Do you know the answer to the simple yet unanswered question What is the purpose of your life. Have you ever wondered what's the reason for your existence. If you haven't figured it out yet, then maybe you are walking on the wrong path.
Few days back, I was reading an article about a man in mid 30's who left his high paying professional job to pursue his passion. I wondered what made him so dissatisfied that he quit his job to follow his passion. After lot of thinking, I framed two questions to get the specific answers out of it. I will try to answer these two questions to best of my knowledge.
Who am I?
Purpose of my life?
In this world, many people are dissatisfied about their profession, relationships, social needs etc. Unfortunately, many people are living in artificial world having inner emptiness. As a child, we are conditioned to accept our identity and our likings, which has nothing to do with our true selves. We are conditioned in a fashion which vary according to culture and environment we are born in. We have so much external expectations which puts a lot of social pressure on us. Somewhere, down the line, our true self is lost. People love me because of who I am or do people appear to love me because of what they want me to be. If I match their expectation then they show their love for me, otherwise, we are not accepted in the society.
Our true self is lost somewhere, so we are unable to get the answer of who am I. Until you got the answer of who am I, probably you will not be able to find the key to the purpose. In this world, we are designated various roles like of father, mother, friend etc. and we act according to these labels and designate values accordingly. If I am father, then what are my values, if I see myself as a son then what are my values. Now there are many labels attached to a person and we pick up any label say mother, then my purpose of life becomes to take care of my children. If we meet a doctor and ask what is purpose of life then he will say take care of my patients. Now, if a person is very sincere about his job, most of the times he/she makes that purpose of life.
Here we are confusing purpose of life with the role I am playing in life. For doctor, healing is purpose of my life or it’s a profession or responsibility of my life.
The common mistake that we all are making is that we have misunderstood our purpose with roles we are playing, responsibilities, relationships etc. We should not confuse goal of life with purpose, because profession can change time to time but purpose of life is mine.
We can do a small exercise to get the answer of Who am I? Side line the various roles/labels that we our playing in this world and you will reach the final answer to who am I. And I found that I am the Soul/energy/consciousness who is running this body and playing all the roles and building relationships. I am this pure being/energy/consciousness.
My main purpose in this world to come to this body is to exchange energy and come into action with other souls. According to the Bhagvat Gita, the inherit nature of the soul is to love and to be loved because soul is part of God. Love of god is resting in heart of every living being but we have forgotten that love. So we are trying to find that love and experience the pleasure in so many ways in this world but which is not satisfying the needs of our soul. We are pure, love full, and happy being/Soul as we have the personality of god only because our soul is part of super soul which is god himself, but we have forgotten this.
Side-lining all my roles in this world, I realized that I am pure being/Soul Who's purpose of life is to love and be loved.
See like this¦
Inherit nature of Soul:
Peaceful being - Then purpose becomes to create peace
Happy being - The purpose becomes to create happiness
Love full being - The purpose becomes to give love
Now my purpose of life becomes:
I am a happy being playing a role of Father/Doctor etc. in this world.
As we grow, we keep on adding lot of labels of relationships, profession etc. we have created so many layers over us that we forgot who we really are. We our busy protecting these labels that we have forgotten ourselves and your true self became more and more dissatisfied.We are playing all the responsibilities properly still we are not satisfied because actually I am not able to experience actual me.
Finally, the fundamental need of every soul/living being is to love and be loved. Without that nothing can really satisfy the Soul, materialistic objects can only please the senses of the body. We can satisfy the senses and mind with various emotional gratification but the heart is longing to love and to be loved. It is inherit nature of soul, whether we are young or old, rich or poor, whatever may be the particular role in this world, our need is to feel and express love. This doesn't mean we have to abandon responsibilities and occupations of the world life. We can express that inner knowledge and love through whatever we do.
