I had one of those CMPEs yesterday that are unmistakable. The background is that I am trying to lead the members of the Circle’s online community through a process of discovering their “special function.” The special function is A Course in Miracles concept that is analogous to what we often call “life purpose.” It is a way in which you express your special strengths in the form of a particular role through which you make a unique contribution to the healing of the world. 

In my experience, the special function is absolutely for real. There really is a role that has been designed for us, that fits us perfectly, and that is waiting for us. It is like a desk with our name on it, that stands empty until we sit there. It’s just a matter of maturing to the point where we are ready for it and then putting in the time and effort to make it happen. Yet that assumes, of course, that we know what it is. 

To help our members in the process of knowing what theirs is, I designed a questionnaire yesterday. It felt very important to me. I have helped a number of people in their process of finding their special function and I tried to put as much of what I have learned about the process as possible into the questionnaire. I then did a phone class walking our members through the questionnaire, and then I posted it as an entry to the community blog, and then I sent it out to them in e-mail form. 

Right after sending it out, I checked my e-mail, and discovered that a news list I subscribe to had sent me “The Short but Powerful Guide to Finding Your Passion,” by Leo Babauta. I immediately suspected it was a sign. When I opened the message and read it, it was abundantly clear it was a sign. The parallels were phenomenal. The following things were true of both my questionnaire and Babauta’s guide: 

1. A blogger posts a blog in response to a need he says is widespread in his readership (which is spiritually-oriented).
2. That post is also then distributed to an e-mail subscription list.
3. The post is a guide to finding your ideal function in life, the one that ideally suits you. (Babauta’s guide emphasized a passion of yours that you can make a living at; my questionnaire was about a God-given function, which may nor may not be your livelihood.)
4. It contains a series of numbered steps, many of them in question form.
5. The preamble to these steps clarifies the guide’s limitations, suggesting that it will not necessarily get you all the way to finding your function.
6. The preamble also talks about the supreme importance of this function (as the most “important” or “most wonderful” thing).
7. The guide mentions the time it will take to answer its questions, which is considerable.
8. The first question asks you to think back over your whole life for the various forms in which some key indicator—a desire to serve (event 1) or what you are good at (event 2)—has manifested.
9. The second question asks what work is “exciting” or has made you “feel most fulfilled.”
10. One or more question has you ask yourself what you are good at, what your strengths are.
11. A later question asks what you “read about” (2) or what subjects you have studied (1).
12. One or more question asks if there is some job you have “always” “secretly dreamed of” (2) or some “lifelong dream” you “secretly long to fulfill” (1).
13. The guide mentions that you might have been held back from this dream by “self-doubt” (2) or a sense of “inadequacy” (1).
14. It also mentions that you might be held back by thinking “you don’t have time” (1) or “don’t have the time” (2).

As you can see, the parallels go far beyond the idea of a guide that helps you find some function that ideally suits you. Many of the questions are even the same. (In fact, Babauta only has four questions, all of which have counterparts in my questionnaire.) Are we really supposed to imagine that the coming together of these two guides was pure chance? It strains the imagination.

In fact, shortly after I received Babauta’s guide, my colleague Greg Mackie, who also received both e-mails (he is part of our online community and he also subscribes to the same news list I do), e-mailed me saying, 

This simply has to be a sign: I get in my e-mail box two e-mails in which a spiritual teacher presents a written guide on how to find your special function/passion. This guide consists of a series of numbered questions, to which you are supposed to provide written answers. A number of the questions, like “What are you good at?” are essentially the same in both guides. I’ve already noticed other parallels too: For instance, the teacher says that this won’t actually enable you to find your special function/passion, but it will get you going in the right direction.

I have only now actually read Greg’s quick list of parallels. Notice how similar it is to mine. The main difference (aside from the fact that Greg’s list is a much more cursory job) is that Greg notes that both guides ask for written answers. (He’s right. That really ought to be part of my list above.) 

What did the sign mean? I don’t see in any particularly deep or surprising meaning in it. Since in my model the parallels act as confirmation, the sign is giving me confirmation about the questionnaire I devised, about sending that questionnaire to our community members, and perhaps on a larger level about taking them through a process of finding their special function. So that’s all—just simple confirmation. But it is a resounding confirmation.