Integrity in relationships

• 18 December, 2022
• consciousness
• shamanism
• mindfulness

I'm not sure whether you've noticed but often what happens is that whenever you enter into a relationship with someone the experience reinforces your separateness and identity. People come together for a wide variety of different reasons and it's not always clear what the nature of the relationship is or indeed, if there is going to be a relationship or the relationship is going to work out. There's no real science to relationships, because relationships happen spontaneously, like choices, and the simple fact of the matter is they're so random and unique you cannot buy insurance for them.

Love is not a language

I'm going to settle on a loving relationship here as my model or subject as I'm confident it will generate enough interest in this post. The first thing I'd like to point out is that love is not a language. There are no so-called 'love languages'. Yes I know that there was this best selling book, but it's psychobabble. If you're hoping to enter into a new relationship or stay in your current relationship there's no need to cripple yourself emotionally or psychologically by believing in such foolish nonsense. Love is a conscious experience, almost entirely. Language is a physical phenomena. This will become very clear to you by the end of this post.

First we need to actually understand what love is. Quite simple, love is who you are. You are a conscious being, a hungry ghost fooling about with a physical body on a physical planet in a conscious universe. You exist on many different levels or planes of consciousness. You need love, because this is how you evolve as an individual human being. At your most basic, immediate and physical level of consciousness you have an Ego. Ego is what you develop and maintain for societal and business purposes. It's what you do role play with and answer questions about when you're dealing with an organization. Your Ego is the official version of you, the concept, the image, your name, your resume, who you think you are, who other people believe you to be, and that character you play when you're out in public or on the streets.

A few levels deeper, way past your Ego, beyond your mind, associated with your heart, you have a collection of more refined, far more conscious planes which together make up an entire spectrum of planes which can be classified as love. Love is consciousness which manifests across a spectrum of different forms, from kindness, sympathy, friendship through to love, falling in love, devotion, self-sacrifice, and so on. This includes the levels of consciousness which 'get you going' and give you the warm fuzzies. The levels which distract you, turn you on, and in men, create diversions and roadblocks in your bloodstream and circulation.

Anything or anyone who connects with these planes of consciousness within you in your immediate environment, and trust me, you'll know all about it. This is especially true if you're experiencing some form of trauma, such as loneliness, alienation, you're hurting, when your natural energy is at a higher frequency and closer to space (which is actually consciousness beyond your perception).

Therefore love cannot be a language because language is physical, based on energy, and love is consciousness, and purely metaphysical. When someone you love dies, you don't forget about them completely, do you? Therefore how can love be a language? You see when someone you love dies the grief, the pain, and much of the suffering comes out of the empty space and the fact that the person you loved is no longer incarnate where you can perceive them. This is why love is the polar opposite of death because love is consciousness, death is trauma and emptiness, empty space, and consciousness and space are mutually dependent on each other yet polar opposites.

This is something you might want to think about. Taking into account reincarnation and the fact that we have lived through many different life cycles, and have probably still many more live cycles to live, each in different unique incarnations and human forms, how can you think that you are completely alone and completely unloved? Now you may be alone and looking for love, but surely it's worth understand that who you're seeking might be from some memory coming out of your subconscious, and that you might experience the same relationship and the same love with the same person, but only now you're in completely different human forms and incarnations.

This is something you might have experienced. You meet someone and almost immediately you hit it off and connected with one another. You connect with that person on so many different levels, but you cannot explain it and you cannot understand it. But it's real, it's happened, you experienced it, and you're together with your other half say ten, twenty, maybe even fifty years. Love is paradoxical because consciousness is paradoxical. If you go looking for it you won't find it. If you avoid it often it will find you. You've probably also met someone who just seems to exude love with everything they do.

But see even if it didn't happen for you this way it doesn't matter. Love is love. The thing about consciousness which is important to remember is the more you use it, the more you have available to use, and the easier it becomes to access it. The same principles apply to love. People get caught up in the dating game, but it's incredibly difficult to find love through dating. You're usually dating from Ego, language, beliefs, purely physical stuff, you're at least a few levels of consciousness from where you really need to be. Ego creates all kinds of desires, expectations, boundaries, preconditions, and you can spend years on dating sites without even coming close to finding someone who hits that 'sweet spot' and you their 'sweet spot', because chances are through Ego you've filtered them out simply because your Egos don't match.

One plus one equals three

So coming back to the topic in hand, which is integrity in relationships, the first thing you need to keep in mind that if you're in a relationship together with someone else, the relationship exists, and you both are calling it a loving relationship, then what happens is that there's a connection, there's chemistry, and this is because your consciousness is all around you and not inside your head. Your Ego is in your head, not your consciousness because your mind exists all around you. Thinking that consciousness is somewhere inside you is a bit like thinking that the entire television and film industry exists inside your television set. I did point out that you're a ghost playing about with a physical human body.

So what happens is that between you and your other half you have this entity of a relationship which creates an environment and out of that environment you get a certain kind of energy. Every month or so I help out in community space with a community library which is run by Charmaine, one of the Qultura trustees. We spend an hour or so together putting the books back in order and tidying up the bookshelves. Charmaine is a retired librarian, and it's fascinating watching her knowing exactly where a book belongs on a specific shelf just by looking at the front of a book. It's magic. Sometimes she comes with her husband Rob, and when they're together their relationship or marriage comes with them, and they give off a different kind of energy. This is something most couples can do.

It's this entity of a relationship which creates a kind of shared awareness between the couple, and this becomes often the focus of the entire relationship because both partners need the consciousness which comes from that shared awareness, because it adds new consciousness to their deeper planes of consciousness associated with their incarnation. Much of the relationship from both perspectives is dependent on that conscious awareness which is shared between two people. Out of this shared awareness you get culture, and when there are children that culture expands into a family culture which is completely different to the wider culture out in the local community. In this way couples have their own language and way of speaking to each other, their own slang, specific words, different cycles and patterns of behaviour and so on.

This is where you get the magic of the relationship, or if you prefer the yoga. Doesn't matter because magic and yoga are both about connections and unity through consciousness. Being together in a relationship creates all kinds of different symbols, gestures, signs and rituals. You probably both have a bedtime ritual, a morning ritual, a mealtime ritual, a breakfast ritual, various dinner rituals, maybe even a tea making or coffee making ritual. Each ritual gives off a certain energy or vibration, there's specific rhythms and patterns, and it's often through these rituals and patterns, rhythms and signs both understand according to a code where intimacy is expected and when it isn't.

Identity on different levels of consciousness

Therefore people in relationships usually develop two separate identities across different levels of consciousness and express themselves from each of these identities in different levels of reality or different environments. You have your separate identities which is the pain old vanilla you, the Ego version which you share with others at work, with friends, with your family and so on. Then whenever you come together you transform into your other identity to be with your other half.

If you're in a relationship or have been, and you've experienced both the connection and reached that deeper level of chemistry and intimacy, you will bne aware that the relationship exists on different levels of reality. You have both the shared reality of the relationship itself which comes from the relationship being the entity which connects you, creates the context and environment for the shared awareness, which is unique and individual.

Then there is that familiar 'non-special' reality when there is no relationship say when you are not both together and you're back to that familiar level of reality of Ego and self which existed before the relationship. Even if you live together or spend a lot of time together in a shared environment, you will be aware that your environment 'feels' different whenever your partner is not around and the reality is different. Some people describe the non-relationship reality as colder or harder. It's almost as if your partner changes the environment and takes something away with them.

This is where it starts to become more complex and challenging

So far I've been writing about the easy part of being in a loving relationship - the conscious connection between two people on the planes of love where they connect, the chemistry, and the relationship as an entity. But this is just the gravy or sauce. What about the rest of the dinner?

There's also the 'meat and veg' of the relationship, the physical reality, the physical being, presence, and the complex needs, wants, desires, wishes plus of course the physical, material and financial 'transactional' basis of the relationship. Nobody enters into a relationship with someone else unless they have a need for a relationship, and the other person comes at least half way or more to being able to fulfill their needs, not just mundane or companionship needs, but other far more intimate, aesthetic and sexual needs, wants and desires.

No matter how much love there is between two individuals - because even in abusive relationships love and consciousness exist even if we wish to deny its existence as such - there still has to be some physical reality. The love and conscious entity of the relationship is just the attractive part, because we all need love from somewhere on the spectrum to evolve as individual human beings, but it's also equally true that the creation of sustainable loving relationships require physical presence, constant communication and physical effort and also intimacy - emotional intimacy, psychological intimacy and physical intimacy. Intimacy is what inspires confidence and develops trust and faith in the other person, and requires the opening up and sharing of the hidden, more occult aspects of the Ego, our innermost feelings, thoughts, beliefs and desires.

This is where we often get to the most difficult and challenging aspects of the relationship. In order to access the shared awareness from the entity of what the relationship becomes one must build physical bridges and let down some of those barriers we put up when developing our Egos. The early stages of any relationship are about dissolving boundaries, and most of us who are going through life maintaining well developed Egos are usually put on edge whenever we come face to face with any such boundary dissolving. We all have our hidden weaknesses, bad habits, relationship preferences, fetishes, sexual kinks, wonky beliefs, and vulnerabilities. Even food preferences and fetishes can become an issue. What if you're a vegan? Or you can't stand spinach? What if you love seafood and can eat it till it comes out of your ears, but the other person cannot stand seafood?

Then there's the effects of past trauma, physical disabilities, vulnerabilities and health issues, past karma and the emotional and psychologically 'stuff' and baggage we're often carrying through life from our childhoods. Individual karma plays a very significant role when it comes to developing intimate relationships because while there can be the connection through consciousness between two individuals, often its physical or practical factors which determine whether two people can actually be together, develop intimacy and actually come together to share their lives. Even time and age can play a role, as can sex, gender and sexual orientation. How many times have you felt or sensed a connection to another person, but felt that they were either too old, or two young? How many times have you met someone who has made you question your sexual orientation? Now think about what I wrote earlier about reincarnation and past lives, and how we have lived many different lives, and many different incarnations, and try to imagine how many connections and how much love you have inevitably left behind.

Reinforcement of separateness

It is in the early stages of the development of the relationship where integrity is often at its most vulnerable. This is usually at the stage where you are literally, at sixes and sevens - eager to get to know the other person and develop intimacy with them, but you're also very much aware of your emotional vulnerability and also there's also fear. There's the fear of rejection of course, but also there's the fear and anxiety that there is someone else in the background, that you're going to be deceived or fooled, that you're going to get hurt, or sometimes even that you're making a mistake.

Fear and insecurity is inevitable when entering a new relationship because you are changing your reality and coming out of both your shell and your comfort zone. Fear is that physical sensation and emotion which arises out of Ego, and out of the sharp edges of your humanity where the boundaries of your comfort zone exists, which in terms of the levels or planes of your existence are usually one or two levels beyond or deeper your Ego. The fundamental problem when it comes to intimate relationships is the fact that your love planes or levels are much more refined than your Ego, and lie much deeper, and these are often where the soft edge of your humanity lies.

Any time you connect with the soft edges of your humanity, and shift into your love planes, you move into the unknown beyond your comfort zone, and here the twin mystical principles - the Sacred Feminine Principle and the Sacred Masculine Principle - come into play. The Sacred Feminine Principle is about creativity and interaction, so it's about trauma and the creation of new karma, about empathy, and the Sacred Masculine Principle is all about appreciation, the creation of trruth out of reality, and the letting go of past karma and beliefs. Just to give you some examples of how shifting into the soft edges of your humanity often reinforce separateness:

Indulging in food or drink you love

Giving into a desire for comfort food or a special drink, something you love often creates thoughts of over-indulgence. Will you eat or drink too much? Will it make you fat? Will you get drunk? These are karmic thoughts coming from your social and mental conditioning.

Indulging in an activity you love

Giving into a desire to indulge in an activity you love, such as reading a book or playing a computer game, thoughts cross your mind such as "Have I got the time?" or "What else should I be doing?" Karmic thoughts and social conditioning again.

Doing a stranger a favour or helping them out

Even a random act of kindness to a complete stranger can reinforce separateness. Is this person for real? Am I being exploited, cheated or taken for a ride? Once again, karmic thinking and social conditioning. We're living in times where it often seems that acts of humanity or centred around empathy and kindness seem to be acts of non-conformity and rebellion.

Opening up to a new love interest

At what point do you tell a new love interest that you're scared of being hurt or rejected? That you feel insecure? That being naked makes you feel vulnerable and insecure? That you were cheated on in the past? You're a recovering alcoholic? You have been raped or sexually assaulted? That you have kids? That you've been divorced? Do you see what's going on here?

It's the same old 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' internal conflict which comes from boundary dissolving and getting past Ego, cycles and karma, into new experience and new reality. It's the same old disruption to the flow of your life and mental and emotional equilibrium, mindfulness, and brings out past karmic cycles and even past relationship cycles. You've probably been rejected and deceived in the past, you've probably also deceived or fooled yourself in the past. So just like when it comes to 'Choices' you end up ruminating, and thinking this over and over and over in your mind, playing out different scenarios, examining different options.

Only it's past, it's memory. It's all in your head. It's not your reality, not this person, not this relationship, because it hasn't happened yet and doesn't even exist. This is something you're going to have to figure out somehow for yourself. But how can you figure out what you haven't experienced? If you're heterosexual or straight and reading this, spare a thought for those who aren't, and those among us who feel a special something towards another member of their own sex or gender but who don't even know if their interest shares the same sexual orientation. This adds a completely different layer of complexity.

Shared v. individual

Whenever you're entering a new relationship, such as a close, intimate, loving relationship you're changing your reality and shifting many of the boundaries created by your Ego. Integrity is an issue, and a significant one because you're opening up your Ego and also your karmic process to your partner and also taking on their karma. Now please keep in mind this is going to take me a couple more posts to cover because I want to get into the shamanism of the relationships. By shamanism here I'm referring specifically to the empowerment of individual - and this case shared - human experience. I'm aware that many couples run into difficulties in relationships and while there's plenty of relationship counselling, marriage guidance and even couples therapy, there's not really that much out there for mindfulness when it comes to couples and people in relationships outside of relationship yoga, which is difficult.

So we come to the two important mystical principles when it comes to creating new intimate relationships while maintaining one's integrity and deevloping trust - the Sacred Masculine Principle and the Sacred Feminine Principle. The Sacred Masculine Principle, symbolized by The Lovers in the Tarot, is about care of being and appreciation. The Sacred Feminine Principle, symbolized by the Chariot in the Major Arcana of the Tarot, is all about creativity and interaction, empathy and connection, love and nurturing, and developing on that shared awareness.

You see when entering or developing a new relationship with someone else, you're going through a learning experience, learning about that other person, both from what they tell you and also from your own experience and what you perceive about that other person. All the time you're developing trust, intimacy, connecting to each other, inspiring confidence in each other, building faith, and out of this a kind of shared awareness and shared mindfulness which comes out of the entity of the developing or growing relationship. As the relationship grows, and becomes more familiar, together with the shared awareness and mindfulness, you create new common or shared boundaries which shift from your Ego to the relationship and out of this you create a new normal.

What you're actually doing is creating a karmic bond out of the new karma, which is coming out of the developing physical intimacy in the relationship. Out of this you're also creating new Ego, which is your perception of the image of the other person and self, only this new level of Ego is still distinct from your own Ego, but is more of an extension of your Ego. You become aware that certain experiences, beliefs, memories, ideas, and opinions as well as a worldview coming from your partner might compliment or contrast with your own experiences and beliefs and such. This is where you learn about your partners comfort zones, their perspective and aptitudes, their abilities, their shortcomings, their bad habits, and their general mindset.

This is also where you learn about and discover the unique ways in which your partner is going to meet your needs and fulfill your desires, and you also discover what needs and desires your partner wants you to fill. Out of this you develop a kind of energy and dynamic in the relationship, you figure out where the relationship is going to flow, which direction it's going to take you in, and this reveals to you in turn what you're going to gain or benefit from being with that person and what you need to appreciate about being with them and what they bring to your life experience (the Sacred Masculine Principle) and how you're going to have to feed and nurture the relationship to keep it flowing and developing (the Sacred Feminine Principle). Relationship entities are really no different to the individuals in the relationship, you have to feed and nurture the relationship just as you have to feed and nurture if you want the love to grow and experience the mindfulness and awareness from being in the relationship.

It's important to understand that human beings are complex individuals, and no amount of social media or online dating is ever going to change that fact. It's especially hard when you're younger and your only relationship experience is family and dealing with relatives who you're generally stuck with, but when it comes to loving relationships you need the love, you need to be with someone, but you're also very aware that this other person can break up with you and call it quits at any time. You might get lucky, but often most people aren't that lucky so it's a learning process of trial and error. It's only when you're older and more experienced, and have learned to filter out the bullshit and have some idea who you need to be with that it gets somewhat easier.

Then the first couple of years of being with someone in a relationship are also rather difficult as you're trying to figure out what is relationship and your new identity in a relationship. This is that phase where friendships change, friends struggle with your new identity, and your new relationship can even bring you into conflict with preexisting friendships and family, or even replace them. I'm sure you've known friends who've changed after meeting someone else, or maybe it's you that's changed and to keep the relationship you've had to sacrifice friendships, maybe even family or various aspects of your single lifestyle. The Sacred Masculine Principle is all about appreciation of what you have, what you've found, and the sacrifices you often need to make to be in a loving relationship with someone else.

Then you have the other physical aspects of the relationship which are to do with getting your needs and desires met, and how, and the various transactions and horse trading and rituals that go on just in getting physical needs met. This can often create trauma and new karma. I'm sure all you couples, including some of you older, more experienced couples have what I refer to as The Ding Dong Ritual which has much to do with conflict and conflict resolution. Admit it. Some of you enjoy putting on a Punch and Judy Show and having a right old ding dong every once in a while. It's like there's an almost sadomasochistic delight in escalating a conflict into a circular argument, blowing off steam, or a bit of pantomine - oh yes you did, oh no I didn't, oh yes you did, oh no I didn't.. then after you've blown off steam and run off old karma there's silence, someone takes the initiative and you're back to being one and the same person and soul again.

Symbiosis

All people in relationships have unfulfilled needs, wants and desires, what I call the sixes and sevens of a relationship and also an enjoyment of meeting the needs and desires of the other person and in developing the relationship these needs and desires get fulfilled and met and the couple become an item or a unit, just like a pair of gloves, shoes or socks.

But to actually develop a very close, complete, loving relationship which is sustainable takes a great deal of effort, commitment, and communication on one hand, which is where we get the integrity and the Six of the Sacred Masculine Principle, and often people don't seem to realize just how much 'life' and energy being with someone in a close loving relationship involves. What I find, or what I'm noticing, is that many people nowadays approach intimate relationships far more superficially. It's almost like relationship, partnership and a marriage are just items on some societal bucket list. You meet someone and find a match after a comparison of Egos, developing some kind of symbiosis, and once you've achieved that you go off and do other things, work, career, business, social life, art, interests, and causes.

This is why I gave up on relationships. I found that the distance between shared and individual was too far for me to travel and being in a relationship took too much away from my path and my journey, and I was starting to feel held back or stifled through being in a relationship. But then on the other hand, if I remained on my path then that wouldn't be fair on my partner because I wouldn't be able to solidly commit to being there for them and fulfilling all their needs and desires as a partner, which as a nurturing type and supportive partner I feel I should be able to commit to. As I'm not fussy either way whether I'm with a man or a woman and am quite intensive in my personal relationships, I was stuck with the choice between maintaining my integrity and transforming my life, or continuing my path and compromising on my integrity - not that I cheat or am unfaithful. This is more to do with the fact that someone else has needs and desires and they need to know that they can count on me. So I gave up on relationships and continue along my path and my journey.

You see developing both self and an intimate relationship is an incredibly difficult balancing act over a number of years. Please keep in mind that to get where I am now I've had to stick to a path for close to 40 years through which my life has changed and I have changed as a result constantly. I'm also dealing with the issue of going too far along my path too quickly - which has resulted in Qultura and a new system for mindfulness and developing consciousness, but it's cost me a lot of life, a laundry list of missed opportunities, and to some degree some of my health, and I'm now focussed on trying to retrace my steps and work my weay back through different versions and levels of reality.

Now please consider that if I were to be with someone and have a family throughout those 40 years it would have taken double the effort, twice the commitment and maybe even cost twice as much. Being there for a partner is one thing, but you have to, just have to be there for children. I'm writing this in the hope of communicating just how challenging and difficult developing a close loving and sustainable relationship can be. Just like a family, this is one of the biggest investments in your life. Throughout the years you have that same duality and polarity between your individuality and the shared identity and awareness of being in such a relationship.

This is why there's a certain amount of conflict, compromise, settling and reworking going on. Some politicians love to preach about 'family values' or traditional values, or (I think) the popular buzzword is 'hardworking families' but the truth of the situation is that this is becoming science fiction because very many people are struggling with holding down a job or career, covering the costs of living, and keeping a relationship or family together. You can even do a sociological study of the family unit down through the different generations starting with the elderly - people in their 70's and 80's and work back. Yes the elderly had it easier as they had all the right socio-economic conditions and culture but as you work back towards the young, the stories get progressively harder and the pressures increase, together with the divorces, single parent families, and symbiosis in the relationship.

Therefore it's got a lot harder to maintain one's integrity in a loving relationship and family and actually achieve unity through consciousness where two become one and same in a relationship which gives the kind of stability and foundation for the 'hardworking family' that the politicians love to talk about. These days the teenage sweethearts who get their lives together in their 20's and start a family in their 30's and grow old gracefully might still be reality in the gated communities and wealthy districts, but for most people living in society it's nothing more than a traditional or period Mills and Boon romance.

Yet the same cultural expectations are being put out there by the politicians, the media, popular culture, celebrities, and many of these expectations, which many young people get from cultural propaganda and imprinting, are incredibly unrealistic. This creates further pressure on maintaining integrity in relationships particularly with individuals and I often feel that this is what lies behind this generic 'throw the person away' mindset whenever it comes to relationship issues and conflicts. But here again this is a culture which develops out of ignorance and not understanding the mysticism or meta-physics because all too often religious freedom turns out to be religious authority. This is also something I want you to think about. Six and seven are often recurring numbers throughout the Bible, so why the silence from the pulpit when it comes to the rich mystical traditions of Christianity?

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You see another aspect of the Sacred Masculine Principle which is about appreciation, is appreciating what you have and finding ways to work with what you have accessible to you and creating from that, so once again we see how it goes hand in hand with the Sacred Feminine Principle. Then you can turn this round and start from the Sacred Feminine, which is about empathy and nurturing and creativity, and see how it goes hand in hand with the Sacred Masculine, and interpret it a different way so when someone doesn't quite match your ideal partner in terms of Ego and lifestyle, you dig deeper and get to know them and appreciate their struggles and past karma.

You see even among people who are relatively poor - sustainable relationships, enough to develop a family are still possible. I spend time around some of the poorer areas of London where people are constantly battered by adversity coming at them from different directions and they still stay together both within relationships and families throughout the generations. You just been a better connection and a stronger shared awareness and identity.

What this means is that, despite whatever is thrown at you from society you still have possibilities and options. But the other thing I want to point out that even though it may not be ideal, it is possible to develop sustainable symbiotic relationships. Nobody should be looked down upon for doing so either, simply because love exists across a broad spectrum and we all need love in some way.