If you’ve ever wondered who you are, why you are here, and where we ought to be going, you are not alone. These are the most fundamental questions that must be answered to live to your fullest potential. Unfortunately, few people on earth have found the answers to these questions.

The funny thing is that the answer is much simpler than you might have imagined. Put simply, you are here–we are here–to be the means through which the invisible is made visible.

There are many ways to describe this beautiful and straightforward reality, ranging from poetic to scientific. One of my favorites, perhaps because it has survived the test of time and because of its sensible practicality, is the biblical account of the purpose of mankind: “And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it.” (Genesis 2:15 KJV).

Several verses earlier in the first book of the Bible it was mentioned that this “garden” was planted “eastward in Eden.” The direction “East” is used in the Bible to denote the future, so the “garden” mankind was to “dress and keep” (i.e. take care of) was referring to the future, not the past or present. So, according to this ancient and persistent story which comes to us out of the deepest patterns of human history, the purpose of mankind–and therefore your purpose and my purpose–is to tend to that which is yet to become.

One of my favorite sayings is: “the future casts its shadow upon the present moment.” I love it because it points to the fact that the visible present moment takes shape according to an invisible template or a blueprint that can be perceived despite its invisibility. A mouse on the ground can anticipate what is to come when the shadow of a hawk floats across his path. If he’s learned anything, he needn’t see the hawk directly to know what is likely to occur.

The story in the book of Genesis goes on to describe what has come to be known as the “fall of man.” Without going into specifics, the result of this proverbial “fall” was that mankind was no longer in the garden planted eastward in Eden. Put otherwise, mankind was no longer fulfilling the role of dressing and keeping the garden, that is, tending to the invisible patterns that shape the visible present moment. As a result, mankind has been frantically and unnecessarily roaming to and fro in a meaningless desert of his own creation from that point until now.

The rest of the Bible, with the exception of the last chapter (which is cleverly and appropriately named “Revelation”), tells the dramatic story of the repercussions of that specific and generalized fall–which was initially a fall in consciousness (i.e. a loss of an awareness of purpose and orientation)–and the historical attempts to draw mankind into an awareness of what was lost and how to regain it.

The book of Revelation, seen in its proper context, is a remarkable piece of symbolic literature written to serve as a blueprint for the individual and collective restoration of human consciousness and thus the body of mankind, to its rightful place.

More on that later. 🙂