In his poem Little Gidding T.S. Eliot calls us home to our most authentic and sublime self, describing it as a "condition of complete simplicity." These are not his words alone. They were written centuries earlier by Saint Julian of Norwich, the 14th century solitary nun. Like most great truths their words are direct, simple, and universal, cutting through time and across cultures.
When I hear them, they directly and immediately pierce my soul with a sense of remembrance. I know they express a fundamental truth known by heart that is inaccessible to reason alone. They speak to a deep longing for a once known natural simplicity as a remedy to the stress, strain, and busyness of our day-to-day life. They speak to a home we all remember, or partially remember through the noise that obscures our deeper places.
What truth does the poet and medieval nun speak to this modern day seeker? What eternal truth have they discovered through their travails and explorations? "Look to the source" is their simple yet essential self-discovery. Look, as Eliot says, to the hidden and unseen waterfall at the beginning of the longest river. Look, the mystical nun says to the divine discovered within that is the source of all. Look within, look within, at the center of your being and you will find the source and essence where "all things in their natural simplicity are well and all manner of things are well." It is the message taught by all great religious and philosophical traditions. It is the message of all great healers.
In modern times we can see this as the distinction between who we have become, shaped by personal history and conditioned by beliefs, customs, and experiences, and who we are and have always been at the center of our being. In our outer life we may move through many identities, emotional states, patterns of living, relationships over a lifetime. Yet this self, this acquired self never quite satisfies our innermost desires. It is not our natural home.
At our core there is another self, one that has been untouched by the accumulated experiences of life. There is an unchanging self that is present in the beginning, retains its purity, and now and always is our natural home. It is that place of complete simplicity, truthfulness, sweetness, wisdom, serenity, and happiness that surpasses all worldly pleasures. We all know this place through the glimpses life gives us. Whenever we lose our usual self we re-experience our essential Self. It can happen in nature, dance, beauty athletics, meditation, and so on. When we lose our acquired self we gain our deeper self.
It is through these glimpses that we remember the glory of our true nature. If our temperament is right and we commit ourselves to the process of re-discovering and living our inner self, we too shall once again return to a condition of complete simplicity and know it with wisdom for the first time. We will not leave life, but actually join it fully in all of its diversity and complexity from a simple, clear, and steadfast center of peace. And it is meditation and inner exploration when properly taught and practiced that gradually allow this return home and the miracle of living in a complex world from a place of inner harmony, peace, and ease.
And when this occurs, we become the inner change that catalyzes outer change. Only from this selfless center of our being can we bring forth the clarity, strength, and purity that inspires similar changes in others. It is from this alone that we can most effectively be the force for change in a world that has lost too much of its basic humanity.