Thoughts on higher level intimacy and merging with a partner

Thoughts on higher level intimacy and merging with a partner:

I've been having conversations with various people about romantic and physical intimacy recently. What often happens earlier on in our lives when we may be less awake spiritually is that we choose partners based on the physical attraction first and then try to make the other parts work. 

However, as we grow more on our emotional and spiritual paths this type of connection becomes less and less fulfilling. Strong physical attraction can often lead to sex and physical intimacy too soon and the problem with this is that the mental, emotional and spiritual aspects of each being have not had a chance to fully be seen, to find out whether they are compatible and whether it feels right to merge on each level. 

One way of looking at it that I'm finding helpful is this: at the spiritual level - do you share similar spiritual views, morals and ethics etc., at the mental, do you like the other's intellect and the way they reason and process thoughts, and at the emotional - are they open in their feelings and do you like the way they deal with and show their feelings? 

So, if there were the possibility to have a unique experience of just fully merging with that person's spirit, say the astral body (spiritual level), would you do it and let their spiritual energies potentially influence yours? Would you feel comfortable with just merging with them at a thought level and allowing your two thought processes to become one? And at a feeling level - would you feel comfortable with just merging the emotional bodies and allowing the other's emotional energies to potentially impact your emotional energies? 

Maybe these are good questions to ask ourselves about any partner? Do you like/love them (who you sense them to be) at all levels and would you be happy for all their energies at those different levels to mingle and merge with all the different levels of your being? 

Another helpful way to look at it might be; 'from which chakras are my desires emanating?' Sometimes we can get caught up in the less aware drives of the lower chakras. Ideally for these to be balanced out and healthy, we want to bring in the heart chakra energy of love and the higher chakra energies of genuine authentic communication, awareness and soul connection. 

Obviously there are much more profound approaches to union such as conscious co-creation, tantric practices and merging fully on the spiritual plane through a dedicated shared spiritual life, but these questions feel like good initial points to ponder and ask ourselves if we are considering our romantic relationships. 

In conscious co-creation (conscious conception) the physical should be the last level to be acted upon, as higher thought should be the initial point of creation for all areas of life when we want to live as higher spiritual beings. Just as in the creation myths we are told that the process of creation was proceeded by thought, ideally everything should start out as thought energy first and then become physical and I feel this approach makes equal sense in other areas of our life. 

Get the spiritual, mental and emotional energies in alignment and resonating and then the physical will be so much more profound and in alignment too. When we work in this way we are considering the "whole" being and acknowledging that we exist on multiple levels and we can then feel whole and integrated in our relationship dynamics as well because we are not ignoring our needs on one level or another.