According to my shrink, and I totally concur with her, all people's relationships are games, over the rules of which they have no control, being jerked around, like marionettes, by blocked out memories, shards of past emotions, reactive patterns of behaviour sitting beneath their conscious mind. So when people look for love and relationships, they simply chase invisible shadows in their minds, projecting them on reality. It is a pure accident if a real person fits the bill, because the criteria are hardly known to the chaser. That is, unless they've been through a successful therapy.
Human beings are the only force in the Universe (if you don't count God) that is working to counter entropy, the natural way of things to fall into chaos. The formidability of this task only really strikes you, when you think what cosmic forces we, mere thinking mould in a far-flung corner of the Universe, are against in this.
The word brahmacharya is understood broadly in yoga as "sexual continence," which can be understood as being applicable as appropriate in different contexts (e.g., faith in marriage, celibacy for spiritual aspirants etc.), in more extreme terms (complete celibacy) or in more specific terms in relation to preserving and sublimating male sexual energy rather than losing it through ejaculation.
In yoga, the term brahmacharya tends to take on a connotation of disciplining the use of and preserving sexual energy. Brahmacharya is discussed in Patanjali's Yoga Sutras as one of the 5 Yamas, the foundational commitments for the practice of yoga. According to the Yoga Sutras, the end-result or fruit of Brahmacharya practised to perfection is unbounded energy or vitality.
Brahmacharya can also be interpreted more generally in a variety of ways, such as:
* generally striving for excellence in all domains of activity and relationship * pursuing 'virtue' however defined. Brahmacharya understood in this sense is similar to the classical Greek concept of arete (excellence) * clearing underlying personality conflicts and centering oneself and ones spiritual journey in clear, well conceived and sustainable values (that is, thinking of Brahmacharya as an ongoing practice of 'clearing' analogous to resolving personality complexes and conflicts in psychotherapy) * refining one's 'energies' (prana/chi/aura etc.) in relation to other people generally, to become aware of more subtle energies and to take one's energies or 'vibration' higher
pre-logical, corresponding to our animal interioir section of our brain. That's how animals think "likes are alike", "A=B=C=D", ...
logical, that lives in the frontal lobes, we acquire it from the civilising effort of upbringing and education, that's what science uses to understyand the visible world
supra-logical, of the "God operates in mysterious ways' fame, is accesible through spiritual development, it allows to understand the inner struicture of people, things and events.
At this point of the developmet of ourrace, we thinkthat logical, scinetific is the
Human mind due to its limitations can only think in human categories. We need some kind of pronoun, so we use He, for the sake of convenience and also due to our own tendency to associate the qualities we see in God to maleness. Although I don't think that God would have primary or secondary sexual attributes, do you?
It sure is fine and dandy to be in touch of your feelings. It is great to express them,not suppress them.
But do you know if they are your true emotions or just a script (reactive behaviour pattern, or demons as they used to call them) sitting in you and jerking you around. You think that you are so in love and can't live without this person, but in fact it is that whimpering little boy or girl in you that your Dad did not hug enough when you were small so now you are looking for just anyone who will satisfy that craving, fill in that void inside you. You pick on on those clues - that you are not even consciously aware of - choose you victim and pounce down on them.
You sure be better off not giving voice to that trapped negative emotion, because it is not you and it won't be you speaking if you let it speak and, in all likelihood, it won't be saying anything nice! So keep a lid on it and work it out on your own. Don't bring this voice to your nice relationship meal!
'What we look for in a relationship?' a friend asked me today.
For me it starts at the other end: not what you are looking for in a relationship but what you have to bring to the table and share with the other one.
It's like a meal: you share nice stuff, not your waste. You also need to find someone who will like what you have to share. You also would not like someone who brings their waste to the table. It's perfectly alright to want to have nice things for your meal, right?
It should not be the other diner's responsibility to gut, scale and cook your fish - bring a nicely seared medium tuna steak! Cook your own contribution well, don't assume cooking the other's offering as your responsibility, although you may want to help if you see they are struggling.
You also may want to make sure that what you bring does not cause allergies or indigestion in the other. That's what we call caring.
You don't need to bring the same stuff, we all are different. One can bring the starter, the main and the cheese, the other - the soup, the wine and the dessert. What matters is that you have a complete meal that both find satisfying.
When both parties understand these ground rules, it makes for a perfect relationship. I would think this all is but wishful thinking if I didn't know a couple who are exactly like that: Dusko and Mack, I'm talking about you guys, you're such a beautiful couple inside out! In the last two years, they have treated me to dozens of wonderful meals and now I know the meaning of that.
There is that (very beautiful) Russian lady Professor at Stanford University who is conducting this well-funded research on what happiness is. Hm, how very Russian, indeed! She has been all over TV in the States and, in her opinion, or so I gathered, happiness boils down to these:
gratitude
contentment
the ability to step outside yourself for others' sake
humility
How very true. However in her research, I see no separation between joy and pleasure, which are very different. Pleasure is a sensation, fleeting as its nature behoves it. Joy is a more sustainable state of mind and is the gate to happiness.
We all are on our own quests, different for every one. It is impossible to make decisions or dispense advice to others as per to what direction they should go in life or how they should improve themselves, or what they should think or do. God operates in mysterious ways and it is not up to a mere mortal to know what the other person's goal and meaning in life is.
Unless, someone comes and asks you for a piece of advice or help. You can then share whatever wisdom you have acquired for yourself, and that will be just your contribution to that person's making their own informed decision. Our own experience really matters just to ourselves. Hence the eternal problem of parents and children, when the latter won't listen to what the former say, because really we all need to gain on our own that empirical knowledge, which is true wisdom, as opposed to intellectual knowledge, which is just acquired wisdom, that we may agree with because it sounds logical but can never internalise because we have never actually experienced it.
See, humility is an indispensable part of wisdom, without humility wisdom is but spiritual arrogance.
Funny, someone told me just that the other day that I really sound like a monk who lives in the mountains on a different plane of existence. To which I replied that I may embrace lofty views and spiritual pursuits but I still enjoy my tailored pants, swish shoes, fancy dinners, nice travels and of course, some cock.
Those two planes of existence do not conflict with each other at all. Au contraire, they just influence each other in a very profound way and they are not separate, they exist in the same time and place, like the material surface and the spiritual depth of events, things, people and their actions. They both are important, they can't exist with one another, but just on their own they are quite meaningless too. Embracing both gives you true wisdom.
When you just see the material, you miss out on the meaning of what you see, because the meaning of things and events is never on the surface. But if you only see the meaning but never embrace the material, you end up with spiritual arrogance, that denies the beauty and enjoy of God's creation. Both extremities are detrimental.
Pity is a very destructive emotion. Everything done out of pity eventually destroys both sides.
Compassion has nothing to do with pity. Despite the origin of the word: con-passion (felling together, felling for), it is only true when clear of emotional involvement. The latter knocks you off your peace of mind and bogs you down in the other person's misery. Compassion is an understanding of the other person's plight that, in its turn, triggers the will to help them. Empathy is this case would be detrimental.
You can be intelligent in three major ways or, if you are lucky, a combination of those.
Clever - bookish knowledge you've picked up from school and books. Applicable strictly in the related field, or - with caution and moderation - at cocktail parties.
Smart - streetwise prowess learnt at school of life. Helps you deftly navigate the vicissitudes of human existence, but fails you variety of profound ways, e.g., won't spare you the midlife crisis and won't make your life any meaningful
Wisdom - lesson you have learnt observing world and your own mistakes. Gets only better the more you work on it, addressed the most important questions you may ever have.
The difference between joy and pleasure is the difference between exploring the infinite depth of wisdom, love and growth and chasing the infinite numbers of ripples and waves of nice sensations. In philosophy they call those two qualitative and quantitative infinity. The former is ever-lasting and the journey is toward God, the latter is never-ending and the journey is toward a trap.
Talking about corruption of words: we say "I love him", "I love ice-cream", "I love my mother", "I love my country". For one very confusing word love, Greeks know a few. Two of them, agape and erotos stand for unconditional and sexual love respectively, while philos describes just simple liking.
We all always have an infinite amount of agape, it's like an ocean of love inside of us. We only need to know how to discover and channel it. It takes finely tuning your mind to the vibration of that kind of love. The task would be much easier if, gliding superficially on the plane of life, we would not get caught in the ripple and waves of erotos.
If you dive deep inside the agape ocean, leaving behind the fascinating waves of sexual lust, you experience a much more powerful and lasting kind of love. It takes some courage and dedication to leave the easily accessible and so exciting waves on the surface, whose nature however is to come and go, never stay.
When you find a person who is also in touch with the ocean, it is a never-ending trip of swimming through the warm embrace of water with all the wonders of the sea coming your way. It is amazing how the right people are send to you, when you are ready for that kind of experience. Once you are there, it is effortless, you don't need to chase and ride the top of the wave to feel love, because love is everywhere around you and fills up the inside of you too.
It is curious to observe how people only expect to get something in a relationship - be it a casual sex fling or something more lasting. Although lasting here is quite an overstatement. It is doomed to come to a quick (or a long and painful) end, if all you hope is to gratify yourself.
The secret to success, as always, lies on the surface. If both partners take care to learn and satify the other party's needs, then it will be a prefect symbiosis. For example, if in sex both partners work hard to give maximum pleasure to it all will be starry sky and fireworks. The opposite of it will end up in masturbation into a live person.
You also get to learn to much from learning about the other, whilst staying focussed just on yourself will get you nowhere.
What is important in a relationship is shared values and principles. They last and passion is just a hook. It serves its purpose and then goes.
Sometimes I think every person I have fallen for was sent into my life for a different reason. Sometimes it seems like the message I am supposed to get is that we should not have a sexual relationship, just spiritual, mutually enriching friendship. Well, that's what I want from a relationship anyway: love and spiritual connection. Love can be sexual at first but it evolves, it can't stay on the passion level for ever.
It's a shame that I never get the chance to get this message through. I have even tried to do it directly, just saying that straight to face. I would say that there's more to what is happening between us than the eye can see or the cock may want. We can enjoy sex and passion for now. But it's not the purpose. We are in for much better things together. Sometimes it falls on deaf ears, sometimes it has only a fleeting effect.
I guess I can see more at the moment than the other party. They come back to me years later saying that now they see I was the real thing but then I'm already in a different place, both geographically and psychologically. Sometimes it feels like a curse but perhaps there is just a lesson.
Lessons in life are sent to us out of Grace. They are like hints to what we need to learn. We may feel hurt, disappointed and even ruined when we don't get what we want but that may be the best thing that happened to us. Most of things like that become clear only in hindsight. However, as I age, I have learnt to see lessons right there. It makes life both easier and enjoyable. You get over pain and loss quicker because you see sense and purpose to it. And on top of that, you emerge a wiser man.
Faith is not about blindly believing what you are told. It is more about accepting. Accepting that there are some things that logic cannot explain. I was brought up a scientific atheist. The whole system of education was geared towards rearing generations of people who believed there's no God and could explain very well why. Strangely enough, that very education provided me with systematic thinking that enabled me to arrive at an opposite conclusion.
While I accept that in the realm of science logic is the king, there are other realities where logic just does not work. Logic relies on the human brain, on the thin veneer of the upper layers of the frontal lobes. They are a relatively recent development in the primates. Faith sits deeper and is connected better, it is so much powerful. To explore its full potential you need to learnt to switch off logical thinking, giving to your gut, trust your intuition and listen to your heart.
Vipassana meditation helped me see that my intellect is not me, it is a part of me that thinks thoughts, like the heart pumps blood or the stomach digests food. They all are a vital part of me but they are not me, not my essence.
God is bigger than your Bible studies teacher's ideas of Him, God is bigger than Christianity. Everybody gets God to the level of their understanding, you don't need anyone to impose theirs on you. Make all discoveries yourself. Believe me, it is the best thing you can do in your life ever. Everything then will just unfold the right way.
God never turns away from you. He's always there (everywhere actually) wanting you to have joy and meaning in life. However ,your soul is a battlefield and the prize is you. If you give in to the negativity, stay stuck in unhappiness and suffering, obey the voices that keep telling you to destroy yourself, Devil's mission is accomplished. Your life is wasted. If you turn to God, let him fill your heart, so that there's no place left for darkness, your life will be full of His light and, trust me, there's nothing better than that. You just need to soften up inside, trust and believe, open your eyes and accept Him. You will be amazed how everything else will start falling into place. Just make that commitment and pray.
In my time, I would have kept repeating "God help me out of my disbelief!" day in, day out - until the first glimpse of His grace. You will know when it arrives and you will know then what it is all about. Belief is not to be tested by reason and logic, belief is about exercising your free will. It's an entirely different realm form what we call science but it is none the less real.
For me, my practice of Vipassana and kundalini yoga is such an exercise of free will. It is my small step towards God, and he makes ten giant ones towards you in return. You need to make your choice and show your commitment, do your part. We have the freedom to choose, we are not mere puppets. But the great thing is, our part is the easiest. God does the hardest part. "His yoke is easy, His burden is light". All is needed from you is to make your choice and follow it. You actually make just the first step and His Amazing Grace greets you right there. The rest is much easier when you know (not that somebody told you, but you know from your own direct experience!) what you are in there for. Just keep persisting on your way to Him.
There may be falls and setbacks, but the point is that once you're on the right path, you're moving in the right direction.A step to the left, a step to the right, a pause or even a step back don't matter much. The beauty of it all is that God never turns away from you, as long as you keep him in your mind, in your heart's sight, you will never fall out of His Favour, it will always stay with you. It is really up to you, your commitment and your exercise of free will whether to stay within his fold or fall out of it.
There may be all wrong kinds of reasons, occurrences and influences that keep you in your existence of suffering, out of His fold. Fear is, probably number one. Fear to leave your comfort zone, fear of the unknown, fear of having to work hard, fear to try new things or meet new people. Fear does not come from God, it comes from your Enemy. If you keep listening to it, you are bound for self-destruction. Overcoming your fear is the first step in exercising your free will.
