You are not a human being in search of a spiritual experience. You are a spiritual being immersed in a human experience. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin
The wonderful thing about the quote above is that as a spiritual being having a human experience, we’ve made a choice to live in our physical bodies for the development of our Soul. The question is then, how do we know if we’re on the right path? Is it necessary, at some point in life, to seek our ‘true’ purpose or is it fine just to experience life as it comes and roll wherever it takes us?
For young people in particular there’s often conflict between the joy of being and the pressure to do and acquire as much as possible as quickly as possible. The current epidemic of anxiety and depression combined with an underlying lack of self-love and self worth causes such confusion over what’s important. If success is measured by monetary wealth only, the whole concept of love for self and taking time to find joy in life, in relationships, in nature, in stillness, becomes lost or less important.
This week, my 28-year-old son introduced me to Yes Theory, a YouTube Channel set up by 3 young guys with millions of subscribers. Having a fairly high stress and time consuming business himself, my son finds the videos uplifting and inspiring. They believe that “life’s most beautiful moments and meaningful connections exist outside our comfort zones.”
They have made dozens of videos and connections around the world and have become incredibly financially successful. Which is why I was drawn to watch a rather different video made by just one of them entitled ‘I meditated every day for a 1000 days straight’. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pl8Rai0OWM&t=909s.
It’s a very honest recount of his realisation of what’s important.
And what if our true purpose, however we discover it and through however many lessons we’re given, is to love life, feel love and give love? A deep connection, love and understanding of self as well as others. Whether as a parent, a friend or through the work that we choose to do, it doesn’t really matter. One thing I am certain of, if we don’t learn love and compassion in this human incarnation, we will not have evolved very far.
Finishing as I started with a beautiful quote from Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “Love alone is capable of uniting living beings in such a way as to complete and fulfil them, for it alone takes them and joins them by what is deepest in themselves.”
