A couple of weeks ago, a group of pictures were being shared across Facebook. Maybe you saw them? The first picture was of Earth; the second was Earth with our moon; the third was Earth with Mercury and Mars. At this point our planet looks like it’s pretty big. Well, along comes Uranus and Neptune and Earth starts to shrink pretty quickly. Next into the picture is Jupiter & Saturn and Earth is becoming but a dot. Next is the Sun and compared to the Sun, you can’t even see Earth! These pictures go on from there, comparing our Sun to the Sun in other galaxies. I love these photos, I have looked through them multiple times over the last few weeks! Have you ever stood at the edge of the ocean and watched a sunset or looked down from the top of a mountain at the scene below and felt so small? That’s how I feel when looking at these pictures!
Scientists estimate our tiny blue dot to be 4.54 BILLION years old, give or take 50 million years! Wow!! That’s hard for my little mind to comprehend. 4-5 billion years!!!! Again, this leaves me feeling small.
Back at the start of 2021, I took a Bhagavad Gita course. The Bhagavad Gita is the main spiritual text for yoga. During this course, my teacher asked us students to picture our lifeline laid out before us like a ruler. When I do this, my 50 years feels like a very long time! Then, just like those pictures of the Earth, if I start to pull back the lens, my 50 years starts to look like a small dot. If I pull back to the age of our planet, my 50 years is not even a blink of the eye in that timeline!
When I feel small, like I do when I gaze at a beautiful sunset at the edge of the expansive ocean, I begin to wonder what it is all about? I would hedge a bet that all of us have wondered this at one point or another. When I start to contemplate these things, I wonder why we, as a society, live life on such a shallow level? Why we would place such importance on money? Why we would put someone else down because their religion or their skin colour is different from our own? Why do we waste our time thinking we are not worthy of happiness? The why questions are endless and probably different for each of us!
The Bhagavad Gita gives an very clear answer to what our purpose is during this lifetime. That is to find our Dharma. What is Dharma? To put it simply, this is our purpose or our calling. This purpose can be anything that speaks to your heart.
Just like the list of why questions, the possibilities for your Dharma are endless as well! There is a common misconception that Dharma or our purpose needs. to be tied up with our job. This is simply not the case. Your Dharma might be to be the absolute best parent, to nurture and strengthen the next generation. Perhaps your Dharma is working with animals or playing the piano or creating something to minimise our impact on the environment. Also, who knows when we will find our Dharma. We might find our Dharma early in life or maybe we live almost our full life before we find our hearts desire!
So, what do we do until we find our purpose? Well, according to the Bhagavad Gita, we live the best life we can. How do we do that? We spread love, kindness and compassion everywhere we go. It really is that simple! In my little blip of a lifetime in the lifetime of this Earth, this is what I am here to do…I search for my Dharma and while I do, I share love and compassion with everyone I meet. Then once I find my purpose, I continue to share that love and compassion- along with my Dharma.
Now that I have this knowledge, maybe the next time I am lucky enough to sit on a beach and watch that gorgeous sunset, I won’t feel so small. I’ll know in my heart that I am living my best possible life!
Until next time,
Sandra
P.S. Have a safe and happy holiday season and I look forward to seeing you in 2022!