Have you ever had the nagging and troubling sensation that your life doesn’t quite resemble and measure up to what you originally envisioned and aspired to when your heart was full of dreams? Are you feeling pangs of dissatisfaction for how things have turned out? If so, there is no need to be alarmed as you are simply experiencing a fact of life that is equally true for a human being, a Planetary Logos or a Galaxy far, far away. It is a natural condition that has been diagnosed as ‘Divine Discontent’.
The Ageless Wisdom teaching speaks of Divine Discontent as the result of a creative tension between the eternal promise and ‘ideal’ held within the Essential Seed of Self and our ability to express the truth of this inner reality through the present state of our evolving personality. The ‘spark gap’ between these two states generates inside us the fire of striving and inevitably stirs an unstoppable urge to seek more expanded dimensions and avenues of expression and self-fulfillment.
Discontent is the dynamo that drives all life forward. It is the compelling and propelling force that never permits us to become satisfied with our achievements and to ‘rest on our laurels’. Our soul is a dynamic presence of light, love and joy that will not allow us to ‘wither on the vine’ or sink into the comfort and immobility of the status quo. It is continually conspiring to unsettle and disrupt our periods of quiet repose to ensure that what we dream in our hearts is realized in full, fiery embodied beauty. Thus, Divine Dissatisfaction can be viewed as a spiritual life insurance policy against the onset of stagnation and entropy.
This inner ‘spark gap’ is placed at our disposal as a creative tool for fashioning the substance of dreams into tangible forms. However, if the gap becomes too wide and unbridgeable, then instead of igniting and inspiring us to quicken our steps on the upward spiral path of growth and self-expression, the field collapses and we can easily sink into a state of despondency and despair. Sadly, this is what we so often see around us today in many parts of our community – both local and global. Much of humanity appears discouraged and trapped inside the ‘gap’ of discontent as we come to terms with the painful fact that what we have created by way of a modern society does not fully celebrate and honor the deep values and radiant qualities of the soul.
"And I have felt a presence that disturbs me with the joy of elevated thoughts; a sense sublime of something far more deeply interfused, whose dwelling is the light of setting suns, and the round ocean and the living air, and the blue sky, and in the mind of man; emotion and a spirit, that impels all thinking things, all objects of all thought, and rolls through all things." ~ William Wordsworth
Reflecting on my own life, even though I've been calm and peaceful during certain periods, there has always been an inner restlessness – a sense that there is so much more to know and experience. Life is continually calling out and inviting us to participate more fully in the grand pageant of evolution. This magnetic appeal from the depth of the Generative Mystery is registered by the soul as a compelling, attractive and irresistible proposition that cannot be ignored. Sometimes, it feels as though I am a scattering of iron filings attracted by a powerful inner magnet – insisting and inviting me to reconfigure the ‘atoms of Self’ in order to create a new order in my life. The object of the exercise is to reshape my outer patterns of living so they are consonant with the sacred geometry of the Soul.
For me, there are two levels at play and two distinct differentiations that can be made regarding this unsettling sensation of dissatisfaction that periodically wells up in our heart. One is perceived and acted upon by the personality and the other is received and registered by the soul.
The discontent experienced in my personal life seems to surface when there is a strong belief that I don’t have enough – whether this be an insufficiency of belongings, money, love or recognition. From a worldly perspective, this disquiet and unrest stems from not having achieved or acquired what I deem is necessary to live my ‘ideal life’ which is often based on a projected and self-referential image of myself.
Then there is the higher aspect of this strongly sensed tension which has nothing at all to do with the lack of earthly accoutrements and personality status. Divine Discontent is a golden gift of the soul that ensures liberation from material attachments and guarantees continuous upward movement on the virtuous spiral of conscious evolution. We might venture to say that personal discontent is usually addressed and resolved by an act of acquisition while, when one is touched by its higher correspondence, the tendency is to divest oneself of all unnecessary earthly baggage and to be open to receiving and distributing the true universal riches of an expanded and open heart.
The Agni Yoga lineage offers an additional descriptor for Divine Discontent: namely,
Noble Restlessness.
“In all times the population has been divided into settlers and nomads. The nomads moved by the power of search for achievement, they had no place of their own. But for the future they found the strength of achievement. Such striving of the heart is inherent in every human life. Amidst the precipitants resulting from heroic achievements must be found this noble restlessness, leading into the future. Only thus may one escape the snares of the past…”
(Fiery World II sloka 42)
Noble Restlessness, in a similar fashion, does not allow us to sink into a state of apathy and comfortability for these are conditions that Agni Yoga describes as ‘the graveyard of the spirit’.
It is all too obvious that we are living in times of deep planetary unrest and discontent. The question is whether this unbearable tension will awaken the sleeping giant of the Soul of Humanity so that it governs our lives wisely and creates a much-needed climate of caring and sharing or whether a separated and fear-filled personality will continue to clutch at straws and seek a materially-based solution that emphasizes the importance of the part over the good of the whole.
One of our main tasks of service must surely be to rekindle the Fire of Hope in the heart of humanity that will lead us “from darkness into light and from the unreal to the real”. We can support the accomplishing of this soul assignment by affirming the Principle of Essential Divinity which declares that a ‘spark of the Creator’ lives at the core of our Identity and burns at the atomic heart of all Creation. By recognizing the sovereign power and sacredness of our life and of all life and by reaching out and encouraging each other to persevere, we will successfully make the journey through the challenging psychological landscape of this present time that resembles what the 23rd Psalm calls, “the valley of the shadow of death”.
Half of any person
is confused and bewildered
and way off The Path.
Half!
The other half
is dancing
in some Invisible Joy."
~ Rumi
The potency and presence of the One Life, dwelling within each soul as an eternal spark, is the true Fire of Hope and Invisible Joy. Together, with our eyes on the common prize, it is not only possible but inevitable that we will precipitate the bright dream of a better future alive within our collective heart and mind from out of the current unrest and dissatisfaction pervading the ethers of our global society.
I believe that it is our shared calling and destiny, as well as our joyful responsibility, to utilize the divine dynamo of discontent as a powerful creative ‘force for good’ in order to realize and manifest the longed-for ‘soul-centered civilization’ of our aspirations.
Michael Lindfield
Board President
Meditation Mount