The Soul’s Forgotten Need

Behind the search for happiness, well-being, and peace, there lies a deeper aspiration than the simple desires of the body or the mind. Spiritual traditions teach that the soul retains the memory of its origin and naturally seeks fundamental harmony.

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Summary: Behind the search for happiness, well-being, and peace, there lies a deeper aspiration than the simple desires of the body or the mind. Spiritual traditions teach that the soul retains the memory of its origin and naturally seeks fundamental harmony. Understanding the difference between needs and desires helps us better understand our inner quest and glimpse the true meaning of spirituality.

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Human Beings Seek Happiness

All human beings seek peace, well-being, happiness, and harmony. No one willingly aspires to suffering, anxiety, or confusion. Yet despite all the efforts devoted to building a satisfying life, many people continue to experience a sense of lack, as though something essential were missing.

This situation is strange. Never before have human societies possessed so many material resources, so much knowledge, and so many possibilities. Yet happiness often remains fragile, incomplete, or temporary. Why?

One possible reason is that human beings frequently confuse their deeper needs with their desires.

We need food, yet we desire refined dishes. We need shelter, yet we desire a larger, more luxurious, or better-located home. We want to be loved, forgetting that everyone wants to be loved, including the very person from whom we seek love. We sometimes pursue admiration, recognition, or prestige, forgetting that behind these aspirations often lies the same fundamental need.

Desires are not necessarily bad. They are part of life. The problem arises when they are mistaken for the ultimate answer to our search for happiness.

For the human being is not merely a body. There is also an inner dimension, the soul, which aspires to something beyond the simple satisfaction of material needs and instincts.

Instincts and Their Promises

Several spiritual traditions of India describe human beings as being influenced by three fundamental tendencies known as the gunas.

Sattva is associated with light, knowledge, and clarity. Rajas corresponds to energy, desire, ambition, and passion. Tamas is linked to inertia, confusion, and ignorance.

According to these traditions, the gunas are not distributed at random. They result from the maturation of the soul, purusha, acquired through repeated reincarnations in samsara, the cycle of births and deaths. The experiences accumulated throughout these lives leave impressions known as samskaras, which partly condition the incarnate mind, citta.

Under the influence of these tendencies, human beings develop behaviors intended to ensure their survival, reproduction, and security.

The survival instinct is probably the most fundamental. From it arise many of the concerns that occupy a large part of human existence. The need for recognition, the pursuit of power, and the desire to possess more or distinguish oneself from others often originate in these deep mechanisms.

In this respect, human beings are very similar to animals.

Certain male birds build elaborate structures decorated with colorful stones and shiny objects. They hope to attract a female. When she approaches, they perform an elaborate courtship dance in an attempt to seduce her. The scene can be amusing.

Yet when we observe human societies, it is difficult not to recognize similar behaviors. Many people devote a large portion of their energy to acquiring the outward signs of success: social status, wealth, prestige, power, or material possessions.

We are often too quick to laugh at the birds.

Instincts play their role and contribute to the organization of life. They are not bad in themselves; if they exist, there is a reason for it. They become problematic only when they alone dictate behavior and cause us to forget other dimensions of the human spirit.

The survival instinct also gives rise to a territorial instinct. The desire to possess, control one’s environment, or protect what belongs to us stems from a legitimate need for security. But when this instinct becomes excessive, it fuels attachment, fear of loss, and difficulty living in harmony with others.

Human Beings Are More Than Flesh and Instincts

Yet human beings are not merely bodies animated by instincts. If they were, satisfying biological needs would be enough to make them completely happy. Experience shows that this is not the case.

Human intelligence itself seems to point toward another purpose. Certainly, it can be used to satisfy instincts of survival, reproduction, or domination. But it also possesses the ability to observe, understand, and transcend them. It is this capacity that opens the door to inner life.

Human beings aspire to happiness. Yet if the fulfillment of instincts were enough to achieve it, the richest, most powerful, or most admired people would also be the most inwardly fulfilled. Experience shows that this is not always so.

The Memory of the Soul

There exists within human beings a deeper aspiration.

Indian spiritual traditions affirm that the soul, purusha, retains the memory of its origin. Not a mental memory, but a natural attraction. It spontaneously recognizes peace, unity, and harmony because it has known them before and because they correspond to its deepest nature.

This is why ordinary satisfactions can bring genuine pleasure, but only for a limited time. They answer certain needs, yet they do not fulfill this deeper aspiration.

The problem of human beings is often confusion. They mix needs and desires. They also confuse the needs of the body with those of the soul.

Over the course of many incarnations, human beings gradually learn to distinguish these different levels. Little by little, they discover that some desires bring only temporary satisfaction, whereas deeper needs lead toward lasting peace.

This maturation of consciousness constitutes an important part of the spiritual path.

Fundamental Harmony

Fundamental harmony can be recognized in every area of life. We perceive it in balanced music, in a work of art that speaks to us, in a sincere relationship, in an unspoiled landscape, or in a meal prepared with love.

Wherever harmony manifests itself, something within us recognizes it spontaneously. Spirituality has given different names to this reality: Tao, Ṛta, cosmic order, or fundamental harmony.

When a person lives in accordance with this harmony, a particular kind of happiness appears. Not the fleeting excitement of a fulfilled desire, but a more stable, deeper, and more enduring peace.

Some call this state bliss. When consciousness rediscovers fundamental harmony, the Guidance of Grace becomes more evident and its action easier to recognize.

When actions become coherent with consciousness, when citta resonates with purusha, harmony ceases to be an idea and becomes a living experience.

This harmony is not merely a human aspiration. It is the mark of God's Purpose, of what Lao Tzu called “the virtue of the Tao.” It manifests wherever beings and things find their rightful place and proper measure.

It is this harmony that human beings have always been seeking. It is what lies hidden behind their search for happiness, peace, and meaning. It is what gives its true significance to the spiritual quest.

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