The Yoga of Your Highest Purpose
by Dr. Katyayani Poole, Ph.D..
Perhaps there's no better time to take a bold step toward your higher growth then when you feel you have nothing to lose.
There are only a few moments in life when this opportunity arises - when you fall in love and you just know it's right, when every door is closed except the one you have to walk through, or when you're faced with certain death.
And when you realize your true Self.
The warrior, Arjuna, encountered one of these moments centuries ago on a battlefield in which he had no choice but to fight.
Yet he didn't feel like he had nothing to lose. In fact, he felt like even if he won the war, he'd have lost many of his precious family members. And that wasn't worth it to him.
At the same time, he knew he couldn't turn back and stop what was happening. But he really wanted to. He really didn't want to act at all.
So Arjuna dropped his bow and (like many of us faced with a similar win/lose dilemma) fell to his knees and cried out for help. "What is the right thing for me to do?" he questioned with deep feeling.
Seeing his friend in such a state of confusion and helplessness, Krishna addressed Arjuna as "Partha," the nickname his mother used to call him by.
Only a mother's pure love can make us feel like everything is okay - and that we'll be loved and accepted no matter what we do. With that assurance, we know we can't fail.
So as soon as Arjuna hears his childhood name -- and he remembers his mother's affection and acceptance of him -- a wave of love spreads across his heart like a brilliant dawn.
With the dawn of Love, all feelings of fear, uncertainty, and doubt simply vanish. It just washes away all the darkness of confusion.
This is why in Hindu temples, the priest presents a light of purifying burning camphor to the face of the deity. Likewise when the light of your love is offered to something higher, you can see your true purpose clearly. And you know you can achieve it without fear.
How do you offer your light in this world? How do you know it's right? And most importantly, how do you know you won't fail at it?
Arjuna asked Krishna these same questions. In response, his best friend, his higher Self, instructed him about how to live his dharma - the purpose he was born to fulfill.
The first step is to experience the pure, non-changing, and everpresent Being through the wave of Love that is felt in deep meditation. Krishna tells Arjuna to know himself as the Self - to just witness what's arising as the theater of the Divine.
Next, he instructs Arjuna to do that dharma that arises of out the experience of the Self. When you encounter the depths of your own heart, you feel that everything you do is an act of service.
True service requires that you not be the doer. If you feel you are doing something then there is a feeling of separation - me and you.
Yet a true Yogi established in union with the Self feels everything is just being done. "Let thy will be done," Jesus prayed. "Don't be the doer," Krishna advised.
If you aren't the doer, then the result of your action - good or bad - doesn't belong to you either. That wave of Love just makes you want to offer everything up.
That's why Krishna instructs Arjuna to simply surrender the fruits of all his actions. "Whether it is a simple leaf or a cup of water, I will accept it," Krishna assures him.
In this way, our highest dharma is really a meditation in action. And it involves a very simple fourfold process:
- Experience the Self in meditation,
- Do the action that naturally arises out of that blissful state,
- Don't be the doer, and
- Surrender all your attachments to the outcome.
This ancient advice given by a friend to a friend long ago on a battlefield helps us so much to go beyond fear and limitation.
We think we have to figure out what's best to do intellectually. Instead, simply by connecting with the Self through meditation, your highest life's purpose (your true dharma) just naturally flows out of you.
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