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While many of us often like to emphasize our commonalities with others in order to fit in and feel a sense of belonging, the true pathway to one's fulfillment is found not in merging into and conforming with the crowd, but by nurturing own uniqueness, discovering own truth and having the courage to go on your own way.
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According to Thomas Melton,
Every man has a vocation to be someone: but he must understand clearly that in order to fulfill this vocation he can only be one person: himself.
Thomas Melton
In discovering one's great work for one's life, one will be fulfilling own sacred duty, faithful to one's dharma, and engaged in the process of own self-realization.
Dharma according to Stephen Cope in his book, The Great Work of Your Life meaning:
Dharma is a potent Sanskrit word that is packed tight with meaning…Dharma means, variously, “path,” “teaching,” or “law.” For our purposes in this book, it will mean primarily “vocation,” or “sacred duty.” It means, most of all—and in all cases—truth.
Stephen Cope
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Within us all there exists an "inner law" - a vital force directing us towards, self-realization and the eventual flourishing of our individual personality. We all are guided to our dharma in a teleological way.
But despite the guidance, for one to remain faithful to own dharma, it is often a difficult and agonizing process, a process in which one must wrestle with doubt, despair, and fear. As a result of this difficulty, many of us have a tendency to deny and repress our dharma in a variety of ways. Many not realizing that which we are repressing or denying has the actual potential to save us, if we choose to remain faithful to it, or it can destroy us in the case of where we deny it or repress it.
Quoting the Gospel of Saint Thomas,
If you bring forth what is within you, what you bring forth will save you; if you do not bring forth what is within you, what you do not bring forth will destroy you.
Gospel of Saint Thomas
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I think what many of us don't realize is that the process of self-realization is stimulated by the actualization of the latent creative potential within us all. While the creative potential, in turn, is actualized by the discovering or the devotion of oneself to a calling, which can be said to be the great work of one's life.
As it turns out, unrealized creative potential is one of the most destructive things for anyone's psychological well-being, hence the following of one's dharma and finding one's true calling is of the utmost importance.
Through the discovery of the great work of one's life and making it the point around which one's life revolves about eventuates to the actualization of one's creative potential which is on the way to self-realization in the end.
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Choosing to ignore and repress one's dharma and failing to find a vocation, the unrealized potential within destroys one, it wreaks havoc on one's psychological well-being in innumerable ways such as depression, anxiety, apathy, anger, fear and many more.
Because that is the nature of real powers, they all contain this dual aspect, they are capable of bestowing harmony if utilized correctly, and can cause destruction if repressed or used incorrectly. Anyone's dharma is real power, and I think we all would be wise to acknowledge it as such and remain faithful to it, ensuring that it saves instead of destroying us.
A man's own calling, with all its faults, ought not to be forsaken.
Bhagavad Gita
Have a good one people.
Peace!
The Great Work of Your Life, Dharma, and Embracing Fear