The Awakening of Purpose

The Awakening of Purpose
 

Two Questions

On the first evening of my arrival at the Shahjahanpur Ashram, a young lady approached me, along with twelve abhyasis. She began almost urgently, “I want to become deeply spiritual, so, so badly, but every time I decide, I fall apart."

 She continued, “I know exactly what I should do with my life. I have the skills. I have the opportunity. I even have a plan. But when morning comes, I can’t get up. Something inside me simply won’t let me.”

Around her, others nodded in quiet recognition, including her father, who has been a trainer for nearly two decades. With visible frustration and a trace of pain, he added, “What can I do, Daaji? I find myself in a similar situation.”

After listening carefully, I proposed two questions to her to seriously ponder over:

1. Do you love where you are going?
2. Are you dissatisfied with where you are?

The young lady didn’t know what to say. And the whole diagnosis was hidden in that silence.

Love Versus Pain 

Are these two questions asking about the same thing? No, they are referring to two entirely different engines.

The first is pulled by love. It has a destination. The energy flows toward something luminous, and the body follows because the heart has already arrived there.

The second is pushed by pain. It has no destination, only an escape. The energy moves away from discomfort, and the moment the discomfort eases even slightly, the engine dies.

This is why so many of us fall apart every time we decide. When our fuel is dissatisfaction, not love, we give up too easily. This dissatisfaction burns hot for a moment, then grows cold, because the mind adjusts to discomfort and stops running.

Purpose Versus Laziness

We don’t understand laziness very well. We see it as a flaw in character, a lack of discipline, and a weakness that can be overcome with force. But laziness is not the same as a lack of energy; it is energy without a goal. When something really interests a so-called lazy person, watch them; they never tire, they don’t eat, and they work all night without complaint. Energy was always there, but the flame was missing.

In a well-known animated film, a seemingly lazy panda discovers that the power he seeks is already within him. The protagonist, an overweight panda, appears to be the laziest creature in the peaceful valley. He can barely climb the palace steps. He falls asleep during training. The Kung Fu Master and other students consider the panda hopeless. By every visible measure, he is the embodiment of tamas.
But then comes the pivotal moment. The Master discovers that when the lazy panda is motivated by something that genuinely ignites him, he becomes a different being entirely. In the famous kitchen training scene, the panda performs acrobatic feats, splits, leaps, and moves with breathtaking speed, all for a dumpling. The same body that could not do a single sit-up in the training hall is suddenly capable of extraordinary agility.

This shows that the energy was always there, but the flame was missing. When something really interests a so-called lazy person, watch them. They never get tired.

And the Kung Fu Master’s deeper insight brings the lesson full circle: the mysterious Scroll, when finally opened, is blank; it is in fact a mirror. It proved that there is no secret ingredient; the power has always been within. The fire was never extinguished; it was only sleeping.

The Will to Eat an Icecream!

Ask a young boy, “Would you like some ice cream?” What do you think his reply would be? Would he need to summon willpower or struggle to persuade himself? Of course not. When there is genuine interest, energy flows naturally toward it.
 

The Weight Of Unlived Purpose

Spiritual traditions do not regard laziness as a disease in itself; instead, they see it as a sign. In the yogic framework, tamas is the quality of inertia and heaviness. How does it arise? It arises and settles gradually into a life that has lost its reason to move. For example, when a river loses its slope, it does not cease to be water; it just turns into a swamp. The life force remains the same, but its direction changes. What has shifted is the pull, the downward gradient, the quiet call that once said, “Come this way.”

What about ambition? Ambition is not the same as greed, as some people assume. The soul does not easily accept a life that is smaller than what it knows is possible. When true ambition fades, it does not disappear without consequence. It leaves behind a heaviness that may feel like tiredness, boredom, or even depression. But often it is something else. It is the weight of purpose left unfulfilled in a life that has stopped stretching toward its own potential.

Babuji said that the soul wants to be free from its chains. That desire is a form of ambition, the highest kind. We want to become what we already are but have forgotten. His third maxim makes this unmistakable: “Fix up your goal, which should be complete oneness with God. Rest not till the ideal is achieved.” Notice the verb: Rest not. Not “try not to rest.” Not “hope you don’t rest.” Rest not. When this goal is alive, laziness can’t get a grip. When it sleeps, there is no way to replace what is missing with alarm clocks, motivational speeches, or productivity systems.

Finding Your Purpose

If being lazy is a sign, the cure must get to the root of the problem. And the reason is always the same: not being connected to a purpose.
The Japanese have a word for this connection: ikigai, which means a reason for being, a reason to wake up in the morning. In Okinawa, where some of the longest-lived people on earth reside, researchers found that elders who could name their ikigai lived longer and more vital lives than those who could not. The body that has a reason to rise does not need an alarm clock. The soul that knows why it is here does not negotiate with the morning.

Purpose is not an idea; it is something you feel. When you meditate and feel something in your chest, like warmth, a pull, or a quiet insistence that there is more to you than what you have been living, that feeling is purpose announcing itself. It doesn’t have to be dramatic, and it need not come as a voice or a vision. It might come as a whisper that says, “You weren’t made for this smallness.”

At its core, the Heartfulness practice of morning meditation is a daily meeting with purpose. Pranahuti, the yogic transmission, does more than calm the mind when it enters the heart; it changes the direction of the inner compass. It reminds the system, on a deeper level than thought, where it is going and why the trip is important. This is why practising regularly makes both the meditation and the day that follows better.

Someone who is truly open doesn’t need to make up reasons to be motivated. Motivation arises from a brief encounter with the rationale for existence. It means that we feel motivated when, even for a moment, we remember why we exist.

There is also the issue of companionship. Satsangh, the company of truth, works on laziness like sunlight works on ice. When we are with someone who is on fire with purpose, we remember our own flame. The fire spreads, and it moves from one heart to another without words or instructions, just by being close to each other.

This is why the traditions stress the importance of getting together, being part of a community, and being with people who are awake. It is not because we can’t walk alone, but because walking together reminds us why we do.

Take The First Step

The wise people have always known something that the productivity experts often overlook: you can’t think your way out of stagnation. You have to move to get out of it. The movement doesn’t need to be dramatic; it simply needs to be real.

Babuji once made a distinction that cuts to the bone: “People try but do not attempt.”

Trying carries within it the permission to fail. It keeps one foot on safe ground. Attempting is something else entirely. It gathers the whole being into one direction.

But what do you do when the whole distance feels impossible? Sometimes, when I have to walk on the treadmill for thirty minutes, my mind resists. Everything in me says, not today. In that situation, I say to myself, let me not bother about thirty minutes. Let me do it for just two or three minutes. And then the magic happens. Two minutes become five, and five become fifteen. Before I know it, the thirty minutes are done. The body that refused to begin now refuses to stop. This is the secret: you do not need to conquer the whole distance. You need only to take the first step. Once the action begins, a force larger than willpower takes over. The unfinished walk becomes harder to abandon than it was to start.

One action done with full attention breaks the spell of tamas more quickly than a hundred plans made while lying in bed. The Bhagavad Gita does not say, “Think great thoughts.” It says, “Do something.” It also does not imply “do the right thing” or “do very impressive actions,” but simply “Do something.” The body is moving, the hands are busy, and the will is focused on something, anything, that matters. This is the hole that lets light into the dark room.

You never have to ask yourself if you have the energy. You do. The question is whether you remember what the energy is for. And remembering is not a mental exercise. It’s a habit. It’s meditation. It’s transmission. It is the daily, patient, and unglamorous act of sitting with your heart until it tells you what it has always known: tadap, a deep longing, an inner ache, a yearning.

Your laziness didn’t kill your drive; it just buried it. And what is buried can be found again.

The fire is still there. It is only asleep. One breath of purpose can awaken it, not for those who merely try, but for those who truly attempt.

Rest not.

With prayers.
Kamlesh

12 February 2026 

Message on the occasion of Golden Jubilee Celebrations of Yogashram Shahjahanpur, 12 February 2026