Stay connected to your inspiration, your overall purpose

While rousing our spirit is asking us to stay inspired and engaged with our general practice activities in every moment, this practice point is about staying connected to the bigger picture, knowing what our overall purpose is and keeping that in the forefront of our consciousness.

 

This purpose of ours is concerned with the overarching relevance of our whole life, it’s about our core beliefs, values and priorities that are closest to our hearts. It’s also about being anchored to who we are, a sense of confidence in oneself and what we stand for, of what’s worth protecting. We stay inspired and motivated about all the individual practices we undertake to bring about the conditions for growth, but they all serve the overall vision of our lives and who we are, the bigger picture that defines the direction our life will take.

 

Clearly knowing what that vision is, what our core values and beliefs are is of utmost importance, they are the guiding light that will determine our future self. I think part of the problem is that we don’t really believe in anything, not in the sense that it really matters, ideas and principles that we’d protect at all costs. I didn’t really have anything I truly cared about until I was about thirty years old. I loved my partner, I was a decent human being, but I wasn’t really inspired by anything.

 

It’s understandable, we aren’t really exposed to positive and inspiring systems of thinking and ways of being, heroic principles and values that call us in a way that can’t be denied. The fact is, every single one of us is capable of manifesting great qualities and living rich and fulfilling lives, it’s a matter of finding our passion, our inspiration to wake up.

 

Without this sense of direction and purpose, what are we? What’s a road trip without a destination, driving around randomly or in circles without any sense of direction or purpose? Maybe that is actually what most people are doing in their lives? Our overall purpose provides a greater context, a greater perspective. We know that what we do isn’t just related to an action or task’s immediate result, but part of this overarching vision.

 

This makes life more meaningful on all levels, and makes it much easier to endure difficulties and situations that don’t go our way. A greater context means the minutiae of life has less sway, we aren’t thrown here and there by every little drama that arises.

 

Connecting ourselves with inspiration and motivation is simply about bringing to mind positive intentions and motivations in relation to anything we do, any action, anything we want to accomplish, regardless of whether it’s something we want to do, or it’s an obligation or responsibility.

 

When we approach life from the perspective that everything we do is important and serves our greater vision, nothing is pointless, so it reframes everything we do in a positive light. Training ourselves in this way has the potential to change our entire life to one where no moment is a wasted experience, everything you do has value.

 

Another side effect of being constantly imbued with purpose is that we don’t sweat the small stuff. When we find greater perspective in life, we know what’s important, what matters, so every little hiccup to our carefully manicured reality ceases to be a problem. There’s great freedom in this. It’s not that we want to minimise the suffering that life can bring, but if we take an incisive and honest look at our problems, we’ll probably find that they’re mostly insignificant in nature.

 

Also, life has a way of eating away at our values, people are prone to taking the easy way out, to taking what appear to be shortcuts but are really dead ends or worse. Keeping our life direction and values conscious means we stay connected to what’s important, what our priorities are and can consciously choose to not act in ways that undermine them, to act affirmatively to honour them and who we are. 

 

This training principle is asking us to keep our overall inspiration and purpose conscious to guide and fuel our endeavours to achieve our goals, to be happier and freer of suffering. The more practiced we become at cultivating positive and affirmational states and attitudes of mind, the better skilled we will be for this to come to fruition. Also, the other two focus elements of awareness and a warrior-like attitude will go a long way to keeping us positively engaged with whatever we are doing, so we keep travelling in the direction of our vision.