I've been reading the Seven Laws of Spiritual Success, and wanted to share this with you all. If we all lived in this way can you imagine how wonderful and fulfilling Life would be? This is my vision for the new tomorrow, a life of meaning and service to each other with loving kindness.
The Law of Dharma or purpose in life
Everyone has a purpose in life… a unique gift or special talent to give to others. And when we blend this unique talent with service to others, we experience the ecstasy and exultation of our own spirit, which is the ultimate goal of all goals.
When you work you are a flute through whose heart the whispering of the hours turns to music. And what is it to work with love. It is to weave the cloth with threads drawn from your heart, even as if your beloved were to wear that cloth…
Khalil Gibran, “The Prophet”
The seventh spiritual law of success is the Law of Dharma. Dharma is a Sanskrit word that means “purpose in life”. The Law of Dharma says that we have taken manifestation in physical form to fulfill a purpose. The field of pure potentiality is divinity in its essence, and the divine takes human form to fulfill a purpose.
According to this law, you have a unique talent and a unique way of expressing it. There is something that you can do better than anyone else in the whole world. And for every unique talent and unique expression of that talent, there are also unique needs. When these needs are matched with the creative expression of your talent, that is the spark that creates affluence. Expressing your talents to fulfill needs creates unlimited wealth and abundance.
If you could start children right from the beginning with this thought, you’d see the effect it has on their lives. In fact, I did this with my own children. Again and again, I told them there was a reason why they were here, and they had to find out what that reason was for themselves. From the age of four years, they heard this. I also taught them to meditate when they were about the same age, and I told them, “I never, ever want you to worry about making a living. If you’re unable to make a living when you grow up, I’ll provide for you, so don’t worry about that. I don’t want you to focus on doing well in school. I don’t want you to focus on getting the best grades or going to the best colleges. What I really want you to focus on is asking yourself how you can serve humanity, and asking yourself what your unique talents are. Because you have a unique talent that no one else has, and you have a special way of expressing that talent, and no one else has it”. They ended up going to the best schools, getting the best grades, and even in college, they are unique in that they are financially self-sufficient, because they are focused on what they are here to give. This then, is the Law of Dharma.
There are three components to the Law of Dharma. The first component says that each of us is here to discover our true Self, to find out on our own that our true Self is spiritual, that essentially we are spiritual beings that have taken manifestation in physical form. We’re not human beings that have occasional spiritual experiences. It’s the other way around: we’re spiritual beings that have occasional human experiences.
Each of us is here to discover our higher self or our spiritual self. That’s the first fulfillment of the Law of Dharma. We must find out for ourself that inside us is a god or goddess in embryo that wants to be born so that we can express our divinity.
The second component of the Law of Dharma is to express our unique talents. The Law of Dharma says that every human being has a unique talent. You have a talent that is unique in its expression, so unique that there’s no one else alive on this planet that has that talent, or that expression of that talent. This means that there’s one thing you can do, and one way of doing it, that is better than anyone else on this entire planet. When you’re doing that one thing, you lose track of time. When you’re expressing that one unique talent that you possess (or more than one unique talent in many cases) the expression of that talent takes you into timeless awareness.
The third component of the Law of Dharma is service to humanity. To serve your fellow human beings and to ask yourself the questions, “How can I help? How can I help all those that I come into contact with?” When you combine the ability to express your unique talent with service to humanity, then you make full use of the Law of Dharma. And coupled with the experience of your own spirituality, the field of pure potentiality, there is no way you will not have access to unlimited abundance, because that is the real way abundance is achieved.
This is not a temporary abundance; it’s permanent, because of your unique talent, your way of expressing it, and your service and dedication to your fellow human beings, which you discover through asking the question, “How can I help?” instead of “What’s in it for me?”
The question, “What’s in it for me?” is the internal dialogue of the ego. Asking “How can I help?” is the internal dialogue of the spirit. The spirit is that domain of your awareness where you experience your universality. In just shifting your internal dialogue from “What’s in it for me?” to “How can I help?” you automatically go beyond the ego into the domain of your spirit. While meditation is the most useful way of entering the domain of spirit, simply shifting your internal dialogue to “How can I help?” will also access the spirit, that domain of your awareness where you experience your universality.
If you want to make maximum use of the Law of Dharma, then you have to make several commitments:
The first commitment: I am going to seek my higher self, which is beyond my ego, through spiritual practice.
The second commitment: I am going to discover my unique talents, and finding my unique talents, I am going to enjoy myself, because the process of enjoyment occurs when I go into timeless awareness. That’s when I am in a state of bliss.
The third commitment:I am going to ask myself how I am best suited to serve humanity. I am going to answer that question and then put it into practice. I am going to use my unique talents to serve the needs of my fellow human beings. I will match those needs to my desire to help and serve others.
Sit down and make a list of the answers to these two questions: Ask yourself, if money was no concern and you had all the time and money in the world, what would you do? If you would still do what you currently do, then you are in dharma, because you have passion for what you do. You are expressing your unique talents. Then ask yourself: How am I best suited to serve humanity? Answer that question, and put it into practice.
Discover your divinity, find your unique talent, serve humanity with it, and you can generate all the wealth that you want. When your creative expressions match the needs of your fellow humans, then wealth will spontaneously flow from the unmanifest into the manifest, from the realm of the spirit to the world of form. You will begin to experience your life as a miraculous expression of divinity. Not just occasionally, but all the time. And you will know true joy and the true meaning of success, the ecstasy and exultation of your own spirit.
Deepak Chopra
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