What is Soul Purpose?
Before answering that question, I need to explain why I am suddenly talking about Soul Purpose. It is because I just realized how fragile life is and am coming to terms with my own mortality!
Every other day I am seeing obituaries of acquaintances, colleagues, friends, and family! Many are in my age group while some are younger. In other words, I don't know how long more I will be around.
Not that impending death or the afterlife worries me - because I believe death is only a transition to the next step in the evolution of my soul - like being promoted to a higher class or being transferred to a new school. And since I don't believe in the so-called 'heaven' and 'hell' fantasied by men with little knowledge of the world, I really have no fear of death.
However, I do fear that I may have waited too long to speak of the contrarian truths I have uncovered over decades of searching for the truth!
So, I don't want to be in the position of having regrets about having left unsaid my deepest thoughts, as in the quote below by Randy Pausch:
So, to avoid having any final regrets, I began asking searching questions like:
- What is my life's soul purpose?
- Have I really carried it out so far?
- If my lease on life is not renewed, will I be happy to move on with no regrets?
The answer to those questions will form the contents of this post and in future posts in this blog.
Finding My Soul Purpose:
Even from the age of four, I was asking tough questions of my mother when she told me stories from the Hindu mythologies Mahabharata and Ramayana - questions she could not answer!
Fortunately, she did not just shut me up with "Stop asking such questions!" as many mothers would have done! Instead she told me "Gopi, maybe one day you will find out the answers yourself!"
And I think I do have some answers now, finally, after decades of questioning, searching, observation and introspection.
I feel now that this endless questioning of accepted traditions and religious dogmas is prompted by my own search for truth. Thus it becomes my unique soul-purpose is this life.
What is Soul Purpose?
A person's soul purpose is that passion which drives him from birth. It is that inner hunger that keeps him/her dissatisfied when they do things other than those allied to their destined purpose. And this dissatisfaction does not die away with time even if they deny it exists!
The answers to the unflinching questions I dared to ask about God and Religion, the World, about Life, about War, about Happiness and so on, turned out to be very different from the beliefs of most people!
Most people accept everything on 'blind faith' because they are unable to, or afraid to ask rational questions! This is not their fault since they have been brain-washed for centuries to 'fear God' and 'obey without question' the teachings of their religions.
The sad thing is that when we are brainwashed from a very young age with such ideas, we grow up accepting it and believing it – even if these ideas are totally irrational and without a shred of proof! In fact, the child may grow up to be ‘well educated’ and even get a PhD but he/she is still unable to think independently - when it comes to religion!
I wrote about the contrarian answers I got in my lifelong search for truth in my first book 'Daily Happy Living' and in 'The GOD Soliloquy' which actually was the precursor to my first book.
Recently I have just republished 'The GOD Soliloquy' as a paperback on Amazon. Some excerpts from it are given below to whet the appetite of those who do dare to question traditional beliefs. Let me start with a story about God and Co-Creation:
The Pastor and the Farmer:
A church pastor was driving along a country road when he saw a picturesque little farm with a lovely garden, many farm animals and a large barn.
Admiring the scene, he stopped his car and walked up to the farmer who was driving a small tractor. The farmer shut off the engine and the pastor said to him:
“Sir, you have a beautiful place here. You sure have been blessed by God!”
The farmer replied: “Yes, I sure have been blessed by God." Then he added: "But you should have seen this place when God was looking after it!”
The pastor thought about the farmer’s statement and felt inspired enough to use that as his next Sunday sermon.
The truth and the moral of the story above is that God does not and will not do the gardening for us! God only provides the raw materials (such as the world and our life), together with the tools (such as our mind, our body, and our will together with the Universal Mind).
It is up to us to use these tools to create or realize what we want. That is called co-creation i.e. using the powers of our mind and body to make what we really desire to come into being. Whether what we create becomes a beautiful garden or an overgrown mess of weeds, is left entirely to us.
No amount of ritual praying (with bribes, offerings and sacrifices or even ultimatums to stop worshiping God), will get God to come down and do our job for us! Unfortunately, this very fallacy (that God will be moved by our tears, our bribes and sacrifices to come and intercede on our behalf) is what all religions proclaim and get their followers to believe blindly.
I have pointed this out six years ago in my book “The GOD Soliloquy” from which the following is excerpted:
GOD and Worship
“I, your GOD, do NOT need you to worship me. What I would like is for you to use your powers to create a great life for yourself and your fellow humans.
"To this end I have given you the power to understand and exploit the unchanging principles I have used to create your world. You can use the physical principles of electricity, magnetism, gravity, air pressure and so on to create new things. You can use the psychic principles of the mind to create the type and quality of life you want.
"You do not have to physically torture yourself (walking barefoot on hot coals, pricking yourself with needles, or whipping yourself, etc.) in order to appease me. You do not have to bribe me: promising to light candles, or give offerings, or any of the myriad things the priests ask you to do! Neither can you blackmail me, by threatening to stop worshiping me.
"Why would I your GOD (who created all things) want you to give me back some of it as ‘peace offerings’ or bribes? Do you really think that because you do these things, I will come and intercede for you? No! I do not do individual miracles! That would not be fair or just to any one of you.
"BUT I have given each one of you something even better – the power to create your own miracles! Each one of you can create your very own miracles.
"You don’t have to pray to me to go after what you truly desire. You don’t need my permission to achieve greatness. You already have my permission! In fact, I would LOVE to see you succeed. You don’t have to stoop so low as to bribe me with flowers, or bunches of bananas, or sacrifices of goats or chickens or cows.
"Just go for your dream! Believe that if I have given you a special talent, or desire – then you are meant to go for it. In the process of reaching for your dream, you will find the happiness, the growth, and the joy that you are always seeking!" - The GOD Soliloquy
Now, it is 2020 and with the COVID-19 pandemic, we have clear proof that “God does NOT intercede on your behalf”, no matter how much you pray, or to which god you pray to! Prayer will not protect you from the pandemic, but science (created by humans who use their God-given tools of the mind, will-power etc.) and common sense can.
You just have to understand how the disease is transmitted and take the proper steps to protect yourself (such as by social distancing, washing hands and wearing a mask in crowded places). You can also protect yourself by taking proper nutrition to enhance your Immune System.
The clusters of COVID-19 infection begun at religious gatherings worldwide is undeniable proof that we cannot be protected just by claiming that our particular god will protect us!
Clear evidence of this, is the situation in the so-called most developed country in the world, which has the highest number of COVID-19 cases as well as the highest number of deaths due to the pandemic in the world!
This, in spite of the fact that the President and his cult-like followers blindly believe that they will be protected by their God or by the President himself! Unfortunately, blatant denial of scientific facts (and removing those who do know science from political power) will not make any difference to the situation.
The pandemic will takes its daily toll and keep increasing until people take action to protect themselves and create a safe and effective remedy.
Even if all his millions of followers were to pray daily to their particular god (but refuse to follow the simple scientific steps needed for protection), their God will NOT come down and make the pandemic disappear!
Because we have been given the great power of co-creation and the free will to choose our actions, it is we who are responsible for the results. As the Spider Man comics state: “With great power comes great responsibility!”
But we humans habitually try to avoid responsibility and try to blame everything on other people, circumstances, on fate, karma or even God. Then we ask plaintively: "Why does God allow bad things to happen?"
The truth is that God does NOT allow 'bad things' or 'good things' to happen. This point will be discussed in my next post entitled "Does God allow bad things to happen?"
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