8 Needs of the Soul

All people have needs. There are physical needs of food, clothing, shelter. There are emotional needs of nurturing, acceptance, esteem, and security. And there are mental needs of intellectual stimulation and the use of imagination. Underneath the physical, emotional and mental needs lies a longing for wholeness, for union. These longings go beyond the time and space we experience in our outer lives and dwell within the recesses of our soul.

When neglected, life seems flat leaving the individual searching for more. You can have all the clothes of the latest style you can imagine. You can live in the greatest of homes and eat the best of foods. Yet there is still a gnawing hunger inside. What the soul pines for is something the best of foods can’t satisfy. The most beautiful of clothes and rich jewels fade in the illumination shining within. The hungers and thirsts of the soul must be fed for life to have depth, meaning, and richness. They are what bring life to life.

The needs of the soul go beyond culture, time period, race, or sex. It doesn’t matter if you are a peasant in Japan in the 1600’s, a prince in Ethiopia in 1000 B.C., a pilgrim on the Mayflower or a world travelling executive today, the same inner urgings drive you to a sense of fulfillment. As the consciousness evolves there is a shift in how these needs are satisfied.

At this time we are evolving from Reasoning to Intuition and how these universal needs are satisfied is shifting. That means what is needed to prepare the individual for life is shifting. Parents and teachers are the ones to bring the fulfillment of these needs into the lives of children and young people, souls in growing bodies who have incarned in this life with something very important to be and give.

What are the needs of the soul in Reasoning and what are the needs of the soul in Intuition? First is the need for structure and order. There is an order in the Universe whether we are aware of it or not. And there is order that Man has created to make his world predictable and stable. I noticed this most profoundly one time while flying above the midwestern plains of Missouri and Iowa. As I looked down from the window there were perfect squares and rectangles separating fields and pastures from each other for as far as I could see. I was astounded at how perfectly straight and square the lines of the fields were. The meanderings of the rivers, irregular fingers against the even rows of horizontal and vertical lines, at first sight appeared to have no order to them at all. Yet the order of nature was being followed; water seeks its own level and therefore flows to the lowest points in the land’s surface. And there must be an order where these lowlands fall among the plains and hills of the lay of the land. What I saw is an order to our world and universe. There is the need for order as man superimposes his own order above the plan of nature.

When there is an order in our lives we are secure; we know what to expect. What brings us order is discipline and love. With Reasoning love is expressed from one person to another — parent-child, teacher-student, friend-friend and so on. The discipline in Reasoning is often reward and punishment as a way of training. As we move into Intuition, the direct grasp of Truth, we learn to resonate with higher standards by striving to become the ideals we imagine. The love of Truth, the love of the ideals causes discipline to come from within us rather than being administered from outside us.

Second there is a need for focus or vision. When you focus you have an aim, something to shoot for, like an archer aiming his bow at the target. Aspirations or ideals are examples of a visionary focus which cause your aim to be high and ever-expanding. A rudimentary form of focus is goals, either short term or long term. A visionary focus offers a structure around which your life is built. It relates to how you form your identity.

In Reasoning the focus is the career, raising a family, what you want to do with your life. You go through school to prepare to be a well-rounded person and good citizen, but also to prepare for a career. “What do you want to be when you grow up?” is a common question reasoning adults ask reasoning children. When these children think about what they want to be they think in terms of a career. This is a physical role they will follow whether it’s to be a nurse, banker, teacher, or computer programmer. It means an action that fits around a certain identity of profession. For example, if someone says they want to be a teacher they will do teaching in order to build an identity around what they think a teacher is. This is a physical orientation to life.

In Intuition the focus will be the assignment or mission in life, an inner part of you that you need to give. This is not something that you need to do, or a role you will play in society but something you need to be in everything you do. For example, you can be forthright or steadfast as a friend, a parent, a student, a lover, a professional and so on. The physical role or situation doesn’t limit your ability to express this quality. The answer to the question, “What do you want to be when you grow up?” will change to “What are you being?” The answer will be a quality of being such as patience, faith, joy, steadfastness, harmony.

The visionary focus is formed from ideals, something to aspire to, something for inspiration. In Reasoning that inspiration comes from people, places and things. Maybe there’s a person who truly inspires you that you want to be like, and you want to have some qualities like, or there’s a place you’ve been to that has a certain quality to it that you want to bring back to where you are. Or maybe there is an experience you have had that has changed your life, and you are a different person as a result of it.

With Intuition, we will be more aware of our inner urgings and the wisdom that lies within. That is not to say that we will no longer use our physical experiences for inspiration. We will, in fact, use them more for that purpose than ever before. The shift to an inner vision will come from the increasing desire for a direct grasp of Truth. Aspiring to know and live Truth is the catalyst for enlightenment and that means being a beacon of light for others.

Third there’s a need to learn. As we grow and mature we use our five senses to gather information through a variety of media. This can be by reading; it can be by a verbal explanation; it can be by watching, and so on.

Once the information is received the next step is to apply it in some sort of practical application. We cannot understand an idea until we have put it into a practical application in life. There must be a way to have an experience with the information, not to use it once, but many times and through a variety of mediums. Children naturally use a variety of experiences to understand the information they receive. They may pretend with their animals or dolls; they may draw a picture; they may make up a song or a story (see Soul’s Intention to Learn).

All people, no matter what their age, need a variety of experiences to understand a concept. The more experiences we give ourselves and the more we repeat the experiences, the greater the learning. The more one causes his or her learning the more control they have over it.

As we move from believing to knowing, experiencing becomes very important. Believing is accepting the information. It is a function of one or more of the five senses, the brain and the conscious mind. Saying “I know that” when we have only accepted the information without the experience is a fallacy. Accepting information is the first stage of learning. Those who are reaching for completing Reasoning and embarking upon Intuition want to experience it for themselves in order to know. Applying the information is what births knowing, through experiencing over and over again in a variety of situations and circumstances. The direct grasp of Truth comes from an inner knowing.

To truly understand and gain wisdom the experiencing continues through producing with it in some way and then teaching. After a certain point, the way that you learn the most is through giving what you understand to be true, so you teach it. And again, you don’t teach it just once, you teach it many times to many people. By experiencing, producing, and teaching you find the universality of the idea — that it works not only in your life in many areas but in many people’s lives in many areas.

The fourth need is to belong, to be connected to something greater than the self. In Reasoning, the sense of belonging is with family and the lineage of the family, culture, country and so on. It is a belonging to something physical like clubs and organizations, churches, and school teams. As we move into Intuition, the sense of belonging becomes more expanded where you see that you are part of and belong to the planet, solar system and universe There’s also a belonging inside, that we are all spirit and come from the same spiritual parents, that home is not a physical place but a sense of peace inside that is rooted, solid and stable.

The fifth need is to create and to give. I think of creating and giving as synonymous. A true creation is a gift to the world. In reasoning the focus is the object of your creation. What is it you are creating? This is the result or product of the action of creating. These are ways we can give and create in a physical way. With Intuition the shift is toward the process and purpose of the creation. The process of creation becomes more important than the actual result of the creation. How do you create? What are the steps of creation? How do you unfold as you create? The purpose reflects who you become as you create and how you are transformed through your creative acts.

Sixth is the need for silence, reflection and contemplation. With Reasoning, that’s accomplished through prayer, through meditation, through thoughtfulness. And with the Intuition it is more going into the silence, having a real experience of stillness and the silence, having a still mind even in the midst of activity. A still mind means you can have the direct grasp of Truth at any time which is what Intuition is.

The seventh need is the need for fulfillment which relates to sacrificing your energies to something greater than yourself. With Reasoning this is reflected in having a family so we have offspring to continue a bloodline. Earlier in this phase of evolution it was important to pass on the family name, to have many children so your lineage would continue past your generation thus giving something physical to the world. In wars people sacrifice their lives for something that’s important to them to protect their country or to protect an ideal. That’s why people fight wars. (That may not be the reason that wars are started and why people declare wars, but that is usually the reason why people fight the wars.) With Intuition you are sacrificing your ego in service to humanity. You recognize that your thoughts, your actions, your words penetrate the universe. They reverberate and have an effect everywhere. There’s a greater sense of responsibility with what you do and the way you think.

These inner hungers must be fed through a young person’s life. Adults have a deep and joyous responsibility to feed the souls of those around them by offering structure and order, directing the focus and giving a vision, offering a variety of learning experiences, making a place to create and give thus giving them a place to belong, creating a space for reflection and contemplation. When these are given young people will reach for fulfillment and their souls will be fed, producing much happiness and well-being, progress and evolution on our planet. When all are present peace, contentment and security flourish.

Dr. Pamela Blosser has dedicated her life to teaching in a variety of fields from camp counselor to English as a second language to meditation. In 1977 she graduated with honors from the Montessori Training Center in England. Dr. Blosser presently resides at World Headquarters of the School of Metaphysics with her husband Paul where she is a faculty member and director of the College Preparatory Camp for children.

©2002 School of Metaphysics