Your life purpose and the prayer of St. Francis

Filed under Notes on 30. January 2007 »

"What is my purpose?" is a question most people come to at some point in their lives, and even if they don’t bring it up directly it is a question that may still be affecting them on a deep level; the constant background feeling of unease that many people experience is, in part at least, rooted in this question.

And when we attempt to come up with answers, the tendency is often to try and figure it out, read books about it, and look for it in a million different places, usually resulting in desperate frustration. We think our purpose must be something grand, something incredibly complex and hard to attain, which leads us away from the beautiful simplicity of the truth — and the truth is always simple.

Here, in the prayer of St. Francis, is all anyone ever needs to know, in terms of information, about his or her purpose in life:

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

Is it really that simple? Can a simple bit of text like this possibly contain everything I need to know about what my purpose is in life?

The beauty of this is, that the simpler the message the more truth it can contain. A blank sheet of paper holds more wisdom than all the spiritual texts ever put in print. In the Tao it says; "In the pursuit of knowledge, every day something is added. In the practice of the Tao, every day something is dropped." And this is a very important thing to remember in spiritual practice, especially in the info-saturated culture of today where more is always seen as better.

Having said that, it is of course perfectly fine to read an entire library of spiritual books and to explore different teachings, etc. It can be very helpful and enjoyable, and only becomes a problem when you start to believe that more is better. In which case it is time to lay aside all the theories and concepts, all complexity, and sit down somewhere quiet with a simple bit of wisdom like the prayer of St. Francis.