There is a very old idea that, as best can be determined, comes to us from the days of the early Christian Desert Fathers. In six concise words it touches upon a certain fact of human nature that even volumes of books would prove unable to express any better: "Fish swim, birds fly... man prays."
In other words, it's the nature of fish to glide through water, for birds to soar through open skies, because they are at home there. Sea and sky, accordingly, are the worlds of their origin, where they belong, the place they are free. But where is our true home? What is the nature of that place where our original self is one with its longing to explore its own deepest possibilities, and where discovering the treasures waiting there is the same as fulfilling our purpose for being? What world is there for us where our essential nature -- and its right to live free -- is one and the same?
We're granted a quick glimpse of this secret destination in these spirit-filled lines from American poet Walt Whitman's classic work, Leaves of Grass.
Would you sound below the restless ocean of the entire world? Would you know the dissatisfaction? the urge and spur of every life; the something never still'd -- never entirely gone? the invisible need of every seed? It is the central urge in every atom to return to its divine source and origin, however distant.
In the first of these four lines, we're asked a vital question: is there a part of us that longs to know -- that's willing to seek out -- what lies hidden just beneath the thought-tossed surface of ourselves? If our answer is "Yes," then Mr. Whitman goes on to suggest what awaits us there in that great, undiscovered country of our innermost Self. In summary, he asks: Are we willing to bear -- to share in the being of an unceasing creation -- to embody what he calls "the invisible need of every seed"? And then, for those who still affirm their wish to drink from that eternal cup of life, he pours out the rest. We learn, at once, why seekers of all ages have always felt this "central urge" to merge with the highest part of themselves: we are called... to "return to our divine source and origin."
No natural need can exist without that which has been created to directly answer it. This feeling of attraction that we have -- whether to take a drink of water or connect with the world above us -- is proof of the existence of two parties. First, is the part of us that feels this draw, and then there is by necessity something acting upon us to create the longing itself. As paradoxical as it may seem, if we are moved to seek the Divine, it's because the Divine is calling us! And just as a small filing of iron must fly to the magnet that pulls upon it, so too must those who are drawn to the Divine eventually answer its call.