Desire and Belonging

Desire can rule our lives, pulling our attention every which way until we lose our sense of center, sense of purpose. When we feel much desire, it comes with the feeling of having much space and time to fill, and the sense of being unfulfilled. When we feel little desire, it comes with the pressure of having little space and time, of being busy, or being fulfilled.

When we look at what we have in our lives, we see the accumulation of the things we like, the repetitions and iterations of what we enjoy bringing in. And when we feel that things are in dis-array, dis-order, we feel the stress of being responsible for all that we own, all that we desire. The more we own, the more specific we can be in our desires, forming preferences for what we like, how we like it, and often losing sensitivity to the potential energy of empty space, free time, of having less.

What do we really want?

We all crave what is natural: to feel whole, connected, loved.

We want security, stability, and also its opposite: excitement, positive changes. With paradoxical desires, we find ourselves always rejecting what we have. We do this in feeling boredom with stability, and anxiety/confusion with instability. Cycling back and forth, we deny ourselves the opportunity of accepting the present as it is, and when we do not accept what is around us, we cannot feel accepted within ourselves.

So we try to know, understand, change everything around us, to control the unknowable, to know the uncontrollable: the weather, the future, the outcome of partnerships. The desire for certainty is a desire for dominance, to prevent our feeling powerless in our life circumstances, unsure of what will come.

Life is like water, like energy: ungraspable. It flows.

When we realize that the future, nature, and other people, are fundamentally unknowable and uncertain, we can relax and enjoy the not-knowing, accept rather than reject the insecurity, rising to occasions and riding out the waves of changes. There is no need to control what cannot be controlled.

Without the dualities of security/insecurity, rejection/acceptance, dominance/powerlessness, we can full belong, here-and-now, centered in knowing that what is within us will always be greater than what is around us.