1. Discernment in
Relationships
by Marshall Summers
"Greater
Community Spirituality"
Note: The word
"Knowledge" used in this article relates to Gnosis (Higher
Knowledge/Embodied Knowing)… nothing to do intellectual
mind-stuff, nor just ordinary feelings and is deeper than
"intuition"… directly related to one's level of
Being/individualized soul.
"The steps towards Knowledge"
are a process, depending on one's sincere self-work, lessons
to learn, talents to develop, aligning with one's unique
soul purpose/Divine Will (contrary to the desires of the ego
mind and is most often a destructive process -> death
of the personality identification to be reborn in one's true
"I").
There are very
few people in the world who really understand you - your deeper
nature and the deeper qualities that you have that even you have
not discovered.
At the surface of your mind, you might find much
agreement, but at a deeper level beneath the surface of your
mind, there are only a few who would be able to really recognize
you.
To have many
friends really does not account for much at all. To win favor
amongst many people is to accommodate yourself to their
expectations, and this will weaken and even destroy your ability
to recognize yourself. People want to be loved and accepted and
acknowledged, but this is driven by insecurity primarily.
At a deeper
level, you need a more profound recognition. You need a true
ally, not merely a friend. You need someone who recognizes your
deeper nature and responds to this naturally. You do not have to
perform for these people.
But you do have to honor this nature
within yourself. If it is unknown to you, or if you are
resisting it or denying it by trying to be something else that
you think will be successful, then your relationship with these
rare individuals will not come to pass and you will have lost a
rare and great opportunity.
As you begin to
take the steps to Knowledge, to the deeper intelligence… within
you, your criteria for relationships will change. You will seek
clarity and honesty. You will look for deeper values. You will
look for more permanent values. You will look for greater
integrity within people, greater sincerity, more substantial
values. Of course, this will rule out many people, even if they
are very pleasant and very nice in a social sense.
If they do not
have this greater capacity within themselves or have not
discovered this for themselves, well, then there will be no
place for you to connect with them. You can understand them at
the level of their circumstances or their personality; you might
admire their appearance or their charms or their unique
abilities, but the deeper connection will not be there.
They are
living at the surface, and you have gone beneath the surface.
You cannot wait
for them or try to educate or enlighten them, for this will not
be productive. You have to seek for people who are ready,
willing and able to connect with you at this deeper level. If
you try to improve someone else or bring them to this greater
state of recognition, you will be wasting your time, which is
precious and should not be wasted.
What you are
really looking for here is Knowledge in others. You are no
longer swayed by beauty, wealth and charm as you might have been
before. Now you are listening for a deeper quality, a deeper
spirituality, a deeper awareness. And surprisingly perhaps to
you, you will not find it in many people.
You will not
find it in the "beautiful" people [obsessed with their physical
appearance], the charming people, the wealthy people, the
socially popular people, the people who are aggressive and
ambitious, the people who are constantly selling themselves, the
people who are caught up in political persuasions or the people
who are extraordinarily intellectual.
If they do not
have this deeper capacity yet, it will be evident, and Knowledge
within you will not respond to them. Knowledge within you will
not criticize them or condemn them. They are just not there yet.
And this will give you a very different understanding of what
real advancement is in an individual's development.
Placing all
your emphasis on beauty and charm is clearly superficial, but so
is placing all your emphasis on intellectual brilliance, and you
will see this. You are listening for something deeper in
yourself now, and that is why you are listening for something
deeper in others.
It is not just that you share ideas or
beliefs. You may talk about spirituality, you may talk about
God, you may talk about inspiration, but that does not mean
there is a deeper connection at all.
Here, your mind
must be clear and neutral. You cannot be judging, comparing and
condemning other people, or you will never know the power of
Knowledge within yourself. People are always judging one
another, and this keeps them from recognizing one another or
carrying on a deeper evaluation, which has nothing to do with
condemnation at all.
You are looking
for the evidence of Spirit in another, not just a conversation
about Spirit, not just a liveliness in their personality.
You
are looking for something deeper in them because perhaps you
have reached the point now where you are looking for something
deeper in yourself, and you see that wittiness, charm, beauty
and extravagance or even shared ideas, hobbies and so forth
really is not it.
You are surprised you find there are very few
people who seem to have this deeper quality that you can discern
and that Knowledge within you really does not respond to many
people at all.
And you feel alone, and you wonder if there
really is anyone else.
Here you have
to be willing to be alone if you are to have this level of
integrity within yourself.
Here you have
to be true to Knowledge. If Knowledge is not responding, you do
not need to respond. You can be friendly, you can be courteous -
that is valuable - but you must be reserved.
If there is
nothing there, there is nothing there. And if you realize there
is no value and there is only unfortunate consequence in
amplifying the attractive features of a person at the surface of
their existence, then you will have to face the reality that
there are but a few that you can deeply connect with.
This will
keep you from filling up your life with people and activities
and involvements that really do not have anything important to
offer and do not represent any serious or meaningful engagement
for you. Here it is better to be largely alone than to have your
life filled with people and engagements that have nothing to do
with your greater purpose and destiny in the world.
Relationships
take time. Serious relationships take a great deal of time. So
many people are losing their lives, their time and their energy
involved in relationships that have no greater capacity or
greater destiny for them.
Because they do not want to be alone,
they are afraid that the person or the persons they are looking
for truly may never arrive, so they will say to themselves,
"Well, this relationship is not perfect, but if I wait, there
may be nothing better for me."
You have to be
very careful what you tell yourself here.
You must have faith in
Knowledge and faith in life to bring into your life those people
whom you are really destined to meet, who really have a great
impact on your life, who will play a significant role in your
own development and accomplishments in the world. You must build
this faith.
If you are
alone now, it is a valuable time to build your connection to
Knowledge. Knowledge represents your most profound and important
relationship. If this is not established, if this is not fully
established, then your relationship with everyone else will be
out of sync - lacking clarity and purpose, lacking meaning - and
your life will be filled with people, engagements, activities
and commitments that will never create a real opening for
you.
Beyond your need to go to work and to earn a living and to
build your education for opportunities in the world, there is
this greater destiny you have with certain people, and that is
really what you are looking for.
But you must be
patient. You must see that there is an appropriateness to when
people appear in your life. Timing is very important. Many
people think they are ready for true partnership, but they do
not know what it is for, and perhaps they are armored against
this realization.
So if they met the right person, they would
not be ready to participate with them, and this would produce a
great and profound conflict.
You must be
ready for a greater relationship. You must know where you are
going. You must have a deeper sense of your purpose and destiny,
even if it is not fully defined yet. It must be real and strong
for you. You must be willing not to give yourself to other
attractions.
You must know enough not to give yourself to other
seductions.
Part of your
education here is really learning what does not work. It is more
a process of elimination. As long as you are drawn by beauty,
wealth, and charm, you do not yet have the discernment to see
what is really meaningful and important. If you have never
really felt a deep connection with another, do not think it is
not possible and meant for you.
You have a
greater destiny in the world, and there are others who are part
of this destiny and who will play a significant role in its
discovery and expression. This is an article of faith for you
now, for not all your needs can be met in this moment, nor
should they be met.
You have to
have a sound relationship with your mind and your body. You have
to develop your health. You have to develop your Pillar of Work.
You have so many things to do now to build your foundation in
life. You have the Steps to Knowledge to take to build your
connection with Knowledge. No one should be pining away for a
relationship when they have all of this work to do to build
their foundation.
A relationship
cannot take the place of this, ever. You cannot be waiting for
someone to give you all the meaning and value of your life. For
if you do not have this foundation, you will not be able to
participate with them.
You will not have the strength, the
courage or the self-honesty to be able to participate with
someone in a greater way. It will only be a relationship of
convenience, a relationship of advantage, a relationship of
attachment, a relationship filled with fantasies and
expectations that will fail in the face of a real life.
People are
attracted and then disappointed, constantly. They are not
finding what they are really looking for in one another because
they are not looking for the right things. They have not built
the patience and the clarity and the discernment within
themselves to really know what this means.
Discernment in
relationships is very significant, for you can give your life
away so very easily. It can be so easy to get involved and so
difficult to free yourself later. There are many seductions and
many traps. Look around you and see how people have fallen prey
to these things. Look without condemnation.
Look with the desire
to learn, for people are committing every possible form of
self-violation out there, particularly in their relationships.
They will teach
you the consequences of choosing wrongly, of being attracted by
meaningless things, of being seduced by others, by being trapped
in relationships, held in place by someone else, unable to
extricate themselves, sold on a relationship because there is
nothing better or there is something there you want - financial
security, beauty and charm, shared interests.
But none of
these things really constitute a real connection with another.
None of them speaks of a greater purpose and destiny in life.
They are all momentary attractions, and if you commit yourself
to momentary attractions, time will be very disappointing to
you.
So you must
have the strength, the faith and the confidence to wait, to look
and listen. Do not shut people out. Really listen to them.
Listen for Knowledge within yourself as you listen to them.
If
Knowledge is not responding beyond simple courtesy, you do not
need to respond, nor should you. You are looking for one or two
or three people who will make the great difference in your life.
Perhaps one
will become a life partner. Perhaps one will be a great teacher.
Perhaps one will be a great companion in your work. Perhaps one
will just teach you momentarily something of immense value or
point your life in a direction, showing you the way to go.
You might need
other people for simple things - to provide goods and services,
for simple companionship, for lighthearted enjoyment, but do not
give yourself away to them. Do not give yourself away to anyone
until you have built this deeper foundation within yourself.
Do
not let impatience or compulsion drive you. Do not let the
persuasions of others or the power of seduction drive you.
Take your time.
Do not hurry into any relationship. Listen to others carefully,
to hear what their presence in your life means, if it means
anything at all. If you are patient and observant, you will
know. If you are reckless and compulsive, your life will be
calamitous, and you will have a string of failed relationships
or be circumscribed in an unhappy marriage or other arrangements
with people.
The longer you
are in a relationship that does not have this greater promise,
the harder it will be to free yourself, for you will become
dependent upon security and familiarity. You will need the
person more than really want to be with them. And this is a
dreadful trap, dreadful to the Spirit, dreadful in that it
pre-empts you from finding your greater purpose and the
individuals who will make all the difference in your discovery
and expression of this purpose.
Do not worry
that you are getting older.
Do not let that drive your decision.
If you are not meant to meet the significant partner for three
years, let us say as an example, what are you going to do in the
next three years?
Go in and out of relationship, experience
frustration, heartbreak, anger or resentment, disappointment,
burning up your life over engagements that have no promise,
while the Four Pillars of your life,
... remain undeveloped and
un-recognized?
Can you be out
of relationship for three years while you are building other
aspects of your life? If you cannot, then you have a problem
with personality addiction and this has nothing to do with real
relationships. This is a personality disorder.
Can you face
loneliness and emptiness, or must you have constant stimulation,
constant romance, constant infatuation and with them all the
disappointment, frustration and disapproval that this generates?
You will waste
your life and other people's lives doing this. It is not
necessary, you see. Constant searching, constant hoping and
wanting someone - this is pointless and unnecessary, you see,
for when you are ready, Knowledge will bring into your life the
individual that you need and the people that you need for other
parts of your life.
Do not think
that everyone who crosses your path has been destined to meet
you. If you have many engagements with people, many people will
be crossing your path. You might have momentary encounters with
them. They too are looking for certain individuals.
Everyone is
looking even if they are pretending not to be looking. But it
must be the real engagement, you see.
Knowledge will
know. If you are strong with Knowledge, you will know. You will
feel Knowledge's response. It will be clear. It will be simple.
Perhaps you
will meet someone, and Knowledge will say,
"Ah, this is your
husband or your wife you are meeting here."
None of this drama
and excitement and infatuation and personal suffering and
anguish that people go through in their romantic endeavors,
their romantic escapades - just a recognition.
Then you have
to see if the person is really ready for this and if, in fact,
this is who they are in your life, and you take your time doing
that. It does not have all the glory and sensation and
extravagance that you see in the movie picture. It is a simple
recognition because the resonance is there and the connection is
there.
The right person is the right person. Now you must
discern if they are ready for this and if you are ready for
this. Then you must learn of their traits and their values to
see if there is sufficient compatibility between you, to allow a
relationship to be formed and sustained.
You may have a
greater destiny, but that does not mean that you can function
successfully together.
You will have to wait and see. If you
value your life, you will not want to give it away. You will not
want to gamble it. You have nothing to lose by taking time to
see. If this is really the person for you, they are not going to
go away.
You can afford
to take time.
For a
relationship to function in the world, it must have a sufficient
degree of compatibility.
That does not
mean you are completely the same, of course not. But you must
have compatibility regarding your values, regarding your
lifestyle, regarding your use of money, regarding how you look
at work, regarding, really, the Four Pillars of your life.
Here you cannot
rehabilitate anyone, for they are either ready or they are not.
They are either right or they are not. The relationship is going
to work or it does not. All this work that people do on their
relationships is foolishness.
It means the relationship does not
work, and they are to keep trying to make it work, and they
invest time and money and energy and sometimes a whole life into
trying to make something work that really just does not work.
They have no idea that if the relationship worked, they would
not have to invest this kind of time.
Yes, there are corrections
and learning to be done and being together. But if you are
always working on a relationship, it does not work. Spare
yourself this fundamental lesson in life that can occupy so much
of your life to learn.
Knowledge will
know. But then you must find out the particulars of a person's
life to see if you can communicate, if you can share your
values, if you can be together harmoniously. Sometimes people
are attracted to people very different from themselves, but
these relationships are almost never successful.
They require
too much adjustment, too much conflict, too much disparity and
too much personal adjustment.
If you are with
someone whose values are very different from yours, you will
never be comfortable with them, and your being together will
never be smooth and easy. This is not about falling in love. You
can fall in love with someone you can never be in a relationship
with. So infatuation or even recognition does not mean a
relationship.
This is another great lesson of life.
Perhaps you
will fall in love with many people over the course of your life,
but you cannot marry them all. Some are personality
infatuations. Some represent relationships from the ancient past
that you are now re-experiencing and want to experience again.
And some represent real connections that could not be brought
into being because the people were not ready or mature enough to
participate effectively together. In the moment, you will not
know what is what. So be careful about letting yourself become
so infatuated with anyone.
Do not want and
try to be in love. That is blind and foolish. There are many
people who could excite the deeper passions of the heart with
whom you could never function together.
You can be in love with
someone whose values are so different from yours that you could
not stand to be together beyond the initial romantic phase.
You
will constantly be arguing, constantly in friction, constantly
disagreeing, constantly mal-adapting to each other.
People fall
in love and get married without any idea of what they are doing
in their lives or where they are going. They just assume if you
are in love you should be married. It is a great mistake. You
might feel spontaneous love for someone, but do not let yourself
go overboard with that.
In
relationship, you are choosing your primary influence. You are
assigning the person to be your chief influence, your chief
advisor. It is a practical arrangement, not just an emotional
one.
Do not think if
you work hard enough, if you love enough, you will make it all
work. This is foolishness. You will have to work at
relationship, certainly, to a degree. You will have to adapt,
certainly, to a degree. You will have to relinquish some of your
personal freedoms and recklessness to be in a real relationship,
of course.
You will have to be attentive. You will have to be
honest. You will have to be engaged. But people take this to
mean that they can make a relationship work with someone whom
they want for themselves, and this is a cruel error.
If you feel
like you are going to fall in love with someone, hold yourself
back, keep your eyes open. This is a very important learning and
very necessary for you to become mature and wise. To be swept
along by impressions and infatuations, to allow yourself to be
seduced by others, to be overtaken by beauty, wealth or charm is
such a form of self-betrayal.
It is such a dangerous
involvement. It has such profoundly difficult and unfortunate
consequences.
You have to be
very careful here. Who you associate with and how you associate
with them has all the bearing for your life and the kind of life
you have and the opportunities you have. Likewise, do not become
sexually engaged with anyone unless it represents a real
partnership for you, for sexuality is a commitment by its very
nature.
You may think of it as a casual involvement, but
emotionally it is never casual. Your relationship will never be
the same. And if it cannot fulfill itself at a greater level, it
will be disappointing, and that will generate resentment and
failed expectations, disappointment.
You can not
always just be a friend with someone who was once a lover, for
you have crossed a threshold where you are pretending to be in a
real relationship even though perhaps you never were. Sexuality
is wonderful with the right person and damaging with the wrong
person.
Never treat this lightly. Never think of this as a
casual, recreational kind of involvement. To your body it is the
real thing. To your emotions it is serious because it is
consequential.
Here you may
have to hold yourself back and learn to restrain yourself, or
you will give yourself away recklessly, hopelessly and cause
great damage. And as a result, you will never know what is
really true within yourself.
People use each
other so thoughtlessly in this regard and give themselves away
so thoughtlessly in this regard. Particularly in the more free
nations, the democratic nations, people have such access to each
other that they can indulge themselves at great damage to
themselves and to other people - damaging their own integrity
and the integrity of another, playing with the affections of
another, pretending to be serious when in fact they have no real
intentions here.
Do not play these games with yourself or with
others, for they produce nothing but harm.
You will see
through disappointment here that you really do have deeper
intentions regarding relationships. You have a more serious
intention here.
People commit
themselves before they are ready.
They get married before they
are ready. They give their life away before they even know what
their life is for, where it is going or what it really means.
This happens all the time. So you have unhappy marriages and
unhappy families.
People are trapped. People are unhappy. People
have capitulated. And now you have unhappy children being taught
all the lessons of compromise that their parents have made.
To break this
pattern, to break free of this reality that people have created,
you must follow a deeper Knowledge within yourself and know what
this means and how it feels, what it feels like to be restrained
by Knowledge.
Take your
decisions to Knowledge. If Knowledge is not choosing, well, you
do not need to choose. If Knowledge is not saying yes, then do
not say yes. If Knowledge is silent, then you be silent. If
Knowledge is not committing itself, do not commit yourself. If
it is not a yes, it is a no.
There are no maybes. Do not
tantalize yourself with that.
That is trying to get what you
want in the face of all the evidence that you are on the wrong
track. So there is no maybe. Take your time. Look and listen to
another. Do not become sexually involved with them. Do not be
pressured to do so.
People will
tell you all about themselves right away: their behavior, their
intentions, their self-honesty, their interests, their values,
their sincerity or lack of it, their self-awareness or lack of
it. Do not be convinced by appearances. You must look deeper
than this.
This will save
your life.
Later on, you will think back and say,
"Oh my God, I
could have married this person. Oh my God, I
could have become involved with this person."
And if your life
is really moving in the right direction, you will see what a
calamity that would have been and how that would have used up
such a great part of your life to try to get clear and to
extricate yourself from that situation.
And when you finally
meet the people you need to meet, you will be so grateful you
did not compromise before. You will be so grateful.
Ultimately,
your focus must be on contribution in the world - where you are
meant to be, what you are meant to do, where you are meant to
give. If this is the focus of your life, then relationships will
easily be a part of that, or they will not. And it will be very
much easier to see if a person can fit into that or not.
That is why
focusing on the presence of Knowledge and learning to read the
signs of your own deeper inclinations are so extremely important
before you become committed to another. Here you are seeking the
kingdom first. You are seeking the reality of your life first.
You are trying to discern a deeper direction.
You are willing to
be alone to do this. You are willing to forgo immediate
gratification to do this because it is so much more important.
You will hold yourself back for this.
If you are not
extremely physically attractive, it is such an advantage here
because the people who are very physically attractive are being
constantly bombarded with offers and persuasions and seductions.
They are being given power and recognition though they have most
often never really earned it through any real merit.
They are
being seduced, and they will seduce themselves, and you will
rarely find a highly physically attractive person who has ever
cultivated any depth within themselves. They have become a
product to be bought and sold. They are a resource for others.
Unless they can see beyond this deception, they will fall prey
to it.
As long as you
are not hiding from people, avoiding people and denying people,
you will be able to see where the connections could possibly be.
But in the interim, your real purpose and emphasis and priority
is to discern the presence of Knowledge and the signs of a
deeper purpose in your life.
For whoever you meet must be
connected to this Knowledge and this purpose if you are to be
with them successfully and if this relationship is to yield
anything of real value and importance.
Take the Steps
to Knowledge then. Learn from the wisdom of others' mistakes and
your own errors in judgment. Learn to be clear and sober. Do not
condemn people, and do not become infatuated with them either.
Do not base your expectations upon potential in others, for what
you see today is really what you have in front of you.
There are so
many important lessons here in discernment. But they all must be
practiced to be realized. Take your path and evaluate it. Watch
others clearly so that their accomplishments and mistakes can
educate you. Let the world teach you what is true and how to
distinguish it from what is not true, what is really good from
what only looks good.
Be sober. Be
clear. Do not give your life away. Build your connection to
Knowledge. Begin to discern the evidence that you are here for a
greater purpose. Do this without coming to conclusions; just
allow the evidence to grow.
Feel Knowledge
moving you and holding you back. Take good care of your mind and
your body. Be present to others, but be reserved. Then you will
have the freedom to practice this deeper discernment, and you
will see how invaluable it is and how it is so lacking in other
people's discernment and decision-making.
Knowledge is
here to take you somewhere, to prepare you, to strengthen you,
to show you the difference between what is real and what is not
real.
You have a
greater destiny and a greater purpose.
You must follow this
pathway and not give it up for love or money, not for beauty,
wealth or charm. If you do this, your life will be preserved,
and you will be able to become strong and mature enough to
engage with certain people with whom you share a greater
destiny.
You will find them, and they will find you. And you
will be ready for one another.
2. The Esoteric
Perspective of the Polar Couple
by Boris Mouravieff
"Gnosis"
Human love is
imperfect because it is instinctive and impulsive.
As long as man
automatically follows his impulses, his love will serve only the
cosmic goals of the ensemble [the General Law/Matrix].
The
pleasure he always gains from this is as much an equilibrating
element as a reward.
As it is, it will not serve his esoteric
evolution in any way.
Yet Love is the
surest and most powerful means of achieving this evolution. This
is because Love is the one objective element in our lives. That
objectivity remains true in all Love's many aspects, and through
all the variety of its manifestations. Love can, in effect,
serve man in his esoteric evolution.
However, to achieve this
aim, man must apply conscious efforts to this love, not allow
himself be led on by impulses.
It can then be used to accelerate
the growth of his Personality and its progress towards the
second Birth, the first tangible result of esoteric practices.
This work, done
by man and woman working together, can develop with
extraordinary power and give rapid results… on condition that
from the esoteric point of view the two beings entirely suit
each other, and also on condition that they are a perfect
couple, that is, that their combination - with reservations
concerning the peculiarities of their human type - reflects the
relation between the absolute 'I' and the 'You' before the
Creation of the Universe.
This is the case of those beings known
in esoteric science as polar beings.
We must add
that now, at the threshold of the era of the Holy Spirit, where
all that is wrong - however well-intentioned - must fall and
break, the problem of the real polarity of couples becomes
crucially important.
Two beings, man and woman, who are supposed
to be polar, cannot be absolutely certain of their polarity
until later on, when they have reached the level of man 4, on
the threshold of level 5.
This is
because, although polar in essence, each of them brings with
them a past that covers their real 'I' with a dissimilar crust.
Those who are polar in essence must take this fact into account.
It is only when they gradually shed this crust that the
qualities of their essence will progressively shine through,
bringing at each discovery an abundance of ineffable joy.
Thus
their love will always grow.
Conscious
personal efforts, especially efforts between two polar beings,
and the joint efforts of people who have already progressed in
the search for the Way, mark out the route for those who want to
serve, who wish to be useful to the task of redemption which
esoteric work wants to accomplish today in the whole world.
To set out on
the Way, man must necessarily go through an inner collapse of
the Personality, what we call moral bankruptcy. Then he will
know the vain illusion of pride, and the true value of humility.
To return to this source, the chief practical objectives are
mastery of the sexual centre, and the training of the emotional
centre. However, for this esoteric work to be completed
successfully by two people, it is essential that the two beings
- man and woman - are integrally polar.
Here the real
'I' is involved, and the couple's Love, while containing all the
possibilities already described in the preceding cases, has a
singularly emotional character of a higher order. It naturally
follows as this Love is hylic, psychic and spiritual at the same
time, thus leading to an attraction that is visual, auditory and
tactile, it is incomparably richer.
The chief
characteristic of this so-called Royal case is the bi-polarity
of the real 'I' - one for each couple.
This orients their
Personalities and their bodies in such a way that what each
hopes for and awaits from the other is precisely, and very
naturally, what the other desires to and is prepared to offer.
It is only in a case of this kind that there can be absolute
harmony between a couple, and even this is conditional on each
of them trying progressively to liquidate his or her karmic
burden and to establish a balance between the lower centres,
whose development must be pushed to the limit.
These are the
combined objectives which the allegedly polar couple who enter
on the fifth way must seek through their work.
This means that,
right from the beginning, the Knight and his Lady-elect must
practice courtly Love, which unites in itself Faith, Hope and
Knowledge (Gnosis).
3. Sri Aurobindo on
the Soul Mate/Twin Flame connection
by Sri Aurobindo
"Letters on Yoga"
Note:
Sri Aurobindo's comment is addressed to a man who asked the
question. Obviously you can interchange the gender reference.
Question
"How can one know when he meets his psychic (soul) mate?"
SRI
AUROBINDO:
"How do you
know a spiritual experience?
It is all a
matter of feeling and inner perception. It is an art and not
a science. When she walks into your life you will know her
right enough. As I have told you again and again, no rigid
and hard and fast rule is possible in things like this.
Union with
woman is right in one case and perhaps wrong in other 99
cases. In that one case again without his Shakti (i.e.
feminine counterpart) the man's progress will be very slow
and he may even go wrong. In the other 99 cases contact with
woman itself may prove an obstacle.
There are
so many hostile [hyperdimensional] powers working against
the right union of complementary souls that very often, you
can seldom meet your right mate. Of course I am talking of
the path and not of the goal.
When you
reach the highest you will have to see whether you can get
your Shakti.
Without a Shakti you can yourself be perfect,
in the sense that you can attain full knowledge, power and
Ananda and change your entire organized being into its
divine nature, but when you want to throw your powers on the
world for creation, it is different.
Take my
instance. It may so happen that I reach the highest all
alone, my Shakti falling in the way. Then I cannot create
without her. I can by my highest siddhi only prepare the way
for others to follow and accomplish the rest in the future.
It is not
only the [occult] dark forces who obstruct and make it
impossible for the twin souls to meet, but even when they
actually meet their life may get wrecked owing to mental and
vital impediments. It is only when the psychic [soul
embodiment] or the spiritual part is predominant in both,
the two can really fulfill one another and progress higher
and higher.
The [
occult hyperdimensional] hostile powers working against the
siddhi of yogis are difficult to conquer.
Ordinarily
we are in complete darkness or ignorance with only flashes
of knowledge now and then, even when the sadhaka has risen
into a continual glow of knowledge and can discern the play
of all the dark forces, he is not exempt from attack.
Only when
he reaches full illumination and is in serene and revealed
knowledge he is beyond them and safe."
4. Conscious
Relationship
by Shelly Bullard
We are
approaching a period of time when relationships are ready to go
through a major redesign.
The current paradigm isn't working.
People are unsatisfied in love; people don't know how to make
relationships work.
And, believe it
or not, this isn't a bad thing. Because when systems break-down,
that's when they change. I believe that's what's happening in
the area of intimate partnership. The break-down is forcing us
to move towards conscious love.
So what exactly
is a conscious relationship?
It's a romantic
relationship in which both partners feel committed to a sense of
purpose, and that purpose is growth. Individual growth.
Collective growth as a couple. Growth that makes the world a
better place.
As of now, most
people get into relationships to satisfy their own personal
needs. This might work for a few years, but eventually the
relationship fails us, and we end up unsatisfied as a result.
But when two
people come together with the intention of growth, the
relationship strives towards something much greater than
gratification. The partnership becomes a journey of evolution,
and the two individuals have an opportunity to expand more than
they could alone.
Deep satisfaction and long-term fulfillment
arise as a result.
So if you're
someone who feels called to take your experience of romantic
love to the next level, below are four qualities that
characterize what being a conscious couple is all about. Welcome
to the path of the conscious relationship.
This is
next-level love:
The conscious couple is not attached to the outcome of the
relationship - growth comes first
Not being
attached to the outcome of the relationship does not mean
you don't care what happens!
It also doesn't mean that you
don't have fantasies about how the relationship will turn
out. What it means is: you're more committed to the
experience of growth than you are to making the relationship
"work." The reality is, we're here to grow.
Physically,
mentally, emotionally and spiritually. When growth stops, we
automatically feel like something's gone wrong. Because it
has. Without growth, we aren't fulfilling our soul's
purpose.
Unfortunately, relationships today tend to stifle growth
more than enhance it. This is one of the main reasons we're
failing at romantic love. We want our partners to act in a
certain way, we repress ourselves to please others, and soon
enough, we feel small, oppressed and puzzled about who we've
become.
This, inevitably, makes the relationship feel like a
cage that we want to break out of. But the unfortunate truth
is: we've caged ourselves.
The
conscious couple values growth more than anything else
because they know this is the secret to keeping the
relationship alive.
Even though growth is scary (because it
takes us into the unknown), the couple is willing to strive
towards expansion, even at the risk of out-growing the
relationship.
Because of this, the relationship maintains a
natural feeling of aliveness, and love between the couple
does, too.
Each person in the relationship is committed to owning their
s#*t
Conscious
couples know that we all have wounds from the past, and they
understand that these wounds will inevitably be triggered,
especially in a relationship. In other words, they expect to
feel abandoned, trapped, rejected, overlooked and any other
shitty feeling that arises when we bond closely with another
person.
Most of us
still believe that relationships should only feel good, and
when bad feelings surface, something has gone terribly
wrong. What we fail to see in this situation is that these
shitty feelings stem from our own faulty patterning!
These
issues are not caused by our partners; they're caused by our
beliefs.
The
conscious couple is willing to look at their past and
current issues in relationships because they know that by
facing these beliefs systems, they can evolve into a new
relationship-reality.
Dysfunctional patterns will dissolve,
but only when we take responsibility for them, first.
All feelings are welcome and no internal process is
condemned.
In a
conscious relationship, there's room to feel anything.
Not
only that, there's room to express those feelings and
fantasies to your partner. This is edgy territory… it's not
easy to do. But it's also one of the most healing things we
can experience in a partnership
It's rare to be completely honest about who you are, and to
stretch yourself to let your partner do the same. You may
not like what you hear; in fact, it may trigger the hell out
of you. But you're willing to be triggered if it means your
partner can be authentic.
Like I
already said, we're used to molding and changing ourselves
to please people we love because we don't want them to stop
loving us! This stifles the love out of our connections.
The only option is radical honesty: revealing parts of
ourselves that are hard to share, and letting our partners
do the same.
This leads to feeling known, seen and truly
understood - a combination that will automatically enhance
your love.
The relationship is a place to practice love
Love,
ultimately, is a practice.
A practice of acceptance, being
present, forgiveness, and stretching your heart into
vulnerable territories. Sometimes we treat love like it's a
destination. We want that peak feeling all the time, and
when it's not there, we're not satisfied with what the
relationship has become.
In my mind, this is missing the
whole point of love.
Love is a
journey and an exploration. It's showing up for all varied
nuances of your relationship and asking yourself,
"What would
love do here?"
The answer will be different every time, and
because of this, you'll get to grow in ways you never have
before! The conscious couple is fiercely committed to being
the embodiment of love.
And through their devotion and
practice, love shows up in their lives and relationship in
ways they would've never imagined before.
5. Evolutionary
Love Relationships
by Andrew Harvey and
Chris Saade
"Evolutionary
Love Relationships"
What the Divine
Mother is now birthing in all those open to her is a vision of
total relationship between heart, mind, body, and soul, so that
through that deep sacred relationship, we can come into the
unified force field of reality, become completely embodied and
present, and use that inner love to express our longing to see
the world transformed.
What is really
at stake is this:
If we continue
to have a vision of relationship as purely personal, purely
private, and something that we cultivate only for our own
pleasure, we will keep feeding the tragic narcissism that is now
ravaging the planet on every level.
The real thrust
and purpose and meaning and divine importance of relationship is
to give us the fuel to take on the world, the energy to keep on
pouring ourselves out for the creation of a new world.
It is
critical to remember that this crisis we are facing is a crisis
in which the sacred powers of love in the human soul are being
diverted by distraction, by greed, by ignorance, by the pursuit
of power, so that they never irrigate the world and transform
it.
What is needed
is a vision of evolutionary relationship as a relationship that
helps us come into the real, take responsibility for it, and
enact our sacred purpose with a partner, and for the world:
when
two lovers come together in this dynamic love consciousness,
they create a transformative field of sacred energy, from which
both can feed to inspire their work in reality.
Both beings
need to be plunged individually into a deep and passionate
devotion of the Beloved [Divine], by whatever name they know the
Beloved, because without both beings centering their life in
God, the relationship will never be able to escape the private
circle.
From the very beginning it must be centered in the
Divine. It must be a relationship that is undertaken in the coscious presence of the Divine for the Divine's great work in
the Universe.
Only a relationship that is centered in God, and
that has God as the prime actor in the relationship, will be
able to bear the vicissitudes of authentic love, of dealing with
the challenges of life and service in the world.
Both lovers
[need to] completely abandon any Hollywood sentimentality about
what relationships actually are. As love becomes more
evolutionary and conscious, so does each lover's understanding
of each other's shadow.
One of the
essential roles of this new love is to make each person in the
relationship the safe-guarder of the other's shadow - not the
judge of the other's shadow, not the denier of the other's
shadow, but someone who recognizes where the other has been
wounded, and safeguards and protects them with unconditional
compassion without allowing themselves to be mauled or
manipulated by the other.
This takes an
immense effort, because it takes an immense effort to understand
your own shadow, and an even greater effort to face and
comprehend, without illusion, denial or repulsion, the shadow of
the other.
If you are
going to enter into the evolutionary process, you have to accept
that it never ends, never stops unfolding. There is no end to
transformation, because divine love is infinite.
Evolution is
fundamentally a death/rebirth cycle that repeats itself in
higher and higher dimensions, and any authentic evolutionary
relationship must have the courage to go through the deaths that
engender the rebirths.
From the very
beginning of this adventure into evolutionary love you must make
the commitment for it not to be just a personal orgy, a
cultivation of an oasis of private pleasure.
You must engage
consciously in this relationship, to make you stronger, to serve
the planet, to recognize that it is a relationship not only
grounded in God, not only infused by sacred practice, but it is
from the very beginning dedicated to making both people more
powerful, more reflective, more passionately engaged.
We need a
major revolution of the heart to empower everyone to step
forward and start doing the work of reconstruction and
recreation that is now desperately needed.
Authentic right
livelihood is rare in this world, but when you see a glimpse of
it, possibly even in yourself, you must dedicate yourself to a
form of service that really absorbs your deepest gifts. And your
partner needs to be involved either with you or act separately.
Otherwise, the great ideal of evolutionary love, the ideal that
an evolutionary love can co-create with the Divine a wholly new
world and provide the kind of ecstasy, fuel, energy, passion,
and truth for this great transformation cannot be realized.
Unless the two
people involved in the relationship have an equal commitment to
really pouring themselves out in right livelihood, they are in
tremendous danger of using their relationship as an addictive
drug, which is unfortunately what a great many tantric
practitioners do.
They use the pursuit of ecstatic relationship
as a way of escape, to avoid deep plunging into the world. This
is a subtle, but lethal, form of narcissism and aborts the
evolutionary impulse.
The adventure
of evolutionary love exposes you to yourself. It reveals to you
that for all of your mouthing of sacred truths and your desire
for passion and unity and commitment, there is a whole part of
you that is lazy, slothful, in denial, corrupt, and profoundly
narcissistic.
This is shocking, but it is essential to encounter
this [shadow] part of yourself, because you will be dealing with
it in ever subtler forms as the transforming process grows more
and more intense.
Evolutionary
love will not be able to be incubated in the current religious,
guru, or New Age systems because it demands that people step
outside the religious inhibitions of all of the major systems
and claim their divinity and do this radical work of marrying
the authentic self [within], rooted consciously in its
light-origin to its mission of sacred service.
Most people look
for a "correct" way of being, a "correct" way of being love
[i.e. the disease of spiritual/political "correctness"]. They
lose the authenticity of their own spiritual embodiment.
The essential
part of the transformation we are seeking, this grassroots
unleashing of love-in-action, has to come through a profound
respect for every individual authenticity and for the sacred
task of every individual spirit.
That requires a smashing of the
idols.
"Enlightenment" doesn't have to be projected outwards [on
to gurus/masters/others to follow with its side effect of
group/hive mind/follower thinking]. But very few mystical or
religious leaders are really giving that message.
The New Age
claims to give that message, but then, it defines the authentic
life as being peaceful, passive, and gentle, not seeing the
negative - all of this nonsense.
Our
authenticity is unique, yet it is indivisibly connected to love.
We can only fully understand the nature of our own spirit when
we dedicate it to service, for the love of the world.
Marry the
passion you discover when you reclaim and embody your unique
self to the passion to serve the birth of a new humanity and you
will be borne into a new level of power, energy, and
effectiveness.
Imagine what
could be accomplished by two people loving and encouraging each
other to live this most potent of marriages.
