Purpose of Life

by Gregory Allen Butler

The purpose of life is deeply important. When living with purpose, life works. It gives a certain self-satisfaction. When not on purpose, life has a sense of dis-ease, of discontent, of unrest.

Yesterday I came across a passage from the Sufi Master Rumi that conveyed this sentiment more strongly than I have ever seen it before:

The master said there is one thing in this world which must never be forgotten. If you were to forget everything else, but were not to forget this, there would be no cause to worry, while if you remembered, performed and attended to everything else, but forgot that one thing, you would in fact have done nothing whatsoever. It is as if a king had sent you to a country to carry out one special, specific task. You go to the country and you perform a hundred different tasks, but if you have not performed the task you were sent for, it is as if you have performed nothing at all. So man has come into the world for a particular task, and that is his purpose. If he doesn't perform it, he will have done nothing.

So what is the purpose of life for which we have taken birth? Is it to make a lot of money, be famous, and live in a mansion? Is it to be powerful, perhaps a political leader or military commander? Is it just to sit home and watch television? Is it to see your team go to the Super Bowl?

The spiritual masters and teachers from around the world, throughout history, have all told us, in various ways and languages, that the purpose of life is to discover our higher self, our inner essence, our oneness with God. The inner life is a reality, and once discovered, our job is to deepen it, and make its cultivation the main purpose of life.

The inner life cannot be reserved only for special holidays. It can no longer be a hobby, like taking a yoga class or a meditation class at the YMCA on Wednesday nights. It can no longer be reserved for that one day a week when we go to church or mosque or temple. The inner life has to be a reality everyday for everyone. The world's survival depends on it. Humanity's survival depends on it. The claims of the ego have superseded the importance of wholeness. An example of this would be the "I've made it" people driving around in Hummers, getting seven miles per gallon, totally oblivious to the fact that global warming is threatening life as we know it on the planet.

In many parts of the world, people are dying of famine. In the United States, people are dying of obesity. I saw a man recently who must have weighed in excess of 500 pounds, walking down the aisle of a grocery store carrying four frozen pepperoni pizzas. We live in an age of excess.

If we, the people of this planet, continue to pollute Earth to the extent that we have in the past it will result in so much mercury in the air and in the water that the planet will be populated mostly by people with autism and Alzheimer's.

The polarity of the rich and the poor will eventually result in class warfare. In the United States, the prison population is not only at an all time high, it is off the charts. The United States represents 5% of the world's population and yet it is home to 25% of the world's incarcerated population. What's up with that? And what's up with the fact that the United States with its 5% of the world's population, is contributing 25% of the world's greenhouse emissions?

Our priorities are skewed. I saw a bumper sticker the other day that said it will be a fine day when schools have all the money they need and the military has to have a bake sale to buy its next jet bomber. That day seems far off. In the latest news headlines, I see George Bush wants another 100 billion dollars to fight the war in Iraq.

War, violence, pollution, global warming…these are all symptoms of a much graver disease. And that disease is a lack of consciousness. We have forgotten who we are and why we are here. The purpose of life is not even considered.

We as citizens of this planet find ourselves trapped in our own nightmare. It's time to wake up. It's time to remember what we came here to do, our purpose in life. And that starts with the gaining of consciousness - with the gradual awakening of love.