Someone close to me told me once, some years back : 'You won't get it all'.
He was talking about the life I said so openly I wanted: California, New York, healing, study, financial security, abundance, a love that enriches and encircles me and is a foundation on which to build a family of my own.
He couldn't believe it would all happen. He's 12 years older than me. Been married for 24 years or more. Had a secure job all his life. He was offering some friendly perspective. He said 'You won't get it all'.
I said I don't intend to create a life except for that one.
I won't settle for anything less.
It's nearly three years later.
It's all here.
California. New York. Healing. Study. Extraordinarily deep and connected friendships.
And a love.
That enriches me.
And encircles me.
A love that wants to be a foundation with someone who wants more than anything in the world for me to say I am ready to create that family of our own.
He tells me everyday he'd be the happiest man on the planet if I say 'yes'. He says that whatever I say this love that he has for me, will encircle me and protect me for the rest of my life - in this and all life times.
A love that encircles me.
And yet it's not perfect. And I remember my friend saying 'You won't get it all'.
And I reflect on how important are the things that I feel are stopping me saying yes. Just yet. 'Not Just Yet' doesn't get to last forever. There comes a point where you have to decide.
I always thought I was so good at walking away.
Only it's a total surprise to me see how prepared I am and how committed I am to staying. Surprised at how prepared I am to look harder at myself. To understand what it takes to be able to say yes. Surprised at how much I want to say yes.
I think about my friend's counsel.
But I still don't believe I 'won't get it all'.
I believe I will get it all. And I won't accept anything else.
A love that encircles me.
***
There's a story in the Hindu epic of the Ramayana.
Sita and Ram were a divine couple - the ultimate pair of devotional married partners.
Committed, devoted, gentle, forgiving, insperable.
But one day Ram was tempted in to the forest by a demon disguised as deer.
Sita was left alone in the forest without her husband in the company of his brother Lakshman, a noble but less wise, more human being.
Eventually Sita thought she heard her beloved's voice in distress. But actually it was the demon mimicking her husband's voice.
Out of fear she insisted that Lakshman go to his brother's aid.
Ram is the seventh incarnation of the Hindu god, Vishnu: the Presever of balance and equinity, harmony and divine sustenance in the Universe - you need Vishnu to live in peace, without the vitality or chaos of creative or destructive forces. Perfect balance.
Lakshman knew his brother couldn't need help being always in perfect balance, but out of fear and a sense of duty to his brother's wife, he agreed to go his brother's rescue - on one condition.
He drew a circle in the dust: a circle of protection.
A circle of Love and protection.
And he told her Sita she had to stay right inside the circle whenever he was gone.
To step outside of the circle drawn around her, would make Sita vulnerable to the evil of an impure world from which he believed he could not protect her.
She had to stay in it.
Exactly as he drew it.
And then she would be safe. All would be well. All would be well.
Sita was standing in the center of a circle of love.
***
She didn't stay in it.
She stepped outside of it.
And she was abducted by a demon.
His name was Ravana. He had 10 heads, representing his all worldiness, and was virile, irreverent and aggressive in his relations with women. He took Sita away to live imprisoned with him in a tower in Lanka where she daily was surrounded by demons and fallen angels who attempted to corrupt her purity, taint her innocence and lure her from her devotion to her Beloved.
Ravana thought he could usurp Sita's devotion to Rama.
He wanted to marry her and have him as hers, that she could belong to him - an evil and destroying force.
But Sita every day would chant the name of her Beloved.
Praying for him to find her.
And set her free.
***
She stepped outside the circle.
***
I think about that story now as I think about the love that encircles me.
It seems human relationships in the 21st century are no different to those lived by the gods of the Vedic period - there are conditions, and they arise essentially from our less wise, more human expressions of self - essentially from fear:
Do this. Don't do that.
Be like this. Don't be like that.
Like this. No, not like that.
Stay here. Don't go there.
All will be well - like this.
Like this.
And all hell will break loose if you step outside this circle.
Stay inside the circle.
Stay inside the circle.
***
But Lakshman was wrong.
It wasn't a circle of love that he drew around Sita.
It was a circle from his fear of what would happen in his absence that he drew a circle around Sita.
It wasn't a circle of love.
It was a circle of fear.
Because - as Ram would have told him - you can't step outside of a circle of love.
There's no start or beginning, or with you, or not with you, or like this, but not like that: a circle of Love would be endless and infinite and unconditional beyond time and space.
That's a circle of love.
The love that encircled Ram and Sita was still encircling them when she was abducted by the demon in the tower with asuras from a lower realm: it was so enormous in its influence and size that even in a different part of the world, Sita was still sitting in the center of the circle of that love, speaking the name of her Beloved over and over and over again.
And it was so enormous and infinite and immeasurable in its size that even when she had visibly vanished from his world, it placed Ram at its center and guided him through the help of all the animals in the universe to bring him right to the demon's lair where he would slay the demon forever.
That circle of love kept these two right at its center when they were re united after their separation, each having shown their immeasurable love for the other: Sita having silently prayed for his return every day, and Ram having moved mountains to find her, wherever she was in the world, and having slayed the demon forever.
That Love didn't care about a circle for her live inside of and to never step out of.
It was that Love that there to support and ultimately unite them in their quest for togetherness - whatever the torments, complications, burdens, trials and ugliness of an impure and imperfect world.
That's the love the encircles them.
It's way bigger and more powerful than anything Lakshman was suggesting when he drew a circle around her.
It's without limitations. It's more than galactic. It's beyond time and space.
***
So I think for me to say yes, I'd have to be certain that the circle around me is a circle of love.
And not a circle of fear.
Do this. Don't do that.
Go here. Stay there.
Wear this. Wear that.
I don't want to be at the center of a circle of fear.
Staying on the inside in the belief that it's Love.
I want to be at the center of a circle of Love that's big enough to still be around me in an imperfect universe - not one that forbids me from coming in to experience of anything just because it might feel tormenting and unsettling...
I want to be in the center of a circle of Love that gives me, in those situations, the steadfastness to take the name of my Beloved over and over again knowing that we are committed in our unity and will preserve the integrity of our togetherness in the face of all distraction.
Because we are the center of a circle of love that is beyond time and space and measure.
A love that encircles me.
Like Rama and Sita.
***
It's the first time in my life I've ever really wondered about the story of the Ramayana. But I think it might meant this:
Like Sita and Rama - the ultimate couple, all couples have to choose how they will preserve the integrity, purity, divinity of their togetherness.
By yielding to less wise and more limited, more human perspectives like Laskhman - drawing circles of fear around one to protect the other.
Or by seeing that in reality a circle made of Love includes us, protects us and provides for us unconditionally - way beyond any artificial lines drawn in the sand that our human minds want to limit it to.
Love or Fear.
I choose Love.
A Love that encircles me.
***
I think back to my friend who said 'You won't get it all'.
The reason, I realise for my surprising commitment to working on this is because I feel so close. It's all here: California, New York, healing, study, service, connection, security, abundance and love: a love that he says encircles me.
And because we're human, there's some fear too.
But we're so close. That's why it's worth working for.
I'm remembering the circle of Love.
I'm hoping we'll leave behind our less wise, more human expressions of self like Lakshman.
I'm hoping that he'll wipe away the lines drawn in dust and meet me in the center of a circle made of Love instead.
And then I get to say yes.
And that's how I create it it all.
It's close.
It's possible.
And I won't won't settle for anything else.
Through time and space.
