Sankalpas come through various doorways. Some emerge from an inward longing; others from an encounter with the outer world. They may come through dream, trauma, a sudden refusal, or the weight of a disarming, unwanted realization. Their language varies too; some speak in direct, concrete words, while others arise metaphorically, like poetry.
To look back across a life is to see a series of sankalpas at work, creating direction long before we fully understand the ways they work.
Here is a glimpse of several sankalpas across one lifetime—mine.
The Natural Sankalpa
My pull toward the esoteric began very young. At seventeen, I met the teacher with whom I would study Daoism, Chinese therapies, and martial arts for more than a decade.
Remaining with those studies required no conscious decision. This was a sankalpa of a different order: one that came for me. Long before I knew the word sankalpa, something had taken hold of me, whispering:
You belong in magic. Stay, and be true.
My teacher called this my life purpose—the overarching trajectory that spans a lifetime, perhaps several. Parallel to this was an intense love for the creative arts. To support myself materially, I trained as a graphic designer and filmmaker. My teacher called this the living purpose: the functional craft that anchors us in the social and physical world.
The Broken Sankalpa
My first job was with an international advertising agency, creating visual pitches and copy. Surrounded by techniques of manipulation, airbrushed images of models, and coworkers content with the superficial, I did not warm to the advertising world.
Still, I made a simple, practical sankalpa: I will stick with this for two years. I wanted to develop my skills while observing this foreign landscape.
Near the end of my first year, my body delivered its own sankalpa. Arriving at the doors of the office building, I felt an immediate, overwhelming nausea. By the time I reached my desk, I was genuinely unwell; leaving the building, the sickness would vanish, only to return at the building entrance the next day.
When I told my teacher what was happening, "Yes," he said. "That is what happens when you work with unreal things. They make you sick."
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Leave," I said, looking for an approval he characteristically withheld (like a true Daoist). The following week, I resigned.
I broke my sankalpa before the two years were complete, and it was a wise choice.
Commitment alone is not wisdom. A true sankalpa requires discernment; the capacity to distinguish between egoic resistance to a difficult task and the deeper somatic knowledge that a path is wrong for us. Perseverance and self-betrayal can often look identical from the outside.
The Negating Sankalpa (Neti Neti)
After leaving advertising, I returned to the creative world I loved. Over the next decade, several of my short films screened globally, feature scripts gained traction with producers, and my life was rich with ideas, art, and community. Yet, the creative industry remained financially precarious and deeply exhausting.
My turning point arrived at an Australian Film Institute Awards ceremony, where one of my own films was nominated. I watched a director win a major award for a film he had spent ten years struggling to make. He was triumphant, filled with pride, relief, and tears.
Later at the afterparty, I met him up close and saw the true cost of those ten years: the stress, the physical neglect, the poor vitality, and a hollowed-out sense of self. He looked decades older than he was.
As we turned away from one another, a sankalpa rose instantly from the ashes of his victory:
I will not become him. I will not sacrifice my health. I will not spend my life waiting. I will not remain in the financial stress of freelance work. I am finished with this way of living.
Conventional wisdom advises that a sankalpa must be positively framed. Yet the Vedic tradition offers the method of neti neti—"not this, not this." It is the path of approaching truth by declaring what truth is not. Before we can say a clear Yes to the life that belongs to us, we often need an unequivocal No to the life that does not.
The Karmic Sankalpa
Less than a week later, I met the founder of a fledgling ambient-media company. Eighteen months into her business, she was in tears and considering giving up. She had a valuable service but struggled to communicate it to agency clients.
Because of my time in advertising, I could immediately see how to help: rewrite her materials, liaise with advertising buyers, and be on my way. But beneath that practical certainty lay a deeper recognition. Although she was only a friend of a friend, I felt an immediate karmic link with her, as though I owed her something. Surprising her and myself, I said:
I’ll help you. The business will work.
I imagined I would help for a little while, discharge the karma, and return to my own life. I did not realize that, in speaking those words, I had made another sankalpa.
Within six months, the company was on a steady path of growth. I was back in advertising, but this time it was different. The company had an ethical foundation, rejecting predatory selling and useless products. I stayed for eleven years. That connection gave me stability, financial security, and enough space to protect my health, continue my esoteric studies, and pay off a karmic debt.
Some sankalpas do not spring from personal ambition or calculated goals; they arise out of connection, a feeling of duty, and a willingness to yield to another’s need. When we step up to serve something beyond our own immediate plans, resolve carries a different kind of grace. What appears to be an unwelcome detour can become the very thing that protects our vitality, settles past obligations, and quietly lays the groundwork for our real life’s work.
The Unified Sankalpa
Throughout all these changes, I never abandoned my esoteric training. I continued studying dreamwork, Jungian psychology, yoga, and Western magic. The foundational sankalpa, the calling that never required a conscious decision—remained underneath everything I did.
Years later, in my relationship with my partner, Swami Shankardev (the result of another sankalpa and for another story), that lifelong purpose came fully to the fore. Together, we made a collaborative sankalpa to
Create Big Shakti: a dedicated home for authentic spiritual seekers.
My first teacher used to say that for most people, life purpose and living purpose remain separate for a lifetime, and that bringing them together is a rare blessing. Joining those two forces has been the great privilege of my life.
When life purpose and living purpose finally meet, sankalpa ceases to be a tool for directing life and becomes the current itself. We stop trying to forge a life and begin allowing our outer work to express what our inner depth has always known. It is not the end of effort, but the end of division, the moment where the actions and truth of our lives become one and the same.
Working Consciously with Resolve
Sankalpa is far more than a positive sentence we repeat in yoga nidra and meditation. It is an active, living relationship between desire, discernment, language, action, time, free will, and fate. Fulfilling a true resolve may demand steadfast perseverance, but it may also require radical revision, refusal, or the humility to recognize alignment in an unexpected form.
Across a lifetime, sankalpa is constantly weaving the thread of our existence. When we learn to see that thread, steering consciously where we can, life moves in harmony with our deepest nature.
In the upcoming Sankalpa Workshop Series, we explore:
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How to distinguish between an egoic desire and a resolve that's been there all along.
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How to find words that strengthen and unify rather than divide you.
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How to navigate doubt, internal resistance, and changing circumstances.
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How to know when a path requires persistence, and when a deeper wisdom is asking you to change direction.
If you are ready to refine your relationship with your own resolve, I would be honored to have you join us.
I would be honored if you were to join the workshops.
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