Maintain Internal Heights

Relationships

Friendships-Relationships & Love

Society teaches us that the the love we have for friends and lovers is a different type of love. These influence separate love into sex, and friendship. Friends only have friendship and lovers have sex and friendship combined. We label and describe and try to confine while separating love into categories. These categories do not explain the intimate level of life, the feelings, emotions and connections that are not just on the surface but encompass the whole being. Sex is not love, friendship is not love.

Love is what is behind both of these concepts. When one person meets another at a deeper level then what is on the surface. It is beyond what we think about the other person, about what we believe to be true or not true. Love is beyond all the mind has to offer a relationship. Love is free to exist and expand or contract. It is undefinable.

The issue arises when we start to think of love as a “thing” or concept of beliefs and ideas. That are bound by rules, or a curtain way we are suppose to act. This bondage is the past conditioning which clouds love. If love is conditioned then it has a form, and if you are bound by a form then anything that goes against that form becomes non-loving.

The conditioning is what outlines the love, and then there is no ability to take action when a situation arises. Simply you fall into the conditioning, or the past to look for the right way to react to the situation. You react, instead of taking action when action or non-action is needed. When you react, you are unconscious and any action you take to “fix” the situation is dead. It has no life to it, it has no love in it. It simply is what you have been taught, what you believe to be true or not true. Instead of relying on something more then thought, desires and attachments. Love is wakeful and ready to take the right action without any fear of lose.

Love should be spontaneous in the moment and never concerned with the past or future. When it is conditioned with the past, the present moment is lost. The present moment is all you have when you are in a relationship with someone. In relationship you must be fully alert, still and at peace with yourself. If the mind is lost in the conditioning, old insecurities will arise and you will unconsciously act out of your fears.

This fear in relationship comes from the fear of losing the other person. The feeling that the other person is what makes you feel “love”. This is when love turns into desire, which leads to an attachment. Suffering develops when the desire of the attachment does not meet the expectations of the desirer. We believe love to be this attachment, this fight to have the “other” person reflect what we feel to be love. When we have these expectations, we begin the path of suffering. We have no control over the actions or reactions of the other person in the relationship. Any attempt to gain control, all love is lost. When falling into this trap the reflection of the mirror of the other person is cloudy and not clear there will be a fight to wipe it clear. Instead of wiping the cloudy mirror into something clear the mirror ends up becoming smudged and even more cloudy.

This is what is happened when in relationships when there is a conflict. When conflict arises there are either two choices- first we can simply decide to let go or take action, or decide to fight. The fight is not with the other person, it is in fact with the desires and expectations that have been created within ourselves. Without even noticing it we have become conditioned to our own beliefs. Even these beliefs have stopped us from being able to Love.

Love is not bound, it is un-bounding and free. Knowing this unbound freedom within our own self is the key to taking the step to realize love is never separate from ourself. Love is never in the other person, it is within our own self. It is truly our own reflection, it is to be given. When two can both give love in a relationship without any conditions or concepts or ideology behind what love is. Then at that point the mirror becomes clear and as they both peer to look in, all they can see is themselves. Perfectly free and unbound, perfectly in love.

When entering into a relationship both parts of the whole should be un-bounding and free. The relationship should encourage the other to become more free, to face insecurities and fears. In the relationship if either of the party has let the fear (desire/attachment) overcome and surrender is not the main effort then much suffering will develop. Surrendering the desires and attachments at every moment you have the opportunity. Even though we are not perfect, the goal should be to alert and wakeful in order to be aware of when it is time to surrender and let go.

At this point the thought might have appeared that how can letting go be a valuable in a relationship. Letting go is the paradox of life, when realizing that we don’t have control over the “other” then we must let go. This letting go or surrender isn’t because you simply don’t care what the other is doing, but its a letting go because you actually see that you don’t have control over the “other”. Surrendering your desires is the selfless act of being humble in a relationship. It shows that your insecurities about feeling love are not part of your view on love. Instead you are letting the other person be completely who they are, without needing to change them. When you start to try to change the “other” then you are now selfish and your own desires and ideology is vomited into the relationship. This is when relationships turn ugly, they become back and white and lose all their color and spontaneity. The presence of peace between two can not survive when the mind lives in this dualistic state of expectations and desires. Always searching and never seeing the relationship that is here right now.

The dualistic mind separates things into, good and bad. If you start believing in the story the mind has offer then you automatically reject on aspect of the relationship. If you reject the bad feelings in the relationship you are only seeing half of what is in front of you. Instead, if the relationship is fully embraced from the bad, to the good, to the ugly and beautiful then something flowers. Then you can be at peace with no matter what appears because you know that the mind is transient and will soon shift its course. If you can simply be still in relationships, and not label all the energies that arise. Then you can transcend the dualistic mind and become whole within yourself. First- you must be whole within yourself. Then you can become whole with another, but it starts with you.

We also must realize that just believing in all of these words about love, surrender, letting go, desire, and attachment will not bring the progress of integrating action into our lives. What I have found best for weaving awareness and wakefulness into ordinary life is that we must let go when ever we notice our habits and emotions arising. When that feeling of inadequacy comes, no matter what the words or images are saying about what the inadequacy is from, we must take the opportunity to completely surrender all desires and let them be fully active. This is a doorway, it takes awareness to realize that the door has been opened and it takes action to let go and walk through.

Take an honest effort throughout the day, while being in relationship and outside of relationship to be aware of your activity and turn it into an action that comes from that silent space from within. When the opportunities appears- take the step. If you hesitate it will pass you by. The truth is not screaming for your attention it is waiting for you to realize it has never left you. It is waiting for your surrender. It is waiting for you to say “YES” to your suffering in your relationship. When you completely embrace the suffering, you allow it to be complete not only half and hidden. When emotions are not allowed to be expressed in silence they are masked in noise. They will come forth, when you are not fully alert. You will not even realize that it has happened. Try to walk in awareness, not as a state of mind separate from ordinary consciousness but as what you already are, freedom. Take this into relationships and surrender to LOVE.

31 notes | 1 year ago