View From the Top > Esteemed Reader

Don’t regret what’s happened. If it’s in the past,
let it go. Don’t even remember it!
Let yourself be silently drawn
by the stronger pull of what you really love.
—Rumi, from the Mathnawi

Esteemed Reader of Our Magazine:
The end of another solar circumambulation approaches. We complete one cycle and begin another, at the pivotal moment we mark at 12am, January 1. Traditionally this is a time of reflection and re-solution—the moment at the juncture of years that is like the pause between inhaling and exhaling. There is stillness there. What better place to plant the seed of a new intention?

But there are so many broken resolutions that one is tempted to resolve never to resolve again. And yet in the minutes preceding the new year there is a feeling of possibility. That impending moment of transition from one year to the next feels like it could be the time of an exciting new beginning.

We have a sense that our New Year’s resolution could be an almost coital union between parts of ourselves—between our conscious and unconscious parts. There in that moment, we attain to enlist the desire of the heart (the unconscious part) in support of the intention of the mind (the conscious part); to make them one, and in so doing become powerful agents of what we really love.

But the intentions of the mind are too often ignorant of the heart’s desire. The head ploughs ahead with relentless ambition, enforcing an agenda that is heedless of the whisperings of what we really want. So how to bring the intentions of the mind and the heart’s desire into an intercourse that is fecund with power and possibility for fulfilling a genuine New Year’s resolution?

Fundamentally we are talking about a love relationship—with ourselves. What makes a good lover? We are concerned with the pleasure of our partner, though not at the expense of our own pleasure; because the pleasure of lovers is really one pleasure, into which both lovers dip their ladles to imbibe. So it is with the relationship between the head and the heart.

To make a resolution that will germinate and blossom and bear fruit we need to hear and heed the whispers of our heart. A resolution that comes from ideas only is neutered. It has no force, no power, because it lacks the force of the heart. The heart is the font of our power. The intellect is not the correct organ for making resolutions. Formulating perhaps, but not contriving. The intellect needs to be in the service of the heart, concerned with the heart’s pleasure, bent on finding the means to a true heart’s delight.

Ordinarily we make resolutions that are based on partiality. We see some aspect of our personality that needs polishing, like a burr that needs to be rubbed off. Having rid ourselves of this “small defect” we will finally be really very impressive. Usually it is some addiction or habit that causes us great angst via self-criticism, self-pity, and fear. But a true resolution is revolutionary, as celestial bodies are revolutionary—“turning around.” A real resolution addresses not just some annoying part of us, but the possible fulfillment of our whole person.

All this may sound like New Age hedonism, but it is not. It is hard work. And it is the means to a personal peace and by extension to a greater peace. This is because our heart’s desire is peaceful. Our deepest urge can only be good, which, by definition, means good for all.
Dear reader, may you find and fulfill your heart’s desire. And may you find a real New Year’s resolution that blossoms through the year, and broadcasts the peace and happiness that you are.

—Jason Stern