Is it dis­sat­is­fac­tion that drives man? Many believe that dis­sat­is­fac­tion and curi­os­ity carry the world for­ward. This is what spurs man to seek. But let us reverse the for­mula, and start not from man and his curi­os­ity, but from Truth, from Real­ity. If these form the start­ing point, then their mere exist­ence is an affin­ity that can­not remain unbound, and it is pre­cisely the seeker who is able to bind this affin­ity – seek­ing sat­is­fies Real­ity's need.

If we always star­ted from ourselves alone, we would forever be apply­ing the induct­ive meth­od: assem­bling the build­ing from bricks, the sea­shore from grains of sand and the star clusters from atoms. Could it be that real­ity exists the other way round? That a sea­shore exists which pre­sup­poses the grains of sand, and cre­ates them too? That an organ­ic uni­verse exists which neces­sar­ily pre­sup­poses the exist­ence of man, who is able to won­der at this won­der?

Is it, then, the dis­sat­is­fac­tion of the Uni­verse that cre­ates human curi­os­ity? Well, that would con­tra­dict the grand thought expressed by the secret teach­ings of India:

That is full – this is full; from full­ness comes full­ness.

Tak­ing the full from the full, there remains, behold, its full­ness. (Isha Upan­ishad Invoc­a­tion)

But let us reverse the list of motives once more… until now we may have thought that dis­sat­is­fac­tion cre­ates sat­is­fac­tion, lack cre­ates abund­ance, the ques­tion gives birth to the answer. But the uni­verse can­not be lack­ing, as if that lack would then cre­ate some­thing to fill this void. No, the uni­verse is full, full in itself, and more than that, it has a sur­plus. And this sur­plus is the ques­tion that gives birth to the answer, and this is the answer that gives birth to the ques­tion, this is the secret that claims and demands its seekers for itself…

Who­ever is driv­en by dis­sat­is­fac­tion is at the mercy of lack. He is spurred on by his gap­ing inner abysses, the dim­ness of his con­scious­ness, the lack of cer­tainty, in a word: fear. The unknown awakens fear in man, and the unknown nature of the great secrets of exist­ence kindles a cos­mic fear in him. That is why every­one tries, in one way or anoth­er, to jus­ti­fy his own life. To find some explan­a­tion, some inter­pret­a­tion, that stills the dread, fills the gap­ing lack…

Most people are driv­en by lack. One of man's deep­est wishes is to be loved. When there is a lack in his heart, he expects anoth­er to fill it – this is love-hun­ger. This is what spurs him to seek, this is what drives him from one part­ner to the next, from one belief to the next illu­sion. Most people love out of lack. But man's other wish is that he him­self may love, and if the two wishes must be ranked, we surely know: the second is the more import­ant. Yet this is pos­sible only for one who has a sur­plus, who is will­ing to share. Once a moth­er rais­ing three sons was asked how she could divide her love among them, to which she simply replied that it does not divide, it mul­ti­plies…

Yes, to live for oth­ers is a delight, at times a bit­ter, yet still an uplift­ing delight. It is also true that to live it, one needs part­ners. It takes a very great saint to per­severe in the prac­tice of love wholly unselfishly, with no return whatever, or even in the face of rejec­tion. After all, feed­back feels so good…

The sat­is­fac­tion of the body is com­fort. The sat­is­fac­tion of the intel­lect is know­ledge. The sat­is­fac­tion of the heart is emo­tion­al ful­fil­ment. But the sat­is­fac­tion of the soul is the final home­com­ing, bey­ond lib­er­a­tion the warmth of the spir­itu­al home, bey­ond enlight­en­ment divine ardour, bey­ond per­fec­tion divine love rich in feel­ing.