Towards the One, the Perfection of Love, Harmony and Beauty, the Only Being, United with all the Illuminated Souls Who Form the Embodiment of the Master – the Spirit of Guidance.
This class is about the process of identifying one’s purpose, and proceeding in that direction.
Many of us wonder ‘what is my purpose in life’. We wait for an answer to this question, looking for something enormous, something shattering and stupendous. The great mystic Hazrat Inayat Khan gives many suggestions that might help one to discover and move toward the fulfillment of one’s purpose. I asked some people what teaching they use to tend to this question. The following is what they shared with me. Feel free to use this wisely:
* It is all about the breath. The twenty breaths, which we do each day. They are always there, even if all else is falling apart. The breath is the source of all life, and as such is proof that God/Divine/Universe is closer than the jugular vein. Perhaps the breath is in some way a source of security and self knowledge, and also a mystery, in a world of change.
* Do the following twenty breaths:
5 breaths in the nose and out the nose, attuning to the earth element in your body, feelings, mind, relationships. Feel as though the whole of the earth is a womb, regenerating life from old material. Find that space in your self that is regenerative, recycling that which is no longer needed, effecting all areas. Two examples of this are cellular reproduction or the transformation of food into nutrients. Be aware of the mercy and compassion of this breath.
5 breaths in the nose and out the mouth, attuning to the water element. Feel the water descending into the earth, always present, infusing life with a medium in which it can be fluid. Find that same analog in yourself. There is a high percentage of water in you, flowing through the tubes, in the cells and molecules, carrying an infusion of all-pervasiveness, of divine grace and potential emerging into your life.
5 breaths in the mouth and out the nose, attuning to the fire element. Go right down into the core of the planet, a churning, burning flow rising from below, while the fire of the sun descends, warming life. We find that same process in our self where we oxidize nutrients and transform them into energy, authenticity, truth, a feeling of correctness to use to fulfill the purpose of our life.
5 breaths in the mouth and out the mouth attuning to the air element. This is the all-pervading container, infinite and unbounded, suffusing everything, so that it becomes that in which we live and move and have our being. We find this inside as that interior space that opens into the infinite, the all-pervading unity, allowing the mind to leap and the heart to dream, moving us in the direction of our purpose.
5 breaths, very fine, in the nose and out the nose, or in both nose and mouth and out both, attuning to the element of either, the harmonizer and the integrator. This is the medium through which all of the elements/energies can interact and interrelate. There is no impulse that is just one thing or another. Life is always an interplay of all the elements/energies. It is in this divine unity that we find balance, integration and direction.
* Two ways to find ones purpose and how to move in the direction of ones purpose are to follow the teachings on the different cycles, and to use the teaching on the power of breath with the mind. To use the cycles follow the rise and fall of the breath – uruj and nasul. There is a point at which the breath rises, and those things that can be accomplished on a rising breath should be undertaken at that time. And there is a time of a falling breath, and those things that could be undertaken on a falling breath should be undertaken at that time. To use the teaching on the power of breath and mind use the different functions of the qasab breath. It will have a great effect. We have a greater effect upon the unfoldment of events through our thought than our actions. Thoughts have a life of their own, and they are infused with life by the intensity of our interest or intention. We can, through the process of concentration, and using the breath, create living thoughts whose function is to do the things that we want done.
* Pir Vilayat said that the tendency in the world is for all of us to move to the lowest level of attunement, and it is our job to overcome this tendency. Keep your realistic and possible goal in your mind and your intentions.
* When concentration is developed, and the breath has become powerful, and one’s heart is awakened and attuned to the Divine, one’s intentions are more likely to be without unconscious self-centered motivation, and therefore greatly effective.
As you do the practices offered above, the great challenge is not getting to a new place, but rather when you are in a new place, keeping from unconsciously doing the things that will take you back to the old pattern. One must keep a fresh vision of the new in ones mind. Murshid talks of the power of faith. Use faith as a leveling and balancing tool. Murshid also talks of the divinity of the things coming out of the heart. Before a thought there is a small emotion. When we act on that new thought/emotion which is a step in the right direction, it flourishes into a new way of being. It is important to remember to nourish this new way. Cultivate that emotional tied to the new. Don’t take it for granted. Use gratitude as a force to sustain the new way.
Thank you to Purusha, Sarmad and Seraj, who contributed to these tools, useful in moving in the direction of fulfilling the purpose of one’s life.
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