Still very much reading the Ascension Guide (by Master Tony) ; it has many answers (and many open questions) and in parallel I'm reading Rudolf Steiner's books or lecture.
2012 is a Year for questioning, a Year to open the mind.
What are we doing on Earth ?
What is the meaning of Life ?
Where are we going after Life on Earth ?
That's the kind of questions we joke about - to pretend we're deep and philosophical but this guide above gives answer to that and more.
As for Rudolf Steiner his approach is more subtle, more scientific in some ways.
What everybody would agree on is as follow :
As human we are born, we grow and then we die
Now being Human isn't just incarnating a Physical body, there's an Etheric body, and an Astral body.
On top of that we have the Ego - without the Ego we wouldn't have memories.
That is Rudolf Steiner theory.
The Astral Body can detach the physical body and travel through dreams ; the Etheric body is the one that gives life to the Physical matter (carbon).
Earth is like a school, a sandbox, what happen for human is a series of labors, a journey that basically allow us to learn - we are co-creator of our Life, if we are pro-active that is.
It's easy for us to get lost during this time and to put too much importance on materialistic stuffs and therefor lower our frequencies and get really separated from the whole. If we think of life as a way to get as much stuffs as possible, then we develop greed, and we become prisoner of our cravings for more. We enslave ourselves and materialistic things start owning ourselves.
The teaching of Buddha is to free the self from sufferings by freeing the soul from the illusion of materialism.