Living with a Higher Purpose: Embracing Discriminative Wisdom

The Meaning of Higher Purpose

What Does it Mean to Live with Higher Purpose?

To live with a higher purpose, we develop the skill of seeing beyond the horizon of material existence, the ability to discriminate between what changes and what remains constant. In Sanskrit, this skill is called viveka, “an awareness by which one can tell the true from the false, the eternal from the impermanent. It is an understanding that the world is impermanent and perishable and that the Self is permanent.” [1]

Awareness of life’s ephemeral, changing nature does not devalue our life experiences; it simply provides a different perspective. Instead of holding on “for dear life” to that which will inevitably change, we discover another, more reliable source of security. That reliable security is found within the eternal spiritual Self. As we live with a higher purpose, our principal focus is fostering Self-realization and Self-actualization. Viveka offers us another way to measure success and chart our course.

The Timeless Teachings of Viveka

A story in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad illustrates this teaching. The aging sage Yajnavalkya informed his wife Maitreyi that he was ready to retire to the forest to focus on spiritual realization. He would leave his wealth behind to provide for her well-being. With viveka dawning, she asks him, “Would all the wealth in the world bring me immortality or enlightenment?” “No,” he responds. “It would only allow you to live like the wealthy live. It could not bring immortality.” She presses on, saying, “What good will it do me then?” “You must tell me that which you know is the way of realization.” He proceeds to tell her about the unseen Reality that is our true love, that which is the source and substance of all that we see.

Some of the most beautiful lines in the Upanishads are in this teaching:

It is not for the sake of the husband that the husband is dear, but for the sake of the Self. It is not for the sake of the wife that the wife is dear, but for the sake of the Self. It is not for the sake of the children that the children are dear, but for the sake of the Self…It is not for the sake of wealth, my beloved, that wealth is dear, but for the sake of the Self…It is not for the sake of itself that anything whatever is esteemed but for the sake of the Self…That Self is to be known. Hear about it, reflect upon it, meditate upon it. By knowing the Self, my beloved, through hearing, reflection, and meditation, one comes to know all things.