How to Meet Your Purpose.

In troubled times outward disorder needs to be met with inner stability, which many people find difficult. One of the strongest ways to counter outward disorder is to know your purpose and then to realize it. Having a purpose is associated with feeling secure about who you are and why you were put here. Also, feeling that you are on course with your purpose is effective in keeping away anxiety and depression.

Have you been able to find your life’s purpose yet? If so, do you feel you are on track with your purpose? When they first enter the job market, many young people take the best job they can find, and sometimes the only job.  There’s little or no room to think about something as grand and far-reaching as their purpose in life. But eventually, the issue arises. Of all the things that make human beings unique, needing purpose and meaning in our lives is one of the most prominent.

In the tradition of Yoga, your purpose is already waiting for you. It exists at a deeper level of awareness than the mental activity that fills the mind constantly. A purpose that is able to guide you for years and decades needs to be self-motivating. One motivation is a sense of accomplishment; another is to acquire skills and the respect of others. But Yoga measures purpose by whether it brings bliss.

The notion that you should find work that brings you bliss and joy is appealing, but there’s a deeper understanding of consciousness at work. The reason that your purpose is waiting for you is that the Yoga tradition, as well as others, teaches that there is an ideal life you are meant to live. This holds out a vision that is radically different from the notion that hard work, persistence, and keeping your shoulder to the wheel are the keys to success. When you draw closer to your purpose, the teaching goes, doors will open where you didn’t know they were going to be.

With this vision in mind, a process can begin inside. No one is advising people to jump ship from their current unfulfilling job. The process consists of aligning yourself with the life you are meant to be living, which in Sanskrit is your dharma, literally the life that Nature will support you in. Synchronicity comes to your aid; you find yourself in the right place at the right time; there is a decrease in setbacks, obstacles, and resistance.

In terms of consciousness, you are opening an avenue for access to the field of pure consciousness that is your source. The entire system is aligned with you, as if unseen powers know what is needed. None of this, needless to say, fits into a materialist worldview where all phenomena must be explained by physical processes and nothing else. The tradition of higher consciousness has always been a parallel track to the everyday perspective of the age, which might be religious, scientific, or today’s secularism.

You don’t have to believe in dharma to experience what countless others before you have experienced, namely, that there is a path to finding your purpose that includes many common elements in every culture. Here are the main ones.

• You love your work and feel energized by it.
• You feel that you and the job are a good fit.
• Your surroundings at work are low in stress, pressure, and office politics.
• You contribute something valuable and earn respect for what you do.
• You fulfill some personal ideals, such as being of service or reaching your full potential,
• You feel that your work expands your horizons.
• There is an element of creativity in what you do.
• You feel that your co-workers and supervisors are trustworthy and loyal.

These factors will bring you closer to your life’s purpose by giving you a purpose today. You don’t need to read a crystal ball into the future. The path that unfolds in consciousness. At your own pace, you discover more and more about yourself, and this brings you closer to a purpose that has evolved with you.

Thriving in your purpose isn’t measured by your bank account, the size of your house, or how many people work under you. It is measured by your level of well-being. For many people, this message is starting to sink in, particularly in these unsettled times.

At this moment many people want suggestions about returning to their purpose after a time of disruption. Here are some tips.

• Don’t try to regain lost progress all at once. Begin with activities that are part of your purpose.
• A good beginning is to find small ways to be of service to people who are in need.
• The key is to feel confident about what you have to give to the world. You can sit down and make a list of your talents and strengths. Then write down one or two ways to use each one in the coming days.
• Remember that your purpose isn’t the same as promoting your career. Keep your sight fixed on that powerful phrase, “the life you ought to be living.” Expand this to include everything that brings you closer to your ideal, and if your career hasn’t returned to its previous levels, you can still give your time, effort, and emotional support to those around you.

Keep your ideals before you. Believe in a higher vision of life and live accordingly. Raise your expectations as high as your ideals. These have been the hallmarks of wisdom for millennia, and they hold true today as much, if not more, than ever.

DEEPAK CHOPRA MD, FACP, FRCP, founder of The Chopra Foundation, a non-profit entity for research on well-being and humanitarianism, and Chopra Global, a whole health company at the intersection of science and spirituality, is a world-renowned pioneer in integrative medicine and personal transformation.  Chopra is a Clinical Professor of Family Medicine and Public Health at the University of California, San Diego, and serves as a senior scientist with Gallup Organization. He is the author of over 90 books translated into over forty-three languages, including numerous New York Times bestsellers. Chopra has been at the forefront of the meditation revolution for the last thirty years. He is the author of the forthcoming book, Digital Dharma: How to Use AI to Raise Your Spiritual Intelligence and Personal Well-Being. TIME magazine has described Dr. Chopra as “one of the top 100 heroes and icons of the century.”  www.deepakchopra.com