What is Our Purpose?

Everyday life consumes us so much that we often lose track of time. We can look back and recall how days added up to weeks and weeks multiplied into months and months grew into years. Such are life’s vicissitudes, so powerfully magnetic that we lose sense of the arc of our journey. The here and now can consume us so intensely that broader questions of the what, where to and how questions escape our minds.

Every now and then a life altering event comes our way, often unexpectedly. It is usually powerful enough to shake us, causing us to slow down, giving a moment to pause and zoom out from our day-to-day rut to look at existence in a larger context. We were born, that is a start; there will be an end that is inescapable. When we are consumed by the day-to-day we think of our time left as a long road ahead of us. Looking back, our past seems like it has gone by in the blink of an eye. Was it not just yesterday that we were still in school? Yet, decades have passed since then.

It is important then for us to dwell on the questions what, where, how and when. The ‘what’ can be a relatively simple one to answer such that it appeals to our intellect. We did not choose to be born. We were rather brought into this world, neither did our parents who created us know us beforehand. Our coming into existence does not seem to be by our very own design but someone or something else’s. So then just as everything in this world seems to have a purpose, logically we too must have a purpose as well.

For a moment, let’s assume we know the purpose. Moving onto the next question, do our everyday life and everyday actions bring us closer or take us away from this purpose? Where are we headed? Does our everyday life need an adjustment, a fine tuning, to serve our purpose?

We can ask the Lord who has sent us here when we go back to him. He knows best. We have to go to that level of consciousness where we can understand the purpose of creation.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. I}

That brings us to the next question, the how. How can we adjust ourselves so life brings us closer to our purpose? And lastly, when along the way do we fulfil that purpose?

These questions are only pointers to reflect on. They may give us an intellectual lens through which to look at life more objectively. But we find that they lead us to a dead end.

Logically, to know our purpose in this creation, we need either the Creator or his representative to reveal its mysteries. A living Master is the teacher who can answer and bring light to the question of what’s our purpose.

The Masters reveal that our purpose is to merge in the Lord – to realize that we are, in fact, already one with him. When we come into contact with a true Master, a cursory reflection on their teachings will tell us that our lives are not headed in the direction of our true purpose. Having mercy on us, the Master showers on us life’s greatest gift – the gift of Nam, given at initiation. On top of it, the Master takes us under his tutelage and bears responsibility for us, helping us and guiding us along to our eventual destination.

You see, nothing is put within us at the time of initiation which is not already there. Everything is there; we are just brought in touch with that sound. The soul is within, the sound is within. We learn the method and the technique of how to become one with that sound; with help and practice we become one with the sound. Nothing is added into us; everything is within us, even the Lord. He won’t come from anywhere outside.
_{Maharaj Charan Singh, Spiritual Perspectives, Vol. II}

The last question of when do we fulfil our purpose is then left to each one of us. Following the instructions of the Master, meditating every day and adhering to the vows taken at initiation, we steer ourselves in the direction of our purpose. Our sincere and relentless efforts will eventually bear fruit.