In a previous post, I had covered insights about finding one’s life purpose. In this post, I’d like to add one more perspective that boggled my mind because it was SO SIMPLE (well, at least on paper).
Reading Eckhart Tolle’s book A New Earth felt like going through a spiritual text, a philosophy book, and a psychology material rolled into one. Among other topics, the book discusses human consciousness and how to rise beyond our ego in order to find our true selves. Toward the end of the book, Tolle shares about our inner purpose: to awaken.
“Awakening is a shift in consciousness in which thinking and awareness separate.”
Tolle distinguishes our inner purpose (being) from our outer purpose (doing). He also explains that our inner purpose remains the same, while our outer purpose such as our future goals, may change.
I have to admit that I only picked up the book because it was in Oprah’s Book Club list. Then the first time I flipped through the pages, I felt like the book was written in an alien language. The concepts were beyond me.
But perhaps it’s true that we will only recognize the lessons when we’re ready. The next time I opened the book, I found the section on abundance. After that the discussions on ego, and then on inner purpose. These were the topics I needed to understand to help me in my journey toward healing.
I will not say that the book is a good read, because it’s more than that. It’s a book to live out, if only so we can, as Maria Rilke advised, “live our way into the answers” we’ve been searching about the meaning of our lives.
I remember last week, while I was on my way home, my head was beginning to fill up with concerns about my future. Then I decided to apply what I learned from the book. I focused on my inner purpose and tried to be fully present in that moment. My only purpose then was sitting in that jeepney.
“This is it?” I had thought. I could not believe it was that simple. Yet it made sense. I had literally lost years of my life because instead of being present, I rushed through life, thinking of goals and deadlines, worrying, almost oblivious to the simple gifts and opportunities life presented to me during those moments. I thought success could be realized only through meeting future targets, and significance is a point to reach sometime in the future.
But perhaps these are not the only criteria for success. If I can live each moment fully, if I can be fully present, perhaps I have already won in life, regardless of the outcome. Because I am able to fully experience moments that will never happen again.
And to be able to inhabit each unique moment . . . I think that’s a beautiful way to live.
exploreranonerittibi.com 