When Will I Know My Purpose? - Footnote
Two sources of inspiration for my recent 3-part series on purpose (Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3) were David Hawkins’ Power vs Force and I: Reality and Subjectivity. Hawkins would say that it isn’t so much ego and intellect that are barriers, but our identification with them. In other words, they get in the way when we “fall in love” with them, or when we come to believe that either of them represents “who I am.”
Hawkins speaks of identification with ego or intellect as barriers in the context of elevating consciousness. I applied his theory to the search for purpose, examining my personal experience and the experiences of people I know or have coached, in order to see if it fits. It does. Emphatically.
So another way to summarize my thinking about when you will know your purpose — in Hawkins’ terms — would be to say that purpose can only arrive to a consciousness that is ready for it.
Components of that consciousness include humility, courage, willingness, acceptance, faith, and love. Purpose only enters where those qualities live.
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◊ Filed in: Is Your Genius At Work? | Life's Lessons | Life Purpose
September 13th, 2006 at 8:57 am
Dick, thanks for writing/working through your thoughts on purpose.
I recently described my experience with your book to a friend. In following up he read through our conversation on the Google group.
In a note back to me he noted the conversation had trailed off after opening the discussion of purpose - he asked if there was any further clarity since you and I last discussed it back in May.
As I got ready to reply to him I went back to the Google group and spotted these blog posts of yours on the topic. I’m thankful to see them.
I’ve raved vigourously about your book but always thought the discussion on purpose left out something important. I think your discussion across this series of posts has turned the corner. It’s something Dave Pollard and I have chatted about several times since I finished your workbook.
Between those discussions with Dave and your notes here now, I had a trip between Edmonton and Toronto. On the plane I was wondering about purpose, mildly frustrated that it was so hard to identify. Leaning back into the chair I remembered that wonderful experience described in the Google group where I invited my “genius” into a conversation.
As the regular prattle settled out, my mind settled on a phrase: “Be as water.”
I described the experience here (http://www.siftstar.com/blog/2006/07/21/making-my-name/) - you might enjoy it.
It fits with what you’ve described in this series of posts. I think you might enjoy the discussion in the comments too. At any rate, I agree thoroughly with the emerging ideas you’ve discussed on the blog.
September 14th, 2006 at 9:47 am
Jeremy,
A book only contains what you know when you wrote it. And when I wrote it I believed that everything that needed to be said about purpose had already been said elsewhere. So I was content with summarizing that and focusing on what was not known — genius. I did sense that something was missing, but had no clue. I thought that one could not pursue purpose directly (correct) but that one could accelerate the process by knowing where to look for clues (also correct). So that is how I presented it, and that much still seems right to me. But it bothered me that so many people pursue purpose fruitlessly and I seemed unable to help them.
It is obvious to me now (Duh!) that all of the people I know who hold a deep sense of purpose are also people of elevated consciousness. If you had asked me a year (or even two weeks) ago, I might have said that purpose and elevated consciousness go hand in hand, or that people develop elevated consciousness by virtue of pursuing a purpose.
David Hawkins map of consciousness provided the key. Although I am mildly uncomfortable about his behavioral kinesiology methods, his conclusions do seem inescapable to me. In particular, his discussion about barriers (identification with ego and intellect) seemed to fit perfectly with my experiences.
So the way to help people find purpose (or have it find them) is to help them overcome identification with ego and intellect, and man is that a major task!
Thanks for the link. I’ll check it out.
Be like water!