The Silent Companion

 

The message of eternity is very close to everybody’s heart. So close that it is not generally recognized. In the human heart there is a silent companion waiting to help in the search for it. But you have to trust in him. A report about a very personal relationship.

 

He was always with me. I do not remember when it started. In my memory this silent companion had been a part of myself. I had not previously experienced him as being separate from myself. It was not until the age of 19 that I learned he is not my own and that he can also leave me.

 

Forgotten and Lost

 

Immersed in the tough rhythm of shallow work, without thinking about the meaning of the things that I encountered, I did not notice his disappearance. Only when a friend with whom I used to discuss philosophy, wrote a letter in which he wanted to tell me more about Hermann Hesse – our favorite author at that time – did I realize that my inner companion, for whom Hesse’s words were meant, was gone. Although I understood what my friend said, there was no response to the words inside of me. It was suddenly dead inside.

 

I was afraid. For the first time in my life I felt lifeless in the heart. I called for my companion – and realized: He was not gone – but I had forgotten him, for so many weeks. He was mute because I had not searched for dialogue with him.

 

I never wanted him to leave him again in that way.

 

Accepted as a Companion

 

Since then I always have him with me. I did not always love him, he who urges me and who triggers a yearning in my breast. I have also not always recognized him. With many events in my life he wanted to show me something I did not understand, and he always gave me another chance. At some point he became my friend. I have accepted him as my silent companion. One who is always with me, who never abandons me and knows me better than I know myself.

 

With his urging, he has led me and yet I have often resisted because I thought I knew better where the compass of my life pointed to. It took a long time before I understood: The less I get involved, the better he can grow and breathe. The more he can breathe and grow, the more I can see my way and react to things in a way that had previously been unknown to me. For my companion allows me to understand people differently from how I would without him. He gives patience, humility, and often inner peace. He transforms me.

 

The Compass needle points Home

 

The yearning has faded since he has room in my heart. A new satisfaction with life awakened that I hat not known before. Not because everything in me is peaceful, but because the compass of my life no longer spins in circles. Through my companion, life was given a direction. Clear, simple and irrefutable. The compass needle points home – to his home. In this direction my companion has urged me from the beginning. He exists in a dimension to which I do not belong. An eternity to which I have no access.

 

But to get there, my companion needs me. He needs my decision to change my life and myself. My compass needle must point in his direction, otherwise he will fade again. He needs the love stream of God in which he can grow and flourish. And the more I follow the voice of my companion, the more I act in a way he appreciates and the stronger the love force flows. To this source of Light I carry him again and again, I take time for that – and my silent companion changes me. Slowly, very slowly.

 

A Touch of Eternity

 

It is a relief to become liberated of one’s own ego bit-by-bit, and sometimes I feel a sense of eternity in my own system. There are moments when the sky partially opens inside and a larger context momentarily enlightens my mind. This cannot be held, but leaves a clear and accurate impression on my mind. This memory helps when the compass needle is in danger of losing its direction during the struggle of daily life.

 

My silent companion has opened up a world for me that I can hardly consciously notice, but about which I know inside that it’s the real home. There he will go eventually because there is his true home. My companion will not leave me. He will take a piece of myself with him – the part which he has transformed.