Conflict between Enlightenment and Life Purpose

[How to be wise]

After I took the Life Purpose course, it became conclusive to me that Life Purpose and Enlightenment will not go together. Here’s why:

Life Purpose is about driving yourself to make an impact in the world. But this can only work if you are stuck in the illusion of control. In reality, you have no control whatsoever. As soon as you realise this (Enlightenment), driving yourself is no longer a possibility. As soon as you become aware of non-doership, you can no longer drive yourself to do anything, because you have no control over anything at all.

So, how does the enlightened person live then? 

They follow their integrity/heart. Spontaneous movement happens based on what the heart desires. For most people, it is impossible, because it is blocked by all of your fears. As soon as you clear your fears, you can just spontaneously follow your integrity. You become a slave of your integrity. Wherever your integrity tells you to go, you go. 

So this brings us to why Life Purpose and Enlightenment really do not go together:

The notion that other people need your help is a false belief. When you set off for your Life Purpose, you do things based on the belief that you are doing good in the world, you are helping others. But notice that this is a belief with no evidence at all. Reality is already perfect. Your heart will not tell you to do anything so baseless. You will just live your life moment to moment. 

So now you ask: Enlightened teachers are out there changing the world. I can see them.

Yes, you are right. Many enlightened teachers have written books and do workshops. But how they arrived there is very different to what you imagine. 

One basic principle of how your heart works is out of love. It follows love. What does that mean? 

If somebody asks you for help, you operate on the principle ‘why not?’. If there is no legitimate reason against it, you say ‘yes.’ Whatever people ask, your heart says ‘yes’ if you can do it. If people ask for a workshop, you do it. If people ask you to write a book, you write it. And that is how your integrity operates. You help people only when they ask for help. That’s it.

If somebody did not ask for your help, then the only thing that would drive you to help such a person is a baseless belief that they need your help, which your integrity will never buy. Even if the person seems to need your help, the most that your integrity would tell you to do is ask that person if you can help them. If they say no, that’s the end of it. Even if they are starving in the streets, once they say no you leave. They are doing fine. 

Your heart will say ‘no’ if there is a legitimate reason why not. And that’s when you say no. You live your life as a flow, not decideding and controlling anything, but being a servant to your heart and giving when people ask. Driving yourself to do something and ‘making an impact’ is not possible. Because you can clearly see that everything is perfect other than your beliefs.

 

[TheAvatarState]

11 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

So, how does the enlightened person live then? 

They follow their integrity/heart. Spontaneous movement happens based on what the heart desires.

The life purpose course tells you to lead from the heart as well. It's all about becoming fully authentic. Why are these things disconnected? What you think are separate are in fact one and the same. If these two seem incompatible, then perhaps you should rethink your life purpose.

[How to be wise]

@TheAvatarState You can’t lead your heart. Your heart leads you.

Your heart will never have ‘something to do.’ There’s nothing to do. Your heart lives in a spontaneous ‘yes/no’ mode. The only time you will help somebody is when that person specifically asked for your help. Otherwise you just live your life following its instructions.

[Key Elements]

55 minutes ago, How to be wise said:

You live your life as a flow

Yes, I agree here. Life is a flow, and others can choose to flow with you or not. It's choice. That's how it works.

For example, I'm a bilingual teacher. I teach in fun, easy, and creative ways. That's my mission. I could do this as a career and a life purpose. In other words, I help ppl by teaching them a skill. Heard of the saying, "You give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, feed him for life?" Now, here's the catch; if I had an awakening of the no-self, I could talk about this and teach this in both languages. This means I'll get a different set of audience if successful. So, yes, a life purpose and enlightenment can go together.

[ajasatya]

@How to be wise True Nature is not something that prevents a flower from blooming. in the end, you're supposed to embrace the life of the character and live it fully. why not?

the difference is that you don't depend on material achievements to be happy. being present is sufficient and everything else is a bonus. in other words: you're unable to confuse True Nature with ego.

tenth picture: return to society

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

Life Purpose is about driving yourself to make an impact in the world. But this can only work if you are stuck in the illusion of control. In reality, you have no control whatsoever. As soon as you realise this (Enlightenment), driving yourself is no longer a possibility. As soon as you become aware of non-doership, you can no longer drive yourself to do anything, because you have no control over anything at all.

Why are you making such groundless assumptions??

Since there was no one in control to begin with, that means nothing is lost with enlightenment. No-control is not opposed to drive. Drive is done by the universe, not by the ego. The ego is just an offshoot of universal drive.

After enlightenment your life purpose becomes a force of the universe -- just like it always was. Nothing changed. Only some egoic delusions of control were removed.

You assume that life purpose is an egoic thing, but it does not have to be.

[Forestluv]

1 hour ago, Key Elements said:

Now, here's the catch; if I had an awakening of the no-self, I could talk about this and teach this in both languages. This means I'll get a different set of audience if successful. So, yes, a life purpose and enlightenment can go together.

That is super cool. I’m at an intermediate Spanish level - I’d love to be able to process and discuss existential topics in Spanish. Yet, I can’t imagine teaching it in a foreign language. That blows my mind ? ? 

[Nahm]

If you weren’t thinking, there’d be no dilemma. There is no dilemma.    

 

[Solace]

Only the ego has doubts or concerns about its imaginary future. Who you are has complete clarity and trust in life, in the peace and love of your Self  

Edited December 24, 2018 by Solace

[Inliytened1]

@How to be wise to understand infinity is to understand that in fact there has to exist the possibility that both can be in alignment.  

But also to expand on Leo's point there is a stage of enlightenment in which the formless is fused back with the formed.  At this stage you still pursue your life purpose but you pursue it through the lens of non-duality.

It can be, but it may not be the way you imagine in it now.   

Edited December 24, 2018 by Inliytened1

[Hellspeed]

3 hours ago, How to be wise said:

After I took the Life Purpose course, it became conclusive to me that Life Purpose and Enlightenment will not go together. Here’s why:

Life Purpose is about driving yourself to make an impact in the world. But this can only work if you are stuck in the illusion of control. In reality, you have no control whatsoever. As soon as you realise this (Enlightenment), driving yourself is no longer a possibility. As soon as you become aware of non-doership, you can no longer drive yourself to do anything, because you have no control over anything at all.

So, how does the enlightened person live then? 

They follow their integrity/heart. Spontaneous movement happens based on what the heart desires. For most people, it is impossible, because it is blocked by all of your fears. As soon as you clear your fears, you can just spontaneously follow your integrity. You become a slave of your integrity. Wherever your integrity tells you to go, you go. 

So this brings us to why Life Purpose and Enlightenment really do not go together:

The notion that other people need your help is a false belief. When you set off for your Life Purpose, you do things based on the belief that you are doing good in the world, you are helping others. But notice that this is a belief with no evidence at all. Reality is already perfect. Your heart will not tell you to do anything so baseless. You will just live your life moment to moment. 

So now you ask: Enlightened teachers are out there changing the world. I can see them.

Yes, you are right. Many enlightened teachers have written books and do workshops. But how they arrived there is very different to what you imagine. 

One basic principle of how your heart works is out of love. It follows love. What does that mean? 

If somebody asks you for help, you operate on the principle ‘why not?’. If there is no legitimate reason against it, you say ‘yes.’ Whatever people ask, your heart says ‘yes’ if you can do it. If people ask for a workshop, you do it. If people ask you to write a book, you write it. And that is how your integrity operates. You help people only when they ask for help. That’s it.

If somebody did not ask for your help, then the only thing that would drive you to help such a person is a baseless belief that they need your help, which your integrity will never buy. Even if the person seems to need your help, the most that your integrity would tell you to do is ask that person if you can help them. If they say no, that’s the end of it. Even if they are starving in the streets, once they say no you leave. They are doing fine. 

Your heart will say ‘no’ if there is a legitimate reason why not. And that’s when you say no. You live your life as a flow, not decideding and controlling anything, but being a servant to your heart and giving when people ask. Driving yourself to do something and ‘making an impact’ is not possible. Because you can clearly see that everything is perfect other than your beliefs.

 

You will only find your real life purpose after Enlightenment. 

So the majority of people, 99% of the population of the world they are doing by impulse the thing they are not suppose to be doing. 

[cetus]

3 hours ago, How to be wise said:

 You live your life as a flow, not decideding and controlling anything, but being a servant to your heart and giving when people ask.

Who asked?

[CreamCat]

TJ Reeves said that if you knew you were immortal, you should not be afraid of taking risks and you should be able to win big because you know that you cannot be killed.

If enlightenment makes you not afraid of being stabbed, you should be able to take big risks and win. Enlightenment should be able to turn you into a big risk taker like Elon Musk who almost became homeless by burning hundreds of millions of dollars on his companies which almost failed.

Enlightenment will make you not afraid of failures. If you are not afraid of failure, you will try more and harder.

Did you see Leo while he was on psychedelics? He also said he was perfectly immortal.

When you were playing games, were you afraid of deaths of your character?

Edited December 25, 2018 by CreamCat

[Key Elements]

9 hours ago, Serotoninluv said:

That is super cool. I’m at an intermediate Spanish level - I’d love to be able to process and discuss existential topics in Spanish. Yet, I can’t imagine teaching it in a foreign language. That blows my mind ? ? 

Thanks. Sure you can. Why not? They say, "The sky is the limit," but then ppl have different talents, interests, and learning abilities. 

You know, I was thinking, if a person had a kensho enlightenment (sudden), and wanted to incorporate that into a life purpose, but he/she has a very orange type of startup/career/life purpose, it will be very hard to give that up. They'll be really stuck in the rat race and don't have time. For example, if he's a real estate tycoon and owns a lot of casinos as businesses and works at least 11+ hrs a day, it won't be easy to manage. Also, the followers won't be too open-minded. They're there to learn how to make $. (Unless, they get into philanthropy / charity / non-profits -- green.) Green and tier 2 type of life purposes may incorporate enlightenment better.

This is how it will feel like if the life purpose is too orange:

[How to be wise]

@cetus56 I’m not enlightened yet.

Once I am, I’m out of here.

[cetus]

1 hour ago, How to be wise said:

@cetus56 I’m not enlightened yet.

Once I am, I’m out of here.

God can't be seen because God is the seer.

[Anton Rogachevski]

The master is doing many things, while not doing anything.

No-control doesn't mean there's nothing to do. The ability to do magnifies incredibly upon realization of no-control. You gotta get there to get it. 

[Hellspeed]

8 hours ago, How to be wise said:

@cetus56 I’m not enlightened yet.

Once I am, I’m out of here.

I do, but i don't run. Why would you think you will do such a thing?  

[How to be wise]

@cetus56 God needs to buy a mirror ?

[Joseph Maynor]

I like to think of it as The Paradox of Control and No Control and that you gotta work both ends of this paradox.  The belief that one lacks control is the problem.  What you are cannot be straight-jacketed by a belief like no control.