the past or future?

Of all the babies born in history, why was this particular one me and not someone else, as all the other babies have been? I have no answer to this question, maybe someone can come up with an explanation.

You are born because one of your father's spermatozoa fertilized your mom's egg, and you successfully gestated in your mother's womb until she gave birth.  The real question you are asking is about the roots of your consciousness, so I put it to you, can you remember yourself before you had language?  It seems that until we have the linguistic ability to structure our thoughts, our memories remain essentially unconscious, and we suffer an inability to properly recall our experience of consciousness prior to language acquisition.

Now if you want some big rant about karma and Buddhist philosophy, so as to discuss why you chose your parents for this rebirth, that is fine, but in many ways the more prosaic approach is more technical and more interesting.

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  • 1 month later...
On 9/15/2013 at 12:59 PM, docyabut2 said:

The Buddha was asked,” What have you gained from meditation?” He replied, ”Nothing!” However, Buddha said, “Let me tell you what I lost: Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Insecurity, Fear of Old Age and Death”

I love this. :tu:

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Quote

Why was I born?

Simple answer. Because you were. 

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  • 2 months later...

Hi..new here.  Another thought is that everyone is the centre of their universe and their universe started when they were born or could talk . Personally , if I died right now , the universe would cease to exist or my universe would cease to exist . 
yes..why wasn’t I born 100 years ago or born into a family in Ethiopia . I’m almost tempted to believe in God but there’s no proof  . I know everyone has a consciousness but I’m only aware of mine ..I’m the centre of the universe , there is only my brain my consciousness . Very difficult to explain . 

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15 minutes ago, iridescence said:

It seems that time is relative to everyone and not an absolute/universal reality, so there haven't been years where your consciousness didn't exist. You're simply experiencing every instance of yourself moving along spacetime until you die. Once you're dead, you will no longer experience spacetime. So "you" is just the experience you're having from the point you're born to the end of "you".

There has been billions of years when your consciousness didn't exist.  You're describing perception of time which requires consciousness.

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