Once a child ask a friend of mine:
“Why are we born if we have to die?”
Please give me your thoughts in this.
Love,
Paulo
Once a child ask a friend of mine:
“Why are we born if we have to die?”
Please give me your thoughts in this.
Love,
Paulo
isn´t it a law in the Universe that all what is born has to die ? I could feel this when my son was born. I had the feeling that I have to go one day for to make space for the following generation ( for him) . I think that I knew all this before I was born again in this world and I accept it because I still have to learn much. So we are born to learn, and we have to die because life has to go on.
Love,
Markus
My dearest Paulo,
we are born to experience
we die to experience
love
Karoline
Dear Paulo,
I think that we born to continue the journey that the human beings started thousands of years ago. The journey of living in this world and build it hand by hand, and give it back to the generations that will come. In other words, each one of us is important and his contribution will affect the humanity in general either in a good way or in a bad way. I don’t know if I answered your question, but this what comes to my mind while I was reading the question.
Best,
Saad
Some things in life are better kept hidden!
sometimes you may not know the answer to several question but that does not keep you from asking!
besides i am a christian and in christianity to die is to live!
Dear Paulo,
I think that we are born into this reality to change ourselves and others and it continues on and on until we evolve to become the unity with God.
I think that we are never dying, only our body dies.
Our soul is always here and there helping others get closer to God.
love
Agnieszka
No sé me ocurre la respuesta… pero eso me levanta mas preguntas, ¿acaso yo pedí nacer?
Because without birth, there could be no death.
Without happiness, there is no sorrow.
We are born to live, and to love.
We die becuase our time on earth has come to an end..becuase it is time for us to live another life
A biblical point of view for this question is:
Death is one of the enemies of life. The prophesy tells us that it will be the last one to be done away with before mankind is restored to perfection.
We are born to live, we don’t live to die and death is like a deep sleep. Only a short while and we are awoken to life again but that time to a perfected life on a paradise earth where death shall have no dominion.
Love and light!
Lydia
Dearest Paulo and friends
My mother always says that there is one thing in life you can always be sure of, that is you will die, maybe in an hour or a day or 100 years, it is inevitable to us all.
The point to this life, is what man is trying to discover for centuries, its also the basis of many religions and beliefs. Why are we here? What are we really? How should we live? All these questions have been toturing us since the begining of our kind.
It is important to see the mystery of it all keeps us going, it urges to learn more so that we ourselves are able to find what we believe in the most to be true. (We all know that what we believe in constitutes mainly to who we and manner in which we live our lives.) Because of this freedom to choose and learn from life itself, what to believe, everyone becomes unique.
This little game of discovering truths is what makes life exciting and challenging. This probably why only you, and you alone, can answer this question for yourself as it will differ from person to person.
I personally feel that you have one chance to live, and as you can not turn back to change a moment lived, you should live it to the fullest. Life is about experiencing yourself, discovering who you and what you love, and its about loving. Just loving- everything and nothing, and everything again. For me, I try to live to be the best person i can be in each moment so that if i were to die, at any point, i won’t have regret- i’d know i was always to true to who i was and did the best i could do in any situtaion.
Thank you for being
Yajna
Mr Coelho,
My thoughts on this is that we are born because God is giving us ( the world) another chance to fix the sins of others, we die because it is God’s punishment (if I can call it that) to us. god wanted us to live an eternal life and he is testing until we can not no more and die.
Sincerely ,
Norma
we live to appreciate what life is all about, so when we die, it will all be worth-while.
& dying, is God’s only guaranteed promise to all his beings!
my two cents. ;)
Life cannot exist without death.
I learned to live without asking neither “why?” nor “what if?”. I had to be born, I had to post on your blog, I have to leave one day. Who am I but a speck in this vast endless timeless experience to ask such questions. I know my place. If there is a grand scheme or plan, I won’t be able to comprehend it. If the universe conspires, I will work with it, I won’t question it. Often a coincidence is mistaken for destiny.
And anyways, most questions that bothered me, I found answers to when I stopped asking.
God creates, God is immortal. Man procreates. A man dies only if he/she doesn’t pass something down, whether it is literature, work, legend, or DNA.
I believe that life is a gemstones immersed in a glass of water; one has got to empty the glass by drinking every drop of experience. The thirst of living is quenched by dying…oh, the gemstone is the life thereafter. Enjoy living!
Ryan
Hay dos frases que me encantan que intentaran responder esa pregunta. La primera de un autor que desconozco dice asi:
“La muerte está tan segura de su victoria que nos da una vida de ventaja”
Y la otra, de el grupo My Chemical Romance, que dice:
“Oh, que equivocados estabamos al pensar que la inmortalidad significaba nunca morir.”
Creo mas en la segunda. Nacemos para alcanzar la inmortalidad.
XoXo
As much as I find myself compelled to give a very “deep” and Christian answer, due to this being in the blog of a famous writer, I feel I am trying to answer a very simple question with much complexity.
So to answer the question to said child, and not necessarily to yourself, Paulo, I would say that,
We live to die. To make room, and make better, so that maybe our short lives of work, may make our future’s lives longer, better, and free.
If we’re going to contemplate on Jesus life, I can say that… we were born because we have a role to play in this world. It depends on us on how are we going to play that role. We will die as we accomplished and fulfilled that role. And be home again… in Father’s arm. :)
Dear Paulo,
my thought is also close to calorine said.
we are here to experience
whatever we planned to experience.
To know myself & others better…
love,
fusae
An old relative of mine once told me:
”Dear, youth is only appreciated by the ones that do not have it.”
I guess it´s the same thing with life. It is not before death strikes us as close that we wake up from our sleepwalking and acknowledge the miracle of being born. So, Paulo, we need death to appreciate life. And god´s way of telling us to appreciate it is by letting us know that it will end.
Dear Paulo,
Death may not be the end of life - it may be the conitinuation of life. It is a mystery.
La respuesta que se me ocurre es que nacemos y morimos pero entre esos dos hechos, vivimos y la vida es un viaje lleno de experiencias que hay que disfrutar y de las que hay que aprender. ¿Para qué? Bueno, esa quizá sea la pregunta de la semana que viene. O quizá aun tenga que aprender de esta experiencia para poder verbalizar la respuesta. Lo que se me ocurre es la respuesta de que a través de la sabiduría de la vida diaria es como encontramos a Dios, y Dios es la meta.
Eso me lleva a otra pregunta ¿Y que pasa con la gente que no cree en Dios? Pues… como yo creo, a mi manera, en él, pues no sé que pasa con la gente que no cree en él… Quizá la vida hay que vivirla para conseguir este tipo de respuestas y estar siempre preguntandonos acerca de las cosas para aprender.
Besos,
Miriam
There is this magical period existing between birth and death that wants us to live.Living life just like that is a sheer waste.As you had pointed out wisely in your book “The Alchemist”,one needs to find out his personal legend and pursue it.Making mistakes is part of humanity and everybody makes mistakes.But learning from them is what matters.Guess somebody said something like “It’s not only better but more honorable to do mistakes than to do nothing”.How true!We humans mearn from mistakes and that’s the reason we live.We live to experience life thru hardships and joys and winning alone wouldn’t alone be fun!Finally,I’d say that humans are born to make mistakes and LEARN from them.That way life will be colorful!
We born to make a journey and our task is to make it the better journey we can.
The Universe is travelling from an endlessly compact state of all-potential, towards an endlessly dispersed state of nothingness. During that journey all must be expressed.
This means that everything has got to change into
something it wasn’t the moment before.
No single form or state can be permanent, or the universe would stagnate.
Another way of expressing this is saying that “God is going”. When you go, you leave something to approach something else.
This is science and religion.
This is Magick.
i think it is because we cannot die without being born…every moment someone is being born in some place while in another place, that same moment, there is one dying…is it not the essence of life?
“Why are we born if we have to die?”
Why must there be a reason? Reasons are things inside of us; this fact of life and death just is.
The purpose of our life is a journey towards our awakening to our true nature.In truth we are all god.That is all there is.Each life we experience as a wave on the ocean is another life nearer to the life in which we remember always,that we are that ocean.Through this awakening we realise birth and death are but an illusion.This is because who we truely are ie.God has always existed and always will.
Life and death are an unseperable couple, like light and darkness. One cannot exist without the other. From the moment you are born, death is your constant companion. And above all you cannot really treasure life without being aware of death.
La muerte es un precioso regalo de Dios para que los seres humanos apreciemos la vida, materialicemos nuestros sueños lo más pronto posible y dejemos un legado para el mundo.
The death is a God’s precious gift in order that the human beings we estimate the life, let’s materialize our dreams as promptly as possible and let’s leave a legacy for the world
The same reason we sleep even though we have to wake up in the morning.
Sometimes our soul needs to experience/learn somethings in order to become complete and this is what we attain in our sleep called life which happens between birth and death.
We keep on being born untill our soul attains all it needs.
We are never born
we never die
we have always been here
We are born, because the “Univer’s Memory” will have more experiences through us. We offer experiences to Him.That means two things: a)For God.God, always wants the best for us .In order to be huppy the man, God sends every moment many miracles to him.b)For us.In order to offer to the Lord the most beautiful experience of this life, we must enjoying and respect our life ,trying to live more, and as more as possible , with love.To achieve all above, we have to be used to try to find out the miracles of the every day, that He has exclusively sent to us in order to become huppy. Living by this way ,means that we are always in connection with Him and we feel grateful for the gift of our life.Because we live by the thought that there is a predestination for us, to be huppy .We are born to be huppy and not unhuppy. The only thing for us is trying to find out the everyday-gifts of God. God is everywhere for those who believe to Him and they can see Him everywhere.Those who they have not faith, they feel unhuppy, even though they live in the heart of the Heaven.
I suppose that this is the meaning of our life .Offering the best experiences by cultivate the most gentle forme of ourselves.
For the meaning of our death…I can not yet tell you.
Butterfly
I think we die because there is eveil in this world, if there was no we would go on living.
In the depth of night, without a trace of dream, I existed without a body nor the universe. I existed as ‘I’. Then I woke and associated ‘I’ with this body and ask all this. The body doesn’t ask. The ‘I’ didn’t ask. The association asks. ‘I’ cannot move away , externalize or die away from ‘ME’. Easier said than reised however. Hence this birth to realize this truth.
It can’t be proven that we HAVE to die at all. We’ve always seen everyone die, but at the same time, we’ve always heard everyone SAY they have to. Has anyone ever researched that correlation?
Perhaps like everything else, there is no HAVE TO, as if we are subject to some external power, like bonded men.
Perhaps Life and “Death” are Our choice, in our hands, in our power and control, like everything else.
Perhaps we just don’t know Our capabilities, Our divine nature, through and through, and we’ve used our Power to constantly, however unknowingly, choose “Death.”
Like we do in so many other things.
Creo que Dios, nuestro padre nos envia al mundo en una misión de amor que una vez cumplida nos deja retornar junto a él.
Dear child,
In the first place, it’s the law of Nature, it’s a cycle,
maybe it’s better to say it’s more like a spiral upward and downward:insemination, fecondation, birth, growth, rising, fall, death and decomposition then insemination ect…For the best, but it’s not always the case because death can appear at any time in the spiral and birth too, even if we try to control it, can appear out of the blue.
So there is not really a beginning nor an end.There are passages, steps and this as for material things as for immaterial or spiritual things (things that are created by the spirit).For exemple, an idea, good or bad, appears from things you’ve learnt then you could make something out of it that will disappear in its old form and inspire someone else for a new one maybe better or maybe not.
If you go further and adapt that theory to the soul of Men, you can call this process Karma which means action.
That is to say that our actions in this life condition the futur incarNations of our soul. The principal and most important difference is that we have power to decide, that we are free and it’s not only a bless that makes our lives enjoyable and lovable but it’s a hudge responsabilty. So if if we want to improve ourselves we’ve got to learn to do the right action at the right time, to choose the right path. Doing thus we could hope to be deliver from our condition (Cycle of reincarnations, Samsara) and be part of the children of the One that Is (Nirvana or Heaven).
To tell a long story short, the most important is in between things we have no control on, it’s the Moment you live and the things you do, say, think about, wish to, pray for.I think you could say that it’s not important from where you came or where you go but it’s the way you choose to make it through.
I hope I could have made it clear to you.
Love
Jaromil
I don’t know if we’ll ever truly understand the entire scheme of the universe. The way I rationalize death is through accepting that this life on earth is one stage of the many stages that the soul experiences. The soul existed before birth and will exist after death. Death can be/is painful for people to experience, but i guess the soul fulfilled the purpose it was here for and is ready to move on when a person dies (the soul leaves the body permanently). So to make it easier for a child to understand death, try to teach them that death is a part of life.
¿Porqué Nacemos si vamos a morir?
POr mis principios cristianos, considero la vida como un regalo de Dios. pero de repente surge el dilema de… Si es la vida un regalo de Dios, porqué los tropiezos? porque obstaculos? porqué la maldad, la envidia, el terrorismo, la muerte, el odio, cual es la razón de vivir, si el mundo es cada dia más perverso, si la verdadera amenaza a la vida no es la muerte si no el mismo Hombre? -
“El Hombre es Lobo del Hombre” *Hobbes.
La razon de vivir, va más allá de vivir cada dia como si fuera el último, es más, debemos vivir cada dia como si fuera el Primero, con entusiasmo y felicidad. Imaginese saber que es este su último dia, que paz podría tener en los últimos segundos de vida que quedan?. Pero si vivimos como si fuera el primer dia, nos podremos comparar entonces con los niños, con la emoción, y el sabor que ellos le dan a cada dia de su vida, a cada cosa que los rodea.
Ahora tengo una sobrinita de 2 años y al verla sonreir, jugar, divertirse con sus primos, y a la vez llorar por pequeñeces, pienso en como sera su vida cuando tenga mi edad o sea mayor, cuando una piñata no sea suficiente para hacerla sonreir, cuando remplace sus muñecas y sus videos de las princesas de disney por el verdadero juego de la Vida. Cuando sus lagrimas no sean porq su mamá no le dió permiso de quedarse a dormir en casa de su tia. Pienso entonces, en protegerla, en dejarla ser niña y hacer que nunca pierda su inocencia, para hacer un tanto diferente su vida.
Sí, la vida es un regalo de Dios, un niño y su sonrisa son una bendición de Dios.
En lo personal siento que Dios me ha dado una grandiosa oportunidad. Vivir. Tengo la ventaja de saber que la muerte puede estar a un paso, y tengo más seguridad en la muerte que en la vida misma.
Pero de que sirve la vida si vamos a morir?
A la vida hay que darle un sentido, hay que honrar nuestras vidas dejando huellas. (honrando la vida, honramos a Dios)
Tenemos un propósito, una misión.
Jesus es el mejor ejemplo de vida y muerte. Vino al mundo y sabia cómo iba a morir y quien lo iba a traicionar aun así no dejó a un lado su mision. No cedió a las tentaciones, y dió el mensaje que debia de dar, dejó una huella.
Pero me imagino que explicarle todo esto a un niño es muy dificil. A ese niño que le preguntó a su amigo yo le diria, que en la vida tenemos una mision. Y es Sembrar un árbol. es Todo lo que debemos hacer. Después la muerte no es más que otra bendición de Dios.
we are born because everything is possible. when we die we go again where we were before we were born and everything is possible again
My dearest Paulo,
The notion of life and death is mostly uniform across all religion. The difference in them is the before and after life. If we believe in the Divine being, we would have faith and trusted His Greatness.
Generally, The Divine one had created everything in Life to be balanced.For a man, He created a woman.For negative emotions, He allows us feel and enjoy the positive ones. He created habitat cycles to keep population balance, though it pains us to see the tiger pouncing on a zebra on National Geographic. For every life, there is death.
Bottom line, all are balanced.
The good things will come to an end. So will the bad. In your stories, you wrote about choices and how human made them. It is choices we make that lead us to our fate today, which is why people say that every decision-making is critical. Little do they realise the depth of this.
For every decision we make, there will always be consequences. The outcome of our choices can be either good or bad. But due to the ideology of balance, there will always be trade-offs.
We made a choice to be born, even though knowing death will come knocking on our door.
“Why are we born if we have to die?”
1. Scientifically, that’s what we learnt as life cycle.
2. Life cycles creates balance
3. Death is the trade-off to Birth
Love,
Mima
Now, behold, I have spoken unto you concerning the adeath of the mortal body, and also concerning the bresurrection of the mortal body. I say unto you that this mortal body is craised to an dimmortal body, that is from death, even from the first death unto life, that they can edie no more; their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming fspiritual and immortal, that they can no more see corruption
Alma11:45
Can you imagine your favorite story without an ending? Everything has to end. The day gives way to the night. The winter gives way to the spring.
Can you imagine living forever? To see everything you love and hold dear taken from you? Can you dream of still pressing on?
Can you imagine becoming a master of it all? You cannot because deep inside all of us is a question and that question is:
So what’s next?
And life is the answer to that call.
Life and Death—–Two mysteries of this universe.Both lie in the hands of our creator.He sends us with some purpose on this earth and when our time is up,whether we have done our work or not,we have to leave this place.Why we are born and why we have to die,will for ever remain a puzzle that mankind will try to solve in different ways with different answers!!
It’s simply nature.
We are born because mother nature needs company(and god needs company if he really exists)
apparently we do not appreciate life unless we think of death.
so,its like in couples:
light and darkness
love and hate
god and satin
I believe we are born to feed…..to feed ourselves with as much knowledge as is possible, to feed others (humans and animals alike) with as much love as possible. Thank God (hwoever you see him/her) and the whole universe that we may die. And when we do, may we be grateful for the chance we had on this earth to feed and be fed. We should not collect anything on this earth, we cannot take anything with us, except the love bestowed upon us. God bless you all. To Paolo from Paul xxx
There is one more thing.
If we God’s children then we’re born to experiance as child does, by mistakes.
Love on the other way brings us back to God -
to be ONE.
LOVE LOVE LOVE
LOVE=GOD=UNIVERSE=HUMAN BEING??????
Imagine a person sitting in a train station.
A train comes, stays at the station for some minutes and then leaves.
That person would not say that the train was born and died. That person would think that the train is making a journey and that it is necessary that this station exists in order to the train to continue its track.
That is our life, it is an station in our track.
Birth and death are mental concepts that humans have developed in their need to have everything defined and under control. Wild animals know about death, but they don´t bother about how much time is left, they live the moment.
Thus, we are not born and we don´t die, we just come and go, like the train, like the waves…
Death is like sleeping, is just a phase… The body is like a used cloth, when it is torn and too used, we get rid of it, we replace it with a new one.
I believe that reincarnation exists and that our Consciousness chooses everything we should experience because it is enlightened and knows what’s best.
I also believe that this cycle of birth, death, rebirth and so can be stopped when we become what we are supposed to become in the first place: evolved beings; when we become the Light, the Spirit.
We are parts of the Spirit but we have to become perfect, not only in some aspects, but altogether.
We evolved from the early stage of amoeba to becoming Perfection.
Summarized, we are always the Light but we must realize that, we must accept that and act as being the Light, the Superior Consciousness.
I also believe that we were created by God who gave us Love in order to become Love, to live in the Kingdom of God.
I also believe that we choose our parents, our homes, countries, lives, our Consciousness knows what is the best for our evolution. We have total trust in our Soul, in our Primordial Energy who is like a Mother to us: knows everything about us and does everything for us because She loves us so much!
God wants to see His and Her Reflection in us; God is already perfect, we must reach perfection by evolving all the time, this is the great difference. Like a seed, which has all the potential needed to become a great plant, or tree, or flower and so on, but it must grow and that’s why several stages are required till becoming what it was supposed to be in the first place.
God is desireless because God already has everything, what else is needed for God?
We instead have desires and when they are pure and strong, they can attract miracles into our lives, lives which are the greatest miracles ever because they are chances to grow, to evolve.
All my love and appreciation,
Carmen Larisa
Romania
No lo se, no se la respuesta, y pensar en la pregunta me aflige. Acaso alguien sabe la respuesta?. Pero me consuela saber, que la muerte es necesaria para que la vida continue. Si fueramos seres eternos, no podriamos evolucionar.Pero afortunadamente no lo somos.
We born , to fullfill the message of being alive , continue the messge of the first human being , the question should not be why we bornif we die at the end , it should be why we are born here on this planet , rather than being in heaven the first place we where in , its simply becoze theres a great messge only those who have clean hearts inside would be able to understand , we die becoz its only nother path , its not the end , its another path only , by death a nother life beagn , just like every sigle thing in nature , like the 4 seasons , u cant ask an ant why u work hard , can u ??
I don’t think I would understand the worth of my death, if I never ever lived… How would I know what it is it to be empty of everything, unless I was full of something?
-
much love, light and laughter,
asavari.
We have to die obviously because there would soon be no room on the planet if we did not. For me, it is better to have lived than not to have. BUT, if we plotted on a graph everyone’s age at death, we would have a normal or bell-shaped curve. This is also called the Central Limit Theorem (CLT) which can be mathematically proven. And if you notice, the ideal normal curve (from the CLT)never quite hits zero. Perhaps there are a very few people who live on. One or two might live a thousand years…or longer. Such people wisely keep their age to themselves.
It seems to me that theories of incarnation, or life after death generally, are often accepted because people fear death.
But since most (if not all) of these ancient theories conclude that the ego die with the body, I can see no practical use of them anyway.
As far as anyone can ever tell, the body and the ego will die. This is something we all will have to come to terms with, or suffer accordingly.
When considering these issues, please remember that it is a necessary fact of nature that our personal life form must die. At least on this plane where we now exist, there is nothing to support the above statement that we can choose to live on forever. When someone proves me wrong, I will be happy to stand corrected, but as far as I know it has not been very common for the several millions of years that man has existed.
As many people have pointed out, the dissolution of our personal life form is required for the birth of new forms. Other forms than our own that is. Death is the very basis for the continuous fulfilment of the inherent potential of the origin of the universe.
This is evolution.
To argue with evolution is just as fruitful as arguing that raindrops should fall upwards.
Get real folks. It is not a sign of spiritual weakness to show an interest in science. It can learn you a great deal of this wonderful place that we were born to live and die in.
bc we must improve past lifes in order to see God.
Perhaps because we ourselves are not one of the infinite things and yet each of us is a necessary ingredient to the continued richness of this experience of life. Some of us contribute more spice or aroma, others more subtle undertones, some a flavor that is longer lasting while others short and bittersweet. So, though we all die, we are born to perhaps flavor the experience of life for those we leave behind.
I think that all living form of life in the universe is a part of a greater think called God, if we live we are free to evolve or desinvolve , to give or to retain.. to love or to hate, to give life or to kill.. but with our lives if we build than we build all together God or Devil, so the choice of all the living creatures in the universe is to build.. a God .. or a Devil
choice is there and is a great gift, a great sign of confidence
this is why we are all here.. to make all better and good one person after one person. we build a God and the God build us
so the answer is just… we are here to love , to love all living creatures and to love each others
My 7 year old asked me this question after his grandfather died, and the explanation I gave him was this:
We don’t die; our bodies just die. Bodies are like cars - they were created to allow our souls to move around and were never meant to be our homes forever. Life is like a Classroom. We’re born, we learn lessons and do the jobs that we were sent here to do, and then we return back to the Universe. When someone dies, it simply means that they’ve come to the end of their particular journey or job, and their bodies die so that their soul is free to travel to the next journey or job.
Nascemos para evoluir
What is born of flesh is flesh. Flesh is born and dies. What is born of spirit is spirit and will never die.
mmm this will sound so assure… and I’m not,
but it’s still quite convenient… I will for
sure have to reconsider my view of what life is
many times… and there might be no words anymore
and maybe that is better?
-because we have to learn to live,
(not just being zombies in the machinery…)
to learn to love - probably the same?
Would we make any effort without a “deadline”? *lol*
somehow the meaning of life always brings me
in touch with the thought of animals and humans
and why we’re messing up so much, while they so
easily flow along with nature… *grin*
A word came from nowhere to me the other day;
They need development.
I think this agrees with a few people here, that we come into this life to live and learn, beyond that, I guess we can never be completely sure, though we have Hope.
LOVE
Nascemos para encontrar a nossa lenda pessoal.
Vivemos para a concretizar.
Morremos para a saborear.
there is no end for some thing, every thing in the universe change. With birth and death we also change and grow in small part of this universe,…
Dear Mr. Coelho,
life and death are the same thing. Our understanding or perception of the world is given to us in words, as we have developed language. Life and death are only words, and with words one can untangle, classify and separate that which, in nature, is unseparable. Life and death are separable in words only, their relationship is like the front and back of a book.
Love,
Samuel Gate
I like this question (and I love all of your comments!) To me, the child is asking why we even bother if we know it’s going to turn out badly in the end. Or, why should I get on that merry-go-round when I see every kid who gets on it fall off. Kids don’t think too much about the journey, and living on purpose, and their spirituality until we start talking to them about it. Although, some sweet little souls have surprised me from time to time, so maybe we are born knowing and just forget the truths as we become more human?
If the kid thinks about the “bad” ending then they’ll be too scared to even attempt life. I know a lot of adults who are terrified of the “bad” ending. I know a lot of people in business who won’t try something new because they are already convinced that it won’t work. Well, how many inventions were discovered on the way to failing at the original objective? So why even bother, they say. What a waste of time! If I hadn’t “failed” at so many (o.k., not THAT many) past relationships, I wouldn’t have learned what I now know. Only by experiencing life do we grow. And if we let go of labelling everything as good or bad, positive or negative, and just let it be, just appreciate it for what it is…wow, the journey between our bodies being born and dying is AMAZING! I love life and all of its experiences, but I’m also ready to go on to the next phase…any time. I am fascinated with the concept of what comes next. I’m “dying” to know the answers to my questions.
When one of my mother’s sisters died,my mother said this to her, “I’m so envious that you are going first…you’re going to find out all the answers. I’m ready to go too, but I still need to be here for my husband. He’s not ready to be alone.” Her sister replied, “I’m ready, so I guess I’ll go ahead. It’ll just be the blink of an eye before I see you, don’t worry.” I love that.
I would tell this child, “because you can have so much fun before that ever happens, and if you don’t want to die until you’re really, really old then just tell your body that. Your body hears everything you think. Let’s go for icecream!”
Love always,
Mary (from Canada) brrr…it’s cold here tonight.
AVC,
I find myself totally in agreement with you that it’s not a sign of spiritual weekness to show an interest in science; in fact that would be the day when all are sceintists would be as rooted in spirituality as was say Einstein before he died !
not all whys can be answered; someone once asked a small boy, who was being taught about God etc by a ‘master’, tell me from where the light in this lamp comes ! the boy just put out the lamp and asked him first tell me to where light has gone now, it comes from same place.
why has there got to be daybreak when it’s going to be night soon, why do we have to sleep if we have to wake up ! ceratin questions are better not ‘explianed’ to children, merely few more questions may suffice, who knowsm the chap may actually find thereal answer some day and then he may share with us, those who have known have said something like what Leaf has said !! both living and learning may happen if we are ‘aware’ otherwise too it may happnen but …
Beacuse earth is the ultimate recycling depot. We are always part of it in some way or the other as the earth’s mass always remains the same. Everything grows or are created from existing matter. Nothing new can be added to the pot or else things will be out of balance. ‘Earth to earth - dust to dust’
We are part of the natural cycle of things. To live the experience of life, love, sadness and joy.
Because the trip is what matters and not the destination…and by the way would not man get tired to live day after day for ever? In every story there must be an end, like in every song, every dream…that is life, the completion of small stories and adventures till the grand finalle!
Os obreiros do amor
Nós nascemos para podermos conhecer a vida. Para podermos saborear o que é a vida. É uma dádiva que a existência nos concedeu.
Podemos, também, utilizar esta dádiva para criar ao nosso redor um ambiente aprazível - sendo os obreiros do amor.
Hi Paulo.
If we did not die, then life would have little meaning. The limited window that we have onto this world allows the choices we make to be important. If we all lived forever, then everyone would get around to writing books as you do. In one sense this would be good, everyone would become a Shakespeare or a Mozart. But, instead, we all have our individual and particular talents. What kind of impact we do decide to make while we live is then meaningful.It is because we are finite that our time, attention, and love is truly valuable. Death is the horizon of a life that gives human experience grounds for being meaningful, memorable, and important.
Some years ago, few weeks before my grandfather died, we were talking about his life and my life, and he said, “we are born, because we have a path to follow, a world of wonder to discover, a path to create with our acts and behaviour and that will be followed by our children and many other people. There is no reason for life if you just sit down and leave the world evolve around you without you taking part in it. You are here because you have a mission, to open new roads, new paths, to leave a stamp and be an example for generations to come. When that mission is acomplished, your time is due. So, live your life the best way you can, always thinking that every action creates a bookmark on others’ lives, so be always just, and fair. The reason for life is to plant the seeds for a better world for the generations to come, never forget this my child, you are just a farmer, in a very big plantation, the crop you obtain is your responsibility with the future.Never be afraid of dying, because every person has to die to open new space for new shining souls that come to follow your path and open new ones. If we were not suposed to die, can you imagine how many people would be waking around? there would be no food, no water and no space enough for everyone and there would be more war and unhapiness. So, the same we create life bringing children to this world we have to give them their space for growing up and acomplish their mission. This is why we have to die”
I cried for many days, because I felt this was his way of saying goodby, and it was, but, since then, I understood that being born is the best chance to do my best to keep the world alive with my power to create and change things and that one day I will have do give the chance to someone new to keep on going with this beautifull mission, just keeping life, and humanity alive and loving each other more and more.
Death is what makes life special.
I think we die to give importance to life, to renew our point of view and to discover a new road.
I think we born to experience, to love and to find out the answer to this question.
Life is done for being appreciated and lived intensively and counsciously. by capturing sings from the eternity of the universe and leaving traces and memories to the posterity. that’s why we live: everybody of us leaves something back. But if we do our best from every single day, then is when life is stronger than death and really worthwhile.
Nacemos, vivimos y morimos es el ciclo de la vida, lo importante es saber que vamos a volver a nacer porque esto es una escuela a la cual venimos a aprender, procurar aprender y no repetir curso es importante como decía un querido amigo mío que me explicaba el pensamiento metafísico de la reencarnación.
Ahora bien este ciclo es natural pero no lo es tanto el dolor o la falta de salud, esto debe superarse y la muerte debe llegar a ser un paso transitorio sabiendo que ha llegado nuestra hora un viaje con morfeo al otro lado del rio.
Bonito dilema sobre la muerte, es quí que Dios nos creó iguales a todos y sabiendo que no vamos a ser eternos en este cuerpo quizás nos haga recapacitar en como vivimos y a que queremos dedicar el tiempo libre.
Un beso con todo mi amor.
Creo que es que tenemos algo que aprender.
I think that this life is just one phase of our complete existence. As humans we experience many lessons and if we don’t learn from them we have to repeat them until we do. We live to learn and teach. We live to experience uncomfortable situations so that we can learn to have compassion. We are judged, so that we can learn not to judge. All of the experiences that we go through help us to transcend into a loving being so that we can be ready for the next phase. I believe that if you do not learn what you have to here in this life…when you die you are immediately returned to do it again. We are born to experience, build, learn, teach, and love. When we die, in old age of natural causes, we should look at this as a promotion to a higher and more intensely beautiful phase of existence.
For those who believe we live for ever…So life and death are part of a whole trip which leads to eternal life with its stops ofcourse. I believe that I am not going to die…and always look forward with great excitement and intense interest to what lies ahead (ie after the death that one usually associates with the funeral, and burial. I eagerly wait for that moment with great enthusiasm.
God Bless
I think this is a different way of asking “What is the meaning of life?”. But it’s the wrong question; it asks “what can life do for us?”. Consider the animal kingdom. You’re born, eat, sleep, reproduce, die. The cycle continues, and the world is left much as it was before.
Humans have a greater responsibilty. The “meaning of life” is the meaning we give it. How we do that is the question. Ask rather, “How can I give meaning to my life?” Quite often, it is by giving meaning to someone else’s.
I have to question the answer “so there’d be room on the planet for other people”. Suppose we were born immortal - and therefore never had the need to reproduce? Would an immortal life eventually become boring? (I don’t think so.)
Se fosse a minha filha de 3 anos que tivesse feito essa pergunta para mim, eu responderia:
_”Meu amor, quando uma árvore nasce na floresta, ela está lá por algum motivo maior do que ela, mas que a própria árvore não consegue entender. E mesmo assim ela faz tudo o que deve fazer, vivendo cada etapa de seu crescimento como única e especial. Quando chega o tempo da árvore morrer, ela aceita mais uma vez seu destino, e o faz com tanta alegria pois aceitou o Mistério e cumpriu sua parte.
O mesmo acontece com a gente, nós nascemos por alguma razão, maior do que nós mesmos, não adianta querer saber o por quê, há perguntas que não podem ser respondidas. O importante é aceitarmos o Mistério e dignificarmos nossa vida com alegrias e AMOR, para quando chegar o nosso tempo de morrer, possamos fazê-lo com a sensação de missão cumprida.” (E prontos para outra, seja ela qual for).
Beijo Metre Paulo, amo vc!
Death has haunted me from the moment I realised I am alive. I have never wanted to die. I may never truly want to die. But why do we have to live and die? Because that is the nature of our Universe. All things must pass…The reason? Does there need to be a reason? Man must always have a reason, an explanation, a ‘meaning’. Maybe there is none, maybe this all just ‘is’. And that is what we must contemplate, and live by. Because, if there is no ‘reason’ there is nothing to lose or gain, experience just is. And the good we do is purely because we feel compelled to be and emit good, not for any ‘reason’, lesson or gain; purely to leave a positive mark because our heart tells us this is the right thing to do.
There really is no point in asking definitive questions about death. It will simply be. When the hour dawns there will be no questions, no arguments, no reckoning, no speculation; it will simply be. Why? Because that is the nature of life, of our Universe, of our existance.
We are alive. So be it. We will die. So be it. Questions are pointless, speculation is pointless, live how you live, do what you do, follow your heart - for no good reason other than the feeling that it’s the right thing to do.
For the surest thing is; you are alive and you will die, whether there is a point or not. That’s the only guarantee. ~if you are reading this now, you are alive. And you will, one day, die. So make the best and the most of in between, leave no stone unturned - for no reason, other than following your own earth-given heart. And when the time comes, death will encompass you and thereafter, what will be, will be. x
Dear Paulo,
Do you think we can see your views on this matter?
It will be trully interesting to see what THE writer thinks
*smiles*
Enlighten me,
Mima
why are we all hell bent upon telling a child something ! something which we ourselves are not really sure of ?
does it hurt our ego to draw a blank face in front of a ‘mere’ child ? if at all we are telling that child something, maybe to comfort her/him in times of trauma, it’s always better to stick to truth as we know it as far as possible ! no !!
aditya
What would happiness be without suffering? What depth of happiness could be felt without having experienced suffering? In that same regard, what would life be without birth and death? Without one, the other has no meaning.
Thank you for inspiring my journey, Paul.