Why are we born if we have to die?

by Paulo Coelho on December 7, 2007

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

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{ 349 comments… read them below or add one }

Noel May 28, 2010 at 2:11 am

Hi Paulo, you are one of my favorite authors. To answer the question: ‘why are we born if we have to die?’, we have to go back to the Fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis.

Only in Christianity can this question be answered fully. No other worldview has the answer except in the Christian worldview.

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saadat ali May 18, 2010 at 10:05 pm

i think death is the actual beauty of life…if there was no death life would have been never beautiful as it is now..!!

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karin May 17, 2010 at 12:56 am

Livet er en gave av erfaring som gir oss visdom, hvor vise vi blir er opp til oss selv.

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Maha Nadeem Akhtar May 5, 2010 at 1:22 pm

we are born to love.

we are born to feel,to believe and to prove that we can still do the right thing by CHOICE.

Allama Iqbal says:
paida kia insan ko dard-e-dil k waste
warna ata’at kelie kuch kam na the karobeyan.

man was made to experience heart pain
otherwise, there was no lack of angels for obedience.

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Rike Jokanan May 5, 2010 at 7:37 am

I am born then die because I will be reborn just after I die.

Love,
Rike

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Sophia Nirvana May 5, 2010 at 4:21 am

I don’t think there is an answer to this. Since the question is invalid in itself. To whom is this question posed? Noone’s answer is better than another’s. It is just how it is. Really no need to think about it. It doesn’t help, deosn’t bring relief. Posing the question, and meditating on it could only bring madness. It is futile. Really; It is the wrong question. The answer I would give the child would be; I don’t know, noone knows and no one shall ever know. I think a better question would be why do we kill? Now I think we could have a proper debate on this. Don’t you?

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Stacey May 4, 2010 at 11:40 pm

I don’t believe that our existence ends with “death,” but that we’re simply biding our time until the next life. Ask yourself this, why do we place primacy on this life above the next?

Stacey

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mouad May 4, 2010 at 9:12 pm

life is a gift ,asking this question is like asking someone why are you giving me a piece of cake if im going to finish it. just enjoy your cake :)

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Alex May 4, 2010 at 5:15 pm

I think we our tasked in this life to be the best that we can be, to choose love and not fear, to learn as much as we can and overcome obstacles in ourselves, to work towards our truest purest being, pure love………we are just here for a moment but we are all connected and we must remember that, everything is energy and with love and positive energy we can create beautiful lives…

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soumia May 4, 2010 at 3:37 pm

in my opinion, and I AM SORRY my englesh is so poor we are here on earth because we have our GOD and if we believe on oaur religion we faind the answer

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Yasir Mahmood May 4, 2010 at 2:01 pm

God created the humans with some objective for each person. The person is answerable to God after this life, how he/she fulfilled/responded to the voice of God……I had once read some line from Saadi which say
“”O man, do u remember when u were born, you were crying and everyone arround you was smiling, live this life in this way that at the time of departure from this world you would be smiling and everyone arround you would be crying/weeping for you.”"

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diaratos May 4, 2010 at 2:05 am

i believe in reincarnation so i don’t think we die..i think we just take a break..!

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Alex May 4, 2010 at 1:56 am

I think that we live to feel. Our bodies are vessels of God, they’re channels of experience.
We are part of all there is and all there isn’t, we’re part of what many of us call God. The only way for us to experience anything flawed, to learn, is to go through this experience. That is how a soul, a fraction of God, evolves. I also think this is just one of the many realities we, as souls, experience. Our objective here, on Earth, is to feel and to learn, to recognize the love in others, to see we are all one, to learn what it’s like to have a limited time and no memory of who we really are and still try to understand the truth. We’re given limits but the journey ends when we find that there are none, just love, unity. We could be great, yet we choose to be otherwise. Killing and enslaving our own (I mean both men and animals alike).

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---- May 4, 2010 at 1:50 am

Does it really matter? I mean, no matter how we try, we’d never get the answer or even if we already have the answer then so what? Would it change the fact that whether we like it or not we’d die, ALL OF US? Some says, we’re tested — you know? Who’s more deserving to live in what they call paradise but then how are we tested if everything we do were destined to happen? I mean, you get answers but then you get contradictions. Does it really make sense? All of these? For me, instead of asking why, why don’t we just spend our time thanking that we are born. Or spend our time spending it with the one we love. Because everyone will die and you can’t stop that but what you can do is to leave happy memories to the ones you love.

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Debasmita Mahalanabis May 4, 2010 at 4:06 am

In Indian according to Hindu myth people believe in the process of rebirth.It is believed that as we are living this life the things and knowledge which our sole is learning is eternal.Our sole never dies.it just searches a body after one body expires.It comes with the wisdom of its former life.And it is believed at its end it understands every reality of the world.when the sole is spiritual fulfilled it understands the every meaning of live,when his eye of wisdom is open he can he understands every illusions of life and feels himself complete.In this last live he looses the wish of reborn and its free.

so life is like a stage and we have to perform and after the end of the performance in the basis of our performance we come with a new character with the former wisdom.We all are in the way of freedom.we all will set free one day but before that we have the cover of illusion in our eye which directs us to live a life.

tisha mae May 16, 2010 at 3:51 pm

I think its true. We dont have to ask why. I believe that there are really things in life that no one can answer. And for me, i just leave it like that. I think, we need faith, faith to believe in things that are not explanable, beleiving in things you cant see and proved. Believing that there is a great force that created you and wanted you to live and die.

joe May 27, 2010 at 11:13 pm

You are so right….

mey May 4, 2010 at 12:56 am

we are born to choose whether we go to hell or we go to heaven; on earth! this is how i see it. we lived before this life or we are living and dying simultaneously..and life is ur punishment or our hell!! couldnt justify it more..

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Akrinos April 28, 2010 at 11:48 pm

For me the only reason that we are born is to live. Life is just a small part as is birth and death! If we ask so many questions, do we live? or should we just act to be alive?

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Saleem Sayani April 24, 2010 at 8:47 pm

So here is the question. Why do we use male gender when we address God?

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Terry April 8, 2010 at 3:32 pm

I read your blog today.

“Why are we born if we have to die”

This question is very difficult to answer.

I was born in Japan and asked this question

to a lot of people. But nobody answered it.

No philosophers have answered it.

But I met Sakyamuni Buddha’s teachings

and I clearly understood the reason why

we were born, why we live, why we have to

live.

My English is very poor, so I’m sorry I

can’t explain it to you.

So, please read this book.

“You were born for a reason”

written by Kentetsu Takamori.

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max t March 16, 2010 at 10:19 pm

There is nothing bad about death.The bigest question is why we are living ?I never asked myself when I’m gonna die or should i be afraid of death? Because life is too short to ask a similar questions. To know youself that’s why we’ve come to this world

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Josh March 5, 2010 at 9:27 pm

To live a life- a duration between birth and death that is full of struggles and competitions in which we have to prove our supremacy over others. Even when we know we’ll not have anything with us when we leave this world. We want to gain more and more name and fame but why and for whom?
When our beloved complete their journey called life we suffer from a grief, a feeling of loneliness rest of our life. We always swim between happiness and sadness in our life. Who cares about the sufferings of others? Every one is busy with every ones life.
Thank God! We are brave enough to live from our birth to our death.

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Rahul Nigam March 5, 2010 at 6:57 pm

Life is all about cherishing each and every moment every now and then and making those moments unforgettable.Its about gracing the lives of others who are around you…no matter they are good or bad.once we are born we get a life now its our job to convert that LIFE which we got as a gift into a lifetime full of evergreen and eternal moments.our job is to prevail love, peace and eternity as much as possible.I believe that if you grace someone’s life for a single second your life will obviously get embellished by some memorable moments…the moments which you can recall and feel incessant joy even if you are going through pain.
as far as death is concerned i am oblivious about such a word and if death is obvious then let it come…

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gopika March 5, 2010 at 1:31 pm

we take birth,i think,to experience life.life is not a journey from birth to death but instead an opportunity given by god to know various mysteries and riddles of the world.for an enlightened soul there is no death rather a change of body(like a change of dress) which to people like us appears as death.
when god gives us a chance we should make use of it to know ourselves and the world.ofcourse if we don’t feel curious enough we should not simply force ourselves to think of these things.it is only when god is fully convinced that we are not going to make use of this golden opportunity that he releases us,perhaps to tie to yet another body.

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georgica ivanova February 25, 2010 at 12:21 am

I think that our life is a part of something very big so big that we can not even imagine or realise. The point of life is beyond our minde and no matter how hard we try to understand the only thing we are going to understand is that it we are just incapable to do it.Every man has a mision to accomplish that will keep the planet spinig because every action leads to other and if just one thing is not on its place everything will ruine.I know that for sure but what would be the final product no one who is on the earth will never no

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Mo'taz Dowairi February 20, 2010 at 12:24 am

Mr. Paulo

Becaus of being a muslim, and i believe in islam, even if the picture is taken in a wrong angle, the holy quran inspires everyone read it, and you can understand that life before death is the farm of the life after death.

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Caroline de Lourdes February 19, 2010 at 11:53 pm

Who or what is God? If you put together all the energies that exist in the whole universe, which is a lot of energy, then you´ll get what we call “God”. No-one out there is going to approve of you or not. It´s YOU that, according to your incarnations will vibrate higher enough in order to fit in in the universal harmony. If your vibrations are high your soul will surely live, if the vibrations are too low you´ll vanish back into blank matter and exist no more. It matter not what you think, your opinions count for nothing. It matters how you live and if you evolve. The frequency of the air is rising (can be measured), the frequency of the Earth is rising. If you don´t rise with it you´ll be left behind evolution and no father or mother “god” will help. As I said, “God” is all the energies put together. Good souls survive, and survive in a quality way.

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Nidhin Raj March 2, 2010 at 5:37 am

Its nicely put….it must be energy transformations….one form to another..and then back again….life..death…reborn again…the whole “Samsara”…..come to think of it…its very true that none of it matters as long as we are in tandem with the universe…thats being happy in what ever and where ever u r…and life is not a school to learn but something to create…though our thoughts ….and experienced….

Beautiful …is it not ?…..the whole life thingy ?

zubair May 29, 2010 at 8:28 am

May peace be upon you….what u state is fine but needs a proof and a lpgical explanation.without that even a tom,dick,harry can say that Einestein was wrong.One logical thing that is instinct in every pure soul is highness and power of God.If for d sake of argument God has distributed himself among the creation then He is no more God n creator cannot become creation.all d systems working properly in universe prove the oneness of mighty God……For further discussion feel free to write

Mohammad February 19, 2010 at 9:40 pm

Hi,
I think we’ve born to live like a humane and our death prove it to us that we were successful or not. The way of life is visible, our aim is GOD. But what’s GOD expectations?

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Monica February 19, 2010 at 7:16 pm

We are born to learn to love one another and to give without expecting anything in return……

Love

Monica

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manuel rivero February 9, 2010 at 8:53 am

bueno, yo creo que nacemos para morir y renacer en la vida 1000 veces, es decir, en la vida siempre estamos naciendo, muriendo y renaciendo…pero como dicen por ahí, hay que disfrutar del camino…

quizás, la vida es para cuestionarse, y la muerte para saber las respuestas…

creo que un niño no es inocente, porque sí tienen sabiduría…porque también cometen locuras y hacen lo que nosotros no hacemos hoy siendo adultos, aún cuando como adultos sabemos y conocemos más…¿quizás porque no le temen al miedo?

Creo que le hubiera respondido al niño todo lo que pienso, sin censurar o pensar que no entiende…porque creo que de cierta manera sí lo hacen, y se acuerdan de aquellas cosas.

¿para qué vivir si vamos a morir?, ¿para qué morir si podemos vivir?

saludos nuevamente Sr Coelho

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demeter gia February 5, 2010 at 10:04 am

the purpose of life is different for everyone. i think there i not just one answer to that question, as it usually happens with the theoretical questions.
for me, i beleive that many questions have no answer.
the only thing we have to do is to live our life at the best way we know. if we do that, we will be so “busy” with being creative that no room for such questions could be found.
i dont know why we live, why we die but i know that i have one chance to live my life as more meaningful as i can. thats my only duty..
the more action i take the less room for theories i have,
kisses from greece

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nurdlight January 21, 2010 at 6:52 am

I have thought about this question often and finally decided to ask a teacher of mine. Her answer has helped me put my life into perspective. She said if we were not born and sent to this world we are living in now, we would have had to put up with the consequences of things we didn’t do, or things we wish we had the means to do.

We live so we wouldn’t have to complain ‘I didn’t have the chance to live and prove myself’ We were born to live, we live to die. Just because a teacher knows what the potential result is for her best students exam doesn’t mean she is not going to make her do it.

We sit our exams, we pass or fail. We live our life to prove to ourselves that we have past the test of life or failed the test of life. If we hadn’t been born we would never have known our potentials…

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Nazirul Alam January 24, 2010 at 4:27 pm

Very Well Said ! I have nothing to say after all I have read in your comments ! Carry on !!

Jessica January 20, 2010 at 10:09 am

what is the point of living if we do not die?
life would probably meaningless if we know that we have all of eternity to spare. when we know that we will eventually die, we try to make do with the time we have, and live our lives the way we want to.
death gives meaning to life.

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Nazirul Alam January 24, 2010 at 4:31 pm

“Death gives meaning to life” – that is the essence of the answer.

xtiana21 January 19, 2010 at 10:28 pm

Sagot po sa tanong mo ..

P1 – Bakit po nilalang ang tao kung mamamatay lang din..?

URL: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ErhxE6yZ8c

EMBED:

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Amy January 17, 2010 at 4:05 pm

Because Life is the most interesting, fun and rewarding way to get the place behind that door we use to call death.

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N Chandra Shekhar January 15, 2010 at 5:16 pm

Dear friends,
We are on this earth performing a transit halt. We are here from somewhere and go away from here after our role on this stage is completed. In Telugu, a South Indian language known as the Italian of the East, Death means ‘leaving after coming’.
With Love,
NCS

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sajeer January 5, 2010 at 6:36 pm

Hi paulo,

we travel through a road to reach a destination where we have some duty to be performed. once we finish that duty we return.

same way GOD sent us to earth through the road of life and we are here for some purpose, when we finish that purpose we are called back which is death.

:)

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Nand January 3, 2010 at 9:36 pm

The world as you have said in some of your books appears to a jigsaw puzzle. We are all the different pieces jumbled up and waiting to be placed at a particular place at a particular time. Thus each one of us has to play a role. This is why we are here….We have to play that role for which the world is waiting for us.

I would also like to give a reason which comes the sacred Geeta (the holy book of Hindus)

Its like each one of us should strive to attain the absolute truth…That is the essence of life and death..and those who achieve will be free from the circle of life and death…and will get nirvana…our soul will unite with the soul of the universe…the soulf of the God…Till we reach that state, the soul will keep on reincarnating….each time acquiring a new body and going through the whole process.

With Love
-Nand

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Sachin singh January 2, 2010 at 1:35 pm

From the day a child is born he learns everyday a new thing be it taking his first step in this beautiful world or going to the school and learing.Learing is the first priority for everyone. I fell that we are bron so that we can learn die or may be learn to be happy when we die.

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Caroline de Lourdes December 30, 2009 at 10:43 pm

Just because the vast majority of people are locked rigidly into the linear time concept and the absolute belief in death doesn´t mean that they are right. No more than people who believed the Earth to be flat were right. Age is not beautiful, it is a mockery of all that a person once was. It is a disease, the result of poisoning (study some quantum physics, it will help to understand, energies can be measured). People accept it and even write poems about it because they have no choice. I´m not dark at all, I hope that one day human beings will become evolved enough to understand that life is simply too exciting and too beautiful to be bothered with death! Life is supposed to be the eternal journey of discoveries (that´s what Jesus tried to tell us). Being a soul without a body cannot be so poetic as souls have no brains to think with. Things in the Universe communicate with feelings. It the soul is evolved it´ll understand the communication while resting, awaiting for a new incarnation. If the soul is not evolve it´s existence will just be a confusion, very much like someone senil. There isn´t much wisdom in death. Life is an emotive, pulsating, passionate exercise in immortality. It’s meaning lies in feelings and pleasures and joys moment to moment. It does not think ‘what a beautiful blue sky’, it jumps for joy with the pleasure of sharing the sky, (yes, I can be poetic too).

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Daniela December 30, 2009 at 4:43 pm

Querido Paulo,
Me gusta creer que nacimos para cumplir un proposito en el mundo. Cuando descubrimos cual es, se convierte en nuestro sueño, nuestra leyenda personal. Cumplirlo es una fuente de alegria, de buena energia, como tantas veces lo has escrito en tus libros. Y si una persona sigue su sueño, si es ma feliz, ayuda al alma del mundo, que se convierte en un lugar mejor. Creo que nacemos por eso, para cumplir un proposito, seguir nuestros sueños y mejorar el planeta. Cierta frase de Robert Louis Stevenson dice: “Todo corazon que late con fuerza y alegria, ha dejado tras de si un impulso de felicidad en el mundo y ha mejorado la tradicion de la humanidad”. Esta es mi teoria.

Un abrazo, Dani.

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Olta Ana December 30, 2009 at 4:14 pm

I don’t ask myself “Why am I borne if I am going to die?” but “Why do I exist ?”
I mean, what am I living for? Why God made me?
A few days ago I hurt somebody unwilling, and I felt terribly sorry for what I did. It was hurting at me much more than the one I hurt. I said to myself, why do I have to exist if I can cause damages ? It is so easy to destroy but not that easy to built. Why did you God create me? Why did you create us all? Is it worth the love we can give compared to the damages we cause to you and to each other ? I feel like I have no right to ask these questions and of course to have the answers. But I think that it is just Love’s nature to be acting that way, even though I can’t understand it that deeply. I just know what I know.

At the beginning we was born(created) only to live, we wasn’t supposed to die, but we die to live somewhere else. So I think the question is why was we created ? Why do we live ?

Love
Olta

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Barcelona_20_euros_en_un_café December 30, 2009 at 2:25 pm

To live

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Randeep December 30, 2009 at 1:14 pm

Hi paulo,

We are born as it is only a chance given to us to free our soul. We are born to sacrifice.

The death is the ultimate truth.

Based on our activities in our entire life we lived, the decision on our soul is taken. i.e whether it is to be set free at heaven or again enters cycles of life in any of its form.

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Den Rod December 30, 2009 at 2:03 am

The history of the universe so far as far as we know it began with the big bang, the biggest fireworks ever!
In order to our solar system develop its shape as it is now so that life was able to become what we are it went through total chaos for billions of years but it’s preety neat now!
Everything is on its way to reach balance, harmony, life, dreams and unity.
So are we.
And even though we ‘visit’ this planet for a glance of the ‘EYE OF THE BEHOLDER’ we are sacred to one another just like the various and numerous different characters we get to know when we are watching a good movie.
After we’re through with one movie we just make another one, in some other planet, and so on…

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Caroline de Lourdes December 29, 2009 at 9:27 pm

Death is not a natural part of life, in fact the Bible says that “man was created with eternity in his heart”. It´s not time that makes people old, it is the negative energy with which people pollute one another. The negative energy of hate, resentment, need, guilt and fear is like radiation. When you are faced with it, it enters your body and slows down the reproductive cycle of your cells. All cells reproduce themselves, but if the energy frequency is slowed down some cells lie dormant, they do not reproduce and then we have lines on our faces and failing organs, which we call “age”. Yes, we are killing one another, sad cases indeed.

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Daniel December 29, 2009 at 11:53 pm

Your mood seems dark Caroline. I disagree, birth and death are an inseparable part of life. Without death there would be no motivation to get up in the morning and live! I think the problem is that out of a fear of death people sometimes become morbid and forget to live. I do agree that negativity can cut short life, but it is not another’s negativity we need to be wary of, but our own.

Of course we have eternity in our heart, in our soul. But when we talk of life, we talk of bodies, and they are here for a short time.

With love, Daniel

v-gurl December 15, 2009 at 2:05 pm

why is a novel written if it has to end?each and every one of us is a novel//has a start a body an end.fresh to begin with..exciting ,full of lessons and exp in the middle.talking about the end(a conculusion)..just imagine how many stories are out there with diff purposes,,each one of us is born for a reason in the first place leaves a mark behind..and gets a conclusion in the end bringing all the lines in his life together ..

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Mala December 10, 2009 at 12:10 pm

Nothing in this world is immortal.
You are born and you have to be glad about it.
Do things which please you. Enjoy the world around. Be
happy.Make others happy.Love people.
Fear no death.
A news paper lasts just for a day. Yet so much of
effort is put composing it. Each day it comes to us so fresh and neat.

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Zainab December 5, 2009 at 4:46 pm

This world is a entrance to a door in which all our life we have go through series of tests, obstacles, fears, desires, dissappointment, love , illusions, despair…in search of a key…a key to that door…some of us find the key n die to find a better world through the door…while others die again to find themselves in this world till they truly find the key…n the key is basically the real you inside…n purpose of “you” in this world…Y R we here??
Zainab

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Catherine E.A. December 4, 2009 at 12:58 am

This question has been preying on my mind ever since i read a book by a lady who had had a near-death experience. She recalls her experience of this tunnel experience, meeting God, seeing ‘life’ in creation and the making, the spirits angels and archangels… all before returning to her life on Earth.
The story moved me greatly…
for many reasons..

but one thing i was left wondering is the consequences of this life and its potential, by understanding AND knowing that we come into this life to serve and fulfill a purpose.

In the book, it is interesting because she explains a memory during the near death experience, where she understands and is shown Adam/Eve in the Garden of Eden. The writer says that the event needed to happen… humanity had to become immortal… and that there was a divine purpose for this…
of course, when the lady reawoke, this reason had been with-held from her … in this life anyway ;o)

I, myself, must reflect on the words of Gibran.. about knowing joy through experience of pain.

Or, as your facebook quote said today Paulo..
that with deep doubts there comes deep wisdom..
and, with small doubts there is .. little wisdom.

Finally, I should like to say this in retrospect of these apparent ‘polar opposites’. For once i had a boyfriend… a complete opposite of me… and i discovered this.. but only after i had lost all that defined myself. It took some years to bring my true self back… but in the process, i came to love more deeply the human i was… and now my future looks brighter than ever…
but strange… that such greatness flowed from great misery…

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Alex May 4, 2010 at 4:59 pm

Hi Catherine, I can relate to your story of your relationship, I think sometimes you meet people who rip you to pieces (or your perceived self anyway) so that you can emerge stronger on the other side. Difficult relatioships give us the opportunity for the most dramatic growth! As in nature these cycles of destruction and creation enable us to evolve. Alex

Atra December 4, 2009 at 12:17 am

I think we are here on earth to live that experience of knowing our selves with all its goods and bads and becoming more fulfilled and complete , so i guess its up to us to actually get there and know our selves and grow our souls

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rasha ahmadieh December 1, 2009 at 9:27 pm

Ibelieve that our souls had already exist and will always exist in this universe , but, from time to time the soul needs a place to live which is our body , then when we die , it is just because our soul needs to be free again ..so death is just liberation of the soul , so we live to give our soul a home and we die to liberate it …!

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