Knowing the purpose for our life is essential to living joyfully and meaningfully. Purpose is what drives us to make the choices that we make. We always have some purpose that motivates us to choose this over that, but are not always consciously aware of what it is.

If we do not take the time to carefully consider what our purpose is, most likely we will end up simply following the constantly changing directives of our mind and senses – being pulled this way and that. We would be like sailors adrift on a vast and tumultuous sea with no navigation system to guide us. Haphazardly wandering through life results in misery, disappointment, frustration.

However, if we are clear on what our purpose is, we can steer through rough seas. We can consciously align our activities with our purpose and thus find the happiness and fulfillment that we seek.

So how do we discover what our purpose is?

There are so many methods, metaphysical sciences, personality questionnaires, books and websites that put forward a formula for determining what our purpose is. However, if we look at what they are basing their methods on, we will see that these formulas are based upon the material mind and body.

This would be fine if we were the material mind and body. But we are not.

According to the ancient yoga scriptures and other bona-fide scriptures of the world, we are eternal spiritual beings that are temporarily wearing the material mind and body. The gross physical body can be compared to outer clothes and the mind or subtle energy body can be compared to under clothes. Just as we are not the clothes we are wearing, we are not the material bodies we are wearing either.

If we were to consider the purpose of our life only based upon the temporary material “clothes” that we are wearing, then we may experience some temporary, superficial brand of material happiness and material success, but this kind of happiness never actually satisfies us. Rather, it leaves us still feeling emptiness in the core of our being and thus always hungry for something more. Material happiness and success may stimulate the mind and body, but it does not actually touch us – the non-material self within the body.

This is why we see countless people with great material success and material opulence – fame, wealth, beauty, power, intelligence, renunciation – who are so depressed, lonely, anxious, and empty inside that they turn to drugs and even suicide to try to escape their suffering condition. Material success simply does not fulfill us. It does not bring us the deep level of meaningful connection and lasting happiness that we need and long for. For this, we need to be engaged in ways that satisfy our eternal nature – and so we need to be aware of what our eternal purpose is.

Our eternal purpose is an inseparable aspect of who we are. It does not change from lifetime to lifetime, body to body. Our external details change, but our eternal details do not. They simply become covered.

In order to know our purpose – the purpose that is eternally inseparable from us – we must realize who we are beneath the material “clothes.” We must know our nature as eternal spiritual beings. When who we are becomes completely clear to us, what to do is obvious. Our purpose becomes naturally evident in our understanding of our eternal identity. To fully know ourselves as we are, we must engage in a process of purification which can reveal this to us.

In the yoga scriptures, the recommended method of purification for this day and age is mantra meditation. A true mantra is not something anyone makes up. It is the Absolute Truth in sound vibration. This transcendental sacred sound descends from the spiritual platform to the material world without losing any of its potency. In mantra meditation, a person hears and chants or sings this spiritual sound and thus puts themselves in the direct presence of the Supreme. This has a profound purifying effect on our consciousness.

Through sincere, daily practice of mantra meditation, the false ideas about ourselves are able to gradually fall away and our true nature is revealed. Thus, we are able to discover our innermost purpose and everything else about ourselves that we need to know to actually become deeply happy and fulfilled.

Once we are clear about who we are and therefore clear about our purpose, we can make life choices that are truly in accordance with our highest good and highest happiness. Our life takes on a natural harmony when our innermost purpose guides our actions because our innermost nature is one of harmony. We naturally seek to be in harmony within ourselves, with the Supreme, and with all living beings. The more we are successful in this, the happier we are.

Through the priceless gift of mantra meditation we immediately begin harmonizing our consciousness with the Supreme consciousness – and as we do this, everything falls into place. Thus, we can begin living our highest purpose even as we are still becoming fully cognizant of what it is because the Supreme purpose and our purpose are one and the same.