The purpose of your life is being satisfied already. You are the purpose of your Life. You grow up being taught to define yourself according to the various roles you play, the various functions you serve. Society values everything according to its usefulness. And this extends to human life as well. You are taught to value yourself based on your ability to contribute, to make a difference, to be of use. And for most people, the existential question of what the purpose of their existence is, really translates into questions : what value do I represent? What greater use am I to serve?
Every child is born essentially worthless by these standards. However, each child represents a potential for future worth, an investment which, if properly fostered and attended to, may reap great benefit in the future. This is the mindset with which each one is raised. You are encouraged to accumulate knowledge, experience and build relationships with the single prerogative of becoming a fully functioning, continuing member of society. From a practical perspective there is nothing particularly wrong with this picture because in order for a society to function coherently it is important that each member contributes in an organized fashion in order to perpetuate and evolve its existence. However, the function you perform within society is just a small aspect of who you are. It is a role, a part you play in this drama that we have all agreed to participate in. By no means is it the whole of what you are. It barely scratches the surface.
Each one of you plays a number of roles. You are simultaneously a father/mother, a son/ daughter, an employee, an employer, a citizen, a leader, a celebrity, an artist, a teacher, a friend, a guide, a student, an adviser a customer, a driver, a pedestrian, a philanthropist, a businessman, a husband/wife the roles that you play are layered and each connects to the other in a seamless web. This web is the costume of your identity that you have painstakingly fashioned for yourself over the years. And within each of these roles, there is a purpose you serve. Each of these roles is useful within the particular frame of experience that it operates within.
You experience your life as a ceaseless transition from one role to another. One minute you are a wife/husband, the next an employee, the next an adviser the next a citizen. Sometimes the roles make conflicting demands on your attention, sometimes playing the part seems overwhelming. Each one of you is essentially a juggler, juggling an increasing number of balls in the air until the act of juggling itself takes over and becomes the dominant essence of your whole experience of life. At a certain point, when this act of juggling becomes so painful and tiresome and the fruits of your labors begin to taste less sweet no matter what you do and what you achieve, you begin to ask yourself : is there more to life then all this? What is the purpose of my existence? Is it merely to be a good wife/husband, an inspiring teacher, a model employee, a responsible parent, a law abiding citizen, a devoted child?
You sense that there is a depth to you that you are unable to become cognizant of, that you have no language to express. You turn to your religion or your god for answers and for some of you these answers will satisfy you for a while. But for others they seem to fall short somehow, providing a lot of feel good recipes and reasons for your existence but ultimately failing to touch upon that most intimate experience of your self.
You have fallen prey to the very mechanisms that you unwittingly adopted in your innocence. Unaware of what you were sacrificing you chose from one moment to the next to be told who you were by a world that hadn't the faintest clue to begin with. You placed your faith in others who in turn placed their faith in others who in turn placed their faith in others, in an endless loop of misunderstanding. You traded in the only certainty you ever had for an entire universe of doubt. That was your choice. And that is the choice each one makes from the perspective of innocence. It is the natural progression.
But, having lived like this for so many years, having experienced the fruits of all your choices and having seen the inherent hollowness of it all, you are driven to frustration, suffering and even despair as you begin to sense that none of it holds any real value. That the value all have agreed to attribute to it is entirely a figment of the human imagination. That your life is, in its most fundamental sense, absolutely valueless, absolutely meaningless and absolutely purposeless. Here, as you stand on the brink of this giant void, you are more closely yourself that you ever have been.
As you glimpse into this void, you experience the massive withdrawal of your mind recoiling from its own inevitable fate After an entire lifetime of being subject to its iron rule, you have received your first taste of a realm within yourself that the mind cannot enter. The void you are perceiving is only the image that the mind conjures up for what lies beyond the limits of what it is able to conceive. What the mind cannot comprehend it sees as void. Yet that void is your own most essential self.
Your mind began in your innocence as the simple interpreter of experience. It did what it was constructed to do. To accumulate information, to analyze it and to reformat it. But there was no filter on what it accumulated and what it did not. Like a sponge it soaked up everything within its environment, wholeheartedly adopting everything it was told. Your name, your beliefs, your wants and desires, your pains and miseries, your roles and ambitions. Your mind became the voice of the world, instructing you every step of the way about who you are and what your purpose was. Like a regent that governs until the king comes of age, it perpetuated its own agendas on your behalf while you came to believe that its agendas were your own.
The first glimpse into the void catalyzed by your own doubt and despair is the sign of your coming to age. the regent has served its purpose and now it is time for the king to rule. As you begin to see through the hollowness of all the roles you play, become aware of that aspect of yourself that remained constant through all the experiences and all the functions. That sense of "you", that has never changed, that has never aged even as your mind has changed and your body has aged. Become aware of that most essential 'you' that has witnessed it all, been privy to it all and yet remains whole, intact and unaffected.
This is the real you. This is your most essential nature. This is the self that has no value because it is priceless. This is the you that is, and has always been, perfect. Realize the reality of yourself and you will simultaneously have discovered your purpose. Because the purpose of your Life is simply to live. It is your only true contribution and the greatest gift you could ever give to this world.
Every child is born essentially worthless by these standards. However, each child represents a potential for future worth, an investment which, if properly fostered and attended to, may reap great benefit in the future. This is the mindset with which each one is raised. You are encouraged to accumulate knowledge, experience and build relationships with the single prerogative of becoming a fully functioning, continuing member of society. From a practical perspective there is nothing particularly wrong with this picture because in order for a society to function coherently it is important that each member contributes in an organized fashion in order to perpetuate and evolve its existence. However, the function you perform within society is just a small aspect of who you are. It is a role, a part you play in this drama that we have all agreed to participate in. By no means is it the whole of what you are. It barely scratches the surface.
Each one of you plays a number of roles. You are simultaneously a father/mother, a son/ daughter, an employee, an employer, a citizen, a leader, a celebrity, an artist, a teacher, a friend, a guide, a student, an adviser a customer, a driver, a pedestrian, a philanthropist, a businessman, a husband/wife the roles that you play are layered and each connects to the other in a seamless web. This web is the costume of your identity that you have painstakingly fashioned for yourself over the years. And within each of these roles, there is a purpose you serve. Each of these roles is useful within the particular frame of experience that it operates within.
You experience your life as a ceaseless transition from one role to another. One minute you are a wife/husband, the next an employee, the next an adviser the next a citizen. Sometimes the roles make conflicting demands on your attention, sometimes playing the part seems overwhelming. Each one of you is essentially a juggler, juggling an increasing number of balls in the air until the act of juggling itself takes over and becomes the dominant essence of your whole experience of life. At a certain point, when this act of juggling becomes so painful and tiresome and the fruits of your labors begin to taste less sweet no matter what you do and what you achieve, you begin to ask yourself : is there more to life then all this? What is the purpose of my existence? Is it merely to be a good wife/husband, an inspiring teacher, a model employee, a responsible parent, a law abiding citizen, a devoted child?
You sense that there is a depth to you that you are unable to become cognizant of, that you have no language to express. You turn to your religion or your god for answers and for some of you these answers will satisfy you for a while. But for others they seem to fall short somehow, providing a lot of feel good recipes and reasons for your existence but ultimately failing to touch upon that most intimate experience of your self.
You have fallen prey to the very mechanisms that you unwittingly adopted in your innocence. Unaware of what you were sacrificing you chose from one moment to the next to be told who you were by a world that hadn't the faintest clue to begin with. You placed your faith in others who in turn placed their faith in others who in turn placed their faith in others, in an endless loop of misunderstanding. You traded in the only certainty you ever had for an entire universe of doubt. That was your choice. And that is the choice each one makes from the perspective of innocence. It is the natural progression.
But, having lived like this for so many years, having experienced the fruits of all your choices and having seen the inherent hollowness of it all, you are driven to frustration, suffering and even despair as you begin to sense that none of it holds any real value. That the value all have agreed to attribute to it is entirely a figment of the human imagination. That your life is, in its most fundamental sense, absolutely valueless, absolutely meaningless and absolutely purposeless. Here, as you stand on the brink of this giant void, you are more closely yourself that you ever have been.
As you glimpse into this void, you experience the massive withdrawal of your mind recoiling from its own inevitable fate After an entire lifetime of being subject to its iron rule, you have received your first taste of a realm within yourself that the mind cannot enter. The void you are perceiving is only the image that the mind conjures up for what lies beyond the limits of what it is able to conceive. What the mind cannot comprehend it sees as void. Yet that void is your own most essential self.
Your mind began in your innocence as the simple interpreter of experience. It did what it was constructed to do. To accumulate information, to analyze it and to reformat it. But there was no filter on what it accumulated and what it did not. Like a sponge it soaked up everything within its environment, wholeheartedly adopting everything it was told. Your name, your beliefs, your wants and desires, your pains and miseries, your roles and ambitions. Your mind became the voice of the world, instructing you every step of the way about who you are and what your purpose was. Like a regent that governs until the king comes of age, it perpetuated its own agendas on your behalf while you came to believe that its agendas were your own.
The first glimpse into the void catalyzed by your own doubt and despair is the sign of your coming to age. the regent has served its purpose and now it is time for the king to rule. As you begin to see through the hollowness of all the roles you play, become aware of that aspect of yourself that remained constant through all the experiences and all the functions. That sense of "you", that has never changed, that has never aged even as your mind has changed and your body has aged. Become aware of that most essential 'you' that has witnessed it all, been privy to it all and yet remains whole, intact and unaffected.
This is the real you. This is your most essential nature. This is the self that has no value because it is priceless. This is the you that is, and has always been, perfect. Realize the reality of yourself and you will simultaneously have discovered your purpose. Because the purpose of your Life is simply to live. It is your only true contribution and the greatest gift you could ever give to this world.
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