Have you ever asked this question?
How will I know what the right life-path is for me?
The woman who was to become Mother Teresa asked that question when she was thinking of becoming a nun. She asked the question of a priest that she knew. And here was his reply:
You'll know by the joy.
It reminds me of a similar suggestion by Joseph Campbell:
Follow your bliss.
We know our right path because we feel joy in it, we feel a tingling of energy around it. That's the sign.
You'll know by the joy.
The woman who was to become Mother Teresa did become a nun, and went to teach at a school in Calcutta, India.
One day her inner guidance suggested that she leave the school and go out into the streets among the poorest of the poor and minister to them. She was scared to death, yet she felt a peculiar joy when she thought about it.
She gave away all her possessions and went out into the worst slum she could find and took only 5 rupees with her, worth at that time about half a cent.
She immediately gave away 4 of the rupees to the poor, and held onto 1 rupee. Then she saw a priest working in the streets and gave him her last rupee. Now she was penniless.
As evening descended she had nowhere to go, nowhere to stay. Yet when she checked in with her inner guidance, it said to just stay where she was, in the streets.
As night deepened, the priest that she had given her last rupee to earlier went searching for her. He found her and gave her 50 rupees.
At that moment, Teresa felt a huge upsurge of joy in her heart, and knew that she was on the right path, though she didn't know where it would lead.
Later, when people would ask her what they could do, Teresa would say to start with your family and help and be kind to them in any way you can. Then extend it to your next-door neighbors, and then extend it to the poor.
"Don't let anyone feel lonely, unwanted or unloved," she would say. "Do whatever you can wherever you can."
As time went on, other nuns—sisters—came to join her. She had several instructions, but the most important one, she said, was to smile as you cared for a leper or someone infested with maggots.
Why smile? someone would ask.
"Because," Mother Teresa would say, "you are always touching the body of God."
—jim sloman 5/15/01
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