Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
What’s my purpose in life? Many people have been asking this question lately, but let me start by asking a different question: Do our lives need a purpose?
Begüm Güven Karace:
My answer would be to say we already have a purpose. Nothing is without purpose or reason. Every experience, whether it’s bitter or sweet, has a reason. We all have our own essential duties within the greater frame of things.
We are on a path to realizing the purpose of our lives through the things we have already done, although we sometimes deviate from our path of life. The fears, subconscious thought patterns, and various beliefs that we need to look beyond can steer us away from our paths. We then feel at a loose end, like we don’t belong anywhere. We intrinsically feel that we’ve taken a wrong turn somewhere. These are in fact just tools to carry us to our real purpose, the point that we promised to reach. But we do not realize this, so we feel we have drifted away from our purpose in life. At such points, it’s important to realize that we will accomplish our purposes in life whatever we do. If this is related to what we call evolution, we should give up this obligation to suffer.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
How is your experience related to your life purpose? Where did you get lost? Where did you believe you’d found your life’s purpose? How did you realize this purpose?
Begüm Güven Karace:
I feel I’ve been lucky. I have dealt with numerous things through different periods of my life, and I finally saw that I was not realizing how I was accomplishing my purpose in life while dealing with all the good and bad events. At school, at work, and in my social life, I passed through difficult times and then asked myself, “What am I doing here?” When I looked back, however, I realized these times were the big steps that brought me to where I am now. I now look inside myself and listen to my inner voice, asking myself whether I’m happy with what I’m doing. Am I satisfied with what I am doing? Am I feeling a sense of abundance and prosperity while doing it? If so, I can conclude I am on my path.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
We often hear people talk about how they were in a relationship with some guy or girl for years. They often say these were wasted years for them, but you’re saying that such experiences are just steps in life. You’re saying we don’t lose anything, right?
Begüm Güven Karace:
Exactly! There is nothing to lose! We only believe we suffer so much in certain situations. When we try to give something up or make new choices, we just want to say, “I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t have to.” This is not necessary, however, because when we look inside ourselves and listen to our inner voices, we have the opportunity to make many choices simultaneously, but above all, we have the chance to listen to our joy. We can find our path by listening to our joy. Those five years in a relationship are not lost years, because we inevitably learn from ourselves and understand better. Yet our fears, our negative beliefs, and the tendencies we inherited from our parents tend to block our way while we progress on the greatest plan of our souls. In contrast, when we look back and see how such experiences have served us, we easily realize they were steps in our life purpose.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
In one of our practices, we worked on virtues together. These are really important. For example, what virtues do you develop in those five years you “waste” on someone? I believe our souls came to this world to develop virtues. What do you think?
Begüm Güven Karace:
We are in conflict with ourselves. On the one hand, we can say, “Yes! I live in a wonderful universe of abundance with endless possibilities. I have many options to choose from, but love comes first!” Yes, we all know about this. We are all energy at the core, and this energy is love. We were created by a loving Creator who says “Yes.” Love is the infinite source here. Alternatively, we look at our lives and wonder, “If God loves me so much, why does He let me live through all this pain?” Thus the rebellion starts, taking us away from our life purpose.
Yes, the Creator loves us greatly, but there are also choices we must make. We are here to improve and develop some things for ourselves, our soul families, and the societies we live in. Former generations already learned some methods to improve these things. We try to attract those things to our lives through suffering, regret, and anger. We are actually trying to follow the paths of our parents, grandparents, and other ancestors in trying to remember these virtues and ground them. If my mother or grandmother developed the virtues of goodness, love, acceptance, and kindness after experiencing problems in a certain relationship, this information will be stored in my DNA, so I will again try to follow the same path, the one my mother or grandmother took before.
When practicing ThetaHealing, we say these virtues were already developed in our ancestors’ lives, our own past lives, or through the collective consciousness, so we just need to dig deep to find them again. Once we feel the energy of these virtues, which were developed through many difficulties, we do not need to re-experience the same situations to develop them further. Our purposes in life are related to these virtues. Our common life purpose is to carry these virtues and take them a step further. This is why we always talk about how we should raise our awareness. When we ground this energy to our bodies and the earth, we begin easily moving towards our purpose in life.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
Your words have created some awareness. Consciousness has different levels, like the childhood consciousness, the adolescent consciousness, and the mature consciousness. Many of us are in a sort of adolescent consciousness, so we say, “My parents are so stupid!” and reject everything they would teach us. I now understand how they developed various virtues and offered them to me as gifts. I did not realized this until now. I thought I’d got all I could from them, but they also gave me other gifts. I never looked at it this way before.
Begüm Güven Karace:
We sometimes forget that this is a two-sided coin. There are some negative beliefs that my parents taught me based on the difficulties they experienced, and I constantly find myself trying to shake off these negative beliefs. We always channel our negativity because we believe we can only get rid of this negativity, and therefore find the positive, by focusing on negativity. This may be true, but it is a long and arduous path. There is something else to consider, however, because nothing is purely negative or positive. The experiences we believe to be negative usually have beauty and virtue within them. Nothing we experience is in vain. Remembering this allows us to more easily and more joyfully clear our roads ahead.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
Another common belief is that if we suffer enough, God will raise us to Heaven. This is why we make ourselves suffer and then say, “Look how much I’ve suffered! Let me in now!” I think this shows an underlying form of sadomasochism in ourselves.
Begüm Güven Karace:
Our subconscious programs and our belief programs, which form our “operating system,” are composed of massive emotional conditions. To engrave any information into our subconscious, we need intense emotions, because we record these things through energy. When we think of intense emotions, it’s suffering, anger and hatred that comes to mind first, but there are other intense emotions like enthusiasm, joy, and happiness. We can engrave experiences related to these emotions onto our subconscious as well. In the past, our ancestors impressed into our subconscious that we can only evolve through suffering, but that situation is over now. This was what our ancestors did: They suffered considerably, but now that suffering is over. We do not need to relive this experience again, even in its mildest form.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
So, how can we do this then? How can we find our life purpose?
Begüm Güven Karace:
Without having to stretch too far, we can look at our nearest experiences. Let’s say my mother or father had a very painful experience, and I now see I’m experiencing something similar. How can I escape this vicious cycle?
One purpose in my life is to appreciate my mother and develop her virtues a step further. I need to stop focusing on her mistakes and start to see what she gained through them. What did she ultimately achieve? What did she ensure? What did she gain? I then need to look at my own life and determine where I can gain the same profit? Is it in the same area or somewhere else? I then need to download the energy of this profit into my body. Yes, my mother had this experience and benefitted from it at the end. Yes, this is a sort of emotion I experience in a certain area of my life, and I can feel it. But as I already know this emotion, I do not need this process anymore. Instead, the process should now be put into practice. In other words, I should practice what I learned.
For example, let’s imagine that my mother had a terrible marriage and suffered considerably as a result. What did she learn from this experience? At a certain point in life, she got divorced and started working. She gained strength and cared for me. She learned how to exist in life as a person rather than a lonely woman. Now, do I know how to exist in life as a person? Do I know how to be strong? Am I also like this? Yes, I am. I exist as an individual, and I am strong and knowledgeable enough to look after my family. I can end my need for suffering from fear of being abandoned and left alone. When I concede I am strong, I stand in life as an individual, and I do not need that suffering anymore.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
When we actually realize the purposes of our lives, how can we benefit from this knowledge?
Begüm Güven Karace:
The purposes of my life take me through some holy times, and my purposes may adapt based on the prevailing conditions. It’s crucial to be aware that nothing is in vain. We also have to realize that whatever happens, you will realize your purpose in life. It will come to be actualized regardless. I may reach my purpose much easier if I act with joy, enthusiasm, and happiness. In contrast, if I constantly feel tension, anger, and sorrow, this path is often an arduous one.
But do I need to know the purpose of my life? When I know it, I can look at my sacred memories and feel an inner peace. In fact, whenever we feel that inner peace, we have already realized our purpose in life. Another important point to remember is that we do not need to interrupt our lives. We do not need to leave our cities, our families, or our jobs. We do not need to choose between black and white, because everything is a shade of grey. We imagine that we should quit our jobs, abandon our homes, and leave our families, but this is simply not true! When we live in joy, enthusiasm, happiness, goodness, and virtue, the change happens naturally. For example, you might encounter new job opportunities, but you’re not obliged to leave your job. In other words, all we need to do is exclude the things that we feel we have been obliged or forced to do, even though they were not necessary.
The purpose of life is sometimes to touch someone. Sometimes it is to touch larger communities. Sometimes, you touch a person who later changes the whole world. In short, we do what we can so everything goes well.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
Could you teach us how to meditate on this issue?
Begüm Güven Karace:
I can recommend a meditation practice related to our ancestors. I choose ancestors in particular, because they may have left us some difficulties, but they also gave us many gifts. They carried humanity from its origins to where we are now. We can meditate on accepting their gifts gracefully. Everyone can practice this meditation alone at home.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
Let’s do it together then. Let’s honor our ancestors properly and accept all the gifts they have offered us.
Begüm Güven Karace:
Let’s begin then.
Take deep breaths and relax.
Inhale through your nose and exhale through your mouth, imagining that you’re sending out your body’s tension with each outgoing breath. Likewise, imagine you’re inhaling love, peace, and comfort with every breath you take in.
Now, imagine a beautiful energy coming up from the center of the Earth and through our feet. Bring this energy up through your legs, opening each chakra to the crown chakra to form a beautiful ball of light.
Now, lift your consciousness up within this ball of light. Let it leave your body and rapidly escape the planet. Let it travel beyond the numerous lights and reach the pearly, iridescent white light. Imagine that we are all one with that pearly, iridescent white light and look down to your body. See how we are in the middle of a great garden. It is a peaceful place full of green trees, covered with grass, and littered with many flowers. See how we stand there. Now, imagine your parents standing in front of you. Look them in the eye and say, “Thank you.” Now, bow to them respectfully.
Say, “Thank you for the gift of life and all the experiences, wisdom, and virtues you gave me.” Lift your gaze again and see the peace, love, and gratitude in their eyes. Next, look behind them and see your parents’ parents, your grandparents, behind them. In turn, see their parents behind them and so on, a growing community of your endless ancestors. Bow to them and say, “All my ancestors, I honor your existence and thank you for all your gifts. You are my ancestors, and I honor your existence. I feel the energy, support, and love that comes from you. Thank you.”
Without turning your back to them, walk backwards and leave the scene. Find yourself in the ball of light again and descend within that ball. Find your body and reenter it. Now that you’ve brought all that energy to your body, distribute it through all your cells until you reach your feet and ground this energy to the earth. As this energy diffuses through your cells, inhale deeply and then open our eyes as you say, “Thank you.”
You can practice this always.
Hasan Sonsuz Çeliktaş:
Thank you, both for the interview and the meditation.
Begüm Güven Karace:
Thank you, too.
