Chapter Sixteen
The Seven Needs
(1) The Need for Union
One can meet this need by being a true communicator as already discussed.
The need for union is the most powerful of all needs and all others are branches of this one root need. Union is the motivating force behind all evolution. When two people truly love each other they experience an overwhelming desire for union, and deep within their souls they know it is their destiny. Remember the statement: “Let us commune and be one.”
All people feel a need for more union than they have at the present moment. The single person is drawn to members of the opposite polarity in the hope of union. The married person seeks to create even greater oneness with their spouse. In addition to this, couples seek harmony and closeness with friends and associates. Towns, cities, states and nations all seek to unite their populace through group spirit.
The need for union is the inner motivating purpose behind the other six needs we shall discuss. Love is manifested as we move toward union. Hate grows in separative thinking. We can only appreciate union after we have gone through experiences together. Creative expression brings us closer to those who appreciate it. Knowledge makes us aware of the interrelation of all things. Emotional fulfillment makes us glad we have taken steps toward union and order causes us to see how all things work together in one grand united purpose.
(2) The Need For Love
This is probably the most frequently acknowledged need of mankind for nearly everyone is active in some degree in seeking love. Giving is therefore very important for it is an active expression of love.
Love has been very difficult for mankind to define because there are two basic types and people see what love is from their angle of vision and point of evolution.
The most common love is the love of the personality, or the lower self. The second, and higher form of its expression, is the love of the Soul, or the higher self. The manner in which we give and receive love is dependent on our point in spiritual evolution. If our consciousness has attained contact with our higher selves, or souls, then we can love others as souls. This is an unselfish love. If we have no contact with the higher self then we will love others as personalities. This is a more selfish and possessive love from a higher point of view and is merely a mirrored reflection of true soul love. It may be more appropriately called attachment. Generally, two people get married because they like each other’s personalities and become attached to them. In this situation if there should be an apparent personality change, then love, or attachment, would cease.
If one loves another’s higher self, then a personality change would not cause the love to cease, for spiritual love is not dependent on the personality expression.
Soul love may be defined as: “A desire for union, a desire to serve and fulfill and a desire to share with someone.”
Personality love is one or more of the following: “A desire to be in the physical presence of, or possess (because of the attractiveness of the personality of physical makeup), a desire to please (even though it may not be a beneficial pleasure), and a desire for sexual expression with another person.
Those who have developed soul love will find that they have not left personality love behind for soul love encompasses personality love. Soul love puts personality love under subjection. The person is then able to love on all levels, but loves the personality with detachment so when soul love comes in conflict with it the spiritual love will prevail.
Those who love others as souls still desire sexual expression and fulfillment, but this is not one of the main criteria for determining their love expression for one another. They will not let sex interfere with the desire for union, service and sharing on the soul level. These higher expressions are a first priority and the physical expressions are sublimated to enhancing the higher expressions.
Those who love on the personality level need to be with and be possessed by someone, need to be pleased and need affection and/or sex.
Those who love on the soul level still need the personality fulfillments, but also need union, need to serve to be served and need to share with someone.
The type of service the soul seeks is the service that will stimulate evolution and the sharing it seeks is a sharing of enlightenment that will bring a mate to a higher level of progress. The personality seeks service and sharing with no thought to spiritual stimulation.
The strongest soul need people have in the sharing of love is the sharing of enlightenment that can lead to joyousness. Every person has a strong need for joy and happiness and soul love seeks to fill this need in others through the sharing principle.
(3) The Need for Experience
Experience is an extremely strong need for it is the basic reason all things were created. The One Life who permeates the universe is seeking experience.
Every life form needs certain types of experience depending on its point of evolution. As we progress from life to life we share in many varied experiences. As we repeat certain experiences again and again, we find that we tire of them and that we seek new more challenging ones. When the time comes that we have experienced all there is under the current laws of existence then we reach a point where we are liberated from the physical world.
Each individual has a need to experience variety, change, and entirely new happenings in their life. A new experience can be like a stimulating medicine that can be a healing balm. Even old souls are stimulated by variety and change.
In a meditation I participated in years ago a young man was spiritually transported to a future society where interrelationships were of a very joyous nature. He brought back to us one sentence which impressed everyone in the group: “Our goal is to fulfill each other’s dreams.”
One of the best ways to fulfill one another’s dreams is to help each other have the most conscious expanding experiences that are possible. Find out what the other person wants and help him achieve or experience them.
In a bonded relationship one should study the kinds of experiences one’s mate may need and seek to fulfill them. Talk over the types of new experiences you would like to have together. Keep in mind that this can be anything from a vacation to a new paradise, to learning a new activity, to meditating together. In the Bible the Master says: “I make all things new.” His disciples sing a “new song.” Doing new things, sharing experiences never shared before keeps us eternally young and vibrant and should not be forgotten in a relationship.
If a relationship seems to be getting stagnant the best medicine available is a new experience that is not resisted by either party. Seek for it and the reward cannot be withheld.
(4) The Need for Creative Expression
This is a need that becomes stronger the farther a person progresses upon the path of spiritual evolution. When individuals are centered in the lower self the main creative expression is through imitation. They build, they draw, or create that which they have been instructed in and this fulfills their needs in the personality. These need praise and appreciation for that which they have made and derives much satisfaction from seeing their creations put to practical use.
Those who are centered in the soul develop a need to create things which are new, beautiful and original. They want to sing songs never sung, draw pictures that have never been seen, and build creations that no one has yet dreamed as possible.
We must search out our companion’s creative needs and seek to stimulate them and show sincere appreciation for the beauty of their creations. We should seek to understand the effort and sacrifice that was made. All people need to be appreciated. Perhaps in creative people this need is stronger than most.
(5) The Need for Knowledge
All people high and low need knowledge and can sense the impulses of their soul in some degree driving them toward it. As the need for experience within a sphere of activity decreases the need for knowledge increases. The most important knowledge of all is the knowing of our inner selves. Then we can better know the inner self of our mates. The knowledge of the principles that lead to a joyous relationship is one of the greatest needs humanity senses.
Each person has different areas of interest in which he or she is seeking knowledge and each person is impressed to go a certain direction. We should seek to understand the areas in which our mate is seeking knowledge and seek to help him or her expand the opportunity. If one person in a relationship has more knowledge in an interesting area than another, they can seek to teach their companion. They can enlighten and appreciate each other.
Gaining knowledge is much more than just obtaining facts registered on the brain through memory training. The key of knowledge is the understanding of the principles, for one principle is worth a thousand facts.
Henry Ford is a good example of this. He was once criticized for his ignorance of automobiles and details related to his business. He pointed out to his accuser that he did not have to waste his time memorizing all the details concerning the operation of his cars and business. All he had to do was merely give a call and he could have an expert delivering him the needed knowledge. Henry Ford did not clutter his mind with unnecessary facts, but, instead, worked with principles of good business; hence he was successful.
We must seek to give and receive the principles that make all knowledge available to us and share the knowledge we gain with each other as one of the steps to fulfillment.
(6) The Need for Emotional Fulfillment
The key to emotional fulfillment is to avoid suppression. Suppression is a form of avoiding communication. This is especially dangerous when the negative emotions are suppressed for this can lead to disease, as well as depression. Just like steam pressure in a tea kettle can cause it to blow its lid if it has no release valve, so can suppressed emotion cause a person to explode unpredictably. An unpredictable moody person is usually one who suppressed emotion.
All, whether they suppress or not, have a need to express themselves emotionally whether it be through romantic love, hate, anger, happiness or any other feeling. The emotions should be controlled and rightly directed, but not suppressed. No one likes to live with a walking time bomb and this is what they become if they do not intelligently release feelings now and then to let off the dangerous pressure.
Seekers must find release for emotional feelings as they arise or they can build up negative energy pressure to a dangerous level. For instance, if they feel anger, they should not pretend that it is not there. This is dishonest communication, and negative, whereas control of anger and honestly communicating it harmlessly is positive.
What then should we do with anger, or other negative feelings when we have them if we are not to suppress? Should we attack the person with whom we feel anger? No. This would be uncontrolled emotion. Instead, we must direct the expression of our feeling through the control of the mind.
When we are angry our emotional self sends a strong instinct not to think, but to immediately carry out a destructive action. However, the mind must override emotional authority and declare: “I will not release my authority to decide a course of action. I will stay in command.” After maintaining the reigns of control, the mind can then say: “My emotional self feels all this anger toward Mary that needs released. What is the most harmless way to let it off?” The mind then decides to communicate instead of attack. John says to Mary: “Mary, what you just said makes me feel very angry. I feel like strangling you. I, of course, will not do it, but you really upset me and hurt my feelings.”
Most people have feelings within them, positive and negative, locked tightly within and fear letting them out in the open. They are afraid of becoming vulnerable, believing that they may be hurt as they have been in the past. Nevertheless, each person still has an inward longing to share and release these feelings and they wish with all their heart they could trust someone enough to intimately communicate with them.
If you are reading these lines and feel a need to share suppressed emotions, but cannot because you feel that you can trust no one to not hurt you then the solution is to let the mind assume control and tell yourself: “If I suffer pain because I trust another with my feelings it will not be as bad as the emptiness I now feel. Therefore, I will share my innermost feelings, even at the risk of pain. Some pain mixed with pleasure is much better than non-existence.”
Life is always less painful to one who communicates than to one who does not. In one way of looking at it we could say: “Most emotional pain is an indication of a failure to communicate.”
Those who find themselves responsible for helping other people release pent up feelings will be endeared in other people’s psyches for a lifetime. The overflowing stream of peace and joy that follows such a release is sometimes overwhelming.
When individuals enter a situation where they can communicate and control negative feelings, then they are faced with the need of using their positive feelings to create a fullness of joy. This is the circumstance we should all find ourselves in if we follow our inner urges to communicate.
He or she then works toward a fullness in communicating love-desire energies, affection, sexual and romantic feelings, appreciation, generosity, givingness, and freedom.
Affection is extremely important in a male-female relationship. It is the glue that cements the bond leading to oneness. A touch, a caress, a squeeze or a loving look says: “I care about you and love you as I love myself.” Those who did not receive much affection as a child may not feel like giving or receiving a lot of it as adults. If this is the case one should let the mind assume control and declare: “Giving and receiving affection will help me receive a fullness of joy; therefore, I will give affection.”
If the mind drives one to be affectionate it will not be long before the emotions will be stimulated and they will “feel” like responding. Then the person will “change” into an affectionate person. There is no one in the world who does not have the capacity to appreciate affection. One should intelligently practice giving and receiving it until mastery is attained in this important area of life. One should also practice timing. Giving your mate a hug when he or she is in a rush may produce irritation, but giving the same affection on a lazy rainy day may be greatly appreciated. Sense when the time is right and then give affection and always be open to receiving it.
Sex is one of the most intense forms of giving and receiving positive energy and feeling. There are many good books available on enhancing the pleasures of sex so we need not go into that. Nevertheless, the underlying principle of sexual fulfillment should be stressed: “Communicate your sexual needs to each other and seek to fulfill them in your mate so long as no harm is created.”
There has been so much written on how to put romance in a relationship that we need not go into it here except to say that this is an important area to practice giving and receiving. Most people are aware of how much little things like notes, flowers, a night out on impulse, a walk in the park, and other amenities can mean to a relationship. We must merely practice what we know in this area.
Freedom is, however, an emotional need that is worthy of comment. The couple should allow each other a certain amount of “space” as it is currently called. Almost everyone wants to belong to someone and likes to be possessed to a certain degree, but when that possession interferes with a desired freedom of thought or action then there is resentment. One must examine the mate’s need for freedom and allow the space he or she needs to act and express themselves. We will also find that we will be appreciated if we work to stimulate our companions to greater avenues of freedom. Nevertheless, the interdependency that is agreed upon by the two must be strong enough to hold the bonded relationship intact.
(7) The Need for Order
This need includes the need for balance, rhythm, harmony, structure and judgment. It could also be called the need for cyclic activity.
Despite the fact that we live in a liberated era where everyone wants to do their own thing, all people have a need for a certain amount of structure in their lives. We can see how order is necessary for living things by observing nature. The sun rises and sets at certain times in certain seasons and living things adjust to this. Birds and animals retire to sleep at certain times and rise at predictable times. They eat, store, build, migrate, leave home, and mate at certain set times of cyclic activity. If this is interrupted, their harmony is disturbed.
There is no living thing more out of harmony with nature than humans. In seeking freedom of expression, they often goe to the extreme and do not balance themselves with order as demanded by nature. When humans lack order in their lives, they are out of harmony and often become sick or emotionally disturbed.
Therefore, order is a human need just as love is and is needed for us to obtain a fulness of livingness.
Some types of order that is beneficial to humans are:
[1] Going to bed, rising, and napping (if desired) at approximately the same time each day.
[2] Eating at about the same time and frequency each day.
[3] Study at certain times.
[4] Entertainment at certain times. Man instinctually wants entertainment on weekends.
[5] Sex should be adjusted to harmonize with cyclic desires.
[6] Work at set times.
[7] The laws of the land.
[8] Religious ceremonies, sacraments and observances.
[9] Contemplation, prayer, and meditation.
[10] Marriage as a stabilizing structure.
Often, people with no objectives in life who suffer mentally, emotionally, and physically merely need some order and structure to their life.. This is basically how the churches the world benefit humanity. Their basic benefit is not so much in the knowledge they impart for they impart very little, but the benefit is that they give order and objectives to a family’s life. Very few people will admit that the need for order is the reason they go to church, but in the last analysis it usually is.
You will notice that those who are not active in a church will usually be involved in some civic organizations or fraternities. This involvement we seek is merely to fulfill our need for structure and order. Those who do not have some structure in their lives inspired by some organization or cause are usually listless and feel empty. These are often the type of people who turn to crime. They find no order in society to suit them so they turn against it.
The bonded relationship is so sought after by many because it fills a great need for order. In fact, many people get married more to stabilize their lives than for love. Marriage brings in the new ordered sequence of seeing someone you care for on a cyclic basis. Any newly established cyclic routine brings additional order and therefore, more purpose in people’s lives. When children arrive, new cyclic encounters occur and greater stability reached. These ordered relationships, can, if they are structured correctly, bring more fullness in a person’s life.
The need for ceremony is part of the need for order. This is a basic human need that has received little or no attention by psychologists.
The human need for ceremony is well illustrated in the marriage process itself. For instance, a couple could merely agree to live together with no ceremony and the relationship could be just as successful as a full-fledged husband and wife. However, this is rarely the case because of the need for ceremony. We have created the ceremony of the wedding rites, vows, rings, and laws governing such so we can feel a stamp of public approval on this major decision. Humanity has created covenants that bind this relationship so they can have more order, structure, and purpose in the hope of creating a more permanent relationship.
To create more order, we set up authorities whose word is either law or sanctioned by it. Men and women are married by such an authority. They exchange rings. That is an ordered ceremony. After that, they have the wedding reception. The bridal dress and wedding cake are two more ingredients which fill the need for order here along with all the order amenities of the wedding reception.
Very few couples can really “feel married” unless they follow the accepted public order in getting there.
Even the Christ had to fill people’s need for order when he healed them. Often, if he would not have done it, the people would not have had enough faith to be healed. Sometimes Jesus had them bath in water, another time he poked his fingers in a man’s ear, another time he anointed a man’s eyes with clay made from his saliva, other times he touched their eyes, or tongue, or laid his hands on their heads. Part of the reason he used these techniques was because he recognized people’s need for ceremony and order. People couldn’t believe they could be healed unless he followed a strange ritual of some kind. He perceived the need each person had and tried to adjust to it to strengthen their faith.
We should search for the need for order and ceremony in the lives of ourselves and our mates and seek to fill it. Seek to be a part of the order that is in your companion’s life. Seek to create all the order that is needed to bring a fullness, but beware of being overly rigid. Too much strictness may be a greater evil than not enough order.
Couples should seek to establish mini-sacraments in their relationship: A bottle of wine on a special occasion, getting an ice cream after a movie, collapsing in each other’s arms after the kids are in bed, kissing each other on going and returning from work, saying “I love you” before going to bed etc. These little rituals we all establish help stabilize a relationship through order. If we lack these little ceremonies, it will be found to be advantageous to consciously create a few.
Retired people are especially in need of order because their lives are so disrupted by losing the ordered sequence of going to work. An amazing number of people die within a year or so of breaking off from the work cycle. Those who have a happy retirement are those who can keep order and structure in their life. This is may be more important than diet or exercise for living a long, healthy life.
To become a fulfilling giver, one must learn to control giving with the mind, for if the giving nature is controlled by the emotions, then we will only give when we “feel like it”. When giving is controlled by the mind, we can find ourselves giving when we don’t feel like it, but at the same time accomplishing a great good. If we only give when we feel like it, we are no better than the savage who does the same. But when we give when we think of it, or when it makes sense, then we become the master of the situation and become a true giver.
Most persons have times in the marriage relationship when they do not feel like giving communication, loving feelings, or loving words. This is the greatest opportunity to exercise mental control. The mind is like a muscle and it cannot become strong enough to control the emotions without exercise, but after sufficient and regular exercise, it does become strong enough so mental control is effortless.
Here is one of the best mental exercises you can do: The next time you have your feelings hurt by your mate or loved one, and find it difficult to show any love at all, take hold of him or her and look in the eyes with as loving a look as you can muster and over a short period of time say “I love you” three times. Try and get the partner to do the same. This will dispel much of the negative feelings you have, even if you do not get an “I love you” back. Those seeking the path to union and fullness must develop the power to do this exercise IN ANY SITUATION. When this is accomplished, they will gain a sense of freedom and liberation never before felt and will realize to some degree that the peace that passes all understanding is not dependent on circumstances or other persons, but on the individual.
If the first exercise mentioned above does not dispel all negative feelings, then try this second one: Within the period of one hour, give something three times (tangible or intangible) or provide a needed service for the person who hurt your feelings. Remember that the other person is not responsible for your negative feelings if your mind is in control. Thus, it is not their responsibility to dispel your negativity. It is your own. It matters not how dire and wrong is the deed your partner did to you. It matters not that they do not accept your “I love you,” or gift, or service. What matters is that you give them, and in giving them you liberate yourself. This is why Jesus said: “Give to him that asketh thee.” (Matt. 5:42) He also said we should go the extra mile. Simple advice, but difficult to do.
If, after these two exercises, the negativity is not yet dispelled, there is one more thing you can do: Ask your spouse to do something giving for you. One thing may do the trick, but three things over a period of time is preferable. Do not pick something difficult, but choose something you know they can easily do. If you have told him/her you love him/her three times and given to him/her three times, then (s)he should be ready to give to you. If (s)he hasn’t given to you in some way, ASK. The giving will make you feel better and bring peace in the home.
Generally, these three steps will dispel any negativity in a relationship unless a major rift has occurred and the other party is utterly beyond response.
A yielding nature is essential to create oneness in any relationship and it must be possessed by both parties. People who are truly giving and yielding are rare and when they are found, they are usually mated with someone who is unyielding and takes advantage of their good nature. One yielding person can make a relationship bearable and somewhat workable, but it takes two cooperators to make a true union.
There is a basic difference between giving and yielding. We generally give that which we feel like giving, but when we yield, we often give in areas that are against our feelings for the sake of a relationship. Yielding is the highest form of giving, and, if both parties possess a certain amount of it, the marriage can be “made in heaven.” It is a simple ingredient in a successful relationship that is ignored by most because they do not “feel” like cultivating it.
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