A Puzzling Paradox of Purpose

By Mary Cook, M.A., R.A.S. We are born with divine light shining in our eyes.  We are blessed, united, wide open and whole.  There is no end to our potential, we behold everything with awe.  From our original home, we bring unbounded love, unbridled joy and bountiful peace.  We are here because our soul yearns to grow.

So we descend into the uncertain garden, forgetting our purpose and plan.  We begin to feel fear more than peace.  Instead of unity, we notice separation, jealousy and judgment.  Often we see more pain and sorrow than joy, and more abandonment, abuse and hatred than love.  Our vision darkens and we see ourselves as inferior and incomplete.  We become shadows on the earth with barely a glimmer of the higher truth.

Experiencing significant pain can lead us to believe that life is a battlefield and choice lies in the degree of energy we invest to build fortresses of protection and armaments of destruction.  Energy additionally goes into finding false substitutes for peace, unity, joy and love.  Sickness, ignorance and fear now hold tremendous power over us.  This is how we invite more negative experiences into our life.  Who we are becomes the story of life’s damaging blows coiling around us like a deadly python.  The more we attempt to appease or fight this snake, the less we recall of our divine origin.

And yet ultimate impending doom can open us up to solutions.  It is not our physical death, but the death of this paradigm of living, that offers us hope.  Brilliant discoveries and inventions come to those who think outside the given constructs of reality.  What enables us to do this, is an awareness of consciousness existing apart from our mind and personality.  When we witness ourselves in thought, feeling or action and begin to question the effectiveness of how we are living, we find a key.  We are not merely physical minds and bodies.  There is something greater than this, observing us.

We typically do not question the meaning of life or our individual purpose when we sit on the comfortable sidelines of contentment.  Long leaps forward are neither contemplated nor attempted without a metaphorical fire at our heels.  Autonomy and personal freedom are far more precious following a period of enslavement.  Feeling the pressure and constraint of deceit can cultivate a deeper commitment to honesty and openness.  Abuse and abandonment can awaken greater love and compassion.

OM Times Magazine » syndicated