Do you ever wonder why the hell you are here on Planet Earth?

Some folks seem to have a unique and well defined Life Purpose.  Some folks say that we all have the same Life Purpose.  Other folks are living their Life Purpose without even knowing it.  Yet others say that life has no purpose, or that you can choose your own.

Let us explore a variety of approaches that you can take to discover your Life Purpose.

THE *DOING* PURPOSE

It has been suggest that one key to discovering your Life Purpose lies in knowing what brings you joy.  What do you most love to do, such that time gets warped, you are caught up in flow, and you could do it all day long (or all night)?

For me, it’s things like gardening, cooking, playing music, building spreadsheets and creative projects like making wine, publishing books, starting businesses, etc.  Lots to choose from here.  Are any of these my Life Purpose?  One or all of them may be, at different times.

However, all these purposes are *doing* something.  Some people find their one single Life Purpose – *doing* something, like a musician, or a chef, whose identity and purpose are what they do.  Most people have multiple and changing *doing* purposes over life, like being a business person, a parent, a cyclist, a musician, etc.  These *doing* purposes are our outer Life Purposes.

 

THE LIFE PURPOSE STATEMENT

Now, let us go a little deeper.

In his book The Success Principles, Jack Canfield shares a powerful Life Purpose exercise he got from Arnold M. Patent, author of You Can Have It All, and The Journey:

1. List two unique personal qualities of yours,

2. List one or two ways you enjoy expressing these qualities when interacting with others,

3. In the present tense, describe what a perfect world would look like, and how people would be interacting with each other,

4. Combine the first three parts into a single statement.

Do this exercise for yourself, and see what you come up with.  Don’t think about it too hard.  Trust yourself.  Use your intuition – your inner knowing, to answer these questions.

For me, this is what I came up with:  “My Life Purpose is to use my (1) loving compassion and sensitivity to (2) listen to and guide others, (3) allowing them to be themselves, fully expressive, without fear of judgment, and totally accepting of themselves and others.” 

There is still an element of *doing* here, yet this is a broad purpose that can be exercised in any situation, no matter what I am *doing*.

 

DO WE HAVE A SHARED PURPOSE?

Could it be that all humans ultimately have the same Life Purpose?

Dr. Raymond Moody, a near-death researcher, and author of Life After Life, interviewed over 1,000 people who had died, then come back to life.  There were commonalities in all of their experiences.

They left their bodies, and encountered a bright being of light that emanated love and warmth.  “It is a light of perfect understanding and perfect love,” said one person.  “I felt as though I were surrounded by an overwhelming love and compassion,” said another.  A third said, “The Love which came from it is just unimaginable, indescribable.”

Each person saw their lives re-played, from the perspective of how they could have been more loving.  There was a direct communication without words between the being of light and the temporarily deceased person.  No one could use words to accurately express the communication, but they tried to explain it.  The being of light asked something like this, “What have you done with your life?  Was it worth it?  What did you learn?  Are you ready to die?  Are you willing to go back to life and finish what you started?”

It seems we may all have a common purpose: to be loving and to make the most of our human incarnation.  (Now, a little foreshadowing:  What is required to make the most of our lives?  Answer:  Paying Attention, aka Awareness.)

 

YOUR UNIQUE BLUEPRINT

You may have your outer Life Purposes of *doing*, which can be manifold and changing over time.

Inside of that, you may have your purpose of sharing your unique gifts with other people, in order to create a better world.

Now, Moving closer to home, people who have died then come back to life, report the possible Life Purposes of being loving, and making the most of their lives, which I suggest means being present to the experience of life.

Now, consider that you are a unique being created out of an infinite sea of possibilities.  Your DNA is the blueprint for your uniqueness.  While environmental influences can impact your DNA over time, you pretty much are who you are. 

Just like the seed of a dandelion will never produce a geranium, a sunflower or a rose.  IT CAN ONLY BE A DANDELION.  Depending on the growing conditions, it may be a vibrant or scraggly dandelion, but it will always, only and ever be a dandelion.  (Another thing that Jack Canfield taught me.)

Likewise, you will always, only and ever be YOU.

We all experience constraining forces that discourage us from being that which we truly are.  Social conditioning, parents telling children “Don’t do that” and “Stop that”, peer pressures, the influence of marketing and the media…. 

The truth is, the spirit of your being is vastly larger than you know.  Imagine how BIG you would be if you never censored or limited yourself.  Imagine if you had never internalized any limits imposed on you by others.  Imagine if you were fully self expressed.  Imagine if you were always you, and the most you that you could be.

On this level, it could be that your Life Purpose is to simply allow your unique blueprint to be fully expressed in your lifetime.  It may be that your underlying Life Purpose is to simply be that which you are.

 

WHAT ARE YOU?

Consider that, underlying all your thoughts, feelings, emotions, desires, likes, dislikes, joys, happiness, sadness, fears, frustrations, struggles, self-definitions, *doing* purposes, etc. – is a basic Awareness.

For that may be who you are – according to spiritual teacher Adyashanti, author of The Way Of Liberation, and according to my own inquiry and experience.  Fundamentally, all externally constructed layers of self aside – I am Pure Awareness.  And I believe the same may be true for you.

The next layer of who we are seems to be Compassion.  Is compassion concomitant with Awareness?  Is it a second layer?  Is it the first layer?

According to physicist Gregg Braden, the Buddhist monks he spoke with say that Compassion is the creative force of existence.  I don’t know if this is true.  Folks who have had near-death experiences have encountered an infinitely compassionate being upon their life review, and subsequently realized the oneness of all creation.

Adyashanti suggests that “the true purpose of meditation is to wake up from the illusion of separation to the reality of oneness.”  I also talk about a perception of oneness in my book “How To Not Give A Fuck In Ten Easy Steps”, by Swami Pranayomama. 

If we wake up to the true nature of who we are, which is Awareness, then we become aware of the interconnected nature of all creation.  Then, we may be compassionate, for if I am you, you are me, and you are everyone and everything, then to cause harm to another is to cause harm to oneself.  To witness another in pain is to feel pain.  So it seems, at the very least, that Compassion is inextricably intertwined with Awareness as a foundational layer of our beings.

This matches up with Dr. Moody’s findings – that the purpose of life is to love, and to make the most out of life, which requires paying attention, in other words, Awareness.

 

CONCLUSION

Thus, it turns out that discovering your Life Purpose may be easier than you think.  It could be that your Life Purpose is to Be That Which You Are, and that which you are is Awareness and Compassion. 

It seems that the foundational layer of who you are may be Awareness and Compassion.  This is the substrate upon which the rest of your being sits.  Arising upon this foundation is the uniqueness that is you, your individual blueprint, to be nurtured and fully expressed.

Upon the foundation of Awareness and Compassion, rests the blueprint of your youness, which gives rise to your outer layers of self expression, which may include your *doing* purposes, numerous and varied as they may be over time.

Try this on for size.  Be that which you are, which is Awareness and Compassion.  Then, on top of that, as you go forth into the world with your externally constructed layers of self, continue being that which you are, tuning into and expressing your uniqueness, sharing your “you-ness” with the world, and being and doing that which is true to the nature of your being.