Eckhart Tolle on Life Purpose
If you’ve been searching for your true purpose in life, Eckhart Tolle has some straightforward advice: stop struggling. For the primary purpose of every human being is simply to be . . . fully engaged in this moment, and aligned with the natural flow of reality itself. In Finding Your Life’s Purpose, the bestselling author of A New Earth invites you to discover the twofold intention of our human incarnation: to free yourself from the prison of “thought-based reality,” and to express in your own way the grand vision that universal consciousness has for your life. Finding Your Life’s Purpose brings you into the vibrant presence of this sublime teacher, as he offers his one-of-a-kind guidance about:
• The beauty of effortless being, and how to awaken to it
• Tapping the vast power and intelligence of stillness
• How to embrace the space rather than the form of this moment
• Unfolding your purpose through actions in alignment with the timeless present
• How to see the deeper essence of another human being
“You are the consciousness that illuminates the world. Know yourself as that— that’s what life wants with you,” teaches Eckhart Tolle. With this liberating DVD session of insights and “pointers,” you will enter this stream of luminosity, through Finding Your Life’s Purpose.
The Inner Purpose Of Your Life’s Journey
© 2004 Eckhart Tolle
(Excerpted from The Power of Now)
I can see the truth of what you are saying, but I still think that we must have purpose on our life’s journey; otherwise we just drift, and purpose means future, doesn’t it? How do we reconcile that with living in the present?
When you are on a journey, it is certainly helpful to know where you are going or at least the general direction in which you are moving, but don’t forget: The only thing that is ultimately real about your journey is the step that you are taking at this moment. That’s all there ever is.
Your life’s journey has an outer purpose and an inner purpose. The outer purpose is to arrive at your goal or destination, to accomplish what you set out to do, to achieve this or that, which, of course, implies future. But if your destination, or the steps you are going to take in the future, take up so much of your attention that they become more important to you than the step you are taking now, then you completely miss the journey’s inner purpose, which has nothing to do with where you are going or what you are doing, but everything to do with how. It has nothing to do with future but everything to do with the quality of your consciousness at this moment. The outer purpose belongs to the horizontal dimension of space and time; the inner purpose concerns a deepening of your Being in the vertical dimension of the timeless Now. Your outer journey may contain a million steps; your inner journey only has one: the step you are taking right now. As you become more deeply aware of this one step, you realize that it already contains within itself all the other steps as well as the destination. This one step then becomes transformed into an expression of perfection, an act of great beauty and quality. It will have taken you into Being, and the light of Being will shine through it. This is both the purpose and the fulfillment of your inner journey, the journey into yourself.
Does it matter whether we achieve our outer purpose, whether we succeed or fail in the world?
It will matter to you as long as you haven’t realized your inner purpose. After that, the outer purpose is just a game that you may continue to play simply because you enjoy it. It is also possible to fail completely in your outer purpose and at the same time totally succeed in your inner purpose. Or the other way around, which is actually more common: outer riches and inner poverty, or to “gain the world and lose your soul,” as Jesus puts it. Ultimately, of course, every outer purpose is doomed to “fail” sooner or later, simply because it is subject to the law of impermanence of all things. The sooner you realize that your outer purpose cannot give you lasting fulfillment, the better. When you have seen the limitations of your outer purpose, you give up your unrealistic expectation that it should make you happy, and you make it subservient to your inner purpose.
Copyright © 2004
More from Eckhart….Eckhart Tolle on seeking and deeper purpose
The present moment has always been available to spiritual seekers, but as long as you are seeking you are not available to the present moment.
“Seeking” implies that you are looking to the future for some answer, or for some achievement, spiritual or otherwise.
Everybody is in the seeking mode, seeking to add something to who they are, whether it be money, relationships, possessions, knowledge, status — or spiritual attainment.
“Seeking” means you need more time, more future, more of this or that. And there is nothing wrong with it. All that has its place in this world. To make money, to gather knowledge, to learn a new skill, to explore new territory, even to get from A to B — for all these things you need time.
For almost everything you need time, except for one thing: to embrace the present moment. You need no time to open yourself to the power of now and so awaken to who you are beyond name and form and realize that in the depth of your being, you are already complete, whole, one with the timeless essence of all life.
For that you not only need no time, but time is the obstacle to that realization, seeking is the obstacle, needing to add something to who you are is the obstacle.
The story of your life, how it all unfolds, whether you succeed or fail in this world… Yes, it matters, yes, it’s important — relatively, not absolutely.
Only one thing is of absolute importance and this is it. If you miss it, you miss the deeper purpose of your life, which I call the flowering of human consciousness. And ultimately nothing else will satisfy you.
