Spirituality and Individual Purpose Spirituality is to be defined as the transformation of energy, the raising of the lower to become the higher; and it begins with the recognition of purpose. Down the ages, philosophical, religious and spiritual systems have supplied this process of transforming energy with form. Their tenets, truths, beliefs, precepts and commands encourage a mental, emotional and physical orientation which enables humanity to fulfil its purpose. The Eightfold Path conceived by the Buddha two and a half thousand years ago defined the basic minimum for a humanity which was to evolve. Djwhal Khul has said that the Buddha gave us the way; five hundred years later Christ came to show the way. Other cultures and other ages may have presented these truths and precepts in different languages and in different contexts but no major religious or spiritual system has ignored, challenged or amended them. They remain the framework within each of us must move as we fulfil our individual purpose. Individual purpose is inseparable from personality. It is the developmental requirement of the personality and will involve developing new qualities in order to balance out what has been developed in past life. Individual purpose can be read from the natal chart. Individual purpose serves collective purpose, for we are, at one and the same time, individuals in our own right and members of the collectivity called humanity. The quota of energy which each of us transforms makes its contribution to the collectivity. Each of us transforms energy as we live out our years on earth, responding to the situations and opportunities which are created by the life force flowing through the energy pattern of the personality. The choice that we have is whether to live consciously or unconsciously within our personalities. If we live consciously, co-operating with the design of our life, then we better serve the soul which relies upon the personality for its manifestation on the physical plane, humanity, the group to which we all belong, and our individual selves because we are creating for ourselves the opportunity to experience fulfilment. So much of the non-fulfilment, misery and confusion experienced by those of us living in the West is the product of living non-authentically. To recognise purpose gives the opportunity to live authentically but it also brings with it the responsibility to free ourselves from certain kinds of conditioning. Conditioning is inseparable from the human experience; it is stamped through the human condition like the words stamped through Brighton rock. Conditioning gives us the very categories which make up our reality and which enable the personality to function. It is beyond our power to free ourselves, unaided, from conditioning at this level. As Gurdjieff said: we cannot jump over our own knees. There is, however, the conditioning from which we can free ourselves. This is the kind of conditioning which disallows authenticity. It takes the form of appetites and desires which are artificially stimulated by advertising and peer pressure; values, goals and ambitions which are the product of family and social expectations; emotional and intellectual responses which are the product of cultural and racial influences. The freedom of the personality is a relative freedom, but it is freedom indeed for a person who has never recognised his true identity. To be authentic is to be what truly one is. The birth chart shows what that is, and to discover this is the first step to freedom. The second step is to make the decisions which realize and ground that identity by resisting both external and internal pressures. The latter come from within one's own personality, and can be said to be the product of past lives. The past must become accountable to the present: accomplishments and tendencies which have been carried over from past lives must be synthesised with the present identity. The third step is to push beyond the boundaries of the personality, enlarge the partial view, lose the sense of separation, and bring the personality under the direction of soul. All these three steps can now be taken by Westerners. This is spirituality; this is the transformation of the lower into the higher; and it begins with the discovery of purpose. ©1999 - The D.K. Foundation. This article, including this copyright statement, may be freely distributed but not altered, expanded or abridged in any way. We thank you for respecting this request.