A Romantic Way of Life without a Significant Other
A significant area of exploration
Written for upcoming Mindfulness Teacher Training Course (MTTC). See foot of page.
Let us find ways to engage in romantic love in the absence of a partner in our life. This is a significant area of exploration.
A common view of romantic love confines depths of feelings and emotions to a connection with another person. We can know a romantic way of life without a primary focus on another.
A contracted mind perpetuates a view that romance in life requires the presence of someone or the potential in mind for a relationship with someone.
Mindfulness teachings and practices point to the release from a contracted mind.
Such deep and beautiful feelings can enjoy a range of experiences through intimacy in other areas. Absence of another has the potential to release romantic love, nourishing and fulfilling. E.g. if you deepen your connection with the nature, earth, sky, flowers, trees, hills, water and more, you will experience a love of life. This emotional response, through intimacy with nature, frees up heavenly delights in the mind. This is the confirmation of romantic love.
A romantic view of life goes far deeper than a flaky, short-lived high of hours, weeks or months but makes possible a free-spirited way of life. Despite accusations of not living in the real world, we can regularly embark on fresh adventures, take risks regarded as foolish by the conservative mind.
Let us not tie down intimacy exclusively to a relationship with another. Singles need to remember that many couples live in repetitive patterns, where habits dominate perceptions at the expense of a romantic connection. The deep sustains itself in the long term through the original mind, freshness of perceptions and regular releases of spiritual joy. With such awareness as the foundation, sensual contact and passionate energies manifest through words, actions and contact with the immediciacy of what surrounds us. We feel alive.
The arts, playfulness and depth of communication give the possibility of a meeting to expose the vitality of appreciation.A conscious human being can also experience romantic love fused with sensuality in silence and solitude.
Via any of of our senses and memory, such joy arises and felt in the soul of our being. In a healthy and romantic view, we experience the common heritage between ourself and other expressions of life. Out of priceless connection, we make ourselves available to passion, creativity, wise action and a full range of religious/spiritual experiences.
Inspiration for such an engagement with life may come from a poem, a work of fiction, an essay, a religious text, a philosophical analysis, music, art, theatre and cinema. We can read the biographies of those who lived a romantic life despite the disapproval of others.
Mindfulness, reflection and meditation have a part to play to stay calm, know deep experiences and be receptive to insights and transformative realisations. Meaningful experiences transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.
An Important Question
We come back to an important question. What do we need to develop and what do we need to reduce or let go of to change our habitual way of relating and being? It is not unusual for people to conclude a romantic way involves travel to remote regions in the homeland, far from the maddening crowd, or to a far corner of the Earth. This also shows a contracted view.
We do not have to go out of our front door to live a romantic life. A solitary life at home will find yourself, so to speak, in the company of the solitary sages of past and present. We can live a sublime, mindful way of being with love and integrity at its core. This is a beautiful way to live without the ego needing any confirmation from others.
Identification with insecurity and neediness for attention puts pressure on ourselves to place security and safety as the highest priority. Risks express an expansive view with the willingness to experience insecurity. Let us go beyond our limits, expand our consciousness into the field of the unfamiliar.
Ask yourself. What steps or risks can I take to expand my consciousness?
When overwhelmed with the mundane world, we find ourselves robbed of romantic love. In contrast, when such love fills perceptions, we recognise in the course of time the virtue and beauty of another, though unexpressed, nor leading onwards to romantic contact. That means no rules, no touch, no leaning towards a sensual, physical intimacy.
Yet these meetings with the other, regular or irregular, can reveal a vibrancy with no undertone of flirtation. In our exploration of the human experience, we feel engaged and married to the deep confirmations of being alive and enjoyment of the aliveness in front of us.
Love takes priority over desires; love does not require a desire for connection. Authentic spiritual teachings offer an independence, a quiet inner authority to take part in the field of existence, showing multiple treasures to the heart. Spiritual experiences love the challenge of taking risks, recognise the wild fluctuations of nature along with a profound stillness, such as looking up at the vast galaxy of stars or abiding in the depths of meditation. In unproblematic ways, we also recognise the diversity of contact with others
In a romantic way of life, you feel alive, well and free.
Just beautiful to read that. Just this morning this came to my mind. I do feel connected. And this is love to me. Thank you for writing!
I love this, and it rings true for me, even though I have been married for 45 years! I think it applies to people in a "couple" relationship as much as to "singles". Delight, intimacy, fun, joy, playfulness, awe, a dancing of the spirit... we can't buy it, possess it or sign a piece of papaer to secure it.. but it iis always there, available to us, and Christopher has helped me , and my husband, to know that.