Scene: sometime after the novelty of a new relationship has worn off:
"Can you give me a hand here? I can't lift this thing?"
"I'm busy, can't you see. I need to finish this."
or is it: "When will you be back?" "Hard to say, depends on when I get things done."
He prizes his independence, freedom and self-sufficiency and doesn't feel he needs permission or approval for his plans. Focusing on his work and/or interests, he is self-absorbed and sometimes forgetful. She sees the two of them as partners, working together, planning and sharing; she's considerate, articulate and organized.
He doesn't like being held to perform according to someone else's expectations as to time, place or satisfaction. She expects him to know or support what she needs and to view her as his first priority just as she feels he is hers.
[Genders could be exchanged; used only for illustration.]
Independence vs commitment! Is one better or a higher priority than the other? We need to learn to stand on our own two feet and yet, we need to give and receive help. We are born helpless and need parents, teachers and mentors for the first two or three decades of life! And, truthfully, much longer even this.
Both represent important aspects of the experience of human life and the soul's journey towards freedom. Free will and independence are the core and the center of human life but connection and oneness is the soul's journey and goal.
The conversation I am framing is actually not really about men and women but using these archetypes or, if you prefer, stereotypes, as labels which make good handles for (static) conceptualizing--though poor handles for the reality of life's ceaseless ebb and flow.
When we are born and as infants we have yet to reacquire a strong ego self-identity. Gaze into the eyes of an infant and you see luminous consciousness, but very little ego. For the first few months of life, the infant is happy no matter who holds her. But as the months pass, an attachment forms to (usually) the mother.
The very growth and interaction with its parents could be described as a process by which the child is taught day after day that she is a separate entity and her likes and dislikes, the essence of ego, is inextricably linked to who and what she is. This includes her name: her handle. "Do you like this?" "Do you want that?" Incessant programming of likes and dislikes. Partly, this programming is instinctive survival and growth training.
I have heard it said that you teach a child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again: he'll only repeat the name of the bird and imagine that he now knows the bird because it has a name. Names are the mental handles by which we pour the essence of reality into a neatly and tightly sealed jar.
No sooner than this child grows through adolescence and towards adulthood and he is attracted to someone with whom he falls in love and, for a time, feel one again with another. This is short-lived yet the desire is strong enough that nowadays people will attempt it multiple times during their life.
We are born as One. We grow as two. We seek to be One again. I suppose most people eventually simply accept one another's differences and take from the relationship the best they can and leave the rest. This is a realistic approach but it doesn't erase, though it might suppress for a time, the impulse for union, for completion, for expansion beyond the ego into a greater awareness. This impulse is the spiritual remembrance or impulse.
It has been said that "It may be a blessing to be born into a religion but it is a misfortune to die in one." Religion, like relationship, should teach us how to love purely and unselfishly and, eventually, how to love all as a part of ourselves.
The commitment needed in a relationship is similar to the commitment on the spiritual path. Both can sharpen our skills and depth of commitment but from the depth and safety of learning to love we can grow to love all as One. (This does not imply that we marry "everyone" only that we can expand our love impersonally, which is to say, without thought of self, to all.)
While remaining true to our commitments (both spiritual path and human relationships), we expand to appreciate, respect, and indeed love all as extensions of our soul-Self.
Spiritual journey is similar: we "date" by trying on different religious or spiritual costumes and ideas. Then we marry and become one (of those or one of "them").
If we are sincere and our chosen path is true, we will go beyond the support of the outer forms into the center of our soul's being. Later we emerge appearing perhaps to be as one (of those). Like the Zen saying: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water!
The spiritual path is necessarily an "inside job," so comparisons are tentative at best. Thus it is some of the mystics of Christianity, though persecuted by their own religious hierarchy, nonetheless emerged in support of the very same structure through which they passed beyond. I think in this regard of St. Theresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the more recent Padre Pio.
In marriage too there can be a mid-stage of hurts, betrayals, persecution or conflict, and a later stage of acceptance and reconciliation.
The lesson is to understand that, whether from the soul's perspective or the ego's, we ebb and flow between the need to be apart, centered in the Self or in our own needs and realities, and other times to be giving, serving and self-forgetful. This is as true in our relationship with God as it is in our marriage or partnership.
Even the most devoted lover (whether of God or spouse) will have times when struggle, inner conflicts, outer demands preoccupy one's thoughts, emotions, energies and actions. And other times when absorbed in the love and contemplation of the beloved.
Only in enlightenment does the distinctions wholly cease, the inner and outer having merged into one.
"Can you give me a hand here? I can't lift this thing?"
"I'm busy, can't you see. I need to finish this."
or is it: "When will you be back?" "Hard to say, depends on when I get things done."
He prizes his independence, freedom and self-sufficiency and doesn't feel he needs permission or approval for his plans. Focusing on his work and/or interests, he is self-absorbed and sometimes forgetful. She sees the two of them as partners, working together, planning and sharing; she's considerate, articulate and organized.
He doesn't like being held to perform according to someone else's expectations as to time, place or satisfaction. She expects him to know or support what she needs and to view her as his first priority just as she feels he is hers.
[Genders could be exchanged; used only for illustration.]
Independence vs commitment! Is one better or a higher priority than the other? We need to learn to stand on our own two feet and yet, we need to give and receive help. We are born helpless and need parents, teachers and mentors for the first two or three decades of life! And, truthfully, much longer even this.
Both represent important aspects of the experience of human life and the soul's journey towards freedom. Free will and independence are the core and the center of human life but connection and oneness is the soul's journey and goal.
The conversation I am framing is actually not really about men and women but using these archetypes or, if you prefer, stereotypes, as labels which make good handles for (static) conceptualizing--though poor handles for the reality of life's ceaseless ebb and flow.
When we are born and as infants we have yet to reacquire a strong ego self-identity. Gaze into the eyes of an infant and you see luminous consciousness, but very little ego. For the first few months of life, the infant is happy no matter who holds her. But as the months pass, an attachment forms to (usually) the mother.
The very growth and interaction with its parents could be described as a process by which the child is taught day after day that she is a separate entity and her likes and dislikes, the essence of ego, is inextricably linked to who and what she is. This includes her name: her handle. "Do you like this?" "Do you want that?" Incessant programming of likes and dislikes. Partly, this programming is instinctive survival and growth training.
I have heard it said that you teach a child the name of a bird, the child will never see the bird again: he'll only repeat the name of the bird and imagine that he now knows the bird because it has a name. Names are the mental handles by which we pour the essence of reality into a neatly and tightly sealed jar.
No sooner than this child grows through adolescence and towards adulthood and he is attracted to someone with whom he falls in love and, for a time, feel one again with another. This is short-lived yet the desire is strong enough that nowadays people will attempt it multiple times during their life.
We are born as One. We grow as two. We seek to be One again. I suppose most people eventually simply accept one another's differences and take from the relationship the best they can and leave the rest. This is a realistic approach but it doesn't erase, though it might suppress for a time, the impulse for union, for completion, for expansion beyond the ego into a greater awareness. This impulse is the spiritual remembrance or impulse.
It has been said that "It may be a blessing to be born into a religion but it is a misfortune to die in one." Religion, like relationship, should teach us how to love purely and unselfishly and, eventually, how to love all as a part of ourselves.
The commitment needed in a relationship is similar to the commitment on the spiritual path. Both can sharpen our skills and depth of commitment but from the depth and safety of learning to love we can grow to love all as One. (This does not imply that we marry "everyone" only that we can expand our love impersonally, which is to say, without thought of self, to all.)
While remaining true to our commitments (both spiritual path and human relationships), we expand to appreciate, respect, and indeed love all as extensions of our soul-Self.
Spiritual journey is similar: we "date" by trying on different religious or spiritual costumes and ideas. Then we marry and become one (of those or one of "them").
If we are sincere and our chosen path is true, we will go beyond the support of the outer forms into the center of our soul's being. Later we emerge appearing perhaps to be as one (of those). Like the Zen saying: before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water. After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water!
The spiritual path is necessarily an "inside job," so comparisons are tentative at best. Thus it is some of the mystics of Christianity, though persecuted by their own religious hierarchy, nonetheless emerged in support of the very same structure through which they passed beyond. I think in this regard of St. Theresa of Avila, St. Joseph of Cupertino, and the more recent Padre Pio.
In marriage too there can be a mid-stage of hurts, betrayals, persecution or conflict, and a later stage of acceptance and reconciliation.
The lesson is to understand that, whether from the soul's perspective or the ego's, we ebb and flow between the need to be apart, centered in the Self or in our own needs and realities, and other times to be giving, serving and self-forgetful. This is as true in our relationship with God as it is in our marriage or partnership.
Even the most devoted lover (whether of God or spouse) will have times when struggle, inner conflicts, outer demands preoccupy one's thoughts, emotions, energies and actions. And other times when absorbed in the love and contemplation of the beloved.
Only in enlightenment does the distinctions wholly cease, the inner and outer having merged into one.
No comments:
Post a Comment