Yearning is the ache of our inner desire
photo: Geoffrey Dunn
In Indian tradition it is said that we manifest as embodied lives to fulfill an ancient yearning. Our bodies and the circumstances of our lives are designed to allow the unfolding of this yearning. Of course, this very narrative has been used to privilege some people above others—all narratives are razor’s edge spaces which can either serve self-interests, or service the harmony of the whole.
Tasting one’s innate aching desire, facing it, holding its unfolding—these are not spaces of comfort. Neither do they need to be experiences of suffering. It is the taste in between, the invisible experiences that exist between the lines and words of our stories.
There are many names for this innate ache- Vaasana (scent), swabhaava (expression of innate temperament) and kaama (desire that gives us pleasure). All these sensations have been demonised in many spiritual traditions. They have become spaces that need to be mastered in order to occupy a supposedly “neutral” space of spiritual being.
Whether we buy into the stories or not, Yearning is Truth. Most of us hold this aching deep within us. For many of us it is connected to a desire for creative expression in the most expansive sense of that term. We ache to express that Yearning in some form. It feels as if the expression releases a domain of our breath which we are holding without releasing. It has little to do with professions and roles, with moral paradigms of service, and with economic demands of productivity.
It may be expressed as daydreaming. Or a languid walk to be wondrous at the sunset.
Wonder is inherent in the expression of Yearning. And it is not wonder at a magnificent historical building. It is not wonder at mastering some difficult intellectual proposition or physical technique.
Rather, it is wonder at the bright red crest of a rare black cockatoo. Or the heart-stopping laughter of the kookaburras. Or the way in which a tree Yearns towards the skies.
Wonder is the soil which holds the expression of our Yearning. To wonder is to be free of self-importance. Narratives of service, purpose and meaning can, inadvertently, contribute to one’s self-importance in ways that can disconnect us from our Yearning. Self-importance is mediated by external authority where we seek affirmation of our importance. Liberation from these narratives brings us in contact with our simplicity, which is the beginning of wonder.
Turning towards that ache is a courageous movement. It asks us to shed the need for permission and affirmation. This turning is the most urgent and vital of life-affirming acts we can do. It is not an act of the mind for this Yearning is elusive to the mind.
Yearning rises in the sensations of our bodies and expresses itself in archetypal movements that connect us to the life force pulsating through everything in Nature—trees, birds, animals and insects.
It is this Yearning that connects us to our passion, and the passion of Nature’s beauteous dance. Yearning is coloured in beauty, poignancy, fear and wonder in equal measure. As is life itself. To taste and move Yearning is to move the deep Truth about Reality. Yearning allows for the emergence of its own cosmos where the universes become intimate, and vastness is personal.
In denying this connection to our Yearning and desire we dismember the ancient ache that brought this life and this form into manifestation, and which allows us to taste the “purpose” for which we seek all our lives.