Just like Consciousness itself, even as we may feel wholly divorced from it, our purpose has been placed right in front of our nose. Like Campbell’s definition of mythology, it’s the music we’ve danced to even when we didn’t know music was playing. And like Samadhi, all of us have flirted with knowing it repeatedly. When we played games as young children, in those moments when we were absolutely present and fluid and unencumbered, there was something of a spontaneous order, a sense of how and why that wasn’t imposed by conditioning, but simply emerged from the innate substrate of play. Later in life, whenever we have experienced deep flow- in art, sport, sex, music, chopping onions or walking in the woods- we may notice ourselves being moved by a logic transcending rationality. Within that space there is something of our deeper purpose, our reason for being in our particular body, family, and town, situated on a planet sitting at the end of a spiral arm galaxy.
Our English word purpose could generally be translated into two Sanskrit words: Dharma and Artha, two of the four aims of human life, the others being Kama and Moksha. If we think of our life as a flowing river, Dharma (evolutionary direction) is the course of the river, Artha (purpose) is the direction of the flow, Kama (desire) is the motive force of the river, and the ultimate endpoint, in this life or another, is the great unbound Ocean of Consciousness, Moksha (liberation). Dharma describes the highest lessons we are here to learn, while Artha is the means, strategies, and role we play while living out our Dharma. We can also frame Dharma is very much like the song our soul is meant to play, while Artha would be more akin to the instrument(s) we use to play our Dharma-song. Like the Yamas and Niyamas of the Yoga Sutras, these four aims of life are deeply interconnected, their fulfillment not coming in an arduous step-wise way, but simultaneously unfolding through profound relaxation in Presence. In the end, we don’t really have to look for our purpose, all we need to do is to learn how to profoundly let go, allowing the river of life to carry us with maximum ease to our highest fulfillment.
That said, it can be helpful to have some supplemental insight into the nature of our soul and psyche, to bring a few river maps with us as we make our journey. Each of us is essentially a song or a series of songs. There are many ways of seeing into one’s own purpose or that of others. My work as an astrologer is essentially a task of tuning into the multilayered music of the soul that is couched within the natal chart and playing it back to the client. There are likewise other systems of reading the subtle patterning of the soul. In my view, the efficacy of all of these systems boils down to the universe being structured like a holograph; singular Consciousness enfolded into a tapestry of infinite variation, in which each part is both the undivided Whole and contains all the other parts in a unique combination, arranged by a series of universal laws, that form patterns that extend from one end of the grand chain of being to the other, from the macrocosmic scale of a galaxy to the microcosmic movements of an electron, and everything in between.
But, even a perfect understanding of the course of a river won’t bring the journey to completion. In the end, we still need to “turn off our minds, relax, and float downstream”- and merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily let the song of our Dharma play out.