THE INNER PURPOSE OF YOUR LIFE’S JOURNEY

 

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.