A Female Companion

I mentioned in a previous post that I had met a female friend who I was becoming close to. Over the months of October and November we grew very close to each other. A sense of safeness allowed us to open up and share our deepest experiences. I had been in need of a friend for just this purpose.  On the other hand, I didn't feel ready for a love relationship and I communicated that to her from the very beginning.  However the relationship was complicated by a powerful sexual energy that would manifest frequently. My plan had been to wait for inner guidance for a solution to this mutual strong craving. Time was not healing this one or providing a solution. In November I decided I had to either invest in the relationship wholly or leave it completely. I can honestly say at that stage I could have followed either direction. Logically I could not come up with a solution. Part of me felt that I was not emotionally or spiritually mature enough for a relationship. Another part of me recognized many positive developments that had occurred since we had become friends. One night I asked for some guidance from my heart. Then next morning the answer was clearly to invest in this relationship.
Over the next three months I grew even closer to this person. We entered the relationship with three main agreements:

1) The primary purpose of the relationship was to grow our individual self-awareness. We would learn from the partnership more about Who We Really Are. And for that reason personal transformation was embraced and endorsed.
2) We were both individually responsible for our own emotional states. Happiness was not going to be something our partner gave us, it was something we would learn to foster on our own. In other words we were both accountable for our own life experiences.
3) Because our focus was directed inward, acceptance of the other would come natural. We would do our best to allow each other to be free to make their own decisions in life. We are all responsible for our individual consequences.

In late January something started stirring in me. I realized that I had drifted from my simple spiritual path. A variety of factors may have contributed to this. For example in researching Mind Body Medicine I encountered other spiritual concepts and was applying them to my daily perceptions. Before the relationship started, I had communicated with my spiritual teacher and was instructed to follow my own heart more and stop relying on him for answers. Those factors had allowed me to create exceptions in some very simple teachings. For example an individual practicing this path of Kriya Yoga should accomplish freedom before starting a relationship. This means becoming debt free and free of ongoing obligations (such as raising kids to an age of 18). The chosen partner should also share a spiritual path as their number one priority in addition to being free themselves. It was clear to me at this point that I needed to re-devote myself to my path. There is no "one" correct path, and many people longing to evolve spiritually struggle to find one that they can trust (there is no worldly way to validate a path). I'm fortunate to have one fall into my lap. Although there is no logical way for me to describe why it is the path for me... there is a deep feeling or knowing or certainty that has guided me strongly through the occasional ego created doubts. I did not want to look at the truth staring in my face... this relationship needed to change. This all developed over the course of 12 hours, and it was impossible to ignore. With much reluctance I finally communicated this to my female friend.
We both experienced deep emotional pain as a result of this break up. I felt anger towards my path, sadness due to this loss, regrets for having started the relationship and guilt for having hurt her so deeply. But the one quote remained in my mind throughout this period was:
Know whatever comes to you UNEXPECTED to be a gift from God, which will surely serve you if you use it to the fullest. It is only that which you strive for out of your own imagination, that gives you trouble.
I kept diligently applying some of the tools for digesting emotions which I have developed for my Mind Body Program. I avoided any distractions. I focused on the physical feeling of the emotions and labeled them as opposed to analyzing the "why" of the situation. And I kept returning to the concept that everything happens for a reason and there was a deep purpose for this.
After about three days of intense emotions a thought occurred to me: if we both entered this relationship consciously NOT relying on each other as a source of happiness... why does this hurt so much? At that point I realized that I had unconsciously attached an expectation of happiness to our relationship in many ways. At moments that I felt funky during this relationship my thoughts would immediately resort to imagining our time together. Or I would imagine future activities which I would anticipate would bring happiness. I had inadvertently stopped accepting the moment of "Now" and was putting all my "happiness eggs in one basket" the imagined relationship. This might seem harmless but in some ways this is the cause of all suffering. We attach our mental energy to the future to bring a fake mentally constructed happiness to the present moment, instead of reconciling with what is actually there to cultivate real inner happiness.
During this same time in my life the Universe brought three other sources of information which all had the same message... live in the moment of now. With this renewed enthusiasm I began to lift from the pain of the experience. I also found myself living in the moment with more and more ease than I had ever before.
My female friend despite the break up actually remained a close friend. We are still learning to grow our self-awareness and are learning to reconcile.
A powerful tool that has come to me at this time is the book: The Presence Process written by Michael Brown. This author also reinforces the importance of the moment of "Now" and provides an 11 week tool that helps grow this connection. His program actually mirrored the concepts that underlie my own Mind Body Medicine program and has helped fill in some of the "puzzle pieces". At the time of this writing, I'm on week 3 of this process and plan to share my experience later.
Ironically many of the people in my life and in my friend's life disapproved of both the initiation of the relationship and the break up. It seems that our culture has a tendency to resist change. Despite this reflex reaction it is clear to me that my heart led me into this relationship and that it also led me through a change in the status of the relationship for a very specific reason. It was humbling, opened me to experiencing my own emotions more intimately, led to deep insights about the cause of suffering and there are probably many other reasons.
So as my life experiences continue, I find myself trusting my heart more and my conventional logic less. As long as my intentions are pure I can rest comfortably that my life experiences, painful or not, are collaborating to gently expand my self-awareness.

A Little Bit of Magic

As soon as the loving presence returned, my three hour long kriya meditation become much more peaceful. My mind did not race as much and I was not so antsy. My daily affirmations developed much more power. I could truly feel gratitude and love when saying them. I believe that aligning our affirmations with that true emotional state is what makes them much more effective. Love is what gives our thoughts their creative fuel. I noticed negative emotions and thoughts much less frequently and if they popped up I could affirm them away. I also noticed my body smelled better! This is kind of weird but I am going to include it here... both my body odor and my urine smelled sweet (and still do)!!! Its bizarre but an affirmation of transformation none the less:)
The affirmations kept coming. For example my 10 year old car had been having electrical problems on and off monthly since June 2009. The check engine light would turn on suddenly while driving and I would lose all power. If I just restarted the engine everything worked okay. Well I had been reading in Louise Hay's book that even the physical world responds to the power of our thoughts. It occurred to me that these random electrical problems could be possibly responding to a "bad vibe" I was putting out. Armed with that insight I walked towards my car one day glowing with the love buzz after a beautiful meditation. I thought to myself "the car won't have any problems today because I feel so good". Well after one block of driving my car shut off!!! I was baffled. It was not until later that day that I recalled from several spiritual sources that the Universe only recognizes positive statements. Words of negation (no or not) get ignored. Hence I had basically focused my thoughts on exactly what I didn't want... my car to break down! And the power of love doesn't guarantee a particular outcome, it just gives power to our thoughts. Needless to say I have learned quickly to change my language to positive statements, especially when I'm feeling good. For example now I think... boy its great to have this car which hums like a fine tuned machine:) (Since writing this last section, I have been tempted to erase or change it because of further experiences with my "check engine" light. Over time it has become clear to me that I DON'T have the slightest clue how I'm effecting its operation, but it is obvious that I'm effecting it. For example, it stayed lit for about three months lately until I brought my car to the mechanic for an unrelated problem. They did nothing accept have the car for a day and look under the hood. The light was off when I got the car back and stayed off for about one day. The same thing has happened several times. Suggesting to me that my presence if effecting its operation, but I'm unable to link it to my thoughts or emotions!)
I also noticed improvements with my interpersonal relationships. Louise Hay suggests that everyone has both positive and negative seeds (in regards to personality) and we can choose to draw either out of the person. Not only does our behavior when we're with them influence this, but she contends that even our MENTAL IMAGE that we carry of that person will attract a matching response. This spiritual principle is known as samyama. I realized there were several people I feared whenever I thought of them because of past experiences. And even to this date I tended to have interactions with them that generated fear in me. I figured... what do I have to lose! So I started some intense forgiving and loving affirmations while imagining these individuals. I also kept close tabs on my thoughts through out the day and if I noticed myself think of them and feeling fear... I would immediately draw up my love buzz and picture the individual. Over several weeks it seemed as if I was healing my mental images and cultivating a healthy mind. And the truly amazing thing was that without even directly forgiving or treating these people differently our interactions started to change. I was treated with more respect by them and there were no new fear generating experiences! Mind boggling!!
Needless to say this is strongly reinforcing my spiritual goal to love all beings in all situations. Now I'm attempting to love everything that I used to shirk away from... bills, my pager, my foreclosing home. Some days are easier than others. But even after experiencing other strong emotions, I am eventually able to find my loving presence again and again.

The Love Buzz Comes Back

As the Universe would have it, I got a little jump start spiritually in late October 2009. It happened innocently and unexpectedly. I became aware of an attraction I had for a woman who I interacted with professionally. When this became conscious to me, I also realized the attraction was affecting my behaviors around this person. In the light of my value of transparency I knew that I had to communicate this to that woman. And so I did. I emailed her. Eventually we communicated and I told her that in my opinion I was not spiritually mature enough for a relationship. I believe happiness comes from within and until I have better control over my emotional state I will not be ready for a serious relationship. I feel that I need to be 100% whether I am with a partner or not, so as to avoid the common mistake of depending on the other for something that only I can foster... happiness. That common dependency often leads to both partners losing touch with their own inner passion in an attempt to be someone they think their partner wants. And of course when you lose touch with your inner passion, no one is happy any more.
Well I figured after communicating all this the pressure would be gone and we could go about our usual business. That was a miscalculation! It turns out the attraction was mutual and the more we opened up to each other about our feelings the more powerful the energy between us was. In fact this energy was nearly crippling and could not be ignored. Interestingly enough it seemed to be an entity of its own. Neither one of us had intentions to proceed with a romantic relationship on a rational level, but apparently our unconscious minds had a different idea. I was in a bind. The energy could not be suppressed, ignored or acted upon. But it occurred to me that if I could just somehow get this energy to move up to my chest... I would have my love buzz back again. I then recalled one of my favorite quotes:
Know whatever comes to you UNEXPECTED to be a gift from God, which will surely serve you if you use it to the fullest. It is only that which you strive for out of your own imagination, that gives you trouble.
I also remembered a statement by Yogananda that whenever you find yourself having a bond with another soul, know that this is special and you must have had experiences together in past lives! When you encounter this bond, it is an opportunity to learn how to grow a divine relationship.
So with that knowledge I knew that I must be careful to approach this relationship in the Highest Way. And that's what I did. It was clear that we were brought together so that we could learn to express and evolve our Higher Selves. More over this woman was at a stage in her life where she was ready for personal improvement. She gave me a copy of one of her favorite books "You Can Heal Yourself" by Louise Hay. I highly recommend checking her out.
Louise's book reminded me how our thoughts powerfully create future experiences. Her insights plus all of the affirmations were just the tools I needed at just the right time. That combined with insights gleaned during my Kriya Yoga practice helped me to define and foster a special relationship with this person. At the time of this writing it is still a work in progress, but my heart is telling me how to proceed. We thoroughly enjoy each others company and are learning rapidly about ourselves.
The most beautiful byproduct of this is my love buzz! It has come back! It is not as strong as last Christmas nor is it constant, but I can pull it up daily! I can feel what thoughts, words and actions are uplifting and which ones down pulling.  I can feel what creates harmony in the mind body spirit connection. It is so affirming to know that with persistence and impeccability I am able to nourish the love light. Honestly it is a tiny little light. I cannot even say I feel "happy" when its on, but it already proving to be quite magical!