Frustration of Purpose on the Spiritual Path

Frustration of purpose is one of those things we lawyers learned about in law school. It refers to a legal defense for the non-performance of a contract in an action for remedies studying from is breach.
The same principle can apply just as really to our journey through life and intentions for what we try to do along the way. It offers the soul a built-in excuse for it’s failure to manifest it’s intentions or to create what we think it wants to experience.
Now, such a perspective itself is a paradox. On the one hand, the soul wants to do or accomplish something and directs the ego to pour all it’s energy and attention into accomplishing it On the other, it creates circumstances that thwart its purported intent, setting the ego up for failure, and leaving it to suffer all the unpleasant ramifications it brings.
Most of the time we are only able to glimpse the lesson behind such a life plan, but even then it doesn’t make the failure much easier to bear. Instead, it brings us face-to-face with attributes we thought we left behind, like self-judgment and questions of self-worth.
So following the inspirations and guidance of your inner voice doesn’t automatically bring success wherever it leads. It only brings experiences needed by the soul, whatever those may be.
Often the ego is left wanting, shaking it’s head at following such guidance yet still continuing to do so, even though it usually means just beating its head against an invisible wall it can never break through.
Still, catalysts being catalysts, we’re left to make the best of a bad situation, regardless whether it steals our peace, joy or prosperity along the way
Maybe the answer is to quit and let it all go. Maybe it’s to keep going in hopes the soul has had enough of the impasse and opens the door to some measure of later success.
I can’t tell you how to meet this challenge, for there is no right answer. There is only experience.
But that’s why we’re here anyway, whether we understand or not. They say ignorance is bliss, but to those caught in the vindaloop, that bliss can be hard to find.
If this happens to you, just do your best. Make whatever choices feel right to you when you face them. And until then, try to be at peace despite frustration of the purpose you seek to fulfill.
God bless you indeed.