relationships, connection, connectivity, communion, creativity, synergy, source, greatness, source of greatness, ongoing evolutionary development, psychology, creative arts, peak experience, peak experiencing, peak performing, peak performance, entelechy, I-Thou relationship, I-It relationship, Martin Buber, Abraham Maslow, Erich Fromm, Jean Houston, Lynne McTaggart, GWF Hegel, philosophy of history, Phenomenology of Spirit, purposive evolution, evolution of consciousness, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Sri Aurobino, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, The Little Prince, le Petit Prince

I find, based on intuitively observing myself and other people, that the best kind of creative insight, inspiration, and productive performance, in any field of endeavor, comes from communing deeply with other life presences, in heartfelt, open-minded, responsively caring, empathic attunement with them. The more deeply we invest our heart, mind, and senses, in communion with other life presences, experiences, and activities, in the world, the more does the energy-heart core of our own individual and relational being become stirred or “magnetically” amplified through that relational connection. That relational amplification of our individual energy field is the source of enhanced powers of perception and performance, as the basis of true greatness, vitality, creative insight, inspiration, and productivity in any area of endeavor. Our productive work activities, and, indeed, our entire life, can become a truly beautiful artistic expression, or an expression of heart-fullness (wholeheartedness), when we permit the connective energy of heartfelt empathic communion, genuine caring, or true love to flow through us and magnetically amplify or “turn on” the core of our own individual being. See similar concepts (compatible with my view, expounded in this article, of intimate communion as a source of productive or creative insight) by other prominent philosophers and psychologists, such as, Abraham Maslow’s concept of Peak Experience,¹ the concept of flow as a psychological basis of peak experience and peak performance as described by Mihály Csíkszentmihályi and other psychologists and scholars,² Martin Buber’s view of the I-Thou Relationship,³ and Erich Fromm’s concept of The Art of Loving.⁴

Deeply investing our whole being in heartfelt communion with anyone or anything functions like a bridge of connection, between our individual conscious attention, as knower, and any object of knowledge that we encounter in that way. That kind of fully invested, fully “present,” caring, empathic, intimate/non-distancing communion enables our conscious attention and feeling energy to incisively penetrate through the surface appearance of other individuals and phenomena that we encounter, and thereby contact their numinous, luminous, inner being or sacred living energy presence shining, radiating, or manifesting in and through their visible outer appearance. That kind of incisively penetrating experiential contact, arising from unreservedly investing our whole being in communion, produces profoundly illuminating, insightful, understanding and inspiring appreciation of whoever or whatever we commune with. When individual hearts or energy centers resonate in deeply invested attunement with each other, they amplify each other, like magnets, releasing the co-creative process of synergy, like electricity flowing only when an electrical plug and socket, or positive and negative electrical poles, are connected to one another.

The Cambridge online dictionary defines synergy as:

“The combined power of a group of things when they are working together that is greater than the total power achieved by each working separately:

“Team work at its best results in a synergy that can be very productive.”⁵

However, as long as the heart, or the energy feeling center level of our being, remains egocentrically, narcissistically, selfishly, self-absorbed, or self-possessed, we will be able to make only rather shallow contact with others, with only the superficial levels of our awareness. Without heartfelt communion, the mind and senses, by themselves alone, can contact, understand, and appreciate, only rather superficial aspects of reality, and provide only a relatively shallow, mechanical, lifeless, stale, mode of functioning in the creative arts and/or other endeavors. When the mind and bodily senses function independently of the feeling energy of the heart, aroused through a process of non-dualistic communion with our whole being, then our perception and performance is, to a greater or lesser extent, divorced from the source of vitality, limitless possibilities, and incisive creative insight abiding, in latency, within the deeper core of our own being.

That is why I agree with what St. Exupery wrote, in his book, “The Little Prince”, “important things can only be seen with the heart, not the eyes” or “One sees clearly only with the heart. Anything essential is invisible to the eyes.”⁶ I might add, what is important or essential in life is also not available to the analytical intellect, functioning independently of the deeper, relational, insight of the heart, because the analytical mind tends to be self-absorbed in its own thought, instead of making direct, unmediated experiential contact with other life presences, phenomena, and activities, in the world. That kind of direct experiential contact or heartfelt communion is in contrast to a more egocentric way of viewing and relating to others, mediated and distorted by the narcissistic ego mind’s self-seeking agendas, judgmental demanding expectations, predetermined conceptual interpretations, distancing abstractions, as well as distracting mind chatter.

To make direct, deeply penetrating, empathic, contact with anyone or anything, and to thereby tap into the relational source of co-creative insight and inspiration, we must let go of predetermined interpretations and abstractions, which function like an opaque filter, distancing barrier, or distorting mechanism, keeping the mind incessantly self-absorbed, or narcissistically recoiled, in its own self-generated thought, and blocking direct experiential contact and heartfelt empathic communion with actual life experience in the world. The philosopher Martin Buber describes that kind of unmediated, undistorted, fully invested, experiential communion as the I-Thou relationship, in contrast to the conceptually mediated, distancing, distorted, egocentric, I-It relationship.³

In Biblical terms, this is the difference between experiencing reality in an indirect, distorted, manner, as though through a “poor reflection”, or “a glass darkly” rather than making direct, undistorted “face to face” (I Corinthians 13:12) contact with the connective spiritual reality of life, in which everyone and everything abides (see Acts 17:28, King James Version of the Bible, “For in Him we live and move and have our being”). Communing with the enduring living presence, or living spirit, that the author of any creative work has infused into a particular creative production can empathically reveal the meaningful intention and originating inspirational experience of that author or producer. The reason why the originating source level of creative insight and inspiring production comes from relational communion is because it is an intrinsically relational, connective, synergistic energy, or reality, rather than a solo, divisive, dualistic, or separate, narcissistically self-involved, process. Therefore, introspective processes that produce greater self-involvement, and break off heartfelt communion with others, cannot reveal and release the greatest level of creative functioning.

Caring human relationships can also facilitate synergistic beneficial transformations of individual people, interpersonal relationships, and global society by enabling the connective, benevolent, reality power of love to gradually transform individual hearts, and the collective spiritual heart of humanity, from divisive selfishness, fear, tension, predatory conflict over scarce resources, and brutality to a greater awareness of the relational reality of relaxed inner and outer peace, shared synergistic/co-created abundance, compassion, and unselfish caring toward others. The relational energy of empathic communion, genuine caring, or true love is able to reconfigure and thereby heal discordant, disruptive, or toxic patterns of energy within and between individuals, as well as expansively rippling to exert a benevolent influence on wider social and physical environments. Caring communion or true love naturally produces a regenerative energy pulse that revitalizes, improves, and heals various aspects of our individual life, personal relationships, and society.

Similarly, Jean Houston expresses the view that connection is the key to entelechy or the fulfillment of our intended pattern of development, our intended destiny as a soul or a spiritual being:

“And now, as this era and its excesses comes to its end, another perspective looms, one that reaches back toward the soul-centered, nested universe we thought we had lost. All around us, many people are regaining the sense that what they do matters profoundly to the course of events. Individual purpose and the world’s greater destiny are renewing their connections. The images we hold, the thoughts we entertain are reweaving a worldwide web of kinship.

“When individuals come into resonance with universal purpose, they know it in their hearts, they feel it in their bones. There is a great assent, a cosmic yes, an arc of energy across the void. What stands revealed in such moments is the entelechy, the creative seed of greatness each of us contains. Some people are given very young to an innate sense of their essential reason for being–the oak which their acorn is destined to become.”⁷

When the connective energy substance stirs, amplifies, or impacts the core level of our own being, that “magnetic” relational contact of heartfelt communion activates the seed-like purposive intention, prototype, or archetypal soul-blueprint of our individual being to unfold, and develop its fullest range of individual and relational potentials, predispositions, and innate patterns of structural development. The “magnetic” elicitation or arousal of our formerly dormant or latent potentials, inclinations, abilities, and talents, through a process of fully invested relational communion with objects of knowledge other than the narcissistic ego, contributes to the progressively greater cumulative unfolding development of our natural purposive destiny in life, as a process of self-organizing entelechy, enabling significantly greater levels of cumulative peak experiencing, peak performing, as well as more impactful production of great creative works, to become available. This process of connecting to the transformational, cumulatively developing, purposive core entelechy level of our own individual being, by connecting to and “magnetically” resonating with other individuals, metaphorically resembles a seed that sprouts and blossoms to full flowering or fruition when connected to the relational ground of being, represented by the universal soil, water, fresh air, and sunshine that breaks open the self-enclosed shells of seeds so that the individual plants within them can be nourished and prompted to fulfill their natural genetic code or innate blueprint of development.

Fully invested non-dualistic/intimate communion is a co-creative/synergistic process in the sense that the various participants reflect back to one another, and, thereby, “magnetically” arouse, formerly dormant aspects or levels of their being to unfold their natural innate potentials, abilities, proclivities, and interests. Our responsive insights about other individuals and our caring contributions to their further constructive development also directly arouse and contribute to the progressive cumulative development of related aspects of our own being. The process of exchanging caring energy with other individuals objectifies, manifests, reveals, amplifies, and further develops sublime aspects of our being that were formerly unknown to us and/or previously untapped by another individual to whom we relate. This co-creative process of experiential communion brings greater levels of vitality, fulfillment, wellbeing, self-understanding, and productive functioning to all participating individuals. As we contribute to the self-discovery of other individuals, that contributes to the ongoing self-discovery, uncovering, or sharing of related aspects of our own being and potentials.

Like a process of inner alchemy, our co-creative communion with other individuals and phenomena that we encounter brings to the surface the hidden treasures formerly deeply buried within the core of our being, which contributes to the greater development of those precious, grand, aspects of our own individual being. This transformational process of inner alchemy also brings out the best in us by infusing us with greater levels of regenerative vitality and holistic experiential intelligence that are inherent to the relational energy substance that connects us to others in caring communion with them.

The collective psyche of humanity, or society, when united to the universal spirit of communion, love, or the Divine, can also advance to progressively greater levels of cumulative development of our inner resources, including various kinds of inspiring products, reflecting the inner greatness of our individual and relational being. This advancing cumulative development of the collective psyche of humanity could involve greater development of qualitative noetic (perceptual) and performing capabilities, serving as finer, more precise, instruments with which to experience and express “high definition” appreciation of the relatively fluid, non-localized, numinous, luminous, or sublime aspects of reality.

However, when the harmonizing, holistic, balanced, cohesive energy pulse of warmhearted communion, genuine caring, or true love is neglected and absent, then pragmatic utilitarian activities such as science, technology, industrial production, commerce, and consumerism become increasingly misguided, conflicted, and toxic, as do creative arts, entertainment, and recreation. Human products and activities become healthier, or more harmonious and regenerative, when aligned with the natural holistic relational flow of organic and experiential energies. Nothing and no one can function well and be well understood in isolation, apart from the responsive relational contexts in which everything and everyone are naturally embedded. Healthy living, in harmony with the natural holistic/integral relational flow of energy at all levels of reality, requires responsive mutual adjustment to our human community, natural environment, as well as the flow of energy within and around us.⁸

Perhaps there is a purposive intention for the connective flame of Divine or spiritual love to shine or glow through all aspects of the outer world, infusing it with much greater beauty and wonder-full enchantment than it would otherwise possess by itself alone. Such a cumulatively developing appreciation of the limitless creative potentials, grandeur, and productive powers of functioning that are inherent to the relational reality of being or life can also serve to revitalize and creatively transform all aspects of human culture and society, particularly the creative arts. Similarly, G.W.F. Hegel and Pierre Teilhard de Chardin maintain that human evolution and great creative works reflect, are guided by, and contribute to the ongoing self-discovery and self-development of the spiritual reality of life.^9,10

Anyone who wishes to read more of our inspirational/transformational insights should see our two published books, 1) Psychological Healing Through Creative Self-Understanding and Self-Transformation. (ISBN: 978-1-62857-075-5) and 2) Deepening Your Personal Relationships: Developing Emotional Intimacy and Good Communication. (ISBN: 978-1-61897-590-4). The primary author is Dr. Max Hammer, with contributions from secondary authors Dr. Barry J. Hammer and Dr. Alan C. Butler. These books can be purchased from Amazon Kindle, Kobo, Nook, Barnes and Noble, Google Play, or our author/publisher website, https://sbprabooks.com/maxhammer/. Related blog articles have been posted at the following website: https://independent.academia.edu/BarryHammer

None.

The author declares that they have no conflict of interest.

1. Peak experience. Wikipedia, 2026.
2. Flow (psychology). Wikipedia, 2026.
3. I and Thou. Wikipedia. 2026.
4. The art of loving. Wikipedia. 2026.
5. Cambridge Dictionary. Synergy. Cambridge Dictionary. 2026.
6. The little prince. Wikipedia. 2026.
7. https://awaken.com/2024/10/where-are-we-going-jean-houston/
8. McTaggart L. The field: the quest for the secret force of the universe. New York, NY: Harper; 2008.
9. The phenomenology of spirit. Wikipedia. 2026.
10. Spiritual evolution. Wikipedia. 2026.