Have you ever had the nagging feeling 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? If so, there is no need to be alarmed – 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 called, the God Gap syndrome. The Ageless Wisdom teaching speaks of Divine Discontent as the creative tension between the eternal promise held within the Essential Seed of Self and our current ability to express this inner truth through our temporal nature. The ‘spark gap’ between these two dimensions generates in us a fire of deep desire to seek further levels of fulfillment in a ceaseless striving towards self-realization.
Discontent is the dynamo that drives all life forward. It is the compelling and propelling force that never lets us become satisfied with our achievements and ‘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 disrupt our periods of quiet repose to ensure that what we dream in our hearts is realized in full, fiery embodied beauty. Thus, dissatisfaction is really a spiritual life insurance policy against the onset of stagnation and entropy.
However, if the spark gap becomes too wide and unbridgeable, instead of igniting and inspiring us to quicken our steps on the upward spiral path of growth, the field collapses and we can easily sink into a state of despondency and despair. Sadly, this is what we see around us today in many parts of our community – both local and global. Much of humanity is discouraged and trapped in the gap as we come to terms with the painful fact that what we have created by way of a modern society does not fully honor the values and qualities of the soul.
What to do? One of our main tasks of service must surely be to rekindle the Fire of Hope in the heart of humanity that will eventually lead us “from darkness into light and from the unreal to the real”. We can do this by affirming the Essential Divinity dwelling within us and within all life and by reaching out and encouraging each other to persevere as we journey through the current challenging psychological landscape that resembles what the 23rd Psalm calls, “the valley of the shadow of death”.
The potency and presence of the One Life, dwelling within each soul as an eternal spark, is this true Fire of Hope. Together, with our eyes on the common prize, it is not only possible but inevitable that we will precipitate the preferred bright future burning within our collective heart and mind. It is our shared destiny and joyful responsibility to help manifest that which we are calling the coming new soul-centered civilization.
grand canyon meditation cropped image courtesy Alan Eng / CC 2.0