The meaning of life and the liberation of the conscious Ego

The existence under the dominion of the psyche

In the same way that organic life originated and evolved on our planet, the psyche too has developed progressively, until it has reached its present complexity. The manifestations and behaviors found in the animal world are determined by the natural (or animal) psyche. Such behaviors are repetitive, more or less identical to themselves, while adapting to the variation of environmental conditions: the psychophysical features of each animal organism, interacting with the environment (which also includes other animal species and other individuals of the same species) determine the behavior and destiny of that organism. Since we humans also have an organism like animals, the natural psyche manifests itself in us with its more or less instinctual commands relating to the survival and well-being of the body, the sexuality and reproduction, the competition for a dominant position within the group, and so on.

However for the functioning of humans, considered as members of complex societies, programs and commands derived from the human psyche have become predominant. Most of these programs are acquired through the interaction with other members of the society that a person is member of and the socio-cultural conditioning that they received and constantly receive. Other commands, on the other hand, are directly elaborated by the psyche, both by its instinctive drives of animal origin and by those peculiar tunings of the human psyche that characterize and determine a person's orientation and behavior. It may happen that particular tunings of the psyche determined by our mental activity (which the conscious Ego experiences as thoughts, feelings and emotions) conflict with some socio-cultural constraints received from the outside, but while we are aware of the forms of compelling command on our behavior represented by the latter, often our conscious Ego is helpless in front of the power exercised by some cores of the psyche, with which it fully identifies. And, ultimately, the same socio-cultural conditioning is determined by attunements that exercise their power and command over many humans.

The orientation of the psyche of humans

The way humans deal with life's difficulties, and seek answers to the various conflicts of the psyche in which they are involved, is mainly oriented towards the outside: the majority of individuals need to receive from the socio-cultural environment a series of programs that teach them how to behave, how to interact and how to interpret this life and the complexity of the experiences determined by the psyche. This is the reason why religious organizations can count on multitudes of believers, or some charismatic leaders find a great number of followers. On the other hand, only a minority rely on their own autonomous mental activity, in a quest to find and evaluate, through intelligence, more advanced and more satisfying tunings of the psyche than those already available. In this case, the conscious Ego relies on a creative function that involves the same psyche, bringing to light new cores that sometimes, starting from an individual or a small group, then spread into a wider community. In any case, human life can be considered as the conflictual, creative and evolutionary dynamic of experiences determined by the psyche in which the conscious Ego of every human being is involved and entrapped, without having the power and the means to resolve the conflicts deriving from it to their advantage, as we have seen in the page dedicated to psyche, reality and will.

Life is therefore a succession of external and internal events that determine the functioning, from birth to death, of each person – considered as members of the social system of which they are a part – and a source of experience determined by the psyche from the point of view of his conscious Ego. The exhaustion of these functions determines what is considered – in the social and cultural sphere, and with the support of a great part of the scientific culture – as a throwaway condition of human material. This condition, in its most favorable aspect for the conscious Ego, implies that life is at the service of a project for the collective social progress (at least that is what we hope), the true purposes of which, however, remain unknown, as history demonstrates how the life of many human beings has been and still is marked by all kinds of misfortunes and sufferings. By carrying out this function – as creatures designed and created for this purpose – our conscious Ego should obtain a balance of sufficient satisfaction, if not of happiness, that allows us to feel at ease with ourselves and make us not ask too many questions about the meaning of the whole affair.

As for the destiny of our conscious Ego after death, many present-day supporters of the most accredited (and most spread) attunements of the psyche of our culture are willing to accept as inevitable the fact that our consciousness can be wholly extinguished, thus demonstrating that they effectively play their role as human automatons. More humanly dignified is the hope of those who regard human life as a challenging test to be overcome with dedication, humility, and even spirit of sacrifice, in order to be rewarded, after our death, with the access to a dimension and a dwelling more suitable to the needs of our conscious Ego. All in all, however, some questions remain for which no answer can be found: the reason for the existence of the conscious Ego in this world and the meaning of our personal destiny escapes us. In addition, our human vision is too limited, as we are bound for a relatively short time to a historical era and to some places on a planet which is but one of the billions of worlds present in a boundless universe. And this universe could be but one of many existing parallel universes.

Beyond the human condition

In this light, also the human psyche, with all its complexity and conflicts, in the end has a very relative impact: things that seem to us to be important, the great achievements and even the great tragedies of humankind, fade away in the silence of sidereal spaces. In the pages of this site, the word God has almost never been used, knowing that all the psyche's tunings that imply the use of that term are used to label jars whose contents are anthropomorphic reflections of our limits and our ignorance: an unbridgeable abyss, in space and time, separates us human beings from the possibility of conceiving an approximate, albeit vague, idea of what the universe is. However, in recognizing the possibility that our conscious Ego continues to exist after death, our personal human adventure can be included into a much wider experience cycle than the psyche's tunings that involve us in this life. So we can imagine – at least in terms of hope and desire – a variety of post-human mental experiences, such as those reported by many NDErs and the mediumistic communications of various entities.

We can therefore desire or believe that our conscious Ego may continue to make experiences of a mental nature – such as emotions, feelings, affections, thoughts, memories, and so on – with the continuity and memory of our individual identity. As we have seen, in some cases the communicating entities have provided precise references to their human existence: their affections and feelings still seem to have links with the persons (relatives, friends) known in their human life, and their existence in another dimension appears in many respects to have a nature not so different from the human one. However, other evidence suggests that the mental tunings that we might eventually experience in an otherworldly dimension are substantially different from those we have become accustomed to in this life. It seems that in the afterlife the experiences are far less conflictual and contradictory compared to what happens in this dimension: suffering should be absent or in any case softened, limited to some forms of remorse for what has been done in this life or could have been done and was not. It is, however, a remorse that remains free from those forms of pain, distress or torment not rarely experienced in this human existence, a remorse that would manifest itself primarily by the desire to do something worthwhile and useful to others, that is, to relieve sufferings and to make people happier. Overall, the impression is that the Ego's existence in the afterlife should be far more harmonious and happier than the earthly one: the spiritual entities cooperate and live in harmony, and it seems that those forms of conflict, competition and misunderstanding that characterize the life in our world are completely absent. Entities show love, or positive feelings, to their loved ones or other people known in this dimension. A term often used to express their mutual relationship is sympathy: in many cases the spiritual entities have shown to appreciate that we look at them with sympathy, and it seems that such sympathy activates in them the desire and the opportunity to kindly intervene to our help.

How could the experience of the afterlife be, according to some communicating entities

In examining mediumistic phenomena, we have found that in some cases the memory of events and relationships of this world is still alive in the communicating spirits, so that we can presume a continuity of conscious experience from this dimension to that of the otherworld: sometimes the spirits do not even seem to realize that they have died. It can therefore be assumed that the sense of individual identity of the conscious Ego remains intact, even though the new mental experiences are of a different nature. In a nutshell, it seems that the conscious Ego, free from the human body, continues to exist through an energetic instrument, keeping the memory of its human personality, towards which it gradually becomes detached, due to the diversity of the experiences. It doesn't seem that time in the afterlife is the same as the time we experience in the human dimension., and there may be evolutionary paths through which the spirit should overcome the constraints of individual identity (or rather: it would feel progressively free from such constraints), to follow an iter that would lead it to perceive what we could define the meaning, value, and glory of creation. Where the human psyche fills us with questions that can not be answered, the harmony of the afterlife could offer an immediate, complete and fulfilling understanding of the meaning of everything.

The creative activity in the spirit dimension

It also seems that another aspect of the spiritual dimension is activity. This form of activity is certainly different from that with which – by controlling our body – we operate in this world, but even so it will manifest itself in a purposeful and intelligent way, taking advantage from learning, dedication, and knowledge. The presence of activity also implies the concrete possibility of shaping and transforming the environment in which the spirits live, as we do in our dimension, but through the direct and voluntary control of the creative faculties of mental origin. When a spirit says to practice in arts, it means that it tries to concretely create something by transforming with its intent the mental reality which surronds it. When another spirit claims to set up the environment so that a mediumistic sitting may succeed, it seems to behave like a technician working to tune in the best way the equipment needed to produce certain effects. All this would involve the presence of an intelligent being, able to interact with an environment that shows its reality, partly subjective but also partly objective.

The limits of bodily life

Human life involves an interaction with the world and with other human beings that takes place through the body-mind instrument: an instrument that is admirable for its complexity and its performances, but subject to all the limits, the imperfections and the mistakes that characterize the animal life on this planet. For this reason, much of human activity focuses on the living body, on its defense against all that threatens its integrity and good functioning (illnesses, enemies, traumas, etc.), including the natural deterioration due to time passing, inevitably followed by death. For the same reasons, the experiences of the psyche can also undergo deterioration, a kind of degradation that seems almost inevitable over the years. We are also inclined to wonder about the reason of evil, conflict, suffering, although we know that these are aspects of the human psyche associated with the functioning of our body and our mind, aspects that may be completely absent in a person, but present in another. So a person can be intrinsically evil, and another an example of philanthropy, just as a body can have a congenital malfunction or a painful illness, while another enjoys a very good health. There is no doubt that since wicked people may harm other people, while philanthropists are usually benefactors, we cannot remain socially and humanly indifferent to the consequences of the two cases, but although this is a necessity dictated by the demands of social justice and personal protection, from the point of view of knowledge nothing is revealed about the mental and organic causes that make a person inclined to goodness or evil.  

The liberation of conscious Ego

As we have seen in the page devoted to this topic, once released from the attraction that links it to the body-mind instrument and the human psyche, our conscious Ego could experience different mental tunings in another dimension, in a much more harmonious way and probably with a wider and richer range of expressions. The instrument through which such spiritual tunings could be experienced does not seem subject to the limitations and distortions of the body and the brain: the energy used by the Ego seems available without limit or effort, and there are not sufferings caused by malformations or malfunctions, nor vulnerability to offenses coming from other spirits. All of this removes the primary conditions for the psychically determined degradation to which we are subject in our human life. For all these reasons, the perception of the spiritual dimension from the point of view of our human condition can be fascinating and liberating: through the gate of death our conscious Ego is freed and cleansed of all the trash determined by being imprisoned inside the human body, through which it has breathed not only the balms but also the poisons produced every day by the human psyche, and can take part in an evolving phenomenon, much more in harmony with its essence. This, at least, is the hope of the conscious Ego, according to its true nature, and this is the impression we get from some experiences that seem to come from an otherworldly dimension.

Theories about the meaning of human life: reincarnation

As to the meaning of human life and the importance of our behavior in this world (with reference to what will happen to us later), the most varied and weird theories have been advanced, especially in the religious sphere. We can take as an example the one about reincarnation: in many cases the communicating entities do not hint at it, and sometimes explicitly deny it, while providing precise references to their human existence considered as unique. Usually our memory does not give us any reliable clue about a life prior to the present one, neither in this nor in other dimensions. Of course there may be some fantasies about it, by elaborating our feelings and forms of theoretical reasoning that take into account this possibility. However, these fantasies normally lack the depth of the experiences we actually lived, although we should not forget the important and well-documented research on reincarnation carried out by a serious and capable scholar like Ian Stevenson (1918-2007). Anyway, while it is possible to understand the transition from our current human dimension to a more harmonious and appropriate one, suitable to the needs of our Ego, it is difficult to understand why a conscious spirit should want to return to this world, even for a short time, unless it is forced to. As a provocation, I would like to ask how would you like to be transferred, even temporarily, to a more conflictual, more tormented, more violent, and more incomprehensible dimension than the one you live in: something, in short, very similar to a prison. I do not think you would be enthusiast! 

Some people claim that the meaning of the incarnation in this life by a spirit that has already experienced a more advanced mental dimension would consist in making new experiences or in helping and comforting other human beings: in short, to contribute to the evolution of the human psyche. The limit of this hypothesis is that it seems to imply a form of humanitarian help in this world by a kind of superior civilization, without taking into account the reasons why good and evil should coexist, confront and fight in a so conflictual way on the Earth. According to this vision, our planet seems to be a border area, a kind of battlefield, a chessboard on which positive and negative forces are facing each other, with humans in the role of pawns, be they white or black. In other words, if the transfer of the conscious Ego to the spirit dimension can only take place following a human experience (where the Ego is formed and grows), then by necessity it is indispensable for each of us to live our destiny first in this experience, characterized – as we have seen – by contradictory and conflictual dynamics of the psyche, which are intended to remain so (at least for a very long time) due to the laws that rule this dimension. If, instead, the hardness of human experience could be mitigated and comforted by the intervention of evolved spirits, a real help by them would be to make the human psyche much less conflictual once and for all.

Besides, the hypothesis of a cycle of incarnations as a system for purifying the spirit and making it more evolved does not seem convincing, at least in relation to the difficulty of understanding how the psychophysical nature of human experience can determine the spirit evolution and by what means the latter could be able to control the tunings of the human psyche. As has already been observed in the page on the alien spirit, this would create an almost unbridgeable dualism between the spirit and the conscious Ego of a human being, dualism which, however, cannot be found in the communications by those spirits that continue to keep their identity in a mental system of a more advanced quality. Ultimately – though without ruling out completely the possibility of reincarnation – it seems more reasonable to see the transition from the human dimension to the spiritual one as a step of an evolutionary path that proceeds in a positive direction: even those that in this world are destined to embody an evil, violent and irresponsible part of the human psyche, once freed from the constraints through which their Ego, after having formed, remained trapped within their psychophysical system, could experience a completely different vision of the existence, a vision within which freedom should coexist with the impossibility of either harming other spirits or being harmed by them. Before being able to attribute this or that aspect of the character or of the tunings of the human psyche to an influence by the spirit (to which a greater or lesser level of evolution before the incarnation should be recognized), it would be necessary to have a better and more reliable knowledge about the nature of the human psyche, and the functioning of the instruments through which it is manifested and transmitted.

Enigmas that go beyond the human psyche

As we have already seen, especially with regard to investigations on paranormal phenomena and the hypotheses advanced to explain them, the research activity is often aimed at revealing the enigma they represent, on the basis of the various interpretations originating from the psyche and the ability to evaluate them through our human intelligence. However, we are not sure that such interpretations may cover the whole spectrum of phenomena that may occur in this world. In fact, these faculties are determined by the human psyche, though considered in its most advanced aspects: but in some NDEs as well as in important mediumistic phenomena, we feel the presence of something that seems to go beyond the human psyche. If we consider the existence of another range of tunings than those of the human psyche (to which we have become accustomed and adapted), we are faced with an enigma that, surprisingly, is by no means more complex or stranger than the various problems with which astrophysics are confronted in our day, and which led to the hypotheses of the presence of other universes besides ours, the dark matter and energy, the variable chronological time, and so on. In these cases too, we have the feeling that the intuitive and interpretive faculties of our psyche, at the highest levels of intelligence, reach boundaries beyond which we are not able to go, precisely because of the limits imposed by the psychophysical instrument with which we live.

Last but not least, all that has been written on the pages of this site can be considered as the manifestation of a particular tuning of the human psyche (except for the reports of mediumistic phenomena and NDEs), nor could it be otherwise. In discussing the various topics, I can maintain the coherence of my research, the honesty of the exposition, the logic of my reasoning, but this can also be included within the context of the tunings of my own mind and of my personal experience of life, and I fully understand the fact that other people could see the same things from a different point of view. The only elements I consider objectively important are: the interpretation of the human psyche as an autonomous phenomenon in which we are fully involved (and used) throughout our lives, and the path of liberation that can be followed by the conscious Ego in recognizing its true essence and defending the rights that result from it, once it has managed to set free from its identification with the psyche. It seems to me, therefore, that the best way to live is to go through this experience in the way that seems more congenial to us, never harming other people and possibly without breaking human laws, so as not to add further chaos to a world already in itself rather chaotic: a chaotic state determined not only by the natural laws according to which life evolved, but also by the conflicts determined by the human psyche, which can cause more damage and destruction than nature. Any other possible explanation and understanding of the meaning of life is postponed until our conscious Ego, freed from the constraints that bind it to this world and the human psyche, will eventually be able to move to another dimension.

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