Feature Article: Can the Longing for Love be Fulfilled?
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Can The Longing For Love Be Fulfilled? Every creature is longing for love. The ways in which human beings try to fulfil this longing differ significantly. Many strive for fulfilment through a partner, others through their profession or their hobbies. As an increasing number of people in our Christian society rejects marriage, and is unable – or unwilling – to solve the conflicts that naturally occur in such relationships, the question arises what is wrong with modern humanity.
In
the Middle Ages, the ideal of pure love, free from all animal
passions, was developed and was referred to as `courtly love'. An
important aspect was that whoever was touched by this love, could no
longer escape from it. So for Tristan and Isolde as well as for
Lancelot and Guinevere neither death nor earthly laws could thwart
their love. All and everything was imbued with this love. Those who
were destined for each other had
to stay together. That was their highest longing. This all-consuming
love has been described thousandfold in the literature of many
cultures. But nowadays the lower human passions are being appealed
to in such an aggressive and organised way as never before. And so,
the fairy tale marriage is increasingly fading into the background.
It is said that prior to the separation of the sexes, a male
and a female soul formed one soul. If this is the case, we might
think, it should be possible to find the missing soul with which to
form a unity. This results in the search for the perfect `match'.
Present-day mass media convey the impression that marriages of
modern people are all heading for divorce. But this picture is
distorted by lust for sensation. Certainly there are many who,
driven by their passions, are rather quickly becoming tired of their
partner. But on the other hand, there are millions who know how to
solve their conflicts together and who are very important to each
other.
People are stirred up by inner or outer causes to find
fulfilment in life, either through love of or for someone else or
through work or hobbies. But on this path, many disappointments are
awaiting them. As a rule, daily reality does not conform to dreams.
A partner, for example, can offer friendship, affection and
security, but also criticism and rejection. And gradually a
relationship may deteriorate into a struggle to preserve something
that has no longer a real basis. If one partner exclusively demands
and is unable to give, the other partner will ultimately be unable
to respond to it.
The
projection of our own longing
Why can this intense longing not be fulfilled? Longing is a
law of life and a magnetic power that attracts what is lacking.
Longing creates images of the ideal we are longing for. The
experiences of daily life teach human beings that their longing for
a partner – whom they can imagine – is a projection of the
longing for the heavenly other one they cannot imagine. A person
experiences this unattainable longing as cruelty. But in reality, he
is constantly being corrected in his longing and his search for
fulfilment, because he seeks fulfilment where it cannot be found.
The heavenly other one, the eternal partner who will never abandon a
human being, is like a silent idea chiselled in the human heart. It
is the original soul that can fulfil the deepest longing, provided a
human being searches for it and can surrender to it unconditionally.
Have man and woman then never been one creation? The
teachings of the Golden Rosycross explain that a human being is a
microcosm, a field of manifestation constructed like an atom. This
microcosm contains three nuclei or souls: a positive and a negative
nucleus revolve around each other at high speed, while the third
neutral nucleus revolves around the two other ones at a greater
distance. This whole system is centrifugal. It gives itself away to
a greater whole. All limitations cease to exist and all spaces and
borders fall away, there is only infinity, eternity. But as soon as
such a threefold field of manifestation turns inwardly, and hence
becomes centripetal, all magnetic relationships change. This
occurred during the so-called `Fall'. `When this catastrophe took place,' Jan van Rijckenborgh writes in The
Mystery of Life and Death, `the
atom was split by the heat of it to such an extent that one of the
two soul nuclei orbiting around each other in the centre of the
microcosm was ejected from the system and perished in space. In some
microcosms it was the positive nucleus that was ejected, while in
others it was the negative one. That is the truth about the
separation of the sexes. The microcosms struck by this catastrophe
were, from that moment on, no longer triune but diune.' Hence
the human being is a damaged being
In case the positive male nucleus has been ejected, the
present microcosm only contains the female personality. And in case
the negative female nucleus disappeared, the present microcosm is
now inhabited by a male personality. Thus a woman longs for the
missing male principle and a male needs the missing female principle
in order to restore the original unity. Hence a human being is a
damaged being. He is not complete. It is important to understand
this because restoration is not a matter of uniting two partners,
but rather a development based on the divine spark in the human
heart. In this dormant divine principle lies the power to restore
the microcosm's original balance. Once this balance has been
regained, the everlasting longing for love will be fulfilled.
The marriage of the prince and his princess which is
celebrated in so many fairy tales, does not refer to the dialectical
person and his partner, but to the union of the personality and the
divine nucleus in the heart. The longing for this union is projected
outward. As long as a human being lacks knowledge about the inner
fountain of renewal and restoration, he hopes and expects that
somebody else can grant him that fulfilment, but each further step
that distances him from God, makes him stray from the Source of
Eternal Love.
Jakob Boehme writes in The
Rod of the Driver Broken: `Sin
emerges not by itself but from the will. All that is directed
towards this world and excludes the divine, is sin. It is the will's
task to long for God and His love, as if he were nothing and had
died; it is the will's task to aspire to the life that is out of
God, so that God may create it in him.' Focused
on the outside
In the human heart lies a formidable power that is able to
bring about everything. It is the Love which is said to be God
Himself. It is the basis for the resurrection of the Divine being.
It is the nucleus power that touches, propels and attracts everyone.
It is the power the human being is seeking in his innermost being.
But unfortunately, large numbers of people allow themselves
to be misguided, as they are not conscious of what they are looking
for. Their attention is focused on the external world, on the
outside aspect of things and they forget that the secret and its
solution lie within themselves. That is where the quest should
begin.
The marriage, the partnership as it is pursued in daily life,
blesses many with happiness and fulfilment. For others it is a
source of never-ending sadness, anxiety, pain and worry. As said
before, true fulfilment of the longing for love cannot be found on
the horizontal plane. If that were the only starting point for a
relationship, it would inevitably result in bitter experience,
making a human being discover how poor his life is without Divine
Love. For one day, everybody will be confronted with his own
loneliness and then experience that he is in fact only seeking
himself, his true self.
A human being wants love, desires love from the bottom of his
heart. But due to ignorance, many reap more tears than affection.
Yet, there is that relentless agitation that propels and accuses us,
and does not let go. It is the voice of the soul that works as our
conscience. It expresses a very different longing than that of the
physical human being.
Every microcosm contains the nucleus of the new life
discussed above. This nucleus emits the radiation that causes this
immense turmoil which shakes man out of his sleep and compels him to
react. But this radiation which is completely different from the
striving of the earthly human being causes a great conflict. A human
being cannot escape this radiation in his heart, even if he would
rather flee and hide. At most, he can cover it up and stifle it. As
a result, the soul must continue to suffer, as well as the
personality which is thrown off balance. Cleansing
and rising up to a higher goal
A great task awaits the personality. It is its task to purify
itself and to lift itself up in order to be able to serve the Soul.
Then the Soul may become the bride celebrating the wedding with the
Spirit. That is the alchemical wedding the Classical Rosicrucians
spoke about in their mysteries. The image of this wedding is etched
into every human heart. But will humanity attune itself to it?
Before it will be able to do so, it must break through a lot of
delusion and gather experiences.
When our thinking has been liberated from the meshes of
delusion and becomes silent, God will bestow true Life upon mankind.
Then we are enveloped by and filled with Love that offers the soul
the experiences it needs for cleansing the personality from all
impurities. This Love guides us through all difficulties in a way
earthly consciousness can hardly imagine. Then life will no longer
revolve around a personality incessantly longing for love. This
source of suffering and delusion will have stopped flowing. The
personality will merge with the Soul which is linked with the
Spirit. The craving for Love has then been fulfilled. Sources: The
Rod of the Driver Broken, Jakob Boehme. © Pentagram, 2005. Article from Pentagram, 2002, No 3 |
