| Our culture has confused people, and continues to do | | | | were more divine than others but that they lived at a |
| so, in this regard. For example, what young person | | | | level of God-realization few people have ever |
| does not grow up expecting that there is something | | | | experienced, either before or after them. And yet, all |
| special they are here to do and that their greatest life | | | | of these enlightened souls invite their followers to live |
| challenge, or test, is to figure out what that "something" | | | | as they lived. So, why would they invite people live as |
| is and pursue it? In most instances, this cultural | | | | they lived if it was not possible do so? That is |
| conditioning only serves only to set up the young | | | | precisely the point. They would not. It is potentially |
| person for what will likely be a life of confusion and | | | | possible to be enlightened or awakened just as they |
| disappointment. | | | | were. In other words, since they lived so remarkably in |
| It is this kind of erroneous conditioning that leads | | | | touch with self and Source, so may we. |
| virtually everyone to spend an inordinate amount of | | | | This writer grew up being taught by well-meaning, but |
| time looking for the "right" job, or career, or calling. | | | | misguided parents and other Christian people, that |
| While most people will eventually choose a career that | | | | there was a "calling" I was to both discern and then |
| rewards them with some measure of satisfaction, the | | | | pursue in life and, if I did, I would discover a happy, |
| fact is, no one ever finds a job or a calling that meets | | | | fulfilling life. But, in the end, what they promised turned |
| their deepest longing for fulfillment, joy, and happiness. | | | | out to be a disappointment to me, just as it must be |
| Why? It is because your deepest desires for | | | | for virtually everyone else. There is no special vocation |
| happiness could only ever be the consequence of | | | | you're supposed to find and pursue, as in a career or |
| something altogether different. | | | | calling. Instead, your real vocation is simply to know |
| So, what is that "something that is altogether | | | | God. When you do, there is joy unspeakable and there |
| different?" What will reward me with the deepest | | | | is inexplicable satisfaction. |
| satisfaction, happiness, fulfillment, and joy in life? | | | | The philosopher Teilhard de Chardin once said that we |
| The one overriding spiritual truth to remember is that | | | | are spiritual beings having a temporary human |
| your primary purpose in life is to both know and to | | | | experience. If this is true, when you reconnect with |
| enjoy intimacy with the Creator, no matter how you | | | | your spiritual self (or, Source), you make the |
| may understand or conceptualize Transendence. "All | | | | remarkable discovery that what you do professionally |
| religions," said the Hindu yogi, Parmahansa Yogananda, | | | | is secondary to who you are. Your real identity could |
| "serve the purpose of reuniting the soul with God." | | | | never be what you do but only ever who you are. |
| Saint Augustine shared something of the same | | | | And, therein lies the difference. Whether you wash |
| essential truth: "Our hearts are restless until they find | | | | windows, drive a cab, work on a farmer, serve tables |
| rest in God." What most religious people forget, and | | | | in a restaurant, or act as the President and CEO of a |
| our culture does not know and so fails to teach, is that | | | | Fortune 500 company, none of this, in the final analysis, |
| there could only ever be one real purpose to human | | | | is either that important or that significant. They are all |
| existence--one real meaning for your presence on | | | | just roles you fill--roles that are transitory in nature--and |
| planet earth--and that is to "know thyself," as Socrates | | | | none of them, no matter how our culture may regard |
| put it. Further, when you know yourself, you've met | | | | them, could ever give you what you either want or |
| your Source. Meister Eckhart put it like this: "The eye | | | | need in life, except in some relative, temporary sense. |
| through which I see God is the same eye through | | | | So then, your real purpose is to walk with God. And, |
| which God sees me." | | | | because this is so, then the second part of that |
| How is this so? Since you were created in the imago | | | | question becomes all the more significant. Since our |
| dei, the image of God, you are part of God. That | | | | purpose is to walk with God, "Why would anyone walk |
| means, the Source out of which you emerge is the | | | | alone?" |
| same Source to which you will return. What made | | | | Well, the fact is, no one chooses to walk alone, yet |
| Jesus, and other spiritual avatars like him so | | | | most people do. They do so precisely because they |
| unusual--people like the Buddha, Muhammad, Enoch, | | | | don't know how to walk with God. |
| Mary, the mother of Jesus, and so on, is not that they | | | | |