I had in the last post mentioned about the best Systematic Investment Plan (SIP) to have in our portfolio of life.
And in doing so, I had raised a question that all us at one time or another would have pondered upon; what is the purpose of life?
If you have not already read that post, I will humbly request you to please invest 20 minutes and read through it before proceeding further with this post. (Best Systematic Investment Plan)
I also realised that the post on SIP became long, so am trying to keep this one relatively short 😊, especially since some of the aspects of today’s post were also covered in that post.
So, what really is the purpose of our life?
Many of us would have often wondered and asked ourselves about the purpose of our earthly “sojourn” or our journey through this birth. Why sojourn, well it is indeed a “temporary” stay because no one lives here on a “permanent” basis. 😊
While I am no expert on this subject 😊, my experiences have led me to believe that simply put, the overall journey of the soul is “From Eternity To Eternity”.
And during such a journey, our soul takes multiple births. And during each such birth, our soul is at a particular “level”, and our entire “effort and endeavour” should be to help our soul rise from well above the level at which it has taken birth.
Our life journey plays out according to our destiny (karma) and we go through various stages of life.
We are really not in control of any situation which plays out in our lives.
Every encounter and situation are for a purpose and which is controlled by our destiny. But as such situations play out alongside the requisite encounters, our effort and endeavour should be to ensure that our soul rises and does not fall.
And during our journey, even if we are not successful in helping rise our soul, we need to at least ensure that we do not allow it to fall.
In layman’s terms if the journey from eternity to eternity is from 1 to 100, and the level at which the soul takes a particular birth is at 40, then our effort and endeavour should be to ensure that the level at which the soul would depart at the end of that particular birth is well above 40, and not below it. I really wish it were that simple! 😊
Because many of our acts are such that instead of letting the soul rise or maintain it at the same level, we are allowing it to consistently fall, sometimes on a daily basis.
So instead of moving forward or higher, we are moving backward and lower. Basically, undoing all the good work which we may have done.
So how do we ensure that our soul does not fall, but always rise.
As I had highlighted in the “Spiritual Qualities” section of my “Spiritual Outlook” introduction to this website, we need to ensure that as every such situation and encounter plays out in our life, we consistently, or as much as possible, adopt the “positive qualities” in every act and thought of life, and leave out the “negative qualities”.
Every time we adopt these positive qualities our soul rises, and every time we adopt the negative qualities our soul falls.
As I had stated in the post on SIP, the ‘value’ of our life SIP will erode if we also practice negative qualities alongside those positive qualities.
So, we need to consistently be aware and adopt such positive qualities to ensure that we practice those at every stage in life and help rise our soul, which is really the purpose of our birth.
You may very well think as to why I am parroting (repeating) this point about practicing positive over negative qualities so much across many of my posts. Well, all I will state is that I cannot ever “overstate” the same. 😊
In that section on “Spiritual Outlook”, I had also briefly covered about the “Spiritual Practices” which can help us in ensuring that we are constantly aware about such positive qualities.
These practices help us in bringing about a change in our consciousnesses for us to then become more aware, basically making our “soul consciousnesses” more active than our “mind, body and intellect”.
In our daily life these practices can aid and help us in ensuring that we remain and become even better human beings than we were yesterday.
For decades / centuries people have debated the purpose of birth, and as I had stated at the outset, I am no expert, but in as simplistic a way as possible, I have tried to provide an experiential perspective on this subject.
I sincerely hope you found it useful and apologies if it did not make much of a sense to you. Yes, it may have sounded like too much of gyaan (knowledge) 😉 but then I believe it is good gyaan and does work! 😊
BTW, I am also not perfect, and have a lot of work do within myself to ensure that I also follow what I am preaching. But yes, I do not preach what I do not practice, may not always succeed, but the effort and endeavour continue. 😀
Also, having a Friend / Mentor / Guide / Companion who helps us navigate through our various stages of our journey is very useful. Such a person can constantly remind us, so as to ensure that we keep rising our soul through various stages of life. I will try and write a few points about such a person in my next post.
I would also strongly recommend a book called “The Purpose Driven Life – What On Earth Am I Here For? by Rick Warren” which provides far more of an elaborate, but yet simplistic and soulful viewpoints on the purpose of our life.
Please do write to me using the Contact Form on this website, as I would really like to hear your own views and perspectives on this subject, or any other previous content from this website.
Thank you and God bless you! 🙏
