We all feel there is something missing in our lives; something subtle, indefinable, somehow always beyond our reach.
This sense of missing something makes us feel incomplete. This sense of incompleteness drives us, motivates us to fill this void, either temporarily, or once and for all…
There are two primary engines that drive human activity: desire and aspiration. Which of these two engines we employ to “fill the void” depends on our consciousness.
When we identify ourselves as being primarily the body, vital and mind, we see ourselves as a finite being in a finite world. It seems we might therefore be fulfilled by acquiring more of the finite. This is the promise of desire: that happiness and fulfilment will surely come from getting more, possessing more, learning more; having more things, status, wealth and power.
Yet desire does not work.
Desire is a dog chasing its tail. No sooner do we fulfil one desire, than another takes its place. As soon as the void is filled, it reopens elsewhere.
Desire can never be a permanent cure to our incompleteness, for we are not finite beings – we are spiritual beings. We are infinite, as is that for which we yearn. Only the infinite can know the infinite, and only the infinite can fulfil the infinite.
All we most yearn for – peace, love, joy, wisdom, poise, fulfilment – are spiritual qualities. They are infinite. Only by deepening and expanding our experience of these qualities can the void within us be filled, can we feel ourselves complete.
The yearning for these spiritual qualities is aspiration. Aspiration comes from our heart, and leads to our soul.
Languishing ever in the finite, desire brings us suffering and invites us ultimately to death. Aspiration nourishes with ever-expanding satisfaction and leads us ultimately to immortality.