Engraving, Camille Flammarion, 1888
Three Inner Needs
For almost my entire life I have been in a state of yearning, as if in some secret place the treasure was hidden that would forever change the tone of my heart. This yearning led me to search in the depth of a look, in the recesses of the ocean, temples, in philosophical ideas, in the bowels of human psychology. The treasure always seemed like it was there, about to be revealed, and at the same time completely elusive.
When the soul wants to experience something, she throws out an image in front of her and then steps into it. — Meister Eckhart.
In my practice of assisting people psychologically, and in my own life, I have found that the human spirit yearns for three principal elements: connection, meaning, and freedom. Without these three, we feel fettered. We want to connect to something higher than our chaotic inner life and a usually superficial and demanding outer world. Longing for a meaning beyond the wheel of our experiences and constantly changing emotions, we have a deep desire to become free. But free from what?
A More Real Connection
Tarot card 17, The Star, Tarot de Marseille
My heart is craving a kind of intimacy that belongs to a different world, able to lead me to a higher dimension, a deeper reality. When I become present to what exists in this moment, the connection and freedom is immediate and profound. I become aware of my own existence as well as the existence of what is in front of me – the visible and the invisible. This awareness of myself and of what surrounds me creates an interaction with reality that seems a perfectly coordinated dance and communion.
Every heart sings a song, incomplete, until another heart whispers back. — Plato (paraphrased)
The Ultimate Meaning
Constantly, I find myself pursuing something, internally and externally. In reality, behind these pursuits is the search for God – the force that gives meaning and that answers my existence and the existence of all things. The subject for my love that is above everything I know. The ultimate ‘agape.’ Usually, in my day-to-day life, this search leads me to intense reflections that, distancing me from the present, keep me on the periphery. In this place, there is always a feeling of emptiness, a lack of freedom and connection, without meaning. I feel as if I am missing something very important. Making the effort to be present, an empty place in me is immediately inhabited by myself, by God in me.
In moments of self-remembering we know the answer, we know our place, we have no pretensions, only certainty. — Rodney Collin
Moments of Freedom
The Milky Way
We live with a sense of being trapped by external circumstances. This gives us a permanent sense of being oppressed. Many of our activities, actions, and reactions are attempts to free ourselves from these chains. However, even after we have freed ourselves from all these external chains, should we go to a distant landscape and sit down believing that we are free, we still feel the same oppression in our chest. We have not yet freed ourselves from the strongest chain. And this is our own sense of self and our ideas and expectations about how the present moment should be.
When making efforts to interact with reality as it is, we soon realize that any success will be fleeting. Only a few seconds will celebrate the present in our being. Then we see it fade away – at the same time that we also fade away. But while these glorious flashes last, the chains that usually enslave us – our ideas, desires, passions, and so on – turn to smoke. And we become free, deeply free, eternally free during those instants.
I have no desire for the continuance of enjoyments or for abandoning enjoyments. My heaven exists everywhere. — Yoga Vasishtha (6th century AD)
When we connect to our higher Self through self-remembering, and make that inner movement toward God, we find ourselves in a distinct world from our everyday one. This is the world of connection, meaning, and true freedom.
Authors: Elisa Eidner in collaboration with David Tuttle.
For more articles by Elisa Eidner and David Tuttle, see: https://fourthwaytoday.org/author/david-tuttle-and-elisa-eidner/