The Eight Core Needs of Eros Are Emergent from the New Universe Story and the New Narrative of Identity
Part Six of an Early Draft of an Essay on "Beyond Maslow: The Eight Core Needs of CosmoErotic Humanism"
As we noted above, all the eight core Eros Needs are central to the new narrative of identity, which itself is a corollary of the New Universe Story. The new human is Homo amor. To be Homo amor is to be a Unique Self in an evolutionary context—or Evolutionary Unique Self. To be a Unique Self is to be a unique configuration of the evolutionary Eros that is needed by All-That-Is.
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This is the sixth part of an early draft of the essay “Beyond Maslow: The Eight Core Needs of CosmoErotic Humanism” by Dr. Marc Gafni.
For citing, this is the appropriate citation: “Beyond Maslow: The Eight Core Needs of CosmoErotic Humanism” by Dr. Marc Gafni and link to the essay on our website.
»Find a List of All the Parts of This Essay HERE«
A later version of it will be part of the forthcoming The Universe: A Love Story series, The Phenomenology of Eros: Meditations on the New Narrative of Desire, as well as other forthcoming books. The essay was edited and prepared for publication by Kerstin Tuschik. We welcome substantive feedback as we prepare a more advanced version of this essay.
It is worthwhile, then, to pause for a moment and briefly recapitulate the New Universe Story, its derivative narrative of identity, and the core definition of Eros, and from that place return to the eight core needs.[1]
The crucial developmental truth is that the Eros Needs, both the need for Eros, the personal significance needs, and the final Eros Need—the need for transformation and growth—resonate and mean something entirely different in the context of a skin-encapsulated separate-self ego—Homo sapiens—than they do in the context of an Evolutionary Unique Self—Homo amor—who locates her story as chapter and verse in the larger Love Story of the Universe.
The needs to be intended, recognized, chosen, love-adored, desired, and needed simply mean something entirely different at the separate-self, materialist level of self than they do at the Unique Self, Amorous Cosmos level of self.
Here are the bare bones of the new Universe Story of Value that is the core of CosmoErotic Humanism. Reality is Eros all the way up and all the way down the evolutionary chain. We live in a CosmoErotic Universe, and the CosmoErotic Universe lives in us. The CosmoErotic Universe means that the Universe is not merely a fact but a story, an evolving story, in which we participate. Eros is the inter-animating Eros of both being and becoming. Eros is not only the interior, experiential quality of eternal presence but of evolutionary unfolding. Evolution implies telos, direction, plotline, and story. The Eros of evolution is going somewhere. That is the implication of evolution, disclosing that Reality is a story. To realize that Reality is animated by Eros is to understand that the Universe is not an ordinary story but a love story, a tale of Evolutionary Eros, an Evolutionary Love story, an Outrageous Love Story.
Remember our equation of Eros:
Eros = the experience of radical aliveness seeking, desiring, ever-deeper contact (read: intimacy) and ever-larger wholes or wholeness.
This transformative movement of Eros is the growth trajectory of Cosmos and of every individual expression of Cosmos, including human beings. In human beings, this erotic vector moves from unconscious to Conscious Evolution.
This takes us to the next step, which is the narrative of identity, the heart of which is Unique Self Theory. Again, the new narrative of identity itself is a direct corollary of our New Universe Story.
So here is our recapitulation of the narrative of identity:
Who Are You?
You are Homo amor. To be Homo amor means to be the Universe: A Love Story in person.
To be the Universe: A Love Story in person means that:
You are an irreducibly unique expression of the LoveIntelligence, LoveBeauty, and LoveDesire that is the initiating and animating Eros and energy of All-That-Is, which lives in you, as you, and through you, that never was, is, or will be ever again other than through you.
You are a unique configuration of the evolutionary Eros. The evolutionary Eros awakens personally and consciously in you, as you, and through you. As such, you have an irreducibly unique perspective; you have an irreducibly unique quality of intimacy as well as an irreducibly unique configuration of desire. This trinity of Eros—unique perspective, desire, and intimacy—comes together to activate your unique gift, which in turn empowers you to address a unique need in your unique circle of intimacy and influence that can be addressed by you and you alone—in the particular way that you are uniquely able to address it. To address that unique need is your unique calling—it is the erotic joy and responsibility of your life. In giving your unique gift, you awaken as the leading edge of evolution; you incarnate a unique quality of the evolutionary Eros, or what we often term Evolutionary Love. You become the personal face of Conscious Evolution.
You are the personal face of evolutionary Eros. As such, your personal story is a love story. And your personal love story is an ultimately significant chapter and verse in the Universe: A Love Story. Your transformation is the leading growth edge of Reality’s transformation. Your transformation is the transformation of the whole.[2] Your transformation participates in transforming the whole. You are the personal incarnation of the leading edge of evolution.
When we wake up to the realization that we are personally implicated in the Love Story of Reality, that our unique personal Eros is the Eros of evolution seeking deeper contact and greater wholeness through us, we awaken as chapter and verse in the Universe: A Love Story. We realize that our Eros is implicit in, and in no way separate from, the Eros of Reality. Our sacred autobiography, which is our unique personal love story, is part of the narrative arc of the Universe: A Love Story. This is the realization of Homo amor.
In this precise and potent sense, the New Universe Story and its corollary narrative of identity are essential keys to the evolutionary emergence of a new human and a new humanity, or Homo amor, the next evolutionary leap after Homo sapiens.
[The essay continues below.]
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Personal Significance Needs Are Not Dependent on Specific Relationships
Remember that personal significance needs themselves are a form of the meta-need for Eros. These personal significance needs cannot be met by the narrow fulfillment of a structurally isolated, and therefore non-erotic, separate-self relationship. It is only when the separate-self relationship participates in the larger Eros of Reality that personal significance is addressed.
But it is even deeper than that. Personal significance must ultimately be met by the inherent realities of Cosmos, rooted in the most accurate Universe Story and narrative of identity, and not dependent on any single relationship. In other words, what is absolutely key to understand is that these seven needs are not met only, or even primarily, in a particular intersubjective context; their fulfillment is not dependent on a particular person, or group, or community. Rather, all the seven core needs are met in the essential self-recognition of Evolutionary Unique Self: Homo amor. Paradoxically, it is the fulfillment of these core Eros Needs outside of a particular relationship that directly and positively enacts our capacity for intensely beautiful, committed, specific, personal love relationships.
With this larger context in heart, mind, and body, let’s now turn to the personal significance needs.
Turning to the First Six of the Seven Personal Significance Needs
Let’s look at each one of the core needs. The complete list of eight post-Maslow Eros Needs is:
1. the meta need for Eros,
followed by the seven personal significance needs,
2. the need to be intended and to intend,
3. the need to be chosen and to choose,
4. the need to be recognized and to recognize,
5. the need to be love-adored to love-adore,
6. the need to be desired and to desire,
7. the need to be needed and to need,
8. the need to transform.
Let’s now turn to needs two through seven. These are the first six of the seven personal significance needs. The seventh is the need to transform—to grow—is also a personal significance need, which we will treat separately because it has unique qualities not shared by the other six.
The First Six Personal Significance Needs Must Be Mediated by Eros: Not by Ordinary Love But by Evolutionary Love—Outrageous Love
All these needs, however, need to be met not merely through a romantic separate-self beloved but by Cosmos itself. Let’s take but one of the personal significance needs, to recognize and be recognized, and play out the implications of this previous sentence. In other words, it is structurally insufficient to merely be recognized, in some limited psychological fashion, by one’s romantic separate-self beloved, or even by a group of separate-self beloveds, whether romantic or platonic.
We need to be personally recognized by Cosmos itself. The recognition by Cosmos can and should, however, be mediated, at least in part, through the recognition of the beloved. But not merely the beloved—whose love is mediated by what we have called ordinary love. Rather, the beloved who addresses the need to be recognized, which is core to our deepest selves, must be a transparent prism for Eros or Outrageous Love—or what we have also called Evolutionary Love.
In this very precise sense, spoken in more religion language, the eyes of the beloved become the Eyes of God. And just like we need to be recognized through the eyes of Outrageous Love, we need to recognize the other through the same Eyes. In effect, to be an Outrageous Lover is to see through God’s Eyes—or said slightly defiantly, to let God see through our eyes. When we invoke the Eros of Cosmos in each of the six personal significance needs below:
to be intended by Cosmos,
to be chosen by Cosmos,
to be recognized by Cosmos,
to be love-adored by Cosmos,
to be desired by Cosmos,
to be needed by Cosmos
or in the other direction,
to intend as Cosmos,
to choose as Cosmos,
to recognize as Cosmos,
to love-adore as Cosmos,
to desire as Cosmos,
to need as Cosmos,
we are referring to the human being acting and being met, as an expression of the Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself—that which is ultimately Real—in all six personal significance needs.
The Need to Be Intended and to Intend
Every human being needs to be intended—personally intended.
We do not want to be an afterthought.
We do not want to be a result of chance attraction.
On the personal human level, for example, the more intention that goes into a present chosen for us, the more moved we are by the present. The more the present seems to be a careless gesture lacking specific intention, the less moving it is to us.
But we need to be personally intended not only on the human level, but by Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself. And the Eros of Cosmos is mediated, at least in part, through the beloved.
At the same time, we have a need to intend, to be intentional in relationship to ourselves, to others, and to Reality, all of which are our intended beloveds. And we need that our personal intention towards others be not just an expression of our separate selves, but rather our intention towards others must participate in the intentional Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself. And in this precise sense, all others are the intended beloved.
The Need to Be Chosen and to Choose
Every human being needs to be chosen—personally chosen.
But not only to be chosen; we need to be chosen first. For example, I (Marc) was not a great athlete in elementary school. I was generally chosen last or second-to-last for every sport. I can still access that experience in my body today. My unfulfilled fantasy was to be chosen number one. We all have a fundamental need to be chosen.
But our need is to be personally chosen, and chosen first, not just by our beloved other, but by the Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself. And the Eros of Cosmos is mediated, at least in part through the beloved.
At the same time, we have a need to choose and to choose first. We need to feel the power of our choosing and the gift and delight that it bestows. We choose ourselves, we choose others, and we choose Reality, each in specific and unique ways. And we need to know that our choice for the beloved in our lives participates in the choice for the beloved made by the Eros of Cosmos itself. And the Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself—is mediated, at least in part, through the beloved. And in that precise sense, all others are the chosen beloved.
The Need to Be Recognized
Every human being has a need to be recognized as their Unique Self—personally recognized.
We need to know that we are irreducibly special. We need to feel like we are seen and heard in our specialness. There is little as painful as our Unique Self being invisible or systematically mis-recognized. But it is structurally insufficient to merely be recognized, in some limited psychological fashion, by one romantic separate-self beloved, or even by a group of separate-self beloveds, were they romantic or platonic. We need to be personally recognized by the Eros of Cosmos—by Reality itself. The recognition by Cosmos can and should however be mediated, at least in part, through the recognition of the beloved. In religious language, as we evoked just above, to be a lover is to see through God’s Eyes.
We also have a need to exercise our capacity to recognize ourselves, others, and the world, and to liberate all three through the force of our recognition. And we need to know that our recognition of the beloved participates in Reality’s recognition of the beloved. Just like we need to be recognized through the Eyes of Outrageous Love, we need to recognize the other through the same Eyes. In effect, to be an Outrageous Lover is to see through God’s Eyes. Or said slightly differently, to let God see through your eyes. In that precise sense, all others are the recognized beloved.
The Need to Be Desired
Every human being needs to be desired—personally desired.
The experience of being desired arouses our Eros and awakens our aliveness at the core. We need to be desired, not only on the human level, by one or multiple human beings—we need to know we are desired by the Eros of Cosmos itself. And the Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself—is mediated, at least in part, though the desire of our beloved.
At the same time, we have a need to desire. We need to desire ourselves, our beloveds, and life itself. And we need to know that our desire for others participates in the Desire of the very Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself—for others. And in this precise sense, all others are the desired beloved.
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The Need to Be Loved and Adored and to Love-Adore
Every human being needs to be loved and adored—personally loved and adored.
Love is the feeling tone of delight that arises from being intended, recognized, chosen, desired, and needed. Adoration is an intensification of love. We need to know that we are loved and adored—not only by one or more human beloveds—we need to know that we are loved and adored by the Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself.
At the same time, we need to love and adore ourselves, our beloveds, and life itself, and that our love and adoration of others participates in the love and adoration of Cosmos—of Reality itself—for others. And in this precise sense, all others are the adored beloved.
The Need to Be Needed
Every human being needs to be needed—personally needed.
The feeling that we are an extra on the set robs our existence of its potency, passion, and poignancy. We need to be needed in ways that matter. But we need to be needed, not only by the separate-self beloved. We need to know that we are needed by the Eros of Cosmos itself—of Reality itself.
At the same time, we need to feel that our authentic needs will be honored and met, not humiliated and shamed—but not only by the personal beloved. We need to experience the dignity and even Divinity of our needs as sourced in the Eros of Cosmos—of Reality itself.
All of these personal significance needs are both distinct and yet inter-included with each other. When all these human needs are met, we feel radically alive and profoundly valuable, two of the most wondrous feelings in the world. When these needs are not met, we experience a fundamental deadening and devaluation of self.
The Last Personal Significance Need: The Need to Transform—to Grow
We now turn to the final personal significance need—the eighth of the eight core Eros needs. This need is different in quality, in that it is not intersubjective. It is not about being intended, recognized, chosen, desired, adored, or needed (by others). It is rather about a need for movement from within.
This is the movement of growth, or what we sometimes refer to as transformation. When we stagnate, we lose our sense of value. We feel like we do not matter in the same way. Our experience of growth and personal transformation is essential to our innate sense of personal significance.
In growing and transforming we become more. We might run faster, become more loving, become kinder, or more attentive, or more skillful. But as we will see, to transform is not merely to become more but to transform in a way that an entirely new sense of self—a new identity—emerges. For example, you might not only love more deeply, but your deepening and expanding love literally makes you a different person than you were before.
At every stage of life, every human being needs to grow. It is an absolute human need that cannot be denied without the essential degradation of the person. That we need to grow both physically and psychologically has been long recognized. But the underlying need is to constantly transform and uplevel our identity. For a period, this takes place physically. But the core trajectory of human growth is the Eros of interior transformation.
It is not, however, enough to grow personally as a separate-self human being. We must know that the most accurate description of Cosmos itself is as a series of transformations.
In other words,
Evolution is a series of transformations.
Human transformation is but an expression of the trajectory of Cosmos itself towards ever-deeper transformation.
In this sense, we can say with full scientific accuracy that human transformation participates in Cosmic transformation. In its penultimate expression, this means that human transformation participates in the transformation of God.
This is the realization of our ontic identity with the Divine. This ontic identity lives both as the realization of True Self and as the realization of Evolutionary Unique Self. This is an expression of the transformation of the Divine through the self-line of development. It might also be expressed, in the moral line of development, as cosmocentric consciousness and intimacy. Remember that intimacy means shared identity. Shared identity, and consciousness, with Cosmos is a quality of Divinity.
The Growth of Interior Transformation
The growth of interior transformation includes three major dimensions, modes, or vectors of ever-increasing Eros. The three dimensions are the ever-deepening and widening of
1) Identity,
2) Gnosis (Knowledge), and
3) Capacity.
Three Forms of the Growth of Identity
It is super valuable to be able to identify each of these three dimensions or modes of transformational growth—identity, gnosis, and capacity.
We will first turn to the first mode—growth of identity expresses itself in three core vectors:
1) The transformation of identity,
2) The widening of identity, and
3) The intensification of Eros.
Before we go any further, however, it is crucial to understand that all three modes, dimensions, and vectors of transformational growth, and each of their specific dimensions, all interanimate each other. They are all inter-included.
For example, two dimensions of growth in identity include the widening of identity and the intensification of identity, which are also transformations of identity in some very real sense. However, by cultivating discernment around each of the dimensions we get a much clearer realization of the depth and breadth of the Eros of growth.
One: The Eros of the Transformation of Identity
The transformation of identity expresses itself in multiple transformational growth vectors. We will name but three of them here:
1) False Self,
2) Shadow Qualities Work, and
3) Unique Shadow Work.
False Self
First, we grow by straightening out the parts of ourselves that are crooked. This often includes stepping out of our false core, which we might express as a sentence. That sentence could be:
I am not worthy.
I am not enough.
I am not safe.
I will always be alone.
I am too much.
By stepping out of the false core sentence, we align with a more accurate sense of our identity.[3] This is the work of moving beyond the false-self version of our selves. The false-self work, in this classical form, takes place at the level of separate self. We can inhabit a healthy separate self or a broken separate self. The latter is what we are calling the False Self.[4]
Shadow Qualities Work
Second, we grow by including and integrating the split-off parts of ourselves that we would rather not see. This is what we refer to- in other writings, as shadow qualities work. Shadow qualities are not actual shadow. Shadow itself is the process by which we take our light and place it into shadow. Our light is, in multiple traditions, understood as our unique configuration of Eros, our unique frequency of light. In the Hebrew wisdom lineage, for example, light is sapir (which is the source for the English word sapphire). Sapir is the blue light that, in multiple lineages, incarnates or symbolizes Unique Self. Sapir is intimately related to or participatory with two other core Hebrew roots.
The first is sefer—book—as in our book of life, and sippur—story—as in our unique life story. Shadow at its core is when we take the luminosity of our unique light and place it into darkness. It can only do so when we claim our split-off unique luminosity.
That light, or luminosity—our Unique Self—is desperate to emerge from the shadows. The light of our split-off Unique Self struggles to attract our attention. It does so by acting out in myriad forms, from addiction to abuse, to jealousies, to pettiness, to contraction, to entitlement, to victimhood, to rage, and the list goes on.
Our shadow qualities are of course exasperated by lies we tell ourselves (and everyone else) about ourselves. We split off parts of our behaviors, motivations, and actions that we disown or simply fail to be aware of. To grow, we need to tell the truth about ourselves.
The truth about us, however, is not a noun but a verb. It is in the de-nominalization of self—in the realization that we are verbs—Divinity in motion—yearning to scream the Name of God that is the foundation of any authentic shadow work. Our mistaken identity as being static nouns is, however, not only a psychological fallacy but an ontological fallacy as well. We are not merely facts. We are—quite literally—stories, evolving stories, of Divinity in motion, in constant states of transformation. Our story-like nature, our lives as a series of transformation, is the truth of our exterior and interior realities.
That we make mistakes is a given. Life does not present a path of no mistakes as a genuine option. But there are two things that we can do.
First, we can direct our hearts to make mistakes in the right direction, constantly spiraling towards wholeness. The spiral image is crucial because it is neither line nor circle. The spiral is the arc of the love story, circling around again and again, and yet pointing towards wholeness.
Second, we can make new mistakes. In the interior science of the Hebrew wisdom, there is an aphorism:
The righteous one is the one who makes new mistakes.
Meaning, we turn our circles into spirals, healing one mistake, and making new ones.
It is only from this Ground of Being and Becoming that we can be open to receiving what are often emotionally difficult truths about ourselves about our current way of being. This is the shadow work, which is crucial to the second transformation of identity.
Unique Self Shadow Work: Luminous Shadow
Third, we embrace the split-off parts of ourselves that are too wondrous to believe, until we check the facts of the interior and exterior sciences. This is not the classical shadow but what might be called the luminous shadow.
This begins, as we noted above with debunking the lie of being a merely separate self or skin-encapsulated ego. We explode the lie of the ego’s contraction and recognize our fundamental identity with All-That-Is. This is the momentous leap of growth from separate self to True Self.
We need to recognize that we are an emergent of the larger Field of Existence, including all its exterior and interior dimensions. But that is not all. We are not merely True Self.
We need to transform into our realization of Unique Self. We are an irreducibly unique emergent of the entire Field of Existence. But that is also not all.
We need to transform ever-more deeply and locate our Unique Selves in a larger evolutionary context. This is the momentous leap of growth from Unique Self to Evolutionary Unique Self. But even this is not the end of our growth.
We need, as Evolutionary Unique Selves, to take our place in the Unique Self Symphony. This means that we are called—we need—to give our unique gifts in our unique circles of intimacy and influence. We are called—we need—to awaken as the personal face of the evolutionary impulse. We are called—we need—to realize that I and the evolutionary impulse are uniquely one; and we are called to live from that activated realization.
All of this is integral to the human need to grow into the Eros of our core identity.
Two: The Eros of the Widening of Identity
The transformative movement from separate self to True Self to Unique Self to Evolutionary Unique Self, participating in Unique Self Symphony, is one essential trajectory in the growth vector of the transformation from Homo sapiens to Homo amor. But to be Homo amor, participating in the Planetary Awakening in Love through Unique Self Symphonies and synergies, always requires a second trajectory of growth: the widening of identity and the intensification of love, both of which generate their own transformations of identity.
The widening of identity is also a developmental trajectory, but in an entirely different sense—a growth through structural stages of consciousness. One of myriad expressions of this kind of growth takes place in the ethical line of development. For example, the human being moves from a felt sense of love, care, and concern for themselves, family, and perhaps a very small circle of friends or partners (egocentric intimacy) to a wider circle of felt love, care, and concern for their entire community or tribe (ethnocentric intimacy) or society as a whole (sociocentric intimacy), to an even wider circle of felt love, care, and concern, which includes every human being on the planet (worldcentric intimacy), to an even wider circle of felt love, care, and concern which includes every sentient being on the planet and all of manifest and unmanifest Reality in the process of evolution (cosmocentric intimacy). This is a growth in love through distinct structural stages of intimacy and consciousness, from egocentric all the way to cosmocentric.
Notice we use intimacy and consciousness together, for intimacy and the desire for ever-deepening intimacy is the interior feeling of consciousness. The evolution, as a person or collective, into ever-wider circles of felt love, care, and concern (until the evolutionary process itself is included in the circle) is a core growth need of the human being.
The widening of identity and the transformation of identity are not separate from each other. Remember our equation of intimacy:
Intimacy = Shared Identity x Mutuality of Recognition x Mutuality of Pathos x Mutuality of Purpose
At this juncture, we are focusing on the first part of the equation—intimacy as the level of shared identity. The widening of identity—from ego- to ethno- to world- to cosmocentric—is, in effect, a transformation of identity. Widening the circle of love and intimacy co-arises with the transformation of identity.[5]
Three: The Eros of the Intensification of Love
The intensification of identity takes place at whatever level of identity one inhabits. That may be the identity of separate self, Unique Self, or Evolutionary Unique Self. Within that level of identity, the quality of love and intimacy intensifies. That intensification is a growth of love.
This growth through intensification, like the growth of identity through widening and transformation, is a core human need. When we profoundly intensify our capacity as a lover or beloved, people tend to remark that we seem like a different person. And they are not wrong. In the true intensification of love, we literally transform our identity as well.
Apotheosis: The Ontic Identity of Wills—The Ultimate Transformation
In all three of these forms of identity transformation, from separate self to Evolutionary Unique Self, and the widening and deepening of identity, which we just described, the circle of human identity expands to include Spirit. This is what has been termed apotheosis—the human being is revealed to be participatory in the Divine. The human being is transformed into embodied Spirit—a spirit being whose Essence is Outrageous Love having a human experience.
Growing New Capacities
The second dimension or mode of growth expresses itself as the deepening or development of all kinds of skills, whether that be exterior skill development in engineering or body building, for instance, or the interior growth of meditative capacity or interpersonal awareness.
Growth in any capacity, along any of the myriad lines of human development, is a core human need.
Gnosis: To Grow Is to Know and to Know More Deeply
The third mode or form of growth is not in terms of a specific capacity or skill but a growth in gnosis itself. This might mean growth along the intellectual, psychological, spiritual, or existential lines of gnosis. This includes knowing, in the deepest way possible, the nature of Reality and Self even as we honor the depths of the mystery—the unknowable.
To know is to know your true nature:
Who are you and what do you desire?
And the nature of your true function:
What is it and how does it work?
This is true, whether we speak of the true nature of Self, relationship, a technological creation, society, or any other of Reality’s myriad expressions.
All three of these dimensions or modes of growth—in identity, in skill or capacity, and in gnosis—in all their expressions are part of the eighth core human need: the need to grow. All these needs, however, are part of the larger set of core needs, which we have called Eros Needs.
Your Need Is My Allurement: From Egocentric to Cosmocentric and from Separate Self to Evolutionary Unique Self as Expressions of Homo amor—The New Narrative of Identity
At this point, the new post-Maslow theory of needs emerges directly from the New Universe Story and the new narrative of identity. It is clear that the widening and deepening of identity takes place in a fundamental way through two growth lines: self and moral. By moral, we mean love, care, concern, and commitment.
But it is also the case that these two growth trajectories overlap at certain key nexus points, particularly at their apex (apotheosis). At the apex of both vectors, moral growth meets the growth of self;[6] Evolutionary Unique Self is animated by cosmocentric intimacy.
This growth trajectory is a fundamental human need—the need for a human being to transcend the narrow identity of separate self into Evolutionary Unique Self—or Homo sapiens transforming into Homo amor.
The Evolution of the Need to Be Needed
Here is the elegant beauty of the divine human heart; the experience of the sixth personal significance need—the need to be needed—changes in a fundamental way as well.
At the level of egocentric, separate self, the need to be needed extends to our egocentric circle of relationship, i.e., when the people in our egocentric circle need us, we fulfill this core need to be needed.
But in the evolution of consciousness along the self-trajectory and the moral trajectory, our need to be needed deepens and expands. We need to be needed by ever-wider circles of people until, at the level of cosmocentric consciousness and intimacy, we have a need to be needed by evolution itself. We need to identify with the evolutionary impulse awakening in us personally and realize, as a core human need, that Reality itself needs our service.
All Eight Core Eros Needs Are Inter-Animated
As one would expect in a Universe constructed from systems of interconnected and intimate coherence, all human Eros Needs are inter-animated.
They are different facets of the same diamond. They are all distinct, even as they are inter-included with each other. At the same time, the first six core needs for personal significance are prerequisites for the seventh personal significance need (and capacity) to grow. And yet, the need to grow animates and drives the other personal significance needs, as each personal significance need has a need to grow and transform in its depth and clarity.
And all seven of the personal significance needs are an expression of the core need for Eros, for radical aliveness, which is always, in all ways, seeking and desiring ever-deeper contact and ever-greater wholeness.[7]
Footnotes
[1] We are of course aware that we sketched some of this material in the section above, and of course earlier in this volume. But we feel the need to recapitulate briefly here not for purely informational purposes but for avocational purposes, as practice, as part of the Eros of pedagogy. We trust that it will be easier for you, dear reader, just as it is for us, to sense the deeper Eros Needs, when you are emerging directly from this brief meditation recapitulating the New Universe Story and narrative of identity.
[2] From the perspective of True Self, you are not only indivisible from the whole, in some sense, you contain the whole within yourself.
[3] On this form of growth, see Gafni, “Identifying & Transforming Your False Self” here https://www.marcgafni.com/identifying-transforming-your-false-self/.
[4] There is a second usage of the term False Self, which we have also deployed in other writing, in which the separate self itself is the false self—simply because it gives us false information about our true identity, limiting that identity to be a skin-encapsulated ego.
[5] This is a way of talking about the widening of identity through the prism of the moral line of development. We can also talk about the widening of identity through the prism of the self-line of development. This is the widening of identity from separate self to True Self to Unique Self to Evolutionary Unique Self.
[6] See Miller, Melvin E., and Susanne R. Cook-Greuter, eds., Transcendence and mature thought in adulthood: The further reaches of adult development. Rowman & Littlefield, 1994.
[7] We have also distinguished between three kinds of needs: survival needs, affective needs, and developmental or growth needs—even though, at least in their extremes, these three are all survival needs. If a child does not receive any affection at all, it dies. And there is reason to believe that, if a human being doesn’t have any hope to fulfill their growth needs in the future, they die as well. But needs can also be understood as physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, psychological, and existential [growth] needs. We have a core need to grow in the unique contours of our Unique Self and to give our unique gifts. In their most evolved expression, however, all of these needs are but different faces of the same core need—the need for Unique Self and Evolutionary Unique Self Realization. This is the realization of Homo amor. To grow into Homo amor is our core need both personally and collectively.