What is the role of our spiritual journey in our romantic lives, and what is the role of our romantic journey in our spiritual lives?
On a certain level, relationships, the deepest kind of intimate love, hold the world together. The deepest type of love has always been at the center of family.
Where families flourish, the nation flourishes, and where families disintegrate, the nation disintegrates.
~The I-Ching
When people join together, whether it is the love of a man and a women, or in a gay relationship, it is basically the same family dynamic. When we are supported at the deepest, deepest level of who we are, it makes a definite difference to the tenor of our day.
We accidentally fall into enchanted love , when we fall in love. The feeling of helium toes sets in! It is as if we are high on love. Dominant social wisdom says that this dimension of love doesn’t last, and ultimately, reality will set in. Social wisdom discounts this dimension of romance by saying that what we are experiencing, in that state, is all projection, infatuation and delusion; ultimately, reality has to set in.
But what if this feeling of euphoria is our natural state? What if this is reality and then non-reality sets in? What if this level of right perception from the spiritual perspective, is the true reality? What if the issue is not that you didn’t see the person really. What if the issue is that you saw the person so really that you saw them as God would see them, and that is why you were happy?
We are trained to be judgemental. We are trained into the ways of the unforgiving mind. We go back to our judgmentalness. We go back to our focus on personality rather than on spirit. We go back to our focus on attachment to the past and the future, rather than on the present. We return our focus to externals ,rather than internals, and so, the essence of the person which we had grasped, for that very short time, is lost to us.
Love is a spiritual practice, and only a spiritual practice can keep us open, in mind and heart, in eyes and ears, to a place where we are capable of sustained romantic love.
I hope you enjoy the clip provided below. Marianne is a dynamic speaker and it is always a pleasure to hear and witness her passion about her work.
You can find Marianne’s book, “Enchanted Love: The Mystical Power of Intimate Relationships” by clicking on booksellers I have listed below.
