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Whatever we do in life, there is a source of motivation. Along with that, we set a purpose or target. When we prepare for a competitive examination, we have a purpose: to gain admission to a good university, and with the same goal, different students may have different loci: to earn money or explore new subjects. Somebody wants to bring reform to society. With the same purpose, different people may have different loci: somebody may do it to gain popularity, while another may do it out of love for humanity. When somebody works hard in the office to achieve the task at hand, this drive to do good work may again have its locus in a desire for personal excellence or love for the organisation.

We keep setting different targets in our lives. These targets keep changing as we grow. Even the targets of nations and organisations keep changing with changes in management and ruling parties. Some political parties may focus more on inclusive growth, while others may focus more on the latest technology. The purpose of life is dynamic, and it keeps changing as we grow and gain more exposure. 

If the locus is around ego, and its offshoots, such as greed for money, desire to have a social image of being a good person, ambition for power, fear of being ridiculed, or desire to overpower the world, then however grand the purpose may be, that will not be able to connect us to the larger purpose of life. We will remain narrow and constrained. We will never realise our fullest potential. An ego-centric locus makes us close; we want to justify our actions and prove that we are right. We want to win arguments in discussions rather than seek the truth. We become hungry for appreciation. On the other hand, when locus is on truth, freedom, love, or exploration, we remain open. We set one target, realise its limitations, then set another, and keep experimenting until we do it in a state of flow. We are completely in love with the work we do.

Unless our locus of daily living is love, we will keep setting targets to aggrandise the ego. We will remain confined in a cage of our limited understanding of the world. We may have a very grand purpose, but unless the locus is clean, we may easily turn into Hitler. It's not easy for an ego-centric person to see through his motives and discover his locus. Because the conscious mind creates hundreds of logics to protect the ego. Witness mode is key: we see our intentions and motives as a witness. Still, it is difficult to see the play of the unconscious mind because we are not conscious of it. It's not easy for even Rama to find the whereabouts of Sita because Sita is in Lanka, an unknown land like the unconscious mind. Through single-minded focus, we can enter the depths of the unconscious and find Sita's whereabouts, like Hanuman. Understanding the locus of life and changing that, I feel, is the biggest challenge in the process of spiritual evolution. 


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