Always follow your soul’s calling no matter what.
Ever since my first spiritual awakening experience two years ago in the holy town of Rishikesh India, I had massively transformed my life, from a corporate/business oriented life to a much more spiritually oriented life. I can honestly say that I feel much more happier and fulfilled in my life.
I have also written some articles about spirituality in China and constantly receiving messages from readers sharing their own experiences and also telling me about the difficulties they face on their journey.
The most common ones I get are “I want to change my life and leave the place but I can’t because my parents and family need me” or similarly “I don’t like my job but I can’t leave it yet, my job needs me”. So they keep on dragging -living a life that they know are not true to themselves (their souls) and stuck in a job that they know they have no interest in.
Here’s the thing: If you want to grow spiritually and evolve faster, living a more happier and fulfilling life, then you MUST MUST LISTEN TO YOUR HEART, even if you don’t know why your heart thinks like that yet. Trust me, one day you would know!
Steve jobs once said “You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.”
I couldn’t have put it better than him! So if your heart tells you to leave, then leave. Don’t even use your limited mind to doubt your heart or soul’s infinite intelligence. Believe it or not, your intuition (coming from your heart/soul) really knows the best! Somehow the Universal secret is transmitted to you through your intuition, your gut, your heart, your soul or whatever you want to call it, so DO NOT EVER IGNORE THE INNER MESSAGE!
You need to know that the biggest responsibility in your life is to live an authentic life that corresponds to the highest calling of your soul. This journey is never meant to be smooth sailing. It may require you to let go a lot of the social conditionings and even the so-called ‘responsibility’, to step out of our comfort zone to find ourselves, to understand the Self in order to discover our souls’ purposes. It requires us to keep moving forward, to follow our heart, honestly and fearlessly. Trust me, it is definitely worth it, because your biggest responsibility in life is to be responsible for your soul.
When you are awakened spiritually and discover your life’s purpose, then you would become genuinely happy and free – a person who is filled with love. Only a truly happy and loving person can bring the most help to the people around, to contribute positively to humanity and to the world.
If you are confused and unhappy about your life, then what good can you do for your parents and the people around you? When I was not awakened, I often argued with my mother when I was at home, unable to control the ego from the mind, so I could only bring more negative impact to the people around me.
You must remember that even Buddha had to leave his palace in order to discover the truth of life. Buddha was the only son of his father, he was supposed to take over the palace. He also had a wife and a son! He surely had lots of responsibilities on his shoulders.
Still he chose to leave the palace and his family in search for the truth of life, determined to find out the cause of suffering of human beings and the solutions to resolve it. If he was only thinking that his kingdom needed him and so was his family (which I’m sure they did), then perhaps we would never be able to study the wisdom of Buddhism and its tremendous positive contributions to humanity over thousands of years.
Maybe there were people who blamed Buddha for “abandoning” his kingdom and family for his “selfishness”, but I think those people probably do not really understand the true meaning of “selflessly”.
If you want to leave, then leave first. Go and find yourself first, to meet the unknown Self, to become the best version of yourself, to realise the inner God-like qualities within you, that is when you can start truly help others.
The traveler has to knock at every alien door
to come to his own,
and one has to wander through all the outer worlds
to reach the innermost shrine at the end.”
― Rabindranath Tagore
I hope we all have enough courage to make changes in our lives, especially when we are still young, it would be much easier to change, to live for our souls, to connect with our higher selves, to follow our inner voices, to be the change we want to see in the world!
Also do not blame others for their low consciousness (this is another message I often received from some readers), quit playing the blame game! Actually every problem is our own problem. When we blame others, then it just shows that we are not compassionate enough.
You main task is to be the best version of yourself, when you have become the best version of yourself, then you can automatically influence others, but do not expect others to change. If you can’t even change yourself, how can you expect others to change? Even if you have changed, still do not expect others to change, as expectations often lead to disappointments. Just be happy, regardless of what happens.
I would also recommend the book ‘The Alchemist’ written by Paulo Coelho, if you are interested in discovering the meaning of life and your soul’s purpose (“personal legend” as Paulo Coelho termed it).
This was probably the very first spiritual book I read (without knowing anything about spirituality even before I was awakened). I still felt the message delivered was very strong that it left some impact on me — that I should always follow my heart’s calling no matter what. When I was awakened I felt I could grasp better of the powerful message he was trying to convey through the simple story.
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams, because every second of the search is a second’s encounter with God and with eternity.”
-The Alchemist, Paolo Coehlo
Originally published at medium.com