When you achieve the end of your spiritual journey, and you don't need to be reincarnated anymore. What happens after? Do you stop existing and disappear?

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This is an interesting question to speculate on.

Speculation it remains, however, because human brains simply aren’t equipped to handle the idea of non-physical existence. I can contemplate stripping existence into component parts. Our bodies, minds, consciousnesses all have their own rules that they operate by.

I can dive into trance and explore the prospect of existing without a body. You know the first thing I do? Explore the ‘physics’ of the new world. They’re called “formless realms” in Buddhism for a reason.

Pretty much everything that involves existence as a individuated ‘being’ involves wanting things. Wanting things makes you want to change and grow. Changing and growing is how you stop from sinking into stasis.

Once conceptualization of “enlightenment” involves the prospect of ‘not wanting anything’. This gets distinguished from pure stasis ‘somehow’. But it’s fairly clear that across traditions, spiritual ‘advancement’ usually entails wanting fewer things.

The framing of enlightenment as nonduality eliminates the split between self and the rest of existence. The ego, the thing that wants, evaporates. After extensive experimentation and inquiry, I’ve determined that in no case does self actually disappear, no matter how far you go with spiritual ‘advancement’. It lessens, it loses priority, it can actually disappear in your own perception. But it never actually completely goes away. Some version, some vestige remains.

Instead it’s the split that goes away. The being no longer perceives a difference between the stuff that he is and the stuff that he is not. Other people may perceive a split, but the being itself does not.

While this does appear to people who do not experience it as an end, it is in fact just another beginning. The lessons you learn are different, the goals you chase are subtler.

I personally cannot perceive an end to existence. I think people move into an “afterlife” phase where their reality is orchestrated not by the rules of physical existence, but rather based purely on the being’s mind. They’ll exist in that afterlife for as long as they care to, then they’ll “fall apart,” reducing down to an essence that we call the ‘soul’. The soul then plants itself in a new body.

We call this reincarnation. One could avoid it simply by wanting to continue existence in the formless realm. One could also avoid it by “joining God.” To make sense of this consider joining a company. There’s a reason Christians call it the kingdom of Heaven, with Jesus as its king. You enter into the realm and find a different set of rules than the physical ones you’re used to.

I believe that even people who go to Heaven will eventually lose the will to persist there. What happens then? They lose even more individuality. Maybe you get a little closer to God and wake up and you’re like, well, this isn’t all that bad after all! I’ll do this for awhile.

The cycle continues until you either want a totally new adventure, in which case you’ll reincarnate, or you’ll disintegrate completely because you’re done.

God picks up the pieces of your disintegrated essence, and does what exactly with them? There’s no agency left, it’s like your body after you’ve died. You don’t care what happens to it!

There’s only one thing to do with it. God will look at it, say, “this soul isn’t done yet,” and dream up a new existence for you where you won’t be bored. In other words, you’ll reincarnate.

In order for existence to get truly boring, there has to be literally no novelty left to be had. I don’t think this is mathematically possible.