The Future of Love

Article Tools

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

On the one hand, it sounds extraordinary--marvelous--this blending of body, mind and spirit into relationship. On the other hand, it sounds like madness: We've had enough trouble bringing together body and mind, and now we want to toss spirituality into the fire, too? As Needleman points out, "The whole of human nature is an obstacle to conscious love--our unawareness and our lack of clear, deep understanding that the other person is in the same boat we're in."

Then there's the matter of the body. "My body is playing catch-up with my mind and spirit," admits Mark Matousek, the author of Sex Death Enlightenment who has always espoused the ideal of being sexually faithful, but until he entered a new relationship three years ago with his partner, Louis, never believed it was possible. "Monogamy pushes every major button I have," says Matousek. "It brings out the best and, frequently, the worst in me. But I had to learn how to live as a sexual person on a spiritual path. Celibacy didn't work for me and neither did promiscuity. Monogamy is part of the whole search for soul."

Despite all the obstacles, maybe the sacred is the glue, the binding and holy energy that got lost--first while we tried desperately to merge marriage and passion in airtight nuclear families and, later, as we turned our attention to rediscovering pleasure, as well as redefining our roles, sexual and gender identities, and traditional family structures.

But what about longing? Desire? The very human craving for delirious romance? Even when we know better, even when we've learned the hard way that no other person can possibly make us whole and we've entered into a conscious relationship, where does the longing go?

"Longing is a wonderful, very vital energy," says Florence Falk. "It's not the longing that's the problem, it's what you do with it." As we begin to reclaim our selves and find our core strength, she says, not only is it possible to develop a real, loving relationship, but the longing can be redirected to something greater than ourselves, something transcendent.

And, says Stephen Levine: "If another person is the most important thing in your life, then you're in trouble and they're in trouble because they become responsible for your suffering. But if consciousness is the most important thing in our lives and relationship is a means toward that end... Ah! then we are approaching paradise. We are approaching the possibility of actually becoming a human being before we die." And maybe that is the future of love.

Barbara Graham is a regular contributor to Utne Reader and the author of Women Who Run with the Poodles (Avon, 1994).

Editorial assistant Rebecca Scheib provided additional reporting for this article.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print