Saturday, July 17, 2010

Aspirations and the Human Ego


Nearly everyone on earth has aspirations. It is one of the many things that set us apart as humans from all other living beings on this planet. It could be argued that it is inherent in us to have them. For this reason most of us tend to take the fact that we have aspirations for granted, and not to analyze them with any significant degree of depth. I am going to ask you to analyze the idea of aspirations for a moment and consider that there may be a deeper meaning to them than what we most often assume.

Some people feel that aspirations are just simply a natural part of life while others consider them something stronger like a passion or an obsession and even a calling. Consider for a moment what a calling is. Most of us think of a calling on a spiritual level as a mystic experience of divine appointment, vocation or service. Generally, we think of it as something that was divinely placed within us – it is an inner calling. When considering the origins of the word this makes some level of sense as those origins relate to voice and shout. So as we generally relate to the word calling we see it as a divinely inspired inner voice shouting out to us what it is that we are meant to become, what it is that we are meant to do – our purpose if you will.

So at the minimum an aspiration is simply a strong passion or desire, and at the maximum it is a calling that many believe to be planted within us by our divine Creator. These beliefs often serve to fuel us and create a desire, passion or even obsession to literally live a life where we fully commit to achieving success in whatever field to which we feel divinely called. If all of what we most deeply aspire to do is in fact a divine calling, then it only seems logical to work fully toward making ourselves fully successful in that field doesn’t it? So how does one best go about this task?

Consider the words of Saint-Exupery “Ever a man seeks after what is weightiest in him; and not for happiness.” What does this mean? Well, the average person takes that thing which holds the most weight within them, their calling, and focuses so heavily upon it that they do not even consider seeking their own happiness. In fact, they begin to relate their happiness to their obsession with that calling that holds significant weight within them. This focus toward their goal often results in them ignoring the advice of Euripides “Slight not what’s near through aiming at what’s far.”

How many stories have we heard about the man who works and works and works to put food on his family’s table and a roof over their head, only for those of us listening to story being told, to hear that what his family most wished for was not a big house or gourmet meals but instead a deeper, more meaningful relationship with him? How many of us have been left alone feeling abandoned by someone who was off fulfilling their dreams? How many have been swept over or not noticed because someone had tunnel vision for their own desires? How many opportunities for something great have been missed because of the blinders we have on while working toward our calling?

Think about it. If Saint-Exupery is correct about us seeking out our desires under the guise that they are in some way responsible for our happiness, then let us go a bit deeper into that and consider the words of St. Augustine who said, “What you are must always displease you, if you would attain to that which you are not.” Most people avoid this by claiming that if something is truly a calling then it is in fact what you are rather than a goal toward what you are not. I agree with this viewpoint, but would ask you to consider that if our calling is in fact divinely inspired, and if we generally believe the divine to be something much more significant than our own individuality but instead an entity which has the soul/sole purpose of creating a place where we can reside confidently in the purest love, compassion, forgiveness, peace etc. then does it not make sense that rather than pursuing our calling as if that is what will make us happy we should pursue the creation of this divine love for all through our calling? I submit that we have the formula backward. Our calling is not here for us to pursue our own individual happiness as much as it is here for us to serve the greater good and create an overall happiness for all humanity. If our calling is truly inspired by the divine and spoken to us through our own inner voice then how could it be anything less than a service with its full intent toward the greater good?

For this reason, I do not believe that we should approach our callings in a way that serves only ourselves as individuals or that blinds in a way that leaves us seeing those things which we already have in our lives as obstacles at worst and as something to take for granted at best. I would urge individuals to pursue their callings in a way that allows them to truly see others around them in a way that recognizes all life as one bigger whole. I would urge individuals to pursue their calling while at the same time being grateful and showing that they are grateful for that which they already have in their lives by honoring those things and people in a more outward way. I believe that if this focus on our calling had a better balance between those things within ourselves and those things outside of ourselves we would much more readily keep within a deeper understanding that our purpose or calling is not there simply to change our own world but to literally change THE world. By focusing on the calling and its purpose toward the greater good rather than focusing on the calling and how it makes us as an individual happy it opens us up to focus on a deeper level to better knowing our true self.

It only makes sense that we should as individuals focus more deeply toward knowing the deeper ‘self’. In the end, only when you know and recognize yourself in such a way as to realize that ‘self’ is a part of something bigger and in turn operate from unconditional love, compassion, understanding and forgiveness for all living beings and completely without ego – only then – will your calling begin to actually have meaning as opposed to being nothing more than that deep passion and obsession in which you strive so heavily toward that you forget the greater good and opt instead to serve the good of your own ego. By doing this, you lower the vibration of the planet rather than raising it as your dreams and aspiration blind you and keep you from seeing, loving and being grateful for that which is right in front of you and that connection to God in which one can only truly connect to when their ego dies and they begin to see the divine light contained in all life on this planet coming to rest in the final recognition that we truly are all one just as individual cells in the body all come together to serve the whole of the larger body. It then becomes not about competition but instead about the concept that if each one up brings one up we can all rise to the highest heights together and that we as the whole of life are only as strong as our weakest link.

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