Sunday Contemplation. #10 - Your Purpose Is The Lotus. Be The Mud First.

Discovering Authentic Purpose

Photo by Tarikul Raana on Unsplash

• Quote To Contemplate

• Person That Touched Me

• This Sunday’s Contemplation

• Grateful For

• Community Connection This Week

• Upcoming

Quote To Contemplate

Start close in, don’t take the second step or the third,
start with the first thing close in,
the step you don’t want to take.

David Whyte : From The Book Of Poems - Essentials

An excerpt from the poem - Start Close In
(Many Rivers Press © David Whyte)

Person That Touched Me

A good and precious friend of mine got engaged. I went to a party she and her fiancee put on to celebrate their engagement.

I was so touched to see her happy. Not for the obvious reason, but because I knew some of the unhappy and painful paths she took to reach this moment.

Her smile was overwhelmingly beautiful. Like a bright sun glimpsing through a finally passing storm.

This Sunday’s Contemplation

Your Purpose Is The Lotus. Be The Mud First

I apologise for my little bit too cute heading, but I was trying to get to the heart of the matter regarding purpose.

In this analogy, the lotus flower is the statement of, and our understanding of, our purpose. It is a part of our existence that we can point to, for ourselves, and for others. We can point to the flower and say, here is my purpose. Because so often this purpose is so important, and often so beautiful, it garners all the attention.

Of course purpose is critical. But the most important question is, from where does purpose arise?

I may stretch this analogy to breaking point, but hang in there.

The lotus is perennial. In season it flowers, but there are times when it is not evident. The code for the coming flower is in the mud.

To discover our purpose, we need to be in the mud. Our essential nature, our original nature, our divine nature…pick the nature name that works for you, it is the same place, that is not a place, but an experience, an awareness.

Our purpose arises from our essential nature. In different seasons of our lives it will express itself in full flower, and sometimes appear to lie silently waiting for the chance to impact the world.

Our focus on purpose sometimes causes us to stop short of diving into the mud. I know this from my own life. There have been times when the purpose I settled on was a creation of my rattling mind and my insecurities. What I thought I should be serious about, what I thought others needed of me. It felt no less real or motivating, but in each case crashed into the walls of my own creation and revealed itself as hollow or at least shy of the mark.

It was only when life forced me into the “mud” that I could divine what I was meant to be in my life. The experience of my essential divinity, and by extension the sacred divinity of all others, revealed how I needed to fashion how I acted in the world.

I needed to act in the world, accepting the gifts and limitations of who I am, and the gifts and limitations of the culture, economy, environment in which I make my life, in a way that expressed this experience of divinity and oneness. I discovered that I needed to find ways, opportunities, and people, that best enabled me to help others experience who they are really are.

What is your essential experience? What purpose arises in your life from the mud (soil) of your original or essential nature? It will be uniquely yours.

I have a good good friend whose way of living his life, and the way he expresses his purpose is…building connection; helping humans build connection that fundamentally will make a better and more trusting and loving world.

Your essential nature whispers to you about your arising purpose. Sometimes, usually when we don’t listen or hear it, it may kick you. It is less painful to practice pausing and listening, not just with your ears.

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Here are some acting in life examples of why understanding what lies beneath is so essential:

• I am a dad. One of the gifts of being a parent is that our children reveal to us our essential nature. Our purpose is to love them, but it is anything but a cerebral calling; it rises from within us. The love is indescribable and irresistible.

  Discovering our purposes in other parts of our life may not be so palpable, but digging, pausing, listening inside the essence of our being will reveal the most important calling. In work, a purpose rooted in who we really are will be much more a vocation, than a job or a profession.

  I would describe my purpose in how I want to act in the world as…”helping others discover who they really are”. My journey to find how to express that in the world was both an internal and practical challenge.

  The big and practical challenge for me, was to figure out how to support my family and make that vocation a reality. The challenges didn’t always fit together.

  Apart from the obvious purpose of helping my own children experience who they really are, and to love them, I had to figure out, together with my wife, how to feed, shelter, educate and protect them. That meant making money. Several times in my life I had jobs that I did not like and seemed a far cry from my deepest purpose. My one saving grace was that I never gave up looking for the way or ways to find or build a vehicle that was a close expression of my purpose. It did not happen overnight. I learned, sometimes frustratingly, that we may

  have to wait for the season for the full flowering of our purpose.

• I work with founders of new businesses. They are often driven by a passion of purpose. They are also often very bad at finding the best people to work with. Why? Because, in a desperate quest to succeed, they look for people who have the external skills to support the purpose of their business, rather than for people whose own essential drivers align most deeply with their own.

  Who will continue to work with you through the inevitable painful thick and thin of a start up business? Someone whose connection with their inner experience informs and guides their life, and that inner connection aligns with yours….or…someone who is really great at their job technically?

  I think interviews to find the best early participants in a new business should begin with these questions:

  • What makes you tick?

  • Why does that make you tick?

  • What kind of world do you want to live in?

  • Do you think this business has a chance in hell of succeeding? Why do you think that?

  • Why do you love what you do?

  • This is what moves me most deeply in my life. Do you think what moves you most is aligned with that? How?

Imagine a time when these kind of questions are also what investors ask themselves, others, and an investment prospectus, when considering making an investment in a business.

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When we allow our life to align with our most essential nature, then purpose will reveal itself. Purpose will find you. When you are looking for those to work with or be involved with, ask them about their purpose, but also look for the whispers and signs of their essential nature.

In the market place of life, whether someone is selling organic vegetables or building Ai code “look under the hood” of the purpose language for the essential nature within. The same applies to community groups, political parties, sports teams, you name it. Look for the essential mud, not how cool the flower looks.

Thanks for reading this today.

This day I honour the best in you and the best in me.

I wish you Peace.

Together with you I wish Peace for our world.

These contemplations are my perspective and offered with love to inspire, cause you to ponder, perhaps challenge you, and most of all to seek your responses and wisdom. Please feel free to comment and we can build a thread of combined wisdom greater than the parts.

Grateful For

I include this section because I found that when I read or hear about what others are grateful for, I tend to think more about what I am grateful for. Feel free to share what you are grateful for in the comments. I think it is a beautiful service to others.

I am grateful for our conscientious farming neighbours. My wife and I live in a rural location surrounded by about 43,000 acres of forest (bush we call it in Australia). Between those national and state parks are several farms that lie between us and the forests. These farms have large spreads of trees and grass. Each year around this time of year they do a “burn”. It is a safety measure to reduce the undergrowth and therefore the likely spread of fire towards them and us should the national and state parks catch fire. They are extremely conscientious about it, and they came over to show us how to do it safely on our place. Over their morning cuppa at home I am sure they said…”oh we better help those city “pretend farmers” do their burn”. They did that, and with wonderful generosity and good humour. I was petrified actually, but they showed us what to do, and how to do it safely, and stayed with us until all was done.

Sometimes we get overwhelmed and disheartened by the suffering in the world. Good neighbours are a balm for the soul. I am grateful.

Community Connection This Week

In the chat this week I ask this question:

• What makes you tick?

• Why does that make you tick?

The community chat each week will be on the theme of each week’s Sunday Contemplation. Again, please join in. It is open to all free and paid subscribers and awaits your wisdom. Please always engage with respect. As if by magic if we do that we will build an engaged and respectful community.

Upcoming

My friend Sally Avison and I will be hosting another Wise Heart Circle zoom meeting on Sunday September 15th (Aussie & NZ time) which is for most northern hemisphere folks is Saturday September 14th.

Sally has described the essence of this circle as bringing together four elements of the wise heart: Connection, Collaboration, Creativity and Compassion. We are looking to create a strong heartfelt community for those seeking some companions on the path to spiritual freedom.

If you would like to attend any Wise Heart Circle zoom meetings please just let us know on this Expression Of Interest form, and we will let you know when they are happening and give you more details. (We promise we will only use your email address to inform you of future meetings…nothing else).