Practicing Your Faith

A Course in Tranquility Lesson 8 of 14 – Practicing Your Faith

“That one who has faith has God knowledge. Devoted to that, controlling the senses, and having wisdom, the devotee quickly attains the tranquil state.  The ignorant person, who does not have faith, who is of a doubting nature, perishes.  For the doubting person, neither in this world nor the realms beyond, is there happiness.”

– Bhagavad Gita 4: 39,40

We are practicing our faith at every moment. That which we hold to be true about life and its processes manifests, because it is the nature of consciousness to reflect what is presented to it. However we expect life to be, will be brought into our life experience either in the near or distant future. There are, at least, three levels of influence on our consciousness that shapes our life experience and determines our faith: our conscious thoughts, our subconscious store house of memories and past thoughts, and the thoughts and ideas of other people. To be a spiritual master, a fully mature human being, entails gaining dominion over what we allow to shape our faith.

Our minds are built of past perceptions. The building plans that create structure out of our past perceptions is based on our judgments. As we make judgments on experiences, we sow the seeds of our future.  We arrange those past perceptions in a certain way, based on the direction of our judgment. As has always been true, what you sow is what you reap.

Imagine you are attempting to master a musical instrument, and during your early months of first getting acquainted with the notes of the scale, where to put your fingers, and how to hold the instrument you meet with failure at every turn. You play your scales wrong. You have a hard time following the metronome. You get a kink in your neck, because you have poor posture. Now, let’s look at two different possible perspectives in relation to these events.

Option 1 Thought Process: “This is terrible!  I hate this instrument! I’m not any good at all. My friends were right, and I should stop wasting my time learning to make beautiful music!”

Option 2 Thought Process: “Hmmm. This is turning out to be harder than I thought. I guess I’m going to have to slow down and focus on one aspect of this at a time. That’s OK. All this hard work is going to pay off, when I can finally play that Gypsy Jazz Swing  tune I love so much. Let’s get back to work!”

Note that the experience, or the reality of the experience, was exactly the same from both of these perspectives. The difference came in the interpretation of the experience. From those interpretations, the person who chose thought process number one, gave up on music, eventually took a job that was boring and tedious, and every time she listened to the music she loved, she thought back with regret on letting a few obstacles (ones that nearly every musician goes through) get in the way. The person who chose thought process number two, went onto to play in a symphony and became a teacher, inspiring young children to also express their own music through their chosen instrument. She’s happy for the most part, and looks forward to her work in music everyday. This same principle is applicable to our spiritual growth process.

It is easy to think that anyone with spiritual clarity and peace made no effort to this end. When we think this way, we can make excuses such as:

“There is something special about that person that I’ll never have, at least not in this life time.”

“They had better opportunities and better information.”

“I’m not as strong as them or as dedicated.”

“They can just close their eyes and meditate without any distraction or thought.”

“It was easy for them to think positively and have faith in the process.”

Again, we must remember that these are all excuses. For a person to experience success in anything, it requires a strong faith and dedication to maintain the course until the desired end is reached. This is applicable to music, building a business, having money, being a nice person, and even enlightenment.

Now, I’m pretty certain that our life is infinite and that the body, mind and personality are the only things that really change. I’m also pretty sure that as we move from one body to the other we carry our states of consciousness with us. The personality may be a little different, and the history will change with each incarnation, but deep down inside, whatever state of consciousness we had in our last incarnation is most certainly going to show up again once our mind, body, nervous system and personality come to full maturity this time around.

This being the case, you can bet that any spiritually aware person had to wrestle with impatience, greed, lust, the monkey mind, lack of faith, disease, mental instability, being honest, developing a sense of unyielding happiness for no reason, etc, either earlier on in this lifetime or at some other point in infinity before they expressed soul consciousness as clearly as they do now. To think otherwise is just creating another false story, that will empower your own lack of clarity about what you really have to do if you want to wake up.  They did it. You can too. You can say you are too old or too young or too wild or two worldly. It doesn’t matter where you are on the circle of infinity, you can find an excuse. When you decide to stop having excuses and start getting down to business, you will begin moving forward in the direction you want to go.

If you choose to doubt this perspective, you will experience situations that sustain your doubt. If you choose adopt this perspective, you will find that with hard work and renewed enthusiasm, a new and life affirming paradigm will dawn in your awareness.

Three Levels of Influence

As mentioned above, our faith is determined by the current thinking processes we are aware of, the accumulation of past thoughts in the subconscious, and the thoughts of others. All of these need to be dealt with to reshape our faith. Being realistic, this can be quite a job. But remember, we are infinite beings. We have as long as it takes to accomplish this end.  Wasting your time not undertaking this task is only prolonging your experience in infinity as being negative and less than enjoyable.

Our current thinking process is the most immediate level of influence we can change. These are most specifically related to our judgments about reality. If you find that you are thinking negatively about anything, the immediate response is to admit you have had this habit in the past, but to choose to think positively now. What ever reason you have to think negatively is just your excuse, with no correspondence to reality. Countless people have experienced terrible atrocities, and yet still remain buoyant and optimistic.  Countless people also have everything handed to them on silver platter, and can still find reasons to complain. It’s up to you to decide which way you go in life.

At the outset, this may feel like a waste of time. Your negativity persists. You feel you are lying to your self about the possible positive potential of an outcome. You may even begin to experience a quick result of your change of thinking. Something that was about to turn out bad, may unexpectedly turn out good. Then, like clockwork, you think, “But this isn’t going to last.  When is the other shoe going to drop?” Then things go wrong, and you say, “See.  I knew that was going to happen!” This is faith in action.

But if you persist, doing your best to change one little thought at a time, eventually those little drops of thought accumulate into a bucket full of positive faith. Continue, and eventually you have a swimming pool filled with positive thoughts ready to germinate and sprout. The quickness with which you fill your mind with positive expectations, is in relation to your receptivity and stubbornness. If you say, “I’m too stubborn to change too quickly.” Watch your thoughts.  Reaffirm, “I am done with the habit of stubbornness and can accept quick results of my change of thinking.”  Keep this up until your acceptance of good fortune is more powerful than your past habit of accepting ill fortune. Whichever has the most gravity within you wins, and a habits particular gravity grows with the more attention and intention we invest in it.

Our subconscious, that which stimulates our deep feeling state, is vast indeed. You can do your best to change your thinking, but if your subconscious does not align with that thinking, you are at odds with your self, and potentially canceling out your intentions. If you say, “I am very willing to do what it takes to be spiritually free.” Yet, in the pit of your stomach, you feel “Well, yes, this is true, but only if I don’t really have to challenge my current way of life.  As long as I don’t have to make any major changes, then yes, I am willing to do what it takes to be spiritually free.” This is one sure fire way, to not experience spiritual freedom, because you are not one hundred percent committed.

You may say, “I’d like to make more money.” Or “I’d like to have perfect health.” Yet, when someone offers you work, your inner feelings come up as a sense of resistance, and your actions will show your inner subconscious beliefs. You will be late for your interview, or forget to set your alarm, or just decide the work is too hard, and say to your self, “Well, that’s just not the right job for me.” When you decide to have perfect health, it may be easy to tell your self “I’m healthy and happy!” Yet you may find that your subconscious does not agree, because you take no initiative to exercise or to get enough rest, or to choose to avoid actions which inevitably cause suffering.

Watch your actions and your inner gut reactions to any changes you make in your conscious thinking process. If your actions do not align with the new way of thinking, you may need to work on your subconscious too. One very helpful method, is to set up your life so that you can ignore your thinking mind while changing your subconscious and thereby strengthening your faith. Here is how to get around the inertia of the subconscious.

Exercise to Change the Subconscious

Example 1: You decide that you want to be more spiritually awake. You’ve changed your thinking process, so you are no longer telling your self the story, that it is too hard, and you don’t deserve it, or that you are too young or to old.  You read spiritual inspirational literature every night before sleep and do your best to eat your vegetables, exercise, pay your bills, and be friendly. Yet, every morning your alarm goes off at 6 AM, the time you decided to meditate.  Your thoughts kick in and say, “But it’s so comfortable here. I need all of my rest for work, so I can do a good job.” Then you unplug the alarm, and drift back into sleep.

Proper response:  The night before, as you fall asleep, you tell your self, “I am going to get up at 6 AM, and meditate. Before I even begin thinking I’m going to get out of bed and go sit in my meditation chair.”

The alarm goes off at 6 AM. Before your mind gets a chance to engage, you swing your feet out of bed. Put on your robe, and go sit down in your meditation chair and begin with a short prayer, then you practice your chosen meditation technique.

You do this every day. The mind doesn’t gets a chance to engage and express all your subconscious conditioning and resistance towards meditation. Before the mind knows what is happening, you are already sitting and meditating.  You then find your mind was wrong, and that you actually have more energy and are more peaceful by starting your day on such a positive decisive note. If you can do that, you can be successful in just about any other undertaking.

Example 2: You have always wanted to write a book. You have many great ideas, enjoy reading, and have always wanted to contribute your own creativity to the world. Yet, you have made up a reality that you need to be an English major, and you need more time, and you aren’t that creative anyway. You tell your self it is a pipe dream, etc. The result of this kind of faith is that you spend your evenings watching TV, and waste time on the internet surfing for information that has no bearing on your life.

The alternative is that you decide you are not going to tell your self that story anymore. So you do. Everyday you wake up and say “I’m ready to write that book! As soon as I get home from work, I’m going to get started.” You get home from work, think about your book, and then get sidetracked on the internet, or doing laundry, or staring out the window. Your subconscious resistance is at work.

The solution is that you tell your self, “I am going to write that book, and I’m going to do it every day after work for at least 30 minutes to an hour.” Now, as soon as you get home, before the kids favorite TV show is over, and they are demanding your attention, you immediately sit down at your computer and start typing. You brainstorm. You type what ever comes, in regards to your ideas about the book. It doesn’t even matter if you don’t know what you are doing. The point is that you get started, and you don’t give your mind a chance to engage in all its subconscious crap about the impossibility of this project. A half hour goes by, and now you are excited, you don’t want to stop. You experience the success of starting, so that every day when you get home, you don’t think about your negative faith in your abilities, you immediately make the habit that you are going to sit down and start writing.

You may find that you do need more information about how to write dialogue or sculpt a plot or make believable characters, but now you are no longer surfing the internet mindlessly, you are looking for books on “writing books”, you are reading forums about the best way to publish. As the months and years go by. Your thirty minutes to one hour a day, turns into a passion, and you have a completed novel.

This same process can be applied to any area of life. Set a specific time each day to take action in your chosen endeavor. Don’t think about your chosen endeavor through out the day. Then when the bell rings, indicating it is time to take action, you immediately start doing whatever it is you have chosen. You circumvent the mind and your subconscious and begin reshaping your subconscious, your faith and your destiny to a new end.

Your Task

Pick something you have always wanted to do. Set aside a realistic and specific amount of time every day, at the same time every day, that you are going to dedicate to accomplishing this. Set an alarm if you have to. Don’t go through your day anticipating this event, because that gives your subconscious plenty of time to fill your conscious mind with reasons as to why this is silly. Just decide that you are going to do it, and no thoughts or doubts or anything or anyone else is going to get in the way. Once the alarm goes off, you will know its time to begin. Immediately go to where you can get to work and start the process.

It doesn’t matter to me if this is a “spiritual” goal, or a normal everyday goal. Once you can master this process with one aspect of your life it will be applicable to any aspect. I have also found, that my spiritual growth and inner poise has increased simply by being more purposeful and finding that I can do what I say I’m going to do. I meditate better, and am happier throughout the day. You are learning to reshape your subconscious, and as your successes or at least your tenacity to succeed continues, resistance to success falls away, until your natural state is a successful one.

Other People

Other people have been shaping our lives, by our own concession, for as long as we’ve been alive. In an ideal world, we would be raised by healthy minded parents and family and surrounded by supportive friends and coworkers. You may have noticed that for most people, this is not the case.

The way we see the world, what we expect, our judgment and ultimately our faith is usually in direct relation to the people around us. Luckily, after we grow up, and move out, we have the capacity to assess the validity of the faith we have accepted from other people and decide if it is useful, or if we need to recreate a faith that is more useful to our purposes in this world. Just as we may seek out a church that is more in line with our spiritual faith, we can seek out new people that are in line with our life faith.

Listen to the messages you are given by those around you. Are they positive and encouraging? Are the messages demeaning, and restrictive? Do they say, “Sure you can accomplish those little things, but don’t get too ambitious!” Why not be ambitious?  Think of the messages you were given as a child. Are they still valid? Do you find it worthwhile to keep listening to them? Do you somehow think that the people who gave you those messages are special in someway, or are entitled to a specific revelation of truth, that you are not? Look at the quality of the lives of the people who’s messages you allow into your consciousness. Are they happy, successful, wise, and good to the world? If so, their messages may be worth considering. If not, consider if you like participating in their faith, and make a decision.

We are eternal beings, temporarily identifying with a personality, history, mind and body. There is no merit in maintaining a state of consciousness that is no longer useful to you. Change is constant in the external world. Our faith in life can change too, and it should, otherwise we become living fossils of a lost age. When we are children we may see God as a child does.  As we mature, so does our understanding about life. Wear your faith like a garment. When that garment becomes old, worn and useless, cast it off, and decide to take up the mantle of a faith that more accurately reflects your aspirations. As you stay true to your path in life, you will know when a change of direction is called for. Have faith in the universe to provide what you need when you need it, and you will experience the endless flow of grace that is accessible to anyone who chooses to accept it.

Faith is the essence of how our life expresses in this world. The Gita states that, “one who does not have faith or is of a doubting nature perishes.” This is because if we have no faith or aspiration we are in decay. To doubt is to negate. That which you doubt has little power if any tangible force in your life experience. Joseph Campbell said, “You see no Gods outside of you, because there are none within you.” If you have faith in a divine presence, or your higher Self, that aspect of consciousness is empowered and you can depend on it.

Faith the size of a mustard seed, is said to have the power to move a mountain. The best medicine in the world can fail, if we do not believe in its efficacy. Similarly, in Yogananda’s Autobiography of a Yogi, friend of the great Sri Yutkeswar was brought back to life, by seven drops of lamp oil, because of the powerful force behind Lahiri Mahasaya’s faith.

William Blake once wrote, “If the Sun and the Moon should doubt, they’d immediately go out.” He also wrote, “The questioner who sits so sly, shall never know how to reply, he who replies to words of doubt, doth put the light of knowledge out.” We can confuse wisdom and knowledge with the thinking mind, but that does not make our thoughts knowledge. Knowledge, real knowledge comes from within. It is an inner knowing, and cannot be explained in words. By your meditation practice and surrender of your limited ego to a higher power, you tap into soul liberating knowledge. You no longer have to convert people to prove your view point is correct. You no longer have to explain to others why you believe what you do, because it is enough that you know it.

To have faith is not to hope something will occur or that something is true. Hope implies doubt. Faith is the power of life. Remember, if the sun or moon doubted they would promptly go out. To have faith is to live.

It is good to remember, that one faith is not better than another. Just as meditation techniques or spiritual teachers are not in competition. No matter the chosen expression of our faith, if we stay true to our path, we will experience the results of our commitment. Then we will know happiness, because we will have followed our calling to the very end, and then we can return from the journey and tell others what we have seen and experienced. We can strengthen the faith of our fellow travelers, and sustain the divine expression of life.

One Last Thought

This can be a lot to take in all at once. There can be many changes that you can imagine need to occur to be successful in reshaping your faith and moving into a state of spiritual tranquility. To say to your self, “OK, from now I am always going to have faith, and be purposeful and always make the right decision, from now until the end of my life” is a good way to overload your system, and then promptly give up, when on day three you slip back into old patterns.  The best way to approach this transformational process is one day at a time.

Spend some time reflecting on what your life of faith would look like when all is said and done. What will you have accomplished?  How will you have lived?  What values and ideals will you chose to express? What will people say about you after you are no longer in their presence?  Write these down.  After you’ve taken some time to get clear on this, then decide that for the rest of the day, you are going to do your best to live in such a way as to support these intentions. However, unnatural it may feel, you are going to get used to it until it becomes enjoyable and pleasant.

Then you wake up tomorrow and promptly decide you are going to do your best to live up to this new idea of your self. Then through your own will power, and divine grace, you will take the steps towards that end.

There will be moments, hours or even days, that you fall off the path you’ve decided to walk, and get a little turned around. As soon as you are aware of this, you decide you are going to find that path and start walking again. No guilt. No shame. No beating your self up. When you fall down, get up. As long as you are gentle with your self and persistent in your new vision, your new faith, it will eventually grow up out of the dirt and reach to the sun, where it will finally blossom, sharing its fragrance with the world.

Sincerely, Ryan Kurczak 2010

Vision and Purpose

A Course in Tranquility – Lesson 4 of 14 – Vision and Purpose

We are each individualized expressions of consciousness. What does that mean?
It means that we are a condensation of Infinity. Imagine that there is a field of being that
has no boundary and no limitation. You can imagine it like an immense ocean, if you are
inclined. Now, from time to time, that ocean becomes more dense. Imagine a flat cloth
sheet spread across a table. Now imagine pressing your finger on the sheet and twisting it,
so that the sheet bunches up around your finger. The field bunches up into an
“individual”. The field becomes contracted and it experiences itself with attributes. It
gains a sense of self, it feels that it is an individual. It gains a personality, an idea of
history. It is then able to feel itself and begins to “think” that it is different than the space
around it.

Imagine, as the sage Vasistha would have you do, that this field takes shape,
much like a block of gold can be shaped into a bracelet. The biggest problem we all have
to face is the forgetfulness that although we are no longer identified with the formless
field, we are still that field, just as the bracelet is really still gold. To feel separate from
God or the Divine is just as absurd as the bracelet bemoaning that it has become a
bracelet and lost its “goldness”.

Yogananda has said that, “the purpose of life is much different than what most
people believe.” He is correct. The purpose of life is to wake up to your immortal nature.
It’s to realize that, yes, you currently identify with a form, but that really you are the
wholeness of life. I’ve heard my meditation teacher say before, that when you meditate,
“feel as though you are in God.” I followed this advice for a long time. Then one day, it
occurred to me. ‘Since we are not separate from God or the infinite, why not meditate as
though we are the infinite!?’ You then realize that you are what God is doing right now.

From a human perspective, raised on stories of heroes saving the day, and taught
that we need to overcome odds and achieve glory, fame, money, a big house, the perfect
family, etc. the need for a purpose is extremely strong. However, the question I’d like to
encourage you to ask your self is, “What needs a purpose?” Obviously you will say that
“You do!” But that is not true. Remember, the real you is immortal, changeless, timeless,
infinite. Yet something within encourages you that there must be a purpose to your life to
be happy and successful. You can meditate on this, and I highly advise that, so that you
get the direct experience of this knowledge.

I’m going to go ahead and give the actual answer to this question, “who needs a
purpose”. The mind needs a purpose. You are not the mind. Yet you have a mind, and it’s
not happy unless it’s got something to think about. Hence, one thing that will keep it
thinking for centuries is “what’s my purpose?” Why is this case? If you had a purpose,
you would be acting on it and not wondering what it is. We’ll discuss how to remedy the
“I need a purpose” problem later in the lesson.

I’d like to encourage you to think about something to help bring this home. When
you look to nature, do you wonder, “what’s the purpose?” If so, why? Does nature
wonder, “what’s the purpose of my existence?” No. So why should you? Think about
dancing. Is the purpose of dancing to get from point A to point B? Think about music. Is
the purpose to get to the end of a song? You may have heard theories that all of this
experience is God’s play, or that life is a cosmic dance. So what’s the purpose of playing
and dancing? Simply, to do it.

Now, it is obvious that we, being individualized units of infinity, do have specific
role to play in this divine drama. If you want to think about it, think of it as though you
are each individual cells of a larger organism, you are not different from the organism,
because you came out of its substance, but you take shape to express certain aspects so
that organism may experience life.

Before we go into more detail about what you, as an individual “should” be doing
with your life, please take some time to answer the following questionnaire. Write as
much as you want, but be sure to write at least three good sentences for each question.
This will start the process of being able to really question your ideas about purpose, and
bring some more clarity along the way.

So You Need a Purpose Questionnaire
1) In an ideal world, what would your purpose be?
2) Are you living in the world, acting in a way, or doing work that you do not
enjoy or that you find meaningless?
3) Where do you think meaning comes from?
4) Why are you living like you are living now?
5) Who told you to live this way? Why did you listen?
6) Do you think fulfillment is going to come when you accomplish that one
specific thing, meet that one specific person, or acquire a certain predetermined status?
7) What is wrong with right now?
8) When you are in your day, and you are doing your job, or interacting with
certain people, are there particular moments that just are not right? Are you sure? How
can you tell?
9) What makes you think that one moment is better than another?
10) What would it mean to you if you know, in your heart of hearts, your sense of
meaning is really only dependant on your attitude and choice to imbue something with
meaning and purpose?

How to Avoid Wasting Your Life Wondering
As we go along, we need to realize that one of the biggest blocks to experiencing
real tranquility is thinking too much. As mentioned before, yes, we do need to be able to
think. We need to be able to reason, to balance our check book, to make a plan of action,
to assess the merit or demerit of a situation, but once these actions are completed,
thinking does not need to continue.

As mentioned above, wondering what your purpose is, is one sure fire way to
waste endless moments of time thinking and not being in a tranquil space. The real reason
we think too much is to avoid making decisions. Why? Usually it’s because we don’t
want to fail. We want to make sure we are making the right decision. As if, if we only
made that one perfect decision, everything would work out in a fairy tale ending, AND
THEN we can relax and be tranquil.

This leads us back to the ideal of spiritual practice as daily living: To act in the
world, while letting go of the fruits of our actions. Take some time to think about this.
Can anyone, even the most talented expert in a field, completely control the outcomes of
their actions? We can live perfectly skillfully, and yes this has merit. It keeps us out of a
lot of trouble and gives us a higher probability that life will go our way, but has anyone
been able assure that life WILL go the way they want all time? Jesus was nailed to a
cross. Do you think that was on his personal agenda? The point I am making is that, we
are here to act, to surrender, to let the divine work through us. We are here to do our best
and give up the fruits of our actions to the divine, and then let the cards fall where they
may.

Many people mistake this idea of renouncing our actions to mean that they should
just not do anything. If nothing happens, then that is God’s will. There is the thought they
should renounce their work, family, obligations etc, to know God. In our current age, that
is not a useful thought. If work is troubling, if family gets in the way of your decisions,
or your obligations waste your time and your resources, then yes, cut them loose.
Otherwise, this is a projection of your own inability to accept the moment, and to blame it
on an external situation.

Real renunciation is being appropriate to the moment while letting go of
attachment to the action. If your kid needs a new pair of shoes, it’s appropriate to get him
a pair. No need to think about it. That is what needs to occur. If your coworker is going
out to lunch, your hungry, you didn’t bring food to work, and she asks you to tag along,
that is appropriate. Who needs to think about it? If you have a terrible disease and need
treatment, do some research, find out what would help out, and if you want to live, take
action. If you don’t like your spouse anymore and you don’t have much in common or
are not supportive of each others lifestyle, it may be time for counseling or moving on.
Make a decision and let it go. You can never look back and say, “Well, if I had only done
that…” If you had only done ‘that’, still no one can say what the outcome would’ve been.

To avoid useless thinking and endless worrying and begin more fully moving into
a state of tranquility, follow these steps:

1) Look at the situation you are in.
2) Ask, “what is appropriate for me to do here?”
3) Based on the information you have, and the inner guidance that is available to
you, make a decision.
4) Act on the decision.
5) Let the result be what it is. You can’t control that. That’s the way it is, so make
some peace with it.
6) Move on to the next moment.
7) Repeat.

Now, you might be focused on step #3, specifically the part that talks about
accessing your inner guidance. This is a very important part of the whole process, and
there are some good points to remember about how this works:

• The same intelligence that organizes the trillions of cells in your body, and the
spinning and whirling of the countless galaxies guides your actions.
• Inspiration and inner guidance is nothing special, mystical or flashy. There are no
bells and whistles. If you think there are, that is the mind needing something
interesting to pay attention to.
• The more you pay attention to your inner guidance, the more active it becomes.
• The less you pay attention to and the more willful you are about needing to think
things through, the less active is the inner guidance.

Learning to Access Your Inner Guidance

First, you can meditate every day. That will allow you to detach from your mind and
your thinking process so you can become aware of the vast stillness, from which the inner
guidance comes. Then as you go about your day, if you need to make a decision, you can
remember what it was like to be in the silence, and then ask, “What is appropriate here?”
Now, the response will not be a thought. If you ask the question, and you are greeted
with a flurry of thoughts resembling a list of multiple choice answers, ignore them.

Remember the silence, and ask again. Then wait. You will find that the inner guidance
comes out of nowhere. It does not come in the form of a thought. It comes as an impulse.
The impulse feels natural. Someone calls your phone. You don’t think about it, you just
immediately decide to ignore it or answer it. Someone asks what your name is, again you
don’t think about it, you just decide to say your name. That’s the kind of feeling that the
inner guidance resembles. It is immediate and natural.

The more you trust yourself to live in this way, the better decisions you will be
making, because you will not be relying on the limited information in your mind to make
decisions, you will be merged with your infinite nature and allowing the natural
expression of that nature to come through. Note, I did not say, everything will work out
exactly as you expect it to. To think that is a waste of time and a way of maintaining
unreasonable expectations. A well informed man once said, “Not even the very wise can
see all ends.” And he said it for a reason!

Your Purpose Is Found in Your Vision
We have a vision of life. Each of us have ideas about how life works, why people are
the way they are, what an ideal life looks like. In our consciousness we have moods, and
thoughts and memories we constantly entertain. These are the threads of the fabric of our
vision.

Do you want to know what your vision of life is?

• Look at the people around you.
• Look at the moods and feelings you habitually have.
• Look at what you do with your time.
• Look at the thoughts you allow your self to think.

This is your vision. You see it outside, but you only see it there, because that is
the way you believe life is, that is your internal faith in the world. This is usually the
hardest thing to swallow, because it can be EXTREMELY hard to change. This depends
on how invested we are in this vision. Again, meditation is so important, because over
time, if we do it right, we eventually get to see that we are NOT our thoughts, moods,
actions, friends, etc. If we are not these things, it is easier to change them, because they
do not define us. If you want to know your purpose, it is sustaining your vision. We do it
every day, whether we know it or not.

Remember, we are infinite. The real us is not bound by time, or space, or
circumstance.

We have free will. To think that there is a divine being in the sky proclaiming that
“such and such” should happen, is another way of skirting our responsibility, and once
more projecting the source of our experiences, somewhere outside of us. Our fate, our
purpose, is just the accumulation of our past thoughts, actions, and states of
consciousness. God is infinite. That means there are infinite possibilities. ANYTHING
CAN HAPPEN. God is infinite. While embodied, we have a choice in regards to what
part of our infinity we want to experience.

We’ve talked a lot about giving up the fruits of our actions and letting results be
what they may. Yet I also encourage you to live a dynamic life, making choices and
moving in the direction you want to go. This can create a bit of dissonance. It can inspire
someone to ask, “Well, if I can’t control the results, why should I try to do anything at
all?”

You will always be somewhere in Infinity. So let your purpose be to build your
ideal vision. As you persist, and give it attention and are skillful and mindful as you go,
your vision will become a reality. Worrying about your mistakes, and thinking about the
results doesn’t help you get there. It is your intention, fortified by your actions, thoughts,
feelings and faith, that creates it.

Yogananda once said, that within failure is the best time to sow the seeds of
success. This is because if you fail at an endeavor, you have just burnt off some of the
force of your past actions that were supportive of failure. When you fail, and you get up
and keep moving toward your goal, you are taking actions and setting intentions for
success. To continue in this way, eventually, the power of your actions dedicated to being
successful in an endeavor will become stronger than your past actions towards failure.
Then success in the given endeavor becomes the norm. It’s all about the interplay
between your past and present actions.

Fate is the accumulation of your past actions and modes of being. You create your
future fate by the persistence of your present actions and modes of being.

Creating Your Vision and Purpose

Now that you have had a chance to do some reflecting on your mental concepts of
purpose and life, let’s get right down determining your role in life and how that role is
determined.

Step 1: Make peace with the role you have been playing up until now. This may
take some reflection, some therapy, or just a moments notice. What ever you need to do,
do it.
Step 2: Acknowledge that your head might be filled with thoughts, ideas,
intentions, successes and failures of others you have encountered. Decide if you want to
keep listening to the stuff in your head. Remember, the people that you have allowed to
influence your sense of self are just like you. So there is nothing special about their input
that you need to pay attention to unless you want to. Even if they are extremely
persuasive people, that doesn’t make their insights more pertinent, it just means they are
better at making an impression and being persuasive.
Step 3: Begin to use your imagination. Brainstorm. Get out a sheet of paper and
write at the top MY VISION OF LIFE. Then make a list of 100 specific things you would
be doing, ways you would be feeling, the types of people you would be interacting with if
you were living your vision in this moment. 100 is a lot, but don’t stop until you reach
100.
Step 4: Face your fears. Look at your vision of life. Take another sheet of paper.
Look at each of the 100 items individually. Write down what would need to change in
your life to make this so. Then write down why this scares you.
Step 5: Looking at your fears, take another sheet of paper. Now beside each fear,
list what the pros and cons are of remaining immobilized by this fear.
Step 6: Decide if your vision is worth it to you. If it is proceed to step 7. If it’s not,
start over or revise your vision. But remember, you will get exactly what you settle for.
Step 7: Look at the list of actions you need to take to experience your vision.
Make a discipline of doing at least one thing every day, that will make your vision a
reality. Find pictures of people who have accomplished the same thing. Keep those
pictures somewhere you can see them often. Read biographies of people who have
accomplished this similar vision. In this way, you will be attuning to their state of
consciousness and accessing the support of that state. Avoid people who are unsupportive
in their thoughts and actions. Don’t talk about your vision to anyone, unless you have a
mentor that can guide you. Keep your energy for actually doing what it takes to birth
your vision.
Step 8: Let go of the results of your actions, and persist until your vision is as
natural as the current vision of your life is. Let your purpose be manifesting this vision.

Sincerely, Ryan Kurczak 2010