Purpose, Path and Practice, the 3P’s of Our Transformational Journey
“What is the best transformational practice?”
This is a question that comes my way quite often. In the context of the innumerable transformational practices that are available these days often people are moving from one practice to another looking for the best that would do some miracle. Unfortunately, this shopping for the best practice and tasting around from place to place doesn’t lead to any lasting inner change. One can often get a temporary high in a workshop or when you try out things for the first time, but they soon fade away and life goes back to the old groves.
When you focus too much on practice in isolation — to understand its exact technique or form, whether it is a physical or psychological practice, you miss out on the larger context that gives it true meaning and life. This context is formed by the purpose and path you have chosen and without them, a practice in itself becomes a mechanical routine empty of deep meaning and animating force and soon will run out steam.
Your purpose is the soul of your practice.
Without a purpose, you cannot have clarity on a path to take and without a path, a practice is a mechanical routine in isolation. If walking is a practice, not everyone who walks reaches the same destination. You must know where you are going and when you have that clarity then you can choose a path that will take you forward and then walking gains meaning, it becomes purposeful.
The Mother says “…on the quality of your aim will depend, the quality of your life.”1
Your purpose is your destiny’s call, your true calling, your soul’s mission unfolding through the dynamic truth and law of your inmost being, your swadharma. This is concealed within your deepest depths and cannot be intellectually constructed or defined. It reveals itself and unfolds like a flower petal by petal. The more you listen to this inner call, this inmost truth of your being, the more it will reveal your path. Without the sense of your purpose, you wouldn’t even know when you take a wrong turn on your path. Your path can be course-corrected only in the context of your purpose. Thus the purpose holds the north star of your destiny and guides the pilgrim on the way.
Initially, you may have only some sketchy and vague ideas about your purpose or you may not even distinguish between a path and the purpose. A project you do, a profession you follow, a trajectory of your career growth, all these are only forming the path you take to reach a purpose that is beyond these means. Your purpose remains like a stable guiding light, your reference point within you, but the pathways change as and when required. When the clarity or sense of this purpose is not there, then the projects you work on, the profession you follow and trajectory of your career growth, all these fall flat empty of meaning. And in that emptiness, all the practices that make up your actual daily walk too become empty and lifeless.
We are only instruments in the larger movements of Nature in her evolutionary purpose and she propels the instruments according to their capacity and reveals the inspiring vision ahead for you to walk forward like the stars of intuitive spark or the dawn of awakening showing the way. It is not intellectually constructed but revealed from the depths of your heart and once you are aligned with the north pole of your destiny, everything will fall in place. Then you get aligned with the larger movements of Nature and in you Nature fulfils herself. What appears as your purpose is only a sacred responsibility given to you by the higher Nature in her larger work in humanity.
The more you are aligned with this inner compass, the more your path is revealed and in this context everything you do become your practice.
- Is the food you eat making your body fit to go forward on the path?
- Is the consequences of your eating habits in the world support the purpose you have?
- Is the network of people you hang out with support or distract you on the way?
- Is the books you read, the media you watch, the projects you work on — are they in alignment?
All these questions acquire deeper meaning only in the context of your purpose and in the light of your purpose, they become the natural context and means of your transformational practice.
Without purpose, you cannot have clarity on your everyday life choices and these choices and the routine activities of the day are your natural practice ground. Take any routine activity of your day, they are only containers, what you bring into them is the light of your purpose and it is this light that informs the activity and makes it into a transformative practice. Then it will come alive with meaning and purpose and become an effortless transformative practice.
It is the light of your soul’s purpose that makes a practice transformative.
Let these questions be well lit within you:
“Why am I doing this?”
“What is my highest purpose?”
The rest are by-products.
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