Pause and find your purpose

Maya would restlessly rush from gym to her mother’s house, movie theatre to mall, kitty party to club. She would sleep poorly; mind racing, legs twitching, calves hurting. Many people, like Maya, lead a frenzied life and suffer its consequences when they lack purpose.

 Maya found herself falling ill often with symptoms like fever, neck pain, piles, kidney stones, and listlessness. Restless thoughts caused her immense physical pain.

Exercising regularly strengthens the body and increases stamina. But it is important to understand one’s tolerance threshold. If we ignore the messages our body gives us in our rushed and distracted race to excel, an illness forces us to pause and re-evaluate life like Maya did.

  She felt an urgency to heal herself. A hypnotherapy course taught her the healing power of positive affirmation and the mind-body connection.

Gradually, her life-purpose unraveled itself. In healing herself, she realised that she wanted to be an instrument to heal others.

*Swami Paramananda says, “Our strength is replenished through simplicity.” Simplify your life, drop all tedious activities and stressful encounters that drain, distract and disable. You will feel light and young.

*‘I resolve strongly to be an enabler of all things divine, loving, useful, healing.’ Write this resolution down so that it becomes your motto when you are in doubt or when you are uneasy and tense. Know that a resolve is always backed by the universe. A resolve is a field of energy that activates and makes available all the resources required to strengthen your purpose.

*Feel charged. Realise that you are not a passive part of the universe, but a dynamic partner in it — through your interests, efforts, skills and talents you enable the universe to express its purpose. Keep smiling. And, remember, the universe smiles through you.

*Clear your mind of the mists of self-interest. In the daylight-clarity of selflessness, you will be willing to do any assignment that comes to you for the sheer love of it.  As the wise say: a bird does not sing to hear itself. It sings because it has a song.

*Read the following statement every day for three weeks to make your mind open and receptive: ‘I am here for a purpose. May the purpose reveal itself to me’.

*Exercise to a point where your body feels fresh and alive. Eat healthy, low-fat food. The wellness in your being, the fluidity in your every movement and the spring in your step is proof that you are poised for a beautiful, purposeful life.

As you purify your inner self, you’ll be anchored in joy-consciousness. You will not care a whit for obstacles. And, when you feel a sense of new life, a deep thrill of anticipation as if you are about to embark on a great, new adventure, you would have found your true joy-purpose.

The writers are authors of the book ‘Fitness for Life’ and teachers of the ‘Fitness for Life’ programme.