Finding Your True Purpose

From the time I was eight years old, and wrote my first poem, I knew I wanted to be a writer. It felt right, heart and soul. With a burning desire and one-pointed focus, I followed all the right courses through high school and college in a straight path to fulfill my life's purpose. Then, boom! I started meditating, and my life opened up to new possibilities.

I took advanced courses, became a meditation teacher and set out to help the world. Though my spiritual side continued to actively grow, I married, had babies, but then turned my attention back to writing. I worked for years, writing ten books that my critique group loved, but publishers didn't. As much as I wanted it to, my career as a writer wasn't working.

Then, again, boom! It was as if that lifetime ended. The desire to write left. Completely.

I hadn't a clue about what to do. I'd thought I knew my purpose in life, but suddenly I was searching, like millions of others in the world. How is your search coming? What is your purpose? You do have a design for your life.

It's not working/sleeping/eating/paying bills/working. It's joy and love and fulfillment. It's doing what you - and you alone - were born to do. Do you know what you are here for? In the Vedas, ancient Indian texts, this is the principle known as "dharma" -- your own true work that nourishes you and society on every level.

Few people know there is such a thing as dharma, settling for whatever is available. Of those who do have an inkling about it, only a handful have the least clue of how to discover what it is. Do you know your purpose in life? Or care? Most of us do. Many of us have a gut feeling that there must be more to life than meets the casual glance, and that we each have an important role to fulfill. Pay attention to those feelings. That's your intuition at work.

It's easy to ignore and easier still to slide past those inward thoughts and get caught up in your normal routine. We have each created our own pattern. As in clockworks where interlocking gears form set patterns that do not deviate (at least in a well-run clock), most people choose an established path, get on the wheel, and start running in circles for the rest of their lives. These paths could be anything from doctor to lumberjack to executive or anything else. Some people choose the nearest, easiest path - whatever job is available to earn money to pay the bills. Others go to great lengths to find what they do best, soul searching, taking aptitude tests, going to career counselors, etc.

And some people choose well. The ones who are in touch with themselves. I had prided myself on knowing who I was, After all, I'd been teaching meditation for, by that time, 30+ years and already had a strong inner sense of Self. Still, connecting it to daily activity and finding out what I wanted to do was not easy.

And as connected, as in tune as any of us are, we can always connect and refine more. My work had only just begun. I asked myself some hard questions, got some unexpected answers from unexpected sources, and my life has soared. Yours can, too. What did I do? I looked at a few self-help books, such as What Color is Your Parachute and Do What You Love, the Money Will Follow. These are classics.

There are many other, newer books on the market that can help, too. Among other things, I was advised to make lists of things I like to do, and of talents, skills and interests, along with work experience I'd accumulated. I covered several sheets of paper, then studied the results. Though I could no longer write them, I still loved books.

I'd also had retail experience. Putting that together, I thought I could own a used book store. I moved in that direction, getting more experience by working in a book store, but it was slow. Then - guess what? Boom! Deja vu! What I'd thought was a minor interest in my life -- alternative healing systems --paired up with my eternal interest in the development of consciousness, and I was offered the opportunity to co-create, with the Divine, an amazing line of Divine Therapies that work on the most subtle level possible in relative existence. One of them is called "Purpose.

" It's designed to help you connect all the dots inside you, to bring you more in tune with nature's creative design, and help you not only discover what your true life's purpose is, but to achieve it. I did not actively look in this area. This idea came unexpectedly, but I was alert and intuitive enough to recognize it when it came. Once you start searching for your purpose, be alert to all tidbits of ideas that come.

They just might nudge you in a new, perfect direction. I found my dharma, and discovered that living life in dharma is far from a rooted, unchanging existence. It moves as you grow, ever widening, ever deepening. It's like catching the right boat moving down the river.

Hang on, and help steer! We all do have a purpose. I learned to uncover mine, take steps to achieve it, and I learned how to help steer others to their right path. Don't give up.

Your purpose is waiting for you. The way may be winding, smooth, or rough, but if you're on the right boat on the right river, with the rudder in hand, your boat will take you where you want to go.

Allura Adelson is president of Grace Healing Arts, which makes Divinely-guided spiritual healing products. This article on Divine Love can also be found on our site.