The ultimate purpose for which the soul is seeking every moment of our life is our spiritual purpose.

Every intelligent person comes to a stage in his life, sooner or later, when he begins to question himself as to what purpose there is in life. The moment this question has arisen in a person he has taken his first step on the path of wisdom.

When someone has found his life’s purpose, no matter how difficult life is for him or how many hindrances he has to contend with, from that moment there is nothing he will not withstand, no sacrifice he will not make, nothing he will not endure. He will wait with patience and persevere all his life until the life’s purpose is accomplished. The realization of the purpose itself gives a great strength of conviction.

We have this example in the Holy Prophet’s [s.w] life. When the moment came of his realization that he was born for a particular purpose, he became restless and retreated to the wilderness and the caves. He had to find out what the soul was yearning for. When the vibrations of the physical body and mind, which are in turmoil in everyday life, calmed down, and his mind and spirit became tranquil, he came into communication with the Perfect Life. That is when the Word came to him: Read in the Name of your Lord.
The first lesson that the Holy Prophet [s.w] received was a lesson in idealism.  It was not just being in communication with the whole of life, but idealizing the Lord. Through idealization, the conception of God awakened. Thereafter the next command was for him to preach to the people, to awaken in them the sense of the True Religion and the True God.

On hearing from the Prophet [s.w] that all things and beings were created for a certain purpose, someone said, “O Prophet! I cannot understand why mosquitoes were created!”
The Prophet answered, “They were created so that you may get up quickly at night and engage yourself in prayer.” Therefore everything is created with a purpose, in order that we may use it for its purpose. Saadi said, “Every being is created for a purpose, and the light of that purpose is already kindled in his soul”. As we need blacksmiths, goldsmiths, farmers and others, so we need philosophers, mystics and prophets. That creates the harmony, in just the same way as we need sharp and flat in music. If it were not so, there would be no beauty for beauty is created through variety.

Looking at life from a philosopher’s point of view we see that each person is like a note in the symphony of life; that we all make this symphony of life, each contributing the music that is needed in the symphony. But if we do not know our own part in the symphony of life, naturally it is like one of the strings on the violin is not properly tuned, and if it is not tuned it cannot give the music that it should produce. So we must each produce that part for which we were born. If we do not contribute what we are meant to, we are not in tune with our destiny.

A pacifist may think that it is crazy to make war. But everything one does, whether better or worse, belongs somewhere in the scheme of life, and we have no right to condemn it. The principal thing for every individual is to become conscious of the duty for which it is born.

There are in reality two purposes of life. One is the minor the other is the major purpose of life. One is the preliminary and the other is the final purpose. The preliminary purpose is like a stepping-stone to the final one.

Hazrat Inayat Khan, “Awakening of the Human Spirit.”
 

We need to heal ourselves into wholeness after the dismemberment of our self through the fragmentalised perception afforded by incarnation.

“Remember, healing--all healing comes from within. Yet there is the healing of the physical, there is the healing of the mental, there is the correct direction from the spirit. Coordinate these and you'll be whole! But to attempt to do a physical healing through the mental conditions is the misdirection of the spirit that prompts same . . . But when the law is coordinated, in spirit, in mind, in body, the entity is capable of fulfilling the purpose for which it enters a material or physical experience.”
Edgar Cayce Reading 2528-2

The way to arrive at the realization of the purpose of one’s life is to keep increasing one’s inner urge and listen to the inner pilot with increasing awareness. One way is to pray and meditate, for it is in the stillness of the heart and mind that we can enter into communion with universal consciousness which becomes a mirror to our perception. The idea is to find our natural rhythm in life. When we follow the natural rhythm we are working towards the accomplishment of the preliminary purpose and when the preliminary purpose is accomplished then we are brought to the final purpose for every soul and that is spiritual attainment.

Prayer, simple, sincere and spontaneous is very effective. Even in guidance, one needs to first turn to the Eternal Guide and then will He guide. The first sign on the path of journeying towards spiritual perfection is a discontent with oneself and one’s surroundings. It is the awareness of the lack of something that will propel us towards its attainment. So first we must be aware that there is a perfection that we are seeking, which is lacking in ourselves. We may start of as wanting a better creation in ourselves or in the world at large. Then we realize the necessity of an ideal and the fulfillment of that ideal on earth. The highest ideal is God and Divine fulfillment is in the realization of Divine Will and thereby fulfilling Divine Creation. Step by step one grows in one’s aspiration from limited to the Great Infinite. Then a time comes when the aspirant feels that he/she needs only God and that is when he/she becomes the real pride or the real instrument of God.

Working towards the development of one’s aspiration, one may start of by simply accepting a life of sincerity and dedication. Whatever your calling in life, make it your duty and your greatest commitment to fulfill it with the highest integrity and devotion. This is the path of dharma.

Hazrat Inayat Khan says that there are four chief ways people take in order to fulfill the purpose of their lives; making wealth or creating welfare, being conscientious in duty, making the best of every moment in life, and preparing for the future. The first way is the way of the philanthrope and may be termed as Karam Yoga. The second is through devotion to duty and may be termed as Dharm Yoga. The third is the way of the one who is present in the moment, fully living in the now and that is Dhyana Yoga, and the last is the way of the renunciant or the faqir who through sacrifice attains the eternal hereafter, Tyaga Yoga.

If one has a Master, then one ought to sincerely follow one’s teacher. In the absence of a teacher one must seek to go deep within and find the Inner Pilot. The Inner Pilot speaks through one’s conscience. If one listens to one’s conscience then naturally the aspiration will increase and ultimately be raised to the Divine Level.
Sri Chinmoy, The Divine Hero.

We must first become conscious of our aspiration, then we must nurture it and make it intense.

“When the inner cry is constantly mounting, how can God remain asleep?” Sri Chinmoy.

It is God who has kindled the flame of aspiration in a seeker and no matter what the aspiration is at the start, it will eventually merge with the Divine Aspiration.

Hazrat Inayat Khan says that the hidden desire of the Creator is the secret of the whole creation.

Murshid Inayat Khan also says, “He who is master of his own domain is the ruler of life. To repress desire is to suppress a divine impulse.” And he reminds us, “The way you choose is the way for you”.
 

A Mystical Explanation of the Purpose of Man’s Creation by Bawa Muhaiyadden.

The unique and magnificent effulgence is That which is Allah. It is That which understands the creations, the sifat, and delivers judgment on them. It is the One without beginning, the Original One that existed before creation began, the Anathi before Athi. It is something that never diminishes.
Investigating and learning the story of That Thing is our story, our biography. Apart from this, you and I have no story. That is the Natural Treasure. We, on the other hand, are artificial creations. Created things perish. That which is Original Nature is imperishable.
We are the artificial things created by That Natural Thing.
The five letters: alif. Lam, mim, ha and dal together form alhmd, the praise. Alhmd is the Surah Fatiha and the Surah Fatiha is your form.
It is the clear intention of God that we should come to know this surat, this form of ours. We must know what things are mixed into it, our inherent nature, characteristics and capabilities. We must know that Allah, the Maker, Who created this surat, fashioned it out of earth, fire, water, air and ether. This has been revealed in the Thiru Quran [the primal divine scripture inscribed in the heart of man], which descended to Allah’s divine Messenger and continues to resonate forever.

Creator fashioned man in the most exalted form as insan, a creation superior to all other creations, with the wisdom capable of knowing and realizing Him. The ones endowed with such a wisdom are the ones called man; they form one of three.

The three are:
The resplendent Messenger [Muhammad s.w] that manifested from Allah;
The Nur [His grace which is His essence, His dhat, which dawned within him and shines and resplends within him and within That which is Allah;
And Man [insan] the creation with exalted wisdom who has understood and realized what was imparted by the grace, the essence, the dhat, His completeness.

Man’s realizing who he is and losing himself in that which is the Natural Thing is the meaning contained in the Thiru Quran.

The Surah Fatiha is formed of four surats representing the four locations of the four sections of man’s body and enable man to know himself. The first section is earth, the second is fire, the third is water, and the fourth is air. These four sections comprise the form that is his body. They are mingled within him as the artificial or created component.
That which is Natural or Original, is contained within this created, or acquired form. The Suratul Fatiha enables man to discover that Natural Thing which unites these acquired things into one and exists mingled within them. This we must know. This is a vast story. It is to read and understand this story and become clear about its meaning that we have been born into this world. Once we understand the meaning of this story, then after all the acquired things have been shed, That which is left as the Natural Thing----That will be the real story.

The “I” is acquired property. “I-ness” is what is natural. Therefore we must understand the two sections of “I” and “He” and realize that the “I” is destructible, while “He” is that exalted thing that is Truth. Our realizing this is our story.
The Resonance of Allah, by Bawa Muhaiyadden.

Prayer by Al-Shadhili:

I ask Thee, with Thy blessing on our master Muhammad s.w, Thy servant and apostle, for a blessing whereby Thou wilt bring me out of the shadows of darkness into the Light. Account me one of the believers, for Thou art toward the believers kind, merciful.
God! Make this worship [salat] a bond of union, between Thee and me. Make it not an occasion of separation of myself from Thee. Make it to be a worship which restrains from the obscene and the disapproved, and remember me in it as a grace from Thee with the “greatest remembrance”.
Make me to see the embodiment of the zikr in my soul and in my performance. Let it accompany me as a divine gift to the end of my appointed time. Verily Thou art powerful over all. Amen.