Each soul has a specific mission on earth, says Yasuhiko Genku Kimura

Is it possible to wake up in the morning full of energy to live another day? And if you feel good and loved every moment? For most people, this is just an idealized scenario. But the good news is that it can come true. Zen-Buddhist monk Yasuhiko Genku Kimura says that instead of sadness, anxiety or apathy, it gives, yes, to live with more joy and conquer an inner strength that brings fulfillment and freedom.

The monk’s favorite activity is helping people find their true passion, which he calls the Passion of the Soul. It is about the genuine essence, what we really are. “Each soul has a specific mission, which is their responsibility and cannot be transferred to anyone else. Carrying it out is what our soul most desires. There is no greater happiness than discovering passion and establishing with yourself the commitment to live coherently with this most intimate truth, ”he says. The monk further states that the more a person lives according to his inner desire, the more joy, energy and happiness he experiences. Check out the interview:

In order to become aware and realize what we came to do on this planet, is it necessary to go through an existential crisis?

Enlightenment happens when we detach ourselves from our ego, whose predominance determines a way of life in which there is more suffering than joy. Only freed from the ego’s domain do we go towards our true essence. This passage is a crisis experience. Furthermore, living within the scope of the ego leads to dissatisfaction, because everything we really want – true love, joy and happiness – it cannot offer us. We call this passage “the dark night of the soul”, a time when we are looking for a new light. In this trajectory in search of consciousness, we go from one extreme to the other and that makes us die to the past, making room for the new. The mind, which was guided by the past, experiences this experience as a deep crisis. With spiritual evolution, one learns to have more and more joy.

Why do we need to discover our true passion?

That is the nature of our soul. She wants to express herself, manifest herself. People want to be who they really are. When we do something that has nothing to do with our passion, we feel unhappy. When we want to be like someone else, we limit ourselves. Each person is unique and original. Originality is one of the criteria for knowing whether someone is enlightened or not, because when a person becomes enlightened, he becomes himself.

If our soul is born knowing the truth about its essence, why do we distance ourselves so much from it?

In the process of growing up, we end up disconnecting from the source of our being. The educational system itself is not designed to nurture passion. People choose what to do with their lives based on a social standard, on superficial conditions, and not on what they really are. Consequently, they do not experience happiness and are not successful. There are also cultural and family conditions that hinder us. And we ourselves place limitations that, over time, become invisible to our eyes. So, we start living within what we think we can do or be and that restricts our real possibilities. When people discover their true passion, these barriers become irrelevant and disappear.

Does living in disagreement with what we really are mean a lack of courage?

Of the future, we know little, and fear is a natural reaction to the unknown. However, this feeling is just a negative interpretation in the face of the new. When we discover our passion, fear becomes a stimulus, an attractive challenge. It often appears precisely because the person was very close to getting in touch with their passion and hadn’t realized it yet.

Many give up doing what they like for a profession that earns them better pay. How is it possible to reconcile the two things?

When you do something you love, you naturally do it better. If your profession is an expression of your passion, the tendency is for you to become a better professional than those who only have the talent to perform that function. What makes a great master is the creative expression of his essence. This is what allows our talent and genius to flourish. Only then will we be successful people. And, if the profession is one of those that involve a lot of money, you can get rich at the same time.

What if it’s not one of those high-paying professions?

Some trades don’t produce as much wealth, but if they reflect your core, having a lot of money loses importance. Many look for this reward precisely because they don’t live the passion. But there are cases of people who are living their passion and making a lot of money from it. My advice is: do something you would do for free and charge for it.

When a person discovers that he has little time to live, he usually decides to do everything the way he always wanted. Why did we wait so long for this?

Unfortunately, people are not capable of realizing how precious each moment is. We assume that we will be alive tomorrow. Few have in mind that life is finite, and never consider that today may be the last day of their existence. Every minute is unique and precious. When someone discovers that he has little time ahead of him, he realizes that most of what worries us is small stuff. Because we assume that our life goes on from day to day, these little problems become too big and we end up forgetting how important it is to live our true passions.

Is the feeling of discovering that inner passion similar to the one we have when we fall in love with someone?

Oh yes, absolutely! Especially because when you really fall in love, you discover yourself in the other, and you get in touch with yourself through that other person. There is a lot of passion in love. However, in order to have a healthy relationship with someone, you must first establish a full and happy relationship with yourself. There’s no way! Only in this way do we begin to realize who we are and conquer the chance to love and share with someone all the beauty and fullness of life. Without loving ourselves, we run the serious risk of trying to meet our internal needs in external relationships, in a game of attachment.

How can we be sure that we have discovered our soul’s passion? What are the signs?

When that happens, you feel a deep certainty and immense joy. It’s like you discover the meaning of things and know, after all, why you’re in this life. Until that happens, there is a feeling of uncertainty. When you discover your passion, you know you know it.