Recognition (1)

Within each of us there is a deep need for recognition.

This is not the desire for publicity or adulation, congratulation or promotion, that, at times, can clearly be seen flowing through individual lives, but for the simple recognition of our inner selves: that aspect of our presence which, despite the depth of our wishes, remains carefully hidden from most, if not all the people we meet; perhaps even from ourselves until our awareness was awakened.
From the most extrovert to the most introvert, from the flamboyant, exuberant and dominant, to the reserved, reticent and subservient, the need is the same.

It is a longing that constantly buoys us up on the tide of confusion and inadequacy that carries us beyond the edges of our realization. No sooner have we adjusted to some small change of position, than we find ourselves drawn into further confusion and doubt, and thus towards another edge; yet we are still upheld.
With little or no comprehension of what is happening, our very longing seems to hold us in a form of safety.
This underlying need, which aches its way through our mixed emotions, is an irrepressible inner response to something we are still unable to define, but in which we are now unable to disbelieve.
Something has gripped us, and its presence – though not preventing them - overrides all our fears.
It sketches within us a greater realization, a growing fullness, and a promise of fulfilment and completion.

Our longing is both need and desire.
We desire to be known for who we are, even before we have begun to realize that knowledge for ourselves.
The depth of our need is constant, but our recognition of it – if we will but set out on our journey - grows throughout our lives.
The deeply buried ember that became part of us as a result of the creative spark at our conception, glows increasingly as we discover who we truly are, and who we have been created to be.

Embedded within creation itself, and thereby within each one of us, is the basic awareness that we have been considering: the awareness of something more, something other, something greater. An awareness of a presence; a reclaimed consciousness which is our instinctive response to the universal love we (far too dismissively) call God.

We long to be loved, and we long to love the source of that love.
We long for love to flow endlessly to us and into us, but this will never bring true peace unless our desire for recognition is satisfied. That recognition lies in the blending of the love which flows to us and into us, with the longing for love to flow from us and out of us.
The profound reality of love, and of the peace which it offers, is that it is never restricted, it is never confined, and it is never still.
It lives and it moves.

It lives within us only when we fully understand the nature of our desire: when we long, not for love to flow to us or from us, but to flow endlessly through us. A reciprocal process allowing our love to be constantly renewed and returned to its Creator, while His love overflows from within us to the needs of the world at large.
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