feeling motivated

In western psychology, it is believed that feeling motivated and having purpose is a good thing in life, it is necessary, it is needed for a healthy psychology. But the spiritual journey takes us in a different direction. Spirituality takes us to a state of being in the world where we no longer feel ourself to be the active doer. And for this radical shift in our feeling for life to happen, many things have to change in our psychology. And one of them is this obsession with purpose, with motivation.

The state of being is a state without purpose. And if there is no purpose then there can be no motivation. Motivation and purpose go hand in hand. We are motivated because we want to achieve something, and that desired achievement is our purpose. But none of this is needed for being, and indeed this whole psychological apparatus gets in the way of being. It gives us the illusion of doing, of being the doer, of being in control.

So to realise our state of being we have to let go of all of this. And it is a difficult thing to let go of. We have been heavily conditioned into having goals, objectives, a purpose in life. And so we are accustomed to feeling motivated, and when that motivation drops away – which it will do with the spiritual journey – when it drops away, there is a great emptiness left behind,  a rather hollow feeling. And of course, we have lost our direction in life. We are bobbing about on the surface of an ocean, rudderless. And this is rather uncomfortable for most people. And that is why I say that feeling motivated, having motivation, is a comfort blanket. It gives us direction. It gives us this feeling of purpose. And all of that is actually a comfortable state for most people to be in. The implication is that there is a reason for me being here. But life needs no reasons, and being needs no purpose. So part of our spiritual journey is to be able to sit here with no purpose, not motivated to achieve anything, and relax into a state of being, purely being in the world. There is nothing to achieve, so no motivation is needed.