Like so many wellness experts we know this year, Ayurvedic expert Sahara Rose is taking her message deeper than ever before.
While our first convos with Sahara focused on evening tonics, vegan dinners, and ancient beauty solutions, her new book Discover Your Dharma: A Vedic Guide to Finding Your Purpose has us talking life purpose and self-discovery…
Through my podcast, Highest Self Podcast, I have interviewed hundreds of people on their journey towards discovering their dharma (purpose), and found a common thread. They all go through what I call the Dharma Discovery Journey and I saw this echoed in my own. They’re broken down into 5 stages, which I outline in my book.
5 Stages To Discover Your Dharma
Stage 1: Self-awareness
You realize there has to be more to this life than what you’ve been living. You know that you have a purpose but no idea what it is. Frankly, you don’t even know where to start. It feels like you’ve been placed in this life with no choice and simply can’t go on living this way. You know you need a radical change. Through pain or numbness, you are called to take action and transform your life. This is where the seed of dharma is planted.
Stage 2: Self-improvement
You make it a mission to improve yourself. You may begin practicing yoga asana, following inspirational people on Instagram, reading self-help books, listening to motivational speakers, using a meditation app, You’re begin changing habits that are no longer serving you. This stage is focused on the physical and mental level, more than the soul level. This is where the seed of dharma is watered.
Stage 3: Awakening
Your interest shifts from improving yourself to knowing yourself. You begin to realize that you are not your body or your mind, but rather a soul living in a body with a mind. You are hungry to learn about every spiritual topic such as yoga, meditation Ayurveda, ecstatic dance, shamanism, astrology, crystals, past lives, kundalini, Tantra and energy healing, which may have brought you to Highest Self Podcast. You may do some solo travel to spiritual destinations like Bali, India, or Peru, or have the desire to. Your entire worldview shifts as you become aware of the limiting beliefs passed down inter-generationally and begin to do the healing work. Your family and friends may not recognize you anymore and label you as crazy. This may be a difficult phase where you face loneliness but know that you are making these important shifts to come in alignment with your truth. You begin to realize that there is a whole world of possibilities you haven’t been aware of before. This is when the seed of dharma sprouts.
Stage 4: Higher consciousness
You are out of the spiritual closet and no longer feel the need to hide your beliefs to be taken seriously. You have found the practices that resonate with you and begin sharing them, perhaps on social media or with your family, friends, and colleagues. You know that you have a dharma but you aren’t exactly sure what it is and are still in the dabbling stages. It becomes increasingly obvious to you that your current job is not in full alignment with who you are. You continue your spiritual growth through shadow work, ancestral healing, plant medicine and/or past life regression. You no longer operate from victim consciousness and have realized life is happening for you, rather than to you. You have emerged as an entirely new you and people begin asking you how you did it. This is when the dharma sprout begins to grow.
Stage 5: Stepping into your dharma
Through embodying who you are, you realize your deeper purpose of why you are here. You remember your sacred mission on this planet. Suddenly your worldview transitions from me to we. Your spiritual practice becomes something so much greater than you; it becomes the foundation from which you heal humanity. You are fueled by the cosmos and tapped into universal life force streaming through you. You transform any part of your life that is not in upmost alignment because you see how it is holding you back from your mission. You realize that you are here to be of service and through following your highest joy, you serve the world. You see that you are only a channel for this cosmic wisdom coming through your vessel. This is the space in which you truly embody your dharma and the truth of who you are.
Where are you on your journey? Learn more and receive support, guidance and inspiration in my upcoming book Discover Your Dharma: A Vedic Guide To Finding Your Purpose with foreword by Deepak Chopra, out Jan 5th ‘21.
Do you know your Ayurvedic mind-body type? Discover yours here.
