The Heart Whispers, Fear Howls
El Corazón Susurra, el Miedo Aúlla
A student wrestles with a major relationship decision, uncertain whether his desire to commit runs deep enough. The teacher draws a distinction between surface emotions and soul-level choosing, and explores what it means to make a life decision in the present moment.
The Heart Whispers, Fear Howls
A student wrestles with a major relationship decision, uncertain whether his desire to commit runs deep enough. The teacher draws a distinction between surface emotions and soul-level choosing, and explores what it means to make a life decision in the present moment.
On some level it would feel like a loss. And on another level, I've never been in a relationship this mature, this functional, this robust. And to be clear, I'm referring to the details of the relationship itself, not to whether there are other women out there who would be with you. I'm talking about how rare it is to find a relationship that isn't crazy.
I don't know. I'm tempted to think that I've done enough growing up that I would be able to sense those opportunities if they came along. But maybe not.
What I'm getting at is not a black-and-white thing. Of course there will be more chances. She will have more chances as well. But what I'm talking about is that these are often not right around the corner. It's not like you're looking for bookstores.
But again, don't hear any of this as a suggestion of what you should do. I'm simply nudging the situation in different ways so you can look at it from different angles, experience it, feel it in different ways, and make a choice that is the deepest and most connected that you can make.
The question of desire
This question of desire is a really interesting one. I've heard people say, "I just knew on some level. There was this resonance." I know people for whom that has been true in a healthy sense, and others for whom it has been true in the unhealthy sense I was talking about earlier. In this case, there has been some of that resonance, but it feels more on the cusp than some other connections I've had.
I think if I really sat with this question, which I plan to do over the next few days and weeks, and I caught a wave of "okay, yes, this is the direction I want to go in," I could commit. It's like surfing: there are waves that you catch, but you have to paddle to those waves. You have to make a choice. When I think about choosing yes, the worry that comes up is: is there enough desire to warrant that? Is there enough glue to hold this situation together during the difficult periods of having a family?
Surface waves and deep waves
What you're calling desire, I think you're referring to something emotional. All desires at that level, all energies at that level, begin and end. They come and go. You're trying to ride waves that are impermanent. To me, that shows that what you're listening to is superficial. It's emotion. It's the movement of emotion. It's like hunger: I'm hungry now, I eat, I'm not hungry, I don't eat. That's very transient.
The desire I'm talking about is not really in time. To use words I normally don't use, it's at the soul level. It's not in time. You look at life as one thing, one moment, and you choose. It's like saying, "For the rest of my life, I choose this." But then tomorrow I have to choose "the rest of my life" again, and again. And if I keep choosing that for the rest of my life, then in reality it became the life choice. But it is chosen now, as the whole of life.
That makes sense.
But if I'm choosing now for the whole of my life and tomorrow I change my mind, then I fooled myself. Those deep choices are "for the rest of my life, for the rest of my life," and then maybe over the course of a few years something changes where that is no longer the choice. But if I'm choosing for the rest of my life and then tomorrow I change my mind, and the next day I change my mind again, that's adolescent. That's like falling in love with a girl, choosing her, declaring she's the love of my life, going out for three weeks, the relationship ends, finding another one, experiencing the same thing: "This is the person I want for the rest of my life." And then three weeks later, it's done. That's not a real deep commitment. It's not a real deep choice across a large arc.
What you're describing sounds like an energy of "Do I feel like I will be able to get to the next week with it?" That's not a deep layer. That wave begins and ends in a matter of hours, days, weeks, maybe months. I'm talking about the waves that begin and end in life journeys.
Life as one moment
Think of life as a moment, one thing. Another approach, which I brought up earlier, is: what if your life ends in a year? It's a different thought experiment for contemplating the same thing: life not being this big thing stretched out in time. Then what would you choose? You could even experiment with variations: you have five years, one year, six months, three months, two months, one month.
It seems like that would be almost antithetical to the lifelong commitment question.
They're two different approaches for contemplating life as one choice for the whole of life. If I have one year to live and I'm deciding whether I want to be with this person, it's not like I would say, "I'm going to be with you for two months, then I want to be with someone else for two months." If you want to do that, you're not really choosing her.
It's even more clear if you say you have one month. If you feel, "I choose her for the first three days, for the first week, then I want to go be with someone else," that's a sign that you don't really want to spend your time with her. You're not really choosing her. You want to spend a bit of time, but it's not a choice at the level I'm speaking about.
Frustration at the threshold
It's really frustrating because I've had moments of feeling that deeper wave, that soul-level choice. There have been times where it's felt like an easy yes. And then there have been other times where it's felt like no. And it doesn't feel like the surface of the waves.
The thing is, you're in a situation where it's a big choice. It's going to be scary. And those are the ones that are hard to go deep with.
It's a big choice. Your partner wants some sort of life commitment, moving in, talking about children, and you're not sure. She might not be waiting much longer. And then there's the obvious question: do you love her, and what is in your heart?
The deep waves are quieter
The deep waves are subtler and softer in their form. They move more slowly, and so they are harder to perceive. They require refinement and attention, whereas the surface waves are loud and intense.
My teacher once gave a talk that was recorded and later transcribed. His son edited several of these transcriptions into a book and chose a phrase from one of the talks as the title. It says: "The heart whispers. Fear howls."