The meaning of life

I see your point but the people such as hitler did not achieve enlightenment. however
the lives of such people should act as a lesson to us all.

Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.....

Life should be simple we just make it complicated..

Why are there some things (us) not enlightened and this adventure consisting in those things having to try to become enlightened ?

We have to go from A (not enlightened) to B (enlightened). But why is this story even exist?

Why isn't everything already enlightened?

Everything is. We just don't know about it while we follow our desires. As you don't know about reality while you're dreaming, so you have to wake up from the attitude of desires to experience what you really are: enlightened. Thus said the Buddha.

Why is there this possibility that we can be unaware that we are, in fact, already enlightened?

Why isn't everything perfect wihtout any possibility to be unaware of it?

Because this leads to the same (A) => (B) story: we are not aware that we are enlightened and we have to discover it. Why is there such a story, such a game?

I know what you're getting at and it's something I've considered as well.
My take on it is we're actually more in control of our lives than we think.
What if we actually chose to be here?
Think about it, did we only begin to exist when we were born or did we exist before this?
We all assume that this is our first existence because we have no recollection of anything before, but that doesn't necessarily make it so.
Many of us believe in the concept of life after death but we don't much consider the possibility of life before birth.
I believe we have all chosen to be who we are and where we are from before we were born.
We knew what we were getting into and probably made the decision for the purpose of further developing our existentialism.
John 1:1-5 refers to pre-existence with regard to Jesus and there are other references in the bible that suggest similar.
In this case we're all going to look a bit silly when we come to the end of our days and try to blame God for our shitty lives.
Perfect!

> We knew what we were getting into and probably made the decision for the purpose of further developing our existentialism.

You are just changing the question, not answering it: why would we have to develop anything? Why would we have to go on earth to learn something? Why don't we know everything from the start?

Why this story of a thing not knowing everything that has to go to some places to learn things?

Why isn't everything created perfect from the start?

Is it a game?

I have heard that we choose our lives and that yes we are all perfect beings to start
with we just get conditioned to think a certain way by our family friends authority and the media. We sometimes have clouded judgement due to the opinions that others have already given us although we do not realise that they are the opinions of others.
Underneath all of this i believe is a perfect being which is in all of us i believe it
is up to us to find it inside and clear the cloud of conditioning that we have
personaly been given throughout our lives. If we can achieve this and not be
judgemental and accept everyone and everything for the perfect beings and things that
they are we have achieved enlightenment.
However i can believe that we come from an enlightened place and choose our lives
so we can experience certain new things that we have not experienced before.
I could also believe that we have been incarnated before and when we achieve
enlightenment here we go to the enlightened place.
It could be a game! we just keep playing and playing.

Don't look at it as a game. Look at it as "just is". I explain.
There is the energy, the basic principle of the universe. Imagine that life and consciousness, as we know them, is a fake, but life and consciousness exist as attributes of this energy. Even more, energy can behave as consciousness.
Imagine that the experience of matter is just an illusion, only your mind makes you think that there is matter, but what you actually experience is energy. You can't form or name energy, so your mind has to translate it into something, and this something is what we call matter.
This is like when you run a computer program then what you're actually doing on the software level is that you push and pull 0-s and 1-s around and place them from one place to another, but what you perceive is that there are colorful things you're dealing with, and words and numbers. Yet, they're just 0-s and 1-s. And even on the hardware level, there happens something totally different when you work with a program. As well as the programs, in which the user's programs were written, translate the binary code to visual objects, so does the mind translate the world to matter.
Now, we like to think that we have free will. I like to think that we have free will. But I know that there is nothing in the mechanism of thinking what we can possibly call freedom. Or will. It's just that this mechanism is so complex that we don't recognize the parameters which the mind is using to deal with when it's facing a dilemma. But we know that our mood, our past thoughts, our current circumstances, our body's chemical state, and the informations we are actually receiving, these are all parameters of the "script" which will generate the outcome of our dilemma. Now, what actually happens is not that we DECIDE. We don't decide anything at all. We process the parameters and give a result. One single result. We can never give another result than the one particluar result we gave. I don't say that this result can be seen before it is given, but for sure we are UNABLE to make another choice in any situation, we can only decide one way. This is no free will, this is a mechanism, and the fact that it's working is proven by marketing: they can make you think whatever they want.
Like a computer program. It generates an outcome, even if you use fuzzy sets and logic; as soon as you change the fuzzy variables to constants, it will generate the same result all the time. We like to think that artificial intelligence applications are creative. But they're not creative, we just can't grasp the mechanism of it. But it's still just a mechanism.
Now, back to the quesion: why do we have to develop?
I like to think that free will DOES exist, just not in a way we think of it. The main thing is to reveal free will, which can be done with keeping the mind quiet. See, the consciousness is the energy, but your thoughts are made of this energy too. But your thoughts, when you think, they form and change, and create shallow images and sounds inside your head. This is like waves on the surface of water. As long as these waves exist, the bottom of the water is unseen. As soon as the wind stops, the water becomes flat, and the bottom will reveal. So does your mind. As soon as you stop thinking, your mind becomes still, and the consciousness, which is the bottom of all, reveals.
And then raises free will. But this is not your will, or mine. This is more according to the christian prayer, "thy will be done". Basically, there is no individual free will, just universal. Because the consciousness, which is will itself, is the energy which builds all that exists. So, basically, life is nothing but a possibility, and the so-called self-consciousness is good for nothing else but to realize what reality is, and give a chance to set ourselves free.

You say this is a game, and why do we have to develop. Well, you don't have to. But the meaning of existence is surely not computers or space-ships. And if you dig deep enough then you'll find this. Develop to set yourself free. You'll possibly lose your egoism, yes, and you'll see everything different than the others. But it's not really your decision. You'll do whatever you'll decide according to that mechanism. The more you think of this, the more you'll decide this instead of something else.
But make no mistakes, that free will doesn't exist, doesn't mean that crime may not be punished. Indeed it may, and it has to be. It's just that we can't really blame anyone for being who he/she is. Neither the criminal, nor the judge.

We can say that we chose this life before our birth, and so this has to be this way. But I don't think there was any kind of choice ever made. Existence has no reason and no purpose; not even a beginning or an end. There is nothing to reach, and there is noone to reach anything. There is just one.

Everything is perfect as is.

So what if it is a game - do you have an issue with that?
Do you resent the possibility that you might be a nothing more than a lab mouse that's been placed in a maze by some galactic scientist called God?
Come down off your pedestal Smallbang - you know how big this universe is both in time and distance, not to mention possibilities.
You and I both are far far less than a couple of grains of sand amongst all the grains of sand on the planet by comparison - and you have a problem that we might be in some kind of celestial game?
Wake up and smell the coffee - it's a game ok, so what - enjoy it!

You're all over the place Pathy!

Well, if this would be a game then at least you should figure out the rules and the goal of it. And this is what we are trying to do here :)

Well yes, but conditioning is only a part of it.
External influences do affect us, but even more influential is what's inside of us.
That what we get from the genes of our parents and their parents before them and so on.
This is what influences the way we think, the way we behave the most.
And yet within all these influences, we each still get free will, the ability to either embrace God or to reject God.
I wouldn't want to be reincarnated - I'd want to get it right this time.
I want to pass 'Go' and collect $200.

Fair enough :)

Anyway - define 'perfect' without making it sound boring.

Why do you say I would have a problem with this game? In fact, I think it's rather funny if this is indeed the meaning of life!

Well you could look at it as funny I guess.
I tend to look at from the position of a participant.
What does the game offer - what opportunities does it create for me.
Acquiring lots and lots of money or achieving a superiority over others doesn't do it for me I'm afraid.
Especially when you end up dying.
When I found out that this life offers the answer to the meaning of life for me, which is to to discover a way to eternal life, that's when I got interested in the game.
It's pretty damn fascinating.

We are not talking about the same "game".

In the game I'm talking about, "you" don't really exist. You are just god hiding himself from himself to play, to have fun. The game is to forget he is god, so he can live a lot of fun adventures!

When "you" will discover that in fact you are just god playing hide and seek with himself, you will evaporate since you are not real. You'll just become part of the self-aware god again. There is no eternal life for you, but only eternal life for god!

Then again, this is just a theory. But I find it pretty funny!

Oh you mean that game - yes, that was pretty funny, but I don't play that game anymore.
I played it to death already :)

A theory, a game, a race, a test, a state of being, NO ONE IS GOING TO FIND THE ANSWER, AND THERE IS EITHER MANY, ONE OR NONE ANSWERS.
Yeesh. I use this cite to help in my search. not get bullshit answers that waste space.
Why don't you go ahead and try to prove that we really do exist and arent a dream within a dream like Edgar Allen Poe said?
Kids are enlightened to innocence, adults to experience.
Perfection? Where something has no flaws. Nothing's wrong with it, at all, not even fake complaints.
Perfection is NONEXISTENT in what we know as nature. Why? because nature makes it imperfect. This whole concept of "Utopia" and "perfection" is from my 8th grade class. I'm in 10th now, but this is what caused me to really, truly believe that there is no God.
A test. Who's the examiner?
A race. Who are we competing against? Who's watching the race?
A game. Who plays? Watches? Coaches? Keeps score? When LIFE is a game.
A theory. What if it is proven? Proven false? Applied? Accepted?
A state of being. What are the rest? What's reality? Is there no overall reality?

You see, every single question regarding life's purpose leads to interpretation, misinterpretation, ideas, arguments, refutes, speculation, and, most of all, more questions. So we never get the answer.

Here's a thought: scientists are trying to create a formula to explain EVERY SINGLE PHENOMENON. Just one formula. One equation, for hurricanes, nuclear explosions, bugs walking around, star supernovas, ocean waves, the Big Bang, atomic reactions, human emotion, wind, the damn world economy, politics, religion.
What is this formula the scientists are trying to make, or find?
The Theory of Everything.
Science, suffice to say, has never looked more foolish.
How do you know that indeed EVERYTHING is in your formula? what if our everything is only a fraction of a true everything? How could bugs relate to the Big Bang in mathematical terms.

Here's the best theory of everything: I think, therefore I am, I am, therefore I do.
First part is obviously not me, it's Descartes. Second part is me though.

So, think, think again, question forever, and think some more.