Accomplishing One's Mission in Life

Accomplishing One's Mission in Life

What does Indian philosophy have to say about "self growth"?

First of all, we all have four aims of life:
• “dharma”, being honest, upright and doing one's duty to society, to friends and family. In this way we have a sense of well-being and it leads, in the long-term, to contentment with one's health
• “kama”, becoming happy and receiving pleasure
• “artha”, having a reasonable standard of living
• “moksha”, liberation -- becoming free, to do what one wants, to be free of worry.

You are "growing" each day when you take active steps to achieve one or more of these four aims of your life. Thus you grow if you strive to be a good citizen, a good husband or wife or good employee or businessman.

The first three aims are needed for everyone, and without experiencing the struggles and achievements involved with adulthood, one cannot progress to tackling the fourth aim of life -- liberation. This matter is the prime subject matter of yoga practice.

According to Indian philosophy, each of us has had many lives and had many experiences. But, there is a primary experience [related to one of these four aims of life] that you need to accomplish in this life. You should not at all disregard the other three objectives, but you need to understand which of these four aims of life is your true focus in this life.

It is between the ages of 16 and 21 that you are given a definitive knowledge, by God, of your true purpose of life. You will have some ideals, but get to know that in order to achieve these ideals, you need to do certain things. For example, to do exercise, get married, focus on your work, or develop an interest in spiritual or religious matters. Over time, the emphasis of what you need to do may change, but the goal remains constant. Here are some examples:
• a boy wants to become a fighter pilot or join the Navy. He needs, long-term, to focus on his health. In order to do that he needs to become a good honest citizen
• a girl wants to become a nurse. This is a selfless activity and her real mission in life is to become free and to tread the path of karma yoga -- helping others without motive
• a boy or girl is envious of others and wants to be rich. They need in life to work at developing a good standard of living
• a boy is interested mainly in sex, or a woman is interested in having a family. They both need to focus on marriage and deriving pleasure from their spouse.

Progressing along one's life towards one's true goal helps one become contented. Once contented, one can move towards one or other of the other three goals of life.