Intimate Relationships and the Spiritual Path
by Marianne Williamson T
he common wisdom goes like this: that the myth of “some enchanted evening,” when all is awash with the thrill of connection and the aliveness of new romance, is actually a delusion… a hormon- ally manufactured lie. That soon enough, reality will set in and lovers will awaken from their mutual projec- tions, discover the psychological work involved in two people trying to reach across the chasm of real life separate- ness, and come to terms at last with the mundane sorrows of human existence and intimate love.
In this case, the common wisdom is a lie.
From a spiritual perspective, the scenario above is upside down. From a spiritual perspective, the original high of a romantic connection is thrilling be- cause it is true. It is in fact the opposite of delusion. For in a quick moment, a gift from the gods, we are likely to suspend our judgment of the other, not because we are temporarily insane, but because we are temporarily sane. We are having what you might call a mini- enlightenment experience. Enlighten- ment is not unreal; enlightenment—or pure love—is all that is real. Enlighten- ment is when we see not as through a glass darkly, but truly face to face. What is unreal is what comes after the initial high, when the personal- ity self reasserts itself and the wounds and triggers of our human ego form a veil across the face of love. The ini- tial romantic high is not something
to outgrow, so much as something to earn admit- tance back into—this time not as an unearned gift of Cupid’s arrows, but as a consequence of the real work of the psychologi- cal and spiritual journey. The romantic relationship is a spiritual assignment, presenting an opportunity for lovers and would-be
lovers to burn through our own issues and forgive the other theirs, so together we can gain re-entrance to the joyful realms of our initial contact that turn out to have been real love after all. Our problem is that most of us rarely have a psychic container strong enough to stand the amount of light that pours into us when we have truly seen, if even for a moment, the deep beauty of another. The problem we have is not that in our romantic fervor we fall into a delusion of oneness; the problem is that we then fall into the delusion of separateness. And those are the ro- mantic mysteries: the almost blinding light when we truly see each other, the desperate darkness of the ego’s blind- ness, and the sacred work of choosing the light of mutual innocence when the darkness of anger and guilt descend.
Marianne Williamson will delve deeply into Intimate Relationships and The Spiritual Path, from 7 to 9 p.m., March 15, at Unity of Naples Church. General admittance, $50; lecture and VIP recep- tion (6-7 p.m.), $100. Location: 2000 Unity Way, Naples. For more info, call 239-755-3009 or visit
NaplesUnity.org or
Marianne.com. See ad, page 29.
The romantic relationship is a spiritual assignment, presenting an opportunity for lovers and would-be lovers to burn through our own issues and forgive the other theirs, so together we can gain re-entrance to the joyful realms of our initial contact that turn out to have been real love after all.
natural awakenings March 2012 35
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