As you allow these defenses to arise and you work with them, gradually the desire to merge with mother starts to appear; this is what is called the symbiotic wish. It is the desire for union to occur in a specific way: not as the desire to have the mother, to be close to her, but as the dual unity with her with the sense of dissolving into a single merged field. However, when you start to experience that desire, you see that it is actually the heart’s longing to disappear into ultimate union with the Beloved. But that wish can’t help but be filtered through the desire for dual unity with the mother. The symbiotic wish is deeply heartfelt—a surrendered, out-of-control longing and yearning, a profound vulnerability, an openness with softness, with maybe some sadness and sweetness in it. It’s not a heart-wrenching, painful yearning for somebody. That is a different level of desire that includes the complications of adult relating.

The symbiotic wish arises with a love that, by its very nature, melts the boundaries from within you. You start to disappear but not into an empty space; it’s more that your mind, your consciousness itself, starts to lose its definition. It's not only your body that dissolves—no, everything is disappearing. Even your thoughts are melting into this ecstatic feeling. So the symbiotic wish is for that total disappearance, dissolution. Not that you cease to exist; it’s more like losing boundedness, losing separateness. Because this deep wish, which is intrinsic in everybody, is nothing but the expression of the primordial heart's desire expressed through the dual unity, all kinds of issues arise—and these are the veils over that symbiotic wish. So, let us explore more deeply some of the veils that arise as we start to experience the movement toward union.