One cannot live a fulfilled life, until one knows, and acts upon, one’s Life Purpose. The Life Purpose is the sole True criterion by which we can judge our acts, thoughts, beliefs, and emotions. What is true to Life Purpose for one may be completely off track for another. Recognition of one’s own individual Life Purpose is essential to progress on the Path of Spiritual Evolution.
What is a Life Purpose then? Very simply, the Life Purpose is the Plan that our individual souls preprogrammed for each given lifetime. This Plan is constructed by the Soul prior to an entity’s return to incarnation on the Earth Plane.
Life Purposes are divergent for different individual entities. Probably there are as many Life Purposes as there are individuals. For any given entity, Life Purpose will almost necessarily differ from one lifetime (or incarnation on the Earth Plane), to the next.
The Life Purpose in a given lifetime may often build on the foundation of prior lifetimes. That, which has already been learned earlier, can now serve as the foundation and springboard to greater growth. Just as a student who learns basic arithmetic properly can continue on to advanced math without needing to relearn the basic structure, so too can an entity who has accomplished fully certain Life Lessons can proceed to a new level without needing to practice or to relearn the prior Lessons.
What can a Life Purpose consist of? At its simplest, the Life Purpose for a given individual entity is whatever its Soul has chosen prior to incarnation (or birth). A young soul may need to learn control of its environment, displaying skills at controlling the physical levels of reality. At some point as the Soul develops through various lifetimes, this same entity may need to learn Life Lessons concerned with compassion, love, maturity of spirit, attention to the needs of others. Eventually the maturing Soul will find Spiritual Evolution and Service to humanity and all of the Universe to be of primary consideration, and in these stages the challenges will take the form of Life Lessons on drawing in the Light, achieving Serenity and Balance, fulfilling the Life Purpose, service, and so on. (An excellent reference for understanding the Progress of the Soul through the Outward Path/Balance Point of Integration/Inward Path is Robin Norwood’s book, Why Me, Why This, Why Now, pp. 184-185.)
Part II
Once an entity acknowledges the existence and need of a Life Purpose, then the question remains: What is my Life Purpose for this particular lifetime, and how may I discover it?
To discover one’s Life Purpose, one must necessarily contact one’s Soul, or one’s Higher Self, which holds the Plan and the knowledge of the Plan. How does one contact one’s Soul or Higher Self? Very simply: every Spiritual Path with which I am at all familiar, emphasizes above all the inner stillness in which is heard **the still small Voice.** Whether it is called the Intuition; the Still, Small Voice; the Soul; the Higher Self; or the Source Self; the knowledge is heard and accessed only in the stillness, when the Mind’s darting thoughts are silenced, when the external noises are ignored, and the quiet whispers of the Truth can come through to our consciousness. It is then that the Life Purpose is revealed to us; or if it has already been revealed, it is then that it is confirmed. Indeed, it may be revealed in terms of what we love to do: whether it is teaching, writing, service to others perhaps expressed as volunteer work, public speaking, or many other activities which hold the highest place in our hearts. When we already have work or other activity that we love (and this is not necessarily confined to employment undertaken to provide basic security; instead this refers to activity that we engage in simply because we love to do it, and achieve joy from its pursuit) we can look at this activity as the first and perhaps strongest clue, pointing us in the direction of our Life Purpose. At that point a quiet time of meditation within the Inner Stillness will reveal confirmation from the Intuition as to the True Nature of the Life Purpose.
Life Purpose may also include such additional Life Lessons designed to mature the Personality and speed the Progress of the Soul, such as learning compassion, Universal (that is, Unconditional) Love, service, empathy, and so forth.
Part III
Once we have discovered our Life Purpose, it and it alone becomes the touchstone for our activities, our beliefs, thoughts, emotions, our relationships. It is the measuring stick by which we identify the importance of those events, relationships, thoughts we create. With some small amount of practice, each of us can soon learn to identify whether a given action, behavior, or thought serves our Life Purpose, or whether it is a useless (non Purpose-related) time-consumer. With relationships, we can examine potential Life Lessons gained from them, to see if they are aligned with our Life Purpose. If not, we can gain the courage, from focussing on our Life Purpose, to depart from the non-aligned aspects or relationships, and move into those that do serve and fulfill our Life Purpose. In this way we speed our own Evolution, and act to fulfill service to the Universe.
Return to Home Base
Awakening to Abundance
Awakening to Ascension
Awakening to Joy
Awakening to Love
Awakening to Tranquillity and Serenity