Have you ever thought about your path or purpose in life? It usually boils down to the sweet spot where what you’re passionate about intersects with what you’re good or skilled at. I’ve written a ton of stories about this topic over the years—by my count, almost thirty! You might have even seen some of them, like:
- Are you just growing old—or are you aging with purpose?
- Which Path Will You Take in the 2nd Half of Life?
- You’re 60-plus and unsure of your purpose. Now what?
I usually try to make the point that everyone has a purpose. I then give readers a little nudge to go and find theirs. Until a few weeks ago. That’s when I read a couple of new takes on “purpose” from two writers I respect, and it hit me: I may have missed a crucial piece of the puzzle.
What if your purpose is simply to gain knowledge?
Not long ago, I saw a piece that author and artist Natalie Sudman wrote that had me rethinking the whole purpose thing. Then, the same idea popped up in a book I was reading, The Holographic Universe by the late paranormal expert Michael Talbot. Let me start with a refresher on Sudman who I’ve written about and connected with in the past.
Several years ago, Natalie published a slim but powerful book titled Application of Impossible Things. It’s about her near-death experience (NDE) while working as a civilian employee of the Corps of Engineers in Iraq, when the vehicle she was traveling in was blown up by a roadside bomb. Seriously injured in the blast, she left her body, and this earthly plane, arriving in a place that seemed to be a transition point between this life and the next. What happens there is, well, mind-blowing.
Natalie also writes the occasional blog post. In one, she told a story about how a lot of people she meets assume that, because she had an NDE and returned to life here on Earth, she now knows her purpose. While not saying if that’s the case, she did point out this: For some people in this lifetime, their sole purpose is simply to learn and gain knowledge.
Which for me was a wake-up call moment. Wait, you mean we all don’t have a specific purpose in this lifetime? It ran counter to my own beliefs and those of scores of spiritual and philosophical writers I’ve read over the years.
A few days later, by an act of synchronicity, I read the same concept in the previously mentioned book by Michael Talbot. Like Sudman, Talbot discusses NDE’s and engaging with some type of otherworldly beings in the afterlife. Here’s a lightly edited passage from his book, The Holographic Universe:
The beings emphasize knowledge. Some people undergoing NDEs are openly counseled to embark on a quest for knowledge after they return to their physical bodies, especially knowledge related to self-growth or that enhances one’s ability to help other people. They are told that “learning is a continuing process” and “knowledge is one of the few things that you will be able to take with you after you have died.”
To learn more about this subject, I contacted Natalie and asked her the question: “Why would it be important to gain knowledge in this lifetime and how might this serve as our purpose?” As you’ll see below, she chose to stress that we might be interpreting our purpose in the wrong way. Here’s the key part of her response:
The only legitimate answer I can give to someone who asks, “what is my purpose or calling” is this: to embody higher awareness to whatever degree is possible or appropriate for you. Purpose or calling isn’t some task. It isn’t doing—it’s being. When that concept is fully embraced, everything that we do becomes purposeful.
Something we do doesn’t confer meaning or purpose upon us or our lives. We confer meaning and purpose upon anything and everything we do by bringing our divine awareness, our higher awareness perspective, our innate Oneness, to what we do. When we put being our infinite selves before doing, the doing becomes an expression of the infinite within.
Natalie’s full response was longer and deeper—and since she is smarter than me, I turned to the super brain of Google Gemini for assistance in translating her ideas. Using Gemini as my co-writing partner, here’s what we came up with:
Redefining Your Purpose: Shifting from Doing to Being
If purpose isn’t found in what you do, your job, or your accomplishments, then where is it? And how might gaining knowledge serve as your purpose?
Purpose is a state of being. It’s a presence. It’s about how you show up to life. It’s about bringing your full, genuine self to the present moment and putting being before doing.
When you bring a higher awareness to each task, that simple act makes the task purposeful. Instead of needing a job or a project to make your life purposeful, you bring your whole, infinite self to whatever you’re doing. The act of bringing your full presence makes the action purposeful. The task stops being a mere item on your to-do list and becomes an expression of the infinite (some would say God) within you.
When this concept is fully embraced, everything you do becomes purposeful—whether you’re sweeping a floor, writing a book, reading an encyclopedia, or just sitting in silence. The purpose isn’t in the sweeping or the writing or the reading. The purpose is already inside you. Your job is simply to express it through your actions.
In summary, purpose is the conscious quality of awareness you bring to anything you do, not the thing you do itself. Your purpose is to embody the higher awareness to the best of your ability. Do this and no matter what path you are on, or what actions you take, you will be leading a purposeful life.
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