What's the meaning and purpose of life?  Is it all just happenstance?  And what's the purpose of YOUR life?  Is your life on PURPOSE? Your SOUL incarnated here for a reason, do you know what it is?  Here's my take on this subject from a decidedly divine perspective.

The Higher Context of Life

We are all ethereal beings existing primarily in the non-physical realms of the universe. At the base level this means we are simply patterns of energy — yes, you are an ENERGY BEING. At a slightly higher level of abstraction, we are information and an information processor — we are pure consciousness. We are ideas in motion; we are repositories of knowledge.  Just one little problem with our knowledge, it's all CONCEPTUAL.  Conceptual knowledge is just abstract ideas.  Conceptual knowledge is relatively shallow knowledge because it is not based on hard-won experience.  DEEP knowledge is formed from concrete experience.  This is why we all CHOOSE to incarnate into a physical experience — to gain experiential knowledge.  We are asking ourselves this fundamental question — will our ideas and ideals stand up to the "REAL" world?

The Earth Experience

Higher levels of the conscious collective of the universe created planet Earth and the physical reality system it which it resides.  It is a playground where we can learn, grow, and test our ideas, principles, and values.  The primary goals are self-discovery, self-growth, and self-mastery.  By the way, Earth is not the only inhabited planet.  The universe (source consciousness) created many worlds to play the GAME OF LIFE on.  Apparently, it's experimenting with a great diversity of environments and life forms to see what it can learn about existence and itself.

The EARTH GAME is said to be one of the most challenging in all the universe.  We generally start by incarnating onto less demanding worlds then we graduate to the SCHOOL OF LIFE on Earth.  Eventually, when we graduate from the Earth School, we become what some term "Ascended Masters" — we have achieved total self-mastery and no longer have any need to reincarnate.  Any guess to how many incarnations it takes to become a "Master"?  Many believe hundreds or thousands of times, at the minimum!

Let's review:

             
  • The universe created Earth as a playground for gaining experiential knowledge.
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  • The Earth is essentially a cosmic school, and one of the most challenging.
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  • The higher purpose of all physical experience is self-knowledge, self-growth, and self-mastery. 
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  • We CHOOSE to participate because we want to LEARN and GROW.
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  • It takes the average being many rounds (incarnations) to attain complete self-mastery.
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The School of Life

If we were to use only one phrase to describe the cosmic purpose of the "game of life" it would be SELF-MASTERY.  At the root of it, it is the desire to gain deep experiential knowledge to validate and prove our pre-existing conceptual knowledge.  Since you are part of the one infinite being that we call the Universe, and this being is all-knowing, you potentially have access to all the conceptual knowledge of the universal mind — you simply don't realize it in your present form.

Many have suggested that "balancing karma" is one of the reasons why we incarnate.  But balancing karma is just the PROCESS by which we learn the lessons we came to learn.  Karma is a universal dynamic that is characterized in the universal spiritual law "The Law of Cause and Effect", often referred to as "The Law of Karma".  This law can be summed up by the saying "What we sow is what we reap."  When we create negative experiences for others, it eventually attracts similar negative experiences to ourselves.  Stated from a positive perspective, when we create happy and uplifting experiences for others, we attract the same to ourselves.  So balancing Karma is not a REASON for incarnating, it's simply a part of the PROCESS by which we learn.

The Lessons of Life

You incarnated for the powerful learning experiences that physical life has to offer.  You came here to learn about yourself and to grow — to become the best and highest version of yourself.  In the physical planes, you DEMONSTRATE what you have learned by the experiences you create for yourself and those around you.  This is the whole point of the "school of life", to DEMONSTRATE your self-mastery.  You came here to MASTER yourself: your mind, your body, your spirit.  More than anything, your many lives are a journey of self-mastery.  Where are you on your journey? The litmus test of self-mastery is LIFE MASTERY.        

“What you do in life echoes in eternity.”    — Maximus Decimus Meridius        

Here are some signs that you are achieving mastery:

             
  • Consistently experiencing happiness, prosperity, and a sense of fulfillment.
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  • Consistently creating joyful experiences for yourself and others.
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There are two general categories of lessons you came here to learn:  (1) Universal Lessons, (2) Personal Lessons.

The Universal Lessons of Life

The universal lessons are general lessons that apply to all beings, whether they are incarnated on Earth or one of the many other inhabited worlds in this galaxy and beyond. Below is a partial list.  Note that the list includes timeless qualities that have been discussed and highly valued throughout human history.  One could write an entire book discussing these lessons and qualities.  Suffice to say, if we learn these lessons and fully embody these qualities we will be well on our way to becoming masters, and our power to create wonderful experiences and to manifest our highest desires will be much greater.

Some of the universal lessons that life has to offer:

             
  • Compassion
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  • Generosity
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  • Gratefulness
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  • Curiosity/Inquisitiveness
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  • Honesty
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  • Authenticity
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  • Optimism
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  • Enthusiasm
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  • Mindfulness
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  • Cooperativeness
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  • Purposefulness
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  • Confidence
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  • Fearlessness
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  • Self-discipline
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  • Diligence
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  • Determination
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  • Perseverance
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  • Resilience
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Personal Life Lessons and Your Life-Script

We all have lessons that are specific to our unique soul-print and where we are in our soul's journey.  Before we incarnate, we decide the lessons that we want to learn so that we can evolve spiritually.  We create a LIFE-SCRIPT (a life plan, sometimes called a ‘blueprint’) based on what we are interested in experiencing and learning in our eternal pursuit of self-knowledge and self-growth.        

Michael Newton, the author of Journey of Souls, described the souls process of planning its next incarnation as follows.        

The soul's decision to incarnate is based upon three primary questions:  (1)  Am I ready for a new physical life?  (2) What specific lessons do I want to undertake to advance my learning and development? (3) Where should I go, and who shall I be in my next life for the best opportunity to work on my goals?        

Your life-script is, in a sense, a LESSON PLAN.  We choose all the circumstances and situations that will enable us to learn our desired lessons.  Our life-script includes everything from the kind of parents, families, and childhoods we will have, to our career paths, health and financial circumstances, sexual preferences, marriages, children and the length of our lifetime.  We often design our life-script to focus on one area that we feel we have the most to learn and will, therefore, be especially challenged by during our lifetime.  We also plan when we will leave the earth plane and give ourselves multiple ‘exit points’ to choose from.

The Veil of Forgetting

Once we incarnate into human form, we lose conscious awareness of our life-script during our time on Earth.  This is an obvious necessity for the learning process; if we knew what the script was while we were in the "school of life" it wouldn't be nearly as effective.

Your life-script contains all the elements needed to achieve your experiential and learning objectives, but it is not completely rigid.  You can adapt it to some degree depending on the conditions on the ground, and there is plenty of room for lateral movement.

You created your life-script with many paths.  It's like a big branching structure. Each point where a path splits is a DECISION POINT.  Depending on what CHOICE you make at that point you go down a different path.  But have no fear, all the paths were designed by you to lead to the same place — your desired growth outcome.  It's just a matter of how long it will take.

You have FREE WILL to choose as you see fit, but those choices have consequences.  The CHOICES you make in life are the key element of the learning process.  Eventually, you will make the choices that will lead you to the outcome that you planned to reach.

Your life-script, the broad strokes of your life, are pre-determined BY YOU.  The CHALLENGES in your life are BY DESIGN, and YOU designed them!  Knowing that you scripted your entire life is empowering because you realize you can discard the idea that life is happening TO YOU, and can replace it with life is happening BY YOU, FOR YOU — it is the end of victimhood, and the beginning of embracing the power of being THE CREATOR of your life.

A Metaphor to Explain How Soul Life Plans Work

Using the term 'life script' for your soul's life plan is very appropriate because it's very much like the script of a play.   You are playing the lead role in the play that you wrote and scripted.  You scripted it that way because those were the themes you wanted to explore and experience.          

In this play that you are playing the starring role in, your higher self and your spirit guides function like the directors.   They guide you so you can act out the play as intended without too many hiccups.  The better connected you are to your higher self and your guides the better able you are to follow the script to the letter and sail through all the experiences and challenges that you scripted for yourself as smoothly and efficiently as possible.        

But make no mistake, you actually scripted potentially challenging situations and circumstances into your life, and you are expecting them with anticipation because you know you will grow from them — that's the whole point of the game.          

If you are less well connected, or disconnected,  from your higher self and guides you may stray more than a little from the script and some of the scripted challenges may turn into epics and you might end up spinning your wheels for quite a while before getting back on track.   It's not a matter of IF you will complete your life script — E.G., have the experiences you intended and grow from the challenges as you hoped for.   It's just a matter of WHEN.  Sometimes that will make for one heck of a long drawn out life with more pain and suffering than desirable.   Sometimes it might take multiple lives for you to fully explore and transcend all the challenges contained in your script.        

You, the real you, your higher self,  is a thread of universal consciousness which has created a construct to experience within.   It's sort of like in the movie the 'The Matrix' except the entity that created the construct is benevolent because that entity is YOU.  YOU created the construct, well your higher self did anyway.        

Another difference from The Matrix is that the YOU that is doing the experiencing of this construct is not a body trapped in a container or sitting in a chair and plugged into the construct.   You are pure consciousness; you are a focal point of the consciousness that resides within and permeates the energetic field of the universe.        

Check out Discovered Your Godself? and The Multidimensional Self to learn more about the true nature of self.        

Divine Life Purpose and Soul Mission

“We are frightfully concerned with our own deaths, sometimes so much so that we forget the real purpose of our lives.”    — Brian Weiss, Many Lives, Many Masters        

In addition to creating a life-script/lesson plan, you also define a LIFE PURPOSE (often referred to as your SOUL MISSION).  You collaborate with higher beings (conscious entities) to devise a life MISSION that will be rewarding and help others. It is something your higher-self was particularly interested in experiencing and doing.  It involves utilizing and perfecting the talents that are within you, part of your unique soul-print, and sharing them and the highest and best parts of yourself with others. Having a mission enhances your soul growth and ensures that you’ll be completely supported as you fulfill it.

Your purpose is something so exciting and rewarding that you’ll wake each morning invigorated to dive in.  Because of your enthusiasm you will spend lots of time and energy on it, become very proficient at it, and abundance will flow to you.

Everyone’s mission has the same underlying purpose: love, compassion, and service to others.  In essence, we’re all here to learn and teach these powerful ideas. Every action that we take either demonstrates fear or love. When we choose the path of love and "service to others" instead of "service to self", we grow, help others, and balance our karma.

Choosing your individual life mission is essentially just choosing the specific path of love and service you will take. Your mission isn't necessarily what you do for a living.  It may be something you do in your spare time.  Your mission may have nothing to do with what you DO at all, it might just be BEING YOU.  Just being the "wonderful you" serves as a positive example for all.

"How come I don't know what my purpose is?"  If you are feeling unfulfilled and that there's got to be "more to life", you are not alone.   Many people don’t have the faintest idea of what their mission or purpose is.

As with our life-script, we intentionally forget our life purpose when we incarnate. This forces us to discover it while we're here. Why would we make ourselves work so hard?  Because the process of discovering our purpose is educational and exciting — it is, in fact, one of the great lessons of life.  To discover your life purpose, you have to get in touch with your essence, that unique mixture of divine qualities that makes you distinctly YOU (your soul-print).  This requires us to learn how to listen to and trust our intuition and inner-wisdom — GREAT lessons indeed!

How will you know your purpose? You will recognize it because it will ignite a feeling of excitement in your heart and soul.  It'll make you feel enthusiastic, energized and alive. You’ll feel unstoppable, your creative juices will be flowing, and you'll wake up each morning with a spring in your step — in a word, PASSION!  Have you found your passion?

And here's the kicker, when you discover and start pursuing your purpose, your entire life will just keep getting better and better. You'll feel happier and healthier, even your finances will improve!

Keys to Discovering Your Purpose

Discovering your life purpose isn’t easy, but not as hard as you might imagine.  It is within you. You don’t need to look outside yourself for it. Just ask yourself what you love to do and how you can serve others with that talent. Go within and ask yourself for the answers.

In order to awaken to your true life’s purpose you need to be ready to accept "change". Change may come in the form of increased awareness, shifts in beliefs and/or attitudes, new lifestyles, or a new career.

So get ready for some changes and try the following:

1 - Listen to Your Intuition

Quiet your analytical mind, stop overthinking everything and LISTEN.  Listen to your inner-voice — it's the guidance from your higher-self. Your intuition is actually your higher-self nudging you in the direction of your highest good.  Let go of the worries and concerns imposed by your analytical mind, and trust and follow the guidance — FOLLOW YOUR GUT.

Our higher-self will often send us messages in the form of repetitive thoughts or feelings, persistent curiosity about a subject, or other things that spark our interest or remind us of what is important to us.  Sometimes something serendipitous will happen that jolts our hidden passions and purpose.

2 - Figure Out What Makes You Happy

Ask yourself "What makes me happy?" and answer it honestly. Take the time to really analyze your happiness. What brings you true Joy? Write a list and look for a pattern.

Dig deep down and ask yourself who do you want to be, not what your family or friends want you to be, but YOU.  Figure out for yourself what makes you happy, no matter how crazy it might sound to other people.”    — Arnold Schwarzenegger,  The Six Rules of Success        

Ask yourself the following questions, then allow your heart to speak to you, and listen and be open to all possibilities.

Ask yourself:

             
  • What do I love to do?
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  • What makes me smile? (Activities, people, events, hobbies, projects, etc.)
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  • What activities make me lose track of time?
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  • What are my greatest talents? What am I naturally good at?
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  • What do people typically ask me for help in?
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  • What do I love about myself?  What makes me feel great about myself?
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  • What do I love about life?
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  • What is really important to me?
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  • What are my deepest values? What do I care about?
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  • What would I regret not fully doing, being or having in my life?
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  • What "causes" attract me? 
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  • Who or what inspires me?
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  • What talent or skill can I share with others?
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  • If I had to teach something, what would I teach?
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  • If I could communicate to a large group of people, who would those people be and what would my message be?
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  • How can I be of service? Given my talents, passions, and values, how could I serve, help, or contribute?
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3 - TRUST YOURSELF to Make the Right Choices for YOU

Listen to your inner-voice — then trust it. Sometimes your inner-voice may lead you along a path that could bring you great personal joy and fulfillment, but may seem unorthodox or impractical.  Sometimes finding and living your purpose could mean going against the wishes or advice of others, particularly those of close friends and family. Be TRUE TO YOURSELF regardless. WALK YOUR OWN PATH and choose it based on your own PERSONAL TRUTHS — no one else’s. 

4 - Have FAITH and TRUST in Your Dreams

BELIEVE in yourself and your vision, ignore the naysayers, and say YES I CAN and TRUST that success will come.”    — Arnold Schwarzenegger,  The Six Rules of Success        

5 - Be Patient

Discovering your life’s purpose may take some time, so be patient.  Patience, commitment, and perseverance are REQUIRED. Trust that everything happens in divine right time.  Making the commitment and taking the time to discover your true life purpose is well worth the effort.

Living Your Purpose

Living your life purpose, your soul's mission, is not always easy.  There will be ups and downs, and invariably, it takes hard work.  Accept the challenge of your higher-self and get ready to grow and enjoy like you never have before!

When you discover your passion and begin to live your purpose, life just keeps getting more and more wonderful.  You'll feel increasingly happy and fulfilled. And guess what? Your joy is like a positive vibration that spreads and reverberates to every corner of your life and the world, and serves as an example for others to follow.

Follow your joy,