The Power of the Heart: Finding Your True Purpose in Life (23 page)

And when you act out of that and you are not seeking fulfillment through your action anymore, you are simply enjoying the action. And that means it’s empowered. And when that is the case, after a little while, it can easily happen that suddenly you are showered with material abundance. But you don’t need that anymore.

People first, then money, then things.

—SUZE ORMAN

In 2006, in his speech to the Academy of Achievement, a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C., that invites prominent people from around the world to inspire young entrepreneurs, film director Steven Spielberg said, “When you have a dream, it often doesn’t come at you screaming in your face, ‘This is who you are, this is who you must be for the rest of your life.’ Sometimes a dream almost whispers. I’ve always said to my kids, ‘The hardest thing to listen to, your instincts, your human personal intuition, always whispers. It never shouts. Very hard to hear. So you have to, every day of your lives, be ready to hear
what whispers in your ear. It very rarely shouts. If you can listen to the whisper, if it tickles your heart, and it’s something you think you want to do for the rest of your life, then that is going to be what you do for the rest of your life. And we will benefit from everything you do.’ ”

Everyone has a purpose in life . . . a unique gift of special talent to give others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.

—DEEPAK CHOPRA,
THE SEVEN SPIRITUAL LAWS OF SUCCESS

 PAULO COELHO

You can find out what you’re supposed to do with your life if you really listen to your heart.

Whether you are on the right track is not a question your mind can answer for you. Perhaps you have a job that others can only dream of and yet you feel that you are in the wrong place, at odds with the culture or values of your company. You simply feel that you are heading down the wrong professional path.

 GARY ZUKAV

We all ask the questions “What am I here to do? What is my mission in life?” We are looking for purpose, but purpose will find us when we open our hearts.

If this feeling and these questions are a part of your life, your heart is talking to you, trying to help you find the right road. This is why a wrong turn will often help you find the right one. When your heart speaks to you, it reveals the coordinates of the path that really suits you, a path that leads to your place in the bigger picture.

 HOWARD MARTIN

When you open your heart, you get access to a lot more than normal logical intelligence. You get access to things like your intuition. You get access to a new level of sensitivity and the ability to discriminate between things and see into things more clearly.

Sometimes your heart will tell you to find fulfillment outside your work environment. As a young clerk at the Swiss Patent Office, Albert Einstein had to wait until after work to pursue his true passion, physics. Only later could he do it professionally. As rational and reasonable as Einstein was, he once described common sense as “a collection of prejudices acquired by age eighteen.”

Imagination is more important than knowledge, for while knowledge defines everything we know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.

—ALBERT EINSTEIN

In
The Book of Awakening
, poet and memoirist Mark Nepo writes of his struggles as a teenager when his parents wanted him to go into
professions that they had chosen for him. His mother wanted him to be a lawyer, his father an architect. But Nepo wanted—or rather needed—to be a poet, because, “something in it brought me alive.”

Nepo quotes a mystic: “A fish cannot drown in water. A bird does not fall in air. Each creature God made must live in its own true nature.”

Each of us must find our true element in which to live, in other words, our own true self and calling.

Part of the blessing and challenge of being human is that we must discover our own true God-given nature . . . an inner necessity. For only by living in our own element can we thrive without anxiety. And since human beings are the only life-form that can drown and still go to work, the only species that can fall from the sky and still fold laundry, it is imperative that we find that vital element that brings us alive . . . the true vitality that waits beneath all occupations for us to tap into, if we can discover what we love. If you feel energy and excitement and a sense that life is happening for the first time, you are probably near your God-given nature. Joy in what we do is not an added feature; it is a sign of deep health.

—MARK NEPO,
THE BOOK OF AWAKENING

The universe wants you to do what you are meant to do. Everyone has a mission: to do what you excel at
and
derive pleasure from. That mission varies from person to person and can include anything from teaching children with learning disabilities or caring for the elderly to public service or heading a multinational corporation. We all have a mission we are meant to discover.

 MICHAEL BECKWITH

Each of us enters into this life bearing gifts. Gifts of the soul. Gifts that only we can give, as we are unique expressions of the infinite. As we begin to listen to the heart, and not to the chatter of society, not to the noise of the world, we get to release our gifts. We get to do what we were called to do.

 RUEDIGER SCHACHE

Why does our purpose in life become clear when we activate or connect to our heart? It’s because here, in this area of your heart, is a gateway and it’s the gateway to your soul. And if you listen to what comes through that gateway, you will follow more and more the way of your soul. And if you are following the way of your soul, your purpose in life will be totally clear.

To better understand your mission, you may need to ask yourself a number of questions. The answers to those questions will lead to a better grasp of your true self.

 DEEPAK CHOPRA

Ask your heart any question. Who am I? What do I want? What is my purpose in life? Who are my heroes and heroines in history, in mythology, religion? What are the qualities I look for in a good friend? What are the qualities that I contribute to in a
good relationship? What are my unique skills and talents? How do I use those to serve humanity?

Take a moment to answer Deepak’s questions. You may want to write down the answers, so you can go back to them later.

When you follow the route that your internal navigation system has mapped out for you, you may find yourself taking a professional turn that does not make rational sense, a turn that leads you down bumpy, dark roads. Nevertheless, you know that you need to do this. Your heart makes it clear that you have no other choice. Do not worry about what other people think; just listen carefully to your inner voice. When you do what you were born to do, your destiny is clear. When you do what you were born to do, you will not feel sapped, but full of energy.

I always was a rich person because money’s not related to happiness.

—PAULO COEHLO

 MARIANNE WILLIAMSON