Soul Purpose
The hard part is following through.
That's called "practice."
Are We There Yet?
Speaking online with a woman who appeared to me very self-actualized from her website, she reported not having "Arrived," when I complimented her choices of life path in nutrition and yoga (not narcisistic on my part of course). According to her self, she hadn't yet "Arrived," with a capital "A."
I noticed how we are in the long-time habit of referring to ourselves as a work-in-progress. It is deeply engrained in the collective consciousness that we haven't "Become." I have worked for 17 years to drop this thought, and it is still a definite work to go against the collective flow.
Arrivals
Here, now. End of story. Who we are is enough to remember why we exist. Not on a journey, not getting there, just being fully present here, now with every little detail that comes up. Then we are ultimately fulfilled, as Eckhart Tolle so beautifully writes, and it's all details. When the Buddha was asked, "are you God?" he said, "I'm awake."
New Age Bill of Goods
There are walls of books on how new age this and that will take your troubles away. I think a true spirituality will infinitely add to your trouble, raise the bar immeasurably for what one can expect of oneself, and uncover every little peice of shit you were hoping to sweep into the chimney (or what ever those expressions are, haha).
Preventative Measures
How many millions of reasons, excuses and justifications, why we have not yet arrived, at a whole self, do we come up with?
Rumi asks, "...why you do those things?" making us pause to reflect on all the useless things on which we spill our life blood, especially conflicts. "They are all branches of your SELF," he goes on to scold, and "Remember the deep roots, of your being." [from C. Barks' The Soul of Rumi] This cuts through to the bald-face core issue, that we might be wasting our time, and gonna feel it. Take necessary, possible precautions.
I suggested to Kristi that we have already arrived on earth, are every moment living the experience of being human.
The best side-effect of feeling like "I arrived" that we can get on with our Soul Purpose, the "one thing" (more Rumi) we have to, are contracted, to get out of us. We are the courier of some gift that must be brought to humanity. Like I said, figuring out what our one gift is, that's comparatively easy. It's doing it that takes practice, perseverance and infinite patience.
Sex
It's not that sexy, rather it's work. The ideas, the inspirations, the noticeable leaps and fun serendipties, those are sexy, close to the inception and creative fertilization of the consciousness, the mushrooms of your awareness. The real mushroom is underground, connected to a larger whole, the solid system that outlives the reproductively generous parts.
Work
And then you have to keep going, for the long run. Don't ask when you're going to finish or retire; your "one thing" contract holds for a life time and can and will be renewed, if necessary. So perhaps it is futile not to go on and keep getting with the damn program.
A classic cliche I still love to quote - a seed sprouts. Was the seed less perfect than the sprout? Every thing in it's place over time, being at every place whole, never a take-away thrown into the future (whoa that's deep, lol!). Does the sprout get complacent, apathetic, bored, have panic attacks, no, it just humbly waits for food, water and sunshine to be fed. Be available to the elements and they will feed you. Unless you have to be broccoli for that analogy to work, haha!
A Song/Poem
Inspired, of Course, by Rumi
The soul on purpose,
Can hold the cause and focus
On the one thing
Which you must never forget.
Be reasonable
You are the whole in your soul
You get so much
And then live so small
"Why we do those things?"
Is nearly beyond comprehension;
What is even a glimpse, of the goddess
Makes man run
Please do not begin
To reveal the over-bearing truth
That you are not going to make any
More out of yourself, soon
You'll be right in this moment
Can we live on purpose
In the full moon naked proof?
-30-
What Have You Done?
In the lovingly and as I said, repremanding poem, Rumi tells us point blank:
"There is one thing in this world,
that you must never forget,
if you forget everything else and not this,
there's nothing to worry about.
But if you remember everything else and forget this
you will have done
nothing in your life."
Talk is Cheap
...what is that one thing? Ask the people in your life. The trick is to get off our "own" rat-trap-circle-drive, have someone you think recognizes and knows you a little and is smarter than you, who has no agenda for you. They will say the simplest, too obvious things about what they see you love to do.
Then when you become conscious of your purpose, your mission, talk is over. All the things you choose to do from then on can be measured against your purpose, so you don't use all your time on other things.
But this is not the selling feature of this lifestyle, because it requires making big changes, breaking old habits and taking apart the fabric you weave around the story, of who you are, and what you do, and why you do it, and what you're going to do, and why. And why you didn't do this and that, and what are the good reasons. All of those thoughts, would be behind you.
This is not a selling feature.
Free Time
So it perhaps has the amazing "side" effect of freeing up our millions of moments, no longer spent deliberating about what to do. Everything gets measured against one's soul purpose, and while on this path it gets much harder and bigger challenges arise, there is not the constant sense of hap hazard, by accident.chaos factor in the mix from throwing the dice, and measuring the odds of badly defined 'success.'
"Why you do those things?" at every turn is the mantra question.
In the spirit of that I'm going to bid adieu and sing to my neighbors (sorry for the electric guitar, I can't help myself) and send salutations to your own Divine Self.
Every time, practice is perfect. Tell me your experiences.
