Hi Rupert,
Recently, a woman I love and I believe loves me decided she wanted to be just friends and that being an ‘in-love’ couple was not what this relationship was. In feeling the pain of that, I had a channelled reading with a woman who brings through one or more of my guides for this life experience. Now just so you know, my take on all this is that this is all part of the appearance, yet seems very real to me. Nevertheless, I have recognised that part of my story, as my guide explained and this resonated with me, is that I believe I am not lovable and so have drawn women (at least nine) into my life over many years whom I love and who seem to love me but then change their minds all of a sudden, reinforcing the ‘unlovable’ belief.
For some years I have been aware of this belief and have cleared some of the unconscious conditioning that keeps the story showing up over and over. But the longing to be in a loving, co-creative relationship seems even stronger now than it ever has been. Why do I have this powerful yearning, this ache, to merge deeply and completely with a woman? How can I let go of this repeating experience so that the deep and merged love relationship fulfils itself? When I am not in a relationship I seem to do fine on my own. It doesn’t seem that I am trying to fill a lack in myself, just this longing to be love and be loved fully.
Awakening or liberation seems an entirely unrelated ‘happening’ to what I’ve just described. I have thought that the ever-increasing release of conditioning would result in more peace, more joy, more love, and this seems to be true, but I do not think it would promote waking up from identification with the apparent ‘me’. That’s as clear as I can state it for now.
Thanks and love,
Len
Dear Len,
Len: Why do I have this powerful yearning, this ache, to merge deeply and completely with a woman?
Rupert: The desire to merge deeply and completely with a woman is the desire to lose oneself as a separate entity. It is in this merging, that the separate-self sense is temporarily extinguished, and this experience of the dissolution of the apparent self is, by definition, the experience of love or happiness. That is, it is the experience of presence tasting its own being.
When the mind re-emerges out of this timeless experience of love in which it was not present, it creates a lover, ‘me’, and a loved, ‘her’. With the birth of this apparent duality, the love which was revealed in a timeless moment to be our very own nature in the absence of the sense of ‘me’ and ‘her’ is again veiled.
And now, feeling that love is lost, the mind, in the form of this apparent entity, ‘me’, goes out into the apparent world again in search of the lost love, in search of another ‘her’, trying in this way to recreate the circumstances which seem to have precipitated the previous experience of love, that is, merging with a woman.
However, it is not the woman who causes the love. It is the woman who temporarily puts an end to the search, and in that moment presence, no longer apparently veiled by the agitated search for love, tastes its own self. That is the experience of love. It has nothing to do with women!
How can I let go of this repeating experience so that the deep and merged love relationship fulfils itself?
By understanding that love is ever-present, inherent in our own being, but seems to be veiled when we believe and feel ourself to be a separate and limited entity. Love is not the result of this search. It is prior to the search.
By understanding this, we stop looking for love in the wrong place, and the way we do this is by looking in the right place. The right place is that place in us that is prior to the mind, prior to feelings. It is our ever-present awareness, in which the desires, the frustrations, the women, the longing, everything comes and goes.
Take your stand there, which means simply to see that that is what you always are. Simply be knowing this presence of awareness to which, in which and ultimately as which all things appear. That is the true abode of love.
* * *
It doesn’t seem that I am trying to fill a lack in myself, just this longing to be love and be loved fully.
If there is no lack, then there is no longing. If there is longing, there is lack. You are already the love that you long for. It is the longing that veils it. Let the longing dissolve in understanding and you will find yourself as the very thing you are looking for. This presence that we are, that we share, is the element in each of us that is truly lovable.
The desire to share this love is very natural, and an intimate relationship is a beautiful expression of this. So many ingredients are present within it with which this love can be expressed and celebrated.
Awakening or liberation seems an entirely unrelated ‘happening’ to what I’ve just described. I have thought that the ever-increasing release of conditioning would result in more peace, more joy, more love, and this seems to be true, but I do not think it would promote waking up from identification with the apparent ‘me’.
You are right! It is not the ‘ever-increasing release of conditioning (that) would result in more peace, more joy, more love’ but rather the other way round. If we take our stand as this open, welcoming, loving presence that we always are, the conditioned mind and body slowly realign themselves with this experiential understanding. All the unlovable, awkward characteristics that seem to thwart love get ironed out by love itself, and the mind and body are slowly refashioned into a shape that is in line with love itself.
If we are in a relationship where both parties share this love of truth, then the relationship itself will both highlight those areas in each party that are yet to be colonised by love and at the same time provide the loving embrace in which they are slowly and naturally dissolved. In this way a relationship is both a sadhana and a celebration, the latter slowly taking precedence over the former.
With love,
Rupert
