Catherine Auman, LMFT

They knelt in pairs on the mats, the men behind the women as per Mevlana’s instruction. Michael from Goa had asked politely and Laurel decided not to fight it. He was in back of her now, his hands resting loosely on her hips.

“All right,” Mevlana said. “Women, raise your arms and feel your longing. All the longing you have ever felt. Reach, reach for the sky.”

Laurel lifted her arms to the ceiling and felt the stretch along her ribcage and the sides of her breasts. Her head fell back and her left hand covered her right as her fingers strained upward. Longing. She felt her longing. So many things she had desired in her life: beautiful clothes, that pair of silk pants with the silver braid, that boy at summer camp, what was his name? Ice cream, and world peace, and for summer never to end.

“Really reach for it,” Mevlana coaxed. “Long with all your might.”

Laurel remembered her ambition for career success and the trappings that were supposed to come with it: a designer-decorated home, a luxury car, and tropical vacations in Fiji, or Bali, or Kuala Lumpur. She had fantasized being as rich as Oprah, and craved the opulent life that magazines extolled. Her itching for this consumerism had gradually declined as she began to realize it was all greed stoked by the marketing machine.

“Feel your longing,” Mevlana said. “Really feel your longing.”

Laurel strained harder. The air in her chest pushed down against her diaphragm and her arms elongated up, further. Her fingers spread wide toward the ceiling, grasping, reaching.

So much effort and money and work spent aspiring to be beautiful, hoping to be loved and cherished by a man. Where was he? The dream of the Perfect Beloved. Desire to be united with him. The pining to be held, to be made love to, to be made love to expertly and to surrender to the biggest orgasm ever. The coveting of other women’s boyfriends.

“Feel all the longings of your life,” Mevlana said. “Don’t hold back.”

There was the yearning to stop the search and be flooded with Love and finally feel satiated. Laurel reached even further. To understand what was really going on. Why life had to hurt so badly. Why it never worked out the way you hoped. To know the secrets of death, and life, for that matter. A passion to get to the place they call Enlightenment, and to understand what the heck it is we are all doing here. How she hungered to know the Truth.

Laurel tensed, exhaling the air out of her lungs, hard. She lengthened her arms above her head, further, farther. Up as high as they would go.

There was a rustling on the dais and for the first time, Laurel became aware of the soft raga Bashir had chosen as the music. Mevlana stood and called out an instruction. “This is to the men. Rise up behind your partner and let her feel your support. Unmistakably, let her know the full degree of how much you encourage her in her longing. Hold her and incite her to go even further in her pursuit so that she knows that this time, she does not endeavor alone.”

Laurel felt Michael’s body rise up behind her, felt his warmth against the curve of her back. His hands slid up, grasped her forearms from behind and urged them up a little further. Laurel gasped. The effort was intense. This is what it felt like for longing to be okay and not secretive and humiliating. It had never occurred to her to ask that her appetites be supported, by girlfriends maybe, but not by men.

“Really let yourself be supported in your longing, in your passion,” Mevlana said.

With Michael holding her, Laurel let herself relax and permit his solidity to carry her. To be supported like this allowed for a modicum of trust, trust that her prayers might be answered. It was tremendously healing, Laurel realized, looking up at Mevlana with gratitude.

The yearning and stretching continued. That’s got to be enough now, she thought. Surely this exercise must be almost over. But no, it was not. The effort was beginning to wear. Michael’s got to be tired of me by now, she thought. He must be thinking what a dolt I am to be so full of lust. He must wish this would end, feel a hankering to move on. She peered around. His eyes were glistening with kindness. The shock made her disappear back into her striving.

“You’ll notice that longing is always attached to pain,” Mevlana called out, “but what to do? That’s the nature of it.”

Laurel suddenly realized that even if she never got what she hoped for, as she actually never had in the past, everything would still be all right. The longing itself was the point. It all really wasn’t about the objects of desire. That was the error, seeing the object as the point, rather than the longing itself.

“All right,” Mevlana broke in. “Take a moment to make sure you have exhausted all longing and get ready to switch places. Men will become the long-ers and the women will be the support persons.”

They switched. As Laurel put her hands on Michael’s body, she smelled his scent, and admired the definition of his arms. As the exercise proceeded, she noticed how much easier it was to support a man in his striving compared with how it had been a completely unfamiliar experience to be supported by a man in hers. She felt how sexy she considered a man to be in his longing, how noble, and honorable. It was hard to feel the same way about herself. She had experienced her own longings as pathetic, but a man’s as worthy of support. She felt now, and had always been, happy to be there for him, whoever he was.

As the late afternoon sun cast shadows across the group room floor, the exercise came to an end. All members of the group came to relax in a circle in front of the dais at Mevlana and Bashir’s feet.

“Now you know more about longing than ninety-nine percent of the world,” Mevlana said. “Use this knowing wisely. Realize that if your love has any motivation in it, it is not love. Life is fulfilled by longings, not by ambitions.

“The longing that men and women have for each other,” Mevlana continued, “you have to understand its true nature. There’s nothing wrong with it, but it’s really longing for God, for the Ultimate. The longing has to be completely frustrated, or we wouldn’t get on to what’s real.”

Laurel looked over at Michael and smiled. Behind him sat Ian, cuddled with the Brazilian girl, then Stefano, then Jack who sat by himself. Completely frustrated. She could truly say that she loved these men without any longing, although that may not have always been the case.