Purposeful Growth

If you enjoyed The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle, you’ll want to read The Mandala of Being: Discovering the Power of Awareness, by Richard Moss, MD. Whereas Tolle champions the present moment of Now for the beauty, joy, and absence of fear, Moss takes the Now moment much, much further.

Tolle’s work is an easy and enjoyable read. The Mandala of Being is much deeper, penetrating, and at times disturbing. Moss suggests we are sufferers, suffering from feelings of insufficiency and taking on life roles and life stories to counter-balance the discomfort of facing who we really are in the Now.

The mandala Moss presents is a four quadrant symbol with Now in the center. Picture a circle with Now in the center. At the top is the Future, at the bottom, the Past, far left is Me, and far right is You. These are the roles and stories we spend most of our lives in: the Future, the Past, our delusions about Me, and our delusions about You.

Moss tells a compelling story, one that requires we question everything we think we know about our lives and who we are. His promise? Learning to live in the Now brings joy, fulfillment, life satisfaction, and love.

The following is an excerpt from The Mandala of Being:

The Power of Awareness

Any story you tell yourself about who you are, any belief you have, any feeling you are aware of, is only an object of your larger consciousness. You, in your essence, are always something that experiences all these and remains more complete than any of them. When you realize that you are inherently larger than any feeling that enters your awareness, this very awareness will change the feeling, and it will release its grip on you.

Similarly, ideas that you have about yourself are relative, not absolute truths. If you simply look at them and do not let them lead you into further thinking, they will give way and leave your mind open and silent. There is always a relationship between who we believe or feel ourselves to be and something else, the Self that is our larger awareness.

In awakening to this Self-me relationship, we begin to be present with our experience in a new way. We learn to consciously hold our thoughts and feelings in our own larger fields of awareness. Then, even if we are troubled and confused, this nonreactive quality of presence to ourselves allows us to restore ourselves to a sense of wholeness. This is the power of awareness.

Exercising the Power of Awareness

We exercise the power of awareness and strengthen our spiritual muscle by bringing ourselves, over and over again, into the immediate present. To do so, we must become present with what we are feeling and thinking. We can turn our attention directly toward what we are experiencing instead of staying enmeshed in a feeling or blindly accepting our beliefs about ourselves.

It makes all the difference in the world whether we are caught in a negative emotion and say, “I am sad, angry, lonely,” and so on, or are able to recognize, at that moment, “Here am I, all wound up in sensations of resentment. Here am I, fuming with anger.” Awareness of our sensations is not the same as identifying with our thoughts or feelings. Every movement back to present-moment awareness grounds us in the body and opens the connection to our larger awareness.

Even the smallest movement toward exercising the power of awareness, instead of collapsing our larger awareness into our thoughts and feelings and thereby becoming identified with them, restores us to a more complete consciousness. It gives us the power to start from a fresh, open, less conditioned relationship to our experience. This doesn’t necessarily mean that our problems disappear. But as we exercise the power of awareness, our reflexive reactivity diminishes. We respond from a state of greater presence. When we collapse into our feelings, we lose this capacity. We default into me, and this limited self seems like the whole of who we are. Then we have no choice but to react because we feel as if we must defend ourselves.

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For the most satisfying and effective personal development and growth, build your development purposefully. Build personal development on a basis of life purpose.

The purpose driven life is a strong foundation for relevant personal growth and development. Personal development implies a conscious effort to develop specific life skills; a distinct and intentional plan including personal goals and action plans in support of a desired area of personal growth. 

Unfortunately, we often practice this process backwards, undertaking self help and personal development without the clarifying foundation of life purpose. Though we surely benefit from every book read, every class taken, and every lecture attended, the greatest benefits will result when new life skills align with and support life purpose.

What is Your Life Purpose?

The first and most critical step in effective and satisfying personal development is to discover and clarify your purpose in life. Purpose is the answer to the question, “Who am I and why am I here?” Knowing purpose brings focus, meaning, resilience, and fulfillment to your life.

Purpose is unique to each individual. Parents, teachers, religious leaders, philosophers, and even media personalities may give us their view of purpose, but it is just that–their view. Your unique purpose lies deep within, covered by layers of teachings, warnings, fears, and doubts which we accumulate from others.

“Your work is to discover your work and then with all your heart to give yourself to it,” ~ Buddha

Life Purpose is Found Within

But how do we discover purpose? By going within, deep within yourself where the wisdom and truth of your soul are waiting to speak with you. Therefore, the tools for discovering and clarifying life purpose are:

Reflection - use quiet moments to reflect on who you are.

• Start with a blank sheet of paper or empty screen on your text editor.
• At the top, enter these two words: I AM ….
• Skip a line and finish the sentence.
• Repeat on the next line.
• Keep writing whatever comes into your mind until you write something that feels profound and stirs your emotions. Perhaps it will even bring you to tears.

Now you’re getting clarity about who you are.

Meditation - Find a quiet place and time. Ask your higher power for clarity about who you are. Then meditate and be open to answers. A basic meditation is here.

Life Review - Reflecting on your life can provide strong clues about who you are. Even those life situations and circumstances that didn’t turn out well contain useful information. Reflect on what your experiences tell you about you.

Awareness - Develop your intention to be aware of who you are being at all times.

• Create a small version of you, who sits on your shoulder and monitors your behaviors.
• Allow the small you to whisper in your mind the observations of who you are being in the course of a routine day. You may be surprised at the insights available.

Meaningful personal development and growth will come quickly when it builds on life purpose. The purposeful life is satisfying, fulfilling, and meaningful.

More articles on purpose and self awareness are here.

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