Finding a purpose

Finding a purpose

Musings
Sonia Kelly

HAVING a purpose in life is essential to remaining contented, healthy and vigorous. Every human aims to achieve happiness. So, perhaps, all other purposes are, consciously or unconsciously, pursued as a means to achieving happiness.
The purpose that we all universally seem to hold is the acquisition of money. This is rooted in the belief that happiness can be bought. Of course, it is true that if you are lacking the essentials of life, the means to purchase them will improve the situation. However, a surfeit of nonessentials does not make for euphoria.
On the other hand, it has also been found that giving away money does make people happy. One might be tempted to think that accumulating money in order to give it away makes for a pretty futile purpose, but it justifies the aphorism that in causing happiness one creates it for oneself.
This monetary route is an expensive one to go down, though. It is possible to dispense happiness by means of kind words, and if happiness is acknowledged as one’s purpose in life, then no opportunity should be wasted for its generation. One piece of advice to that end that I came across lately recommends performing one kind act every day. Hard to find the opportunity, perhaps. But kind words are easy – “How nice your hair looks” or “That colour really suits you”… A compliment is always uplifting.
All the religions seem to agree that happiness is our ultimate purpose, that reaching some form of eternal paradise is the be all and end all of existence. It seems a pretty futile endeavour, when you think of it - the whole saga of creation just to achieve happiness for humans. I mean, what’s the point?
And what’s the purpose of non-human life? What is a beetle’s life destined to achieve, say? Does it have some basic purpose, any concept of happiness, apart from propagating its species? Can there, indeed, be any purpose for the existence of the planet Earth in a universe so great that no one (not even Stephen Hawking) can imagine its size?
But if the planet and the life upon it is just the result of some accident, then the pursuit of happiness certainly must be the main purpose of our existence. And health is a very necessary concomitant of that.
One way to achieve it is by breathing deeply in a certain way. Also known as power breathing, deep breathing is taught in yoga as a discipline that yields the power to master your body and give you control over its functions. This is how you do it:
Breathe in to the count of eight. Imagine your breath is being drawn up inside your spinal column. During the first four counts, press up your belly button and let the breath flow downwards. For five, six, seven and eight, fill the top part of the lungs. Then hold your breath for the count of four before exhaling. For the first three breaths imagine you are exhaling through the top of your head. For the second, through the centre of your forehead. For the third, through your throat. For the fourth, through a spot two inches above your belly button. For the fifth, through a spot two inches below your belly button. The exhalation should also last for the count of eight. It can be accompanied by the visualisation of whatever healing process the body is in need of. For instance, if your eyesight is failing, a visualisation mantra of “My eyesight is perfect” would be appropriate. (You can see here echoes of the law of attraction, which I have mentioned in previous columns).
A performance of this ritual for 50 days should see a manifestation of the purposeful intention.