I Want to Wake Up - But Just Not Yet: The Truth About Vocational Awakening

If you are radically honest with yourself for just a moment, ask yourself - have all your hopes and dreams for your life really worked out? Are you making money doing what you are passionate about? Do you know why you are here? Have you really made any substantial progress in discovering why you are here?

In your deep longing to discover what your Calling and True destiny is, and thereby realize your full potential in this lifetime, have you ever felt stuck? Do you find yourself instead struggling with doubt, dead ends, conflicting interests and fears? Do you feel like your life is passing you by?

Coming to the realization of your Authentic Self and what you most want to do with your life is not easy. This quest is fraught with obstacles. That’s what makes it such a mystery, and so special for those who make the effort.

Like most seekers, maybe you’ve tried lots of things to get clear - prayed, gone to counseling, attended workshops, got all the latest books, taken tests and more. Yet nothing seems to really break you through for long (if at all). Why does nothing seem to work? Like most sincere seekers, you simply must unravel the mystery of your destiny.

This is one of the most monumental initiations of your life. It is the distinguishing factor between those who self-actualize and lead truly fulfilling lives and those who only keep searching and feel disillusioned. Yet the quest won’t be denied. It keeps calling to you. It always has throughout your life. You were born with a purpose and it seeks expression.

Of course, you could try to ignore this deeper yearning (and probably have been), instead getting lost in the many distractions the conditioned or false self creates. However, you can’t totally escape that nagging suspicion that there is something more fundamental, more transformational, more creative that seeks expression through you.

Your spirit absolutely needs to express itself. At least on an intuitive level, you know this – you were born to fulfill your potential, express your gifts and be the person you were born to be. Vocation (or Calling) is the direct path to self-actualization and awakening to your potential.

My Calling first revealed itself early in childhood. Not that I knew what the word ‘Calling’ even was at that time, but I do remember having a strong desire, an awakening really, that happened. I became clear that I had only so much time in my life and I wanted to live to my full potential. I knew even as a kid that I wanted to make the most of my life. This urge to realize my full potential began to captivate my attention more and more as I grew older. I remember certain recurring patterns in my life that reminded me of this initial spark of Calling. The older I became, the more I found myself studying any teachings that I could find to further develop my understanding of how one can fulfill their unique human potential.

I quite naturally and joyfully devoured every book I could to uncover the hidden truths about the nature of human possibility. I read autobiographies and ancient religious and spiritual texts, attended numerous Satsangs, and listened to many different spiritual masters. One of my key discoveries was that just as the Authentic Self seems to be hidden behind the Conditioned ego-self, so too one’s true Calling, the discovery of your life’s work, is hidden beneath the “must’s, have to’s and should’s” of daily life. We are literally taught to do what we have to, not what we really want to when growing up.

I now know, from my over 30 years in working with clients, that to know your true Vocation points the way to realizing your greater potential and being all that you can be. In extensive research on self-actualizing individuals, it shows that they all these individuals were engaged in a life’s work, expressing their passion and greatest talents and making a difference in the world.

If you are born to this purpose, why does it seem so difficult to discover what you are really capable of?

The conditioned self (or ego-mind) keeps us in confusion, doubts, fears and clueless-ness. Early cultural conditioning teaches us how to be in life. Self-realization and vocational awakening are rarely, if ever, spoken of and mostly forgotten in mainstream society. Fear and doubt, the tools of the conditioned self, keep us in check. As a result, we act and do what we are supposed to do. Every single day, our lives are dictated by ego-mind. The subtle process of redirecting the attention more and more disconnects us from our awareness of the Authentic Self and soul’s purpose as we age.

Led to believe work is about survival and that accumulation is what the good life is all about, we systematically lose touch with our deeper truths, our soul’s purpose and the gifts we were born to share. The purpose of our life becomes instead about doing what we are expected to. Howver, compromise never brings you the lasting peace or deep joy that you most want.

Conditioned from an early age to fit in and live the mainstream life, we get jobs, so we can afford to buy the good life. We trade our precious time in life for future expectations. This is ego-based living in a nutshell. And, it is a major sell-out!
Unfortunately, in the process of acting from conditioning, we let go of our dreams, suppress our greatest talents and compromise our life-energy all in the name of being realistic. After all, we want to be real about our survival and that often means pursuing goals not usually of our own choosing. This again is what we are taught.

In my work with 1000’s of clients over the years I have come to notice that often times, they knew what they really wanted, but somehow felt the need to put if off to some future time, when circumstances were more right. Though nagged from within to discover their truth, something kept them in avoidance mode. Putting off joy to some imagined future is the status quo. Work hard, toe the line and hope for things to work out. Most people unconsciously settle for living a small fraction of the life they could have. Though rarely aware of the “Not Yet”, people often come up with all manner of excuses for why they can’t live their dreams now and put things off.

This Not Yet is insidious. It all seems so logical when we say things like “I don’t know what I want to do with my life” or “I don’t have the talents”. Looking beneath the surface however, these excuses don’t hold much weight. They come from the same source. That source is that most people are afraid of their own greatness. Experiencing the fulfillment of one’s dreams, knowing joy beyond what one has ever known before and realizing prosperity and success beyond all imagination frankly is overwhelming.

Bred to expect living commonplace lives while held back by invisible limitations, most people do what they should do, what everyone else does. After all, ego-based controlled living is so much more predictable and therefore comfortable. In comparison, living your dreams can feel like a naïve illusion at best. At least, that is the false scenario painted through years of conditioning. So we learn to resist our deeper calling. We learn to say “not yet” to our future (and to what is real and true for us). Driven by conditioning, we become caught in an endless loop, stuck in the past, projecting into the future, and all the while, ignoring what is in our hearts.

Resistance is natural because to the conditioned self, awakening to Calling and pursuing our dreams sounds like madness. Truth is the conditioned self would lose control over dictating our lives. Instead, you would be stepping out of mainstream thought and behavior and following your own inner light – wherever that may lead.

All the small talk, thoughts prescribed by forces outside our selves, will no longer hold our attention. Something greater is calling to you now. Liberation – breaking free from conditioned living – means surrendering to Divine flow. It means allowing your self the freedom of living your truth, no matter what.

The only way conditioned self can resist the inherent destiny to awaken is to create a hidden disclaimer. When distractions don’t work, when have to’s or should’s don’t work, this usually does. So instead, our conditioned self agrees that awakening and living to our full potential is vital, “but just not yet”! Secretly driven by the reasoning of conditioned self, even Awakening becomes some future goal – a ‘Not Yet’. A brilliant strategy of ego-mind, the inevitable Awakening is made into some future event to be sought out. And so, welcome to the ranks of the perpetual seeker and impotent dreamer.

Are you ready to stop seeking? Are you ready to stop inflating your ego with all the devout spiritual acts you perform? The fact is there is nothing in awakening for the conditioned self. It disrupts all the status quo we have been taught to conform to.

Locate that spark of desire to awaken within you. It is always there. Stop the Not Yet and embrace what brings you joy now. Living your life to the fullest is not some day, it is every day, starting now.

Though insidious, conditioned self is limited, Authentic self is unbounded. Be open and your life will guide you, and is right now. Life itself will help you to follow your dharma or life’s work. Your Calling, your larger life, is seeking you and craving to be recognized as much you are seeking it. Hear your “Not Yet”; follow it to its source. Become aware of your conditioning – how it shows up in your thoughts and actions (or inactions). Always remember that just beneath your conditioned responses lies your heart’s desire.

There are many ways to get clear, especially once you realize the “Not Yet” in your life. If I can be of service in your greater unfolding, feel free to contact me.

Blessings and Gratitude.