The Fulfillment Few People Talk About

Work, family, love, success: you have probably already devoted a great part of your life to fulfilling yourself. But is there a deeper fulfillment, one that depends on none of these achievements? That is the question this text tries to answer, inviting you to stop opposing inner life and ordinary life, and instead to understand which one gives meaning to the other.

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The Fulfillment Few People Talk About
Beyond Social, Romantic, or Intellectual Success

Work, family, love, success: you have probably already devoted a great part of your life to fulfilling yourself. But is there a deeper fulfillment, one that depends on none of these achievements? That is the question this text tries to answer, inviting you to stop opposing inner life and ordinary life, and instead to understand which one gives meaning to the other.

In this life, during the time given to you, it is natural to want to fulfill yourself. You may seek that fulfillment in work, in family, in love, in creation, in knowledge, in a life's work, or in what you leave behind. All of this has its own value and belongs fully to human life.

But there is another fulfillment, a deeper one, that depends neither on your social success, nor on your romantic situation, nor on your intellectual abilities. Here I am speaking of spiritual fulfillment: fulfilling the very reason this life was given to you.

Your existence is one stage on a much vaster path. It is given to you so that you may keep drawing closer to the goal: Liberation from the cycle of incarnations, by refining your soul, until you are able to return to your place of origin in full consciousness and complete freedom.

This does not mean you must give up other forms of fulfillment. Once this priority is recognized and placed at the center, nothing prevents you from also fulfilling yourself socially, romantically, intellectually, artistically, or materially. It is not a matter of choosing between the spiritual life and the human life, but of knowing which one gives meaning to the other.

You know this, you who are seeking or already walking a spiritual path: the purpose of existence is not simply to live while waiting to die.

Yet we spend a great deal of time settling into this life as though we were meant to stay in it forever. We make plans at twenty or thirty, we buy a house, we accumulate belongings, habits, positions, as if all of it were meant to last.

There is nothing wrong with that. The trouble begins when we forget the impermanence of everything that makes up our existence, and take the means of living for the very purpose of life.

Awareness of this impermanence naturally invites us to turn our gaze inward as well.

Many people, sincerely drawn by their Love for the One, want to devote their lives to Him. They look to the lives of saints, sages, or people they admire, and try to follow in their footsteps. Not necessarily by living as they lived, but by trying to cultivate some of their virtues: generosity, compassion, brotherhood, attentiveness to others.

These qualities are beautiful, and their fruits can be precious. But one must not confuse the consequences of the path with the path itself.

Because certain deeply spiritual beings are generous, compassionate, and turned toward others, one may come to believe that spirituality essentially consists of becoming generous, compassionate, and turned toward others.

These generous people may be mistaken on this point, which takes nothing away from their virtues or their merits.

It is not by being kind that one draws closer to God; it is by drawing closer to God that something changes in us and in the way we are in the world.

We do not all arrive in this incarnation with the same dispositions. At birth, each of us has a particular configuration of the three gunas: sattva, rajas, and tamas. Their relative importance, their balance, and which one predominates are linked to the soul's degree of refinement over the course of samsara, and to the residue left by previous incarnations. This disposition contributes to what we call our nature: our temperament, some of our tendencies, our inclinations, and our spontaneous way of being with others.

Some are thus naturally sociable, generous, inclined toward service and empathy. Others are more solitary, reserved, or contemplative.

If you have a natural disposition to turn toward others, let it express itself. It is a beautiful disposition. If you do not have it, there is no use building a spiritual persona to match the image you have of a saint. "You can drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she will always return."

Sadhana is not about playing a role or overlaying spiritual virtues onto oneself. It works more deeply than that. Through repeated contact with what lies within, consciousness deepens and the soul continues its refinement.

When some seekers are told that they must turn their gaze inward to meet that presence of the One, of God, of the Tao, which is the reason we exist, they sometimes answer: "One must not turn toward oneself selfishly; one must turn toward one's brothers and sisters."

But why should one have to choose? Why should one have to turn either inward or toward others? This is precisely where an overly binary way of thinking traps us.

The part of the Divine closest to you is not on the other side of the world. It is not even next door. What is closest to you lies within you. That is where your consciousness can meet, directly, the presence that makes you alive.

And when your consciousness meets this presence within you, it does not separate you from others. Quite the opposite. At the same time, you meet this same part of the Divine in your human brothers and sisters, and in your more or less distant cousins, the other creatures, animal and plant alike.

Do they not carry this same part of the Divine? Are they not alive as well? Forms differ, degrees of consciousness differ, but life proceeds from the same source. Turning inward, then, is not turning away from the world. It is moving toward what, deep down, connects us to it.

The Path is not incompatible with social, family, or professional life, any more than it is incompatible with a highly developed social conscience.

There is an individual, spiritual domain: we are born alone, and we leave the body alone. No one can meditate in our place, and no one can deepen our consciousness for us. And there is also the domain of duties, responsibilities, and action in the world.

You can commit yourself to biodiversity, to justice, to a social or political cause. You can care for your family, work, create, teach, help others. None of this prevents you from keeping in mind the primary reason for your coming to Earth.

And if you are naturally solitary, nothing requires you to become an activist or a social figure in order to be spiritual. You can fulfill the reason for your coming by leading a quiet, withdrawn life.

"Seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33).

If we must think, and we must think, think in spheres, not in circles.

Do not keep circling endlessly around artificial oppositions: inner or outer, soul or body, spirituality or ordinary life, meditation or action, consciousness or intellect. Do not stay locked into "either one or the other." Reality is vaster than these alternatives, and several dimensions can be true at once without contradicting each other.

The mind, the intellect, and education are not enemies of the soul. They become obstacles only when they occupy a place that is not theirs. When consciousness directs them to solve the problems that belong to duty, they are simply tools.
 

Of course, when you are sitting in deep meditation, that is not the moment to think about your affairs, your plans, or what you will do tomorrow. There is a time for everything.

But when consciousness, soothed by its communion with inner peace, takes up the tools of the mind and the intellect again, thought is no longer an enemy. It becomes once more what it should be: a tool in the service of consciousness.

On the Path, it is not cheese or dessert. It is cheese and dessert.

Materialism is not necessarily opposed to spirituality, any more than the body is opposed to the soul. Turning toward others is not opposed to turning inward. Working, loving, building, and acting in the world are not opposed to the search for the Divine.

It is simply a matter of putting each thing in its proper place.

It is within that lies the deep answer to all your questions, and the solution to your greatest problem: being without Him, like an orphan lost in existence.

There are people who devote themselves to others and find in that devotion a deep satisfaction that only this activity seems able to give them. Their devotion can be admirable and can produce a great deal of good. And yet, however beautiful it may be, it is not, by itself, enough to fulfill the spiritual purpose of existence.

When we forget ourselves, whether in meditation, in service, or sometimes in an action carried out wholeheartedly, we may feel that peace, that true satisfaction, that presence of the Holy-Name. This is not surprising: it lies within us.

But feeling the Holy-Name from time to time is not yet fulfillment.

We must return to it again and again, so often and so consistently that this contact truly deepens our consciousness. What was at first only a moment of peace gradually becomes a more stable depth, a clearer consciousness, a different way of being in existence.

This is where the fulfillment spoken of here is found.

You may have loved, worked, raised children, built a house, created a body of work, helped many people, and lived a rich life. None of this is to be looked down upon. But behind everything you have done in this incarnation, something more essential may have taken place: your consciousness has deepened, and your soul has been refined a little further.

This is the purpose of the Path. "Each incarnation gives the soul a little more consciousness."

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