I can see the truth of what you are saying, but I still think that we
must have purpose on our life’s journey; otherwise we just drift, and
purpose means future, doesn’t it? How do we reconcile that with living
in the present?
When you are on a journey, it is certainly helpful to know where you
are going or at least the general direction in which you are moving,
but don’t forget: The only thing that is ultimately real about your
journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all
there ever is.
Your life’s journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The
outer purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination, to accomplish
what you set out to do, to achieve this or that, which, of course,
implies future. But if your destination, or the steps you are going to
take in the future, take up so much of your attention that they
become more important to you than the step you are taking now,
then you completely miss the journey’s inner purpose, which has
nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but
everything to do with how. It has nothing to do with future but
everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this
moment. The outer purpose belongs to the horizontal dimension of
space and time; the inner purpose concerns a deepening of your
Being in the vertical dimension of the timeless Now. Your outer
journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one:
the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware
of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all
the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then
becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great
beauty and quality. It will have taken you into Being, and the light of
Being will shine through it. This is both the purpose and the fulfillment
of your inner journey, the journey into yourself.
Does it matter whether we achieve our outer purpose, whether we
succeed or fail in the world?
It will matter to you as long as you haven’t realized your inner
purpose. After that, the outer purpose is just a game that you may
continue to play simply because you enjoy it. It is also possible to fail
completely in your outer purpose and at the same time totally
succeed in your inner purpose. Or the other way around, which is
actually more common: outer riches and inner poverty, or to “gain the
world and lose your soul,” as Jesus puts it. Ultimately, of course,
every outer purpose is doomed to “fail” sooner or later, simply
because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things. The
sooner you realize that your outer purpose cannot give you lasting
fulfillment, the better. When you have seen the limitations of your
outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should
make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose.