Being vs. Doing

[OptimistPrime]

Starting a new thread so as not to hijack Dulma's:

Originally Posted by masteredfate

It's really just doing what you love. The purpose of life is love. To love, to be loved, and to share love. When you fall in love, you love. When you allow yourself to be loved, you are loved. And you share love when you do what you love because you are giving the best of yourself.

In my case, I've never been able to find any [specific] form of "doing" that consistently produces a feeling of love/happiness when I do it. At some point or another I always reach a point where doing something else or doing nothing is what makes me feel loving/happy.

The only way I seem to be able to consistently create the experience of love/happiness is for me to focus on getting in touch with the feeling of love/happiness itself, and then make all of my decisions around what I do from moment to moment based on whether doing that resonates with my feelings of love/happiness or not.

(To put it another way for those who have studied pre-calc, I'm only consistently happy when What I Am Being is the independent variable in the function of my life, and What I'm Doing is the dependent variable.)

Thoughts?

[Johnny Metal]

I think I get what you mean. I was thinking about it, and I figured that if I change my purpose from DO to BE...

To inspire myself and others to live a life full of greatness.
Be an inspiration for myself and others to live a life full of greatness.

... then I can be on my purpose even when not doing; I could sit on the sidewalk, bathing in the sun (if that's what I want to do at the moment), and still be on my purpose.

So if you have figured your purpose, see if you can reframe it as "be" as opposed to "do".

[James81]

I think that "doing" a purpose is to put yourself into a box. You limit yourself to only fulfilling your purpose whenever you are able to do it.

For example, if a person chooses a "doing" purpose of a particular job, for instance, then they are really only fulfilling that purpose when they are at that job.

However, when you find a purpose (i.e. "theme") that allows you to BE that purpose, you are fulfilling that purpose all the time.

For example, part of my "being" purpose is "exploration." It's a role I take on, rather than something I do. I AM an explorer. Which means that whatever I am doing (whether I'm sitting on my couch relaxing or standing in front of a classroom full of students), I am being an explorer. On the couch, I might explore the room I am in or explore my own thoughts. In front of the classroom I might explore certain concepts when I am teaching them.

Exploration is not tied to a job, or to a place, or to something I do. It's a theme that drives every aspect of my life. My job allows me to explore education, when I'm off I like to explore small towns, or in my down-time I might explore my own thoughts or explore the state of being "content" or explore meditation or explore a "clear" mind. When I'm at work, I'm exploring. When I'm at home, I'm exploring. When I'm out, I'm exploring. And I can manifest that exploration in infinitely many ways, actions, thoughts, etc.

[Annie Zero]

Love love love blah blah blah, it can be a feel-good thing to say (the quote in OP) and may sound profound, but, really, it's quite meaningless. Don't let yourself get confused. I love, of course I love, and it's definitely tied to what I'm being and doing, but it can mean a ton of things for different people. What does it mean to you? What do you value most, what's the most important thing?

I find it alarming that you would choose to constantly operate from the basis of some vague sense of "happiness" as if that actually means anything. How's that working out for you?

[wstein]

Originally Posted by masteredfate

It's really just doing what you love. The purpose of life is love. To love, to be loved, and to share love. When you fall in love, you love. When you allow yourself to be loved, you are loved. And you share love when you do what you love because you are giving the best of yourself.

The purpose of life is to propagate life. The purpose of being human ?might? be to love and be loved. Loving does not apply to all life. Or do you define a mosquito biting you as love?

Allowing yourself to be loved is no guarantee that you will be. Nor is trying to block love any guarantee that you won’t be loved, though it goes a long way to avoiding experiencing it. Looking at parent-child situations should provide examples of this.

What you do is not who/what you are, so sharing it is NOT the best of you. Being yourself according to your nature is sharing the best of yourself.

I do not see that any of this has anything to do with ‘Being vs. Doing’.

[Johnny Metal]

Originally Posted by James81

For example, part of my "being" purpose is "exploration." It's a role I take on, rather than something I do. I AM an explorer. Which means that whatever I am doing (whether I'm sitting on my couch relaxing or standing in front of a classroom full of students), I am being an explorer. On the couch, I might explore the room I am in or explore my own thoughts. In front of the classroom I might explore certain concepts when I am teaching them.

Exploration is not tied to a job, or to a place, or to something I do. It's a theme that drives every aspect of my life. My job allows me to explore education, when I'm off I like to explore small towns, or in my down-time I might explore my own thoughts or explore the state of being "content" or explore meditation or explore a "clear" mind. When I'm at work, I'm exploring. When I'm at home, I'm exploring. When I'm out, I'm exploring. And I can manifest that exploration in infinitely many ways, actions, thoughts, etc.

^ This rings very true. I've been using the roles myself, without thinking about it, and they apply to all areas of my life. I now realize I can even define my purpose in metaphorical roles, and it will still work, which is awesome. Warrior, magician, king, shaman/healer, and explorer.

Edit: It even works with animal totems! Lion, cobra, eagle, dolphin, spider.

[OptimistPrime]

Johnny & James: Thanks for your thoughts.

[Dulma]

Originally Posted by OptimistPrime

Starting a new thread so as not to hijack Dulma's:



In my case, I've never been able to find any [specific] form of "doing" that consistently produces a feeling of love/happiness when I do it. At some point or another I always reach a point where doing something else or doing nothing is what makes me feel loving/happy.

The only way I seem to be able to consistently create the experience of love/happiness is for me to focus on getting in touch with the feeling of love/happiness itself, and then make all of my decisions around what I do from moment to moment based on whether doing that resonates with my feelings of love/happiness or not.

(To put it another way for those who have studied pre-calc, I'm only consistently happy when What I Am Being is the independent variable in the function of my life, and What I'm Doing is the dependent variable.)

Thoughts?

Mmmmm I like this

[OptimistPrime]

Originally Posted by Dulma

Mmmmm I like this

I had a feeling you would; you and I seem to see eye-to-eye on several key topics.

Anyway, I feel like my biggest life purpose over the last 8 years has largely been to realize that Being is my [primary] life purpose. There once was a time when I defined my self-worth largely in terms of 3 things: having a college education, having a career, and having a girlfriend. I stopped caring about the first in '06, the second in '07, and the third in March of this year.

Ever since March, everything in my life has begun changing. I'm happier--and more consistently happy--than I've ever been; I'm feeling more and more comfortable opening up and being myself around other people, so I find social interaction more enjoyable in general; I've become interested in manifesting things pretty much for the first time ever, and the things I've been manifesting have been manifesting easily; I've started feeling attracted to eating different foods, and that's causing me to shed body fat. So, yeah. It feels like my [secondary] life purpose has shifted to "preparing for being 'out in the world' more", so it'll be interesting to see where that leads.

[Dulma]

Originally Posted by OptimistPrime

I had a feeling you would; you and I seem to see eye-to-eye on several key topics.

Anyway, I feel like my biggest life purpose over the last 8 years has largely been to realize that Being is my life purpose. There once was a time when I defined my self-worth largely in terms of 3 things: having a college education, having a career, and having a girlfriend. I stopped caring about the first in '06, the second in '07, and the third in March of this year.

Ever since March, everything in my life has begun changing. I'm happier--and more consistently happy--than I've ever been; I'm feeling more and more comfortable opening up and being myself around other people, so I find social interaction more enjoyable in general; I've become interested in manifesting things pretty much for the first time ever, and the things I've been manifesting have been manifesting easily; I've started feeling attracted to eating different foods, and that's causing me to shed body fat. So, yeah. It feels like my life purpose has shifted to "preparing for being 'out in the world' more", so it'll be interesting to see where that leads.

I'm happy for you.

Synchronicity. Yesterday I flipped open my copy of A New Earth to a random page and it was about how Being is one's primary life purpose and the specific goals we want to achieve should come after. Oh Eckhart. Always telling me just what I need to hear.

[OptimistPrime]

Originally Posted by Dulma

I'm happy for you.

Thanks.

Originally Posted by Dulma

Synchronicity. Yesterday I flipped open my copy of A New Earth to a random page and it was about how Being is one's primary life purpose and the specific goals we want to achieve should come after. Oh Eckhart. Always telling me just what I need to hear.

Hahaha, nice!

[Lena Carpenter]

Originally Posted by OptimistPrime

Starting a new thread so as not to hijack Dulma's:


In my case, I've never been able to find any [specific] form of "doing" that consistently produces a feeling of love/happiness when I do it. At some point or another I always reach a point where doing something else or doing nothing is what makes me feel loving/happy.

The only way I seem to be able to consistently create the experience of love/happiness is for me to focus on getting in touch with the feeling of love/happiness itself, and then make all of my decisions around what I do from moment to moment based on whether doing that resonates with my feelings of love/happiness or not.

(To put it another way for those who have studied pre-calc, I'm only consistently happy when What I Am Being is the independent variable in the function of my life, and What I'm Doing is the dependent variable.)

Thoughts?

I really connect with this and just the other day, I was giving someone a reading and really emphasizing a state of being as a purpose rather anything specific that needs to be done.

In my personal life, I was writing down my life vision for the next five years a week ago, and quite a lot of things that I thought were my goals I just couldn't feel any connection with. For example, I could not get myself excited about what type of diet I want to eat, how much energy I want to have or what some of the sources of my income should be. I could not get myself to connect to those, but I wrote down plenty of bubbles in the margins that had to do with a state of being I wanted to achieve. Some of them were freedom, joy, divinely guided, adventure, etc. There were some that were more specific too such as like-minded friendships.

You see, I really believe that as we get closer to a way of living, that has more to do with our soul, the more we are going to relate to what our soul would relate to. Other way to say it is as we become higher vibrational beings, gross manifestation is going to matter a lot less than the "how" of what we are manifesting. I'm not sure exactly how to balance that out with the old way of personal development of setting specific goals and following through on them. Perhaps, there is still room for that. I'm working that one out. Actually, along with what energies my clients are here to bring to the world, I get simple actions that they can take to help, but they are almost always about achieving a certain state of being, rather than accomplishing a specific task.

P.S. Wanted to add that even just a few months ago, I totally related with methods that Steve outlined for setting goals and following through, but lately, not so much.

[OptimistPrime]

Lena: Cool, thanks for sharing your story.

As far as setting goals and following through on them, I still do that from time to time, but they tend to be much more feelings- and short term-oriented. For example, a couple weeks ago, I was feeling like being more social offline, so I did some manifesting in that area and took advantage of several opportunities that showed up over the next few days (which I describe in my manifesting thread), as well as joining a couple of Meetup groups. This morning, I woke up feeling a very strong desire to be more freely communicative on these forums, because last night I was being much more guarded/timid than usual, and that made me feel a lot of discontent. So I came here and am working on writing some messages that I feel like writing, but might not write if I were worrying about my intentions being misperceived. And so on.

[taylor]

Being AND Doing.

Act from where you want to be. That could be a millionaire or a loving healer or both.

[OptimistPrime]

Originally Posted by taylor

Being AND Doing.

Yes, when I say "Being vs. Doing", that's not quite accurate. It's more like "Doing from being vs. Being from doing".