Love as a perpetuum mobile – The secrets of the long lasting couple
by yoga teachers Adina and Mihai Stoian
The discovery of the Self is a fascinating adventure, a journey full of experiences which you can make either alone or not… But in the couple the spiritual transformations are much faster and more efficient. And, as we all look for accomplishment through love, it is more natural to step towards the peaks of perfection together with the beloved being.
Love is the divine gift for which we must be profoundly grateful. It is the key that opens for us the gate towards the Absolute, the magical catalyst of any beneficial becoming. For instance, anyone who has practiced meditation for a longer period of time, knows how difficult it is to experience spiritual states with an agitated, full of thoughts and stressful mind. But when we fall in love, this gate towards the Absolute opens with an extraordinary easiness; because love is a very clever way of tricking the ego.
The happiness of the other one spontaneously comes above one’s own happiness, and the other one’s wishes come above one’s own wishes. Love makes us open and generous, and the empathic quest of the other one’s soul will bring us closer to our own soul.
Accept the differences
Due to the complex processes of resonance and to polarization, any experience, any state, any beneficial energy has a very profound echo in the couple. If you ever did a meditation with the one you love – or any other spiritual exercises – you know that where there are two, the power increases. And not arithmetically, according to the ordinary 1+1=2, but sometimes exponentially. Together, two souls expand through love, and head towards the awakening of the Self consciousness. And this is sometimes easier and faster then if done separately.
Evolution in the couple also brings another advantage – the objectivation through the reflection in the other one. The lover is like a mirror. Do you like what you see in it? This means that you are all right yourself. You don’t like it anymore? Then it is possible that you are not on the right track, yourself. Within a spiritual couple, if you know how to look at it, the relationship will always show you where you are heading, and the chances that you deviate are smaller. Of course, the other one will not necessarily tell you: “You know, your morning meditation was a little bit like «ice-skating» … you were not really focused”. But everyday life. the smallest gestures or actions, the way in which love blossoms or, on the contrar, seems to whither, gives the clues about the spiritual evolution. If the lover fascinates you, if you find her or him wonderful, if you feel you can open towards her or him with your entire heart, this shows that you are fascinating, wonderful and worthy of total trust. The other one is only your reflection.
When we fall in love, we see in a mirror the incarnation of our own aspirations. Through transfiguration, we experience the euphoric sensation of coming out of our own inner “prison”. We feel reborn. Everything is perfect, unique. We are happy that the other one appeared. We charge her or him with all our aspirations, with all our wishes. Also with those we are not conscious about. The other one is a “support” for all our projections. But if she or he remains with us for a longer period of time, we slowly, slowly begin to come back, without being aware of it, to the initial point of view. We return to our own limitations. The expanded and generous vision is blurring in the preoccupation for ourself, which conflicts, most of the time, the interests of the other one. And in this way the blockage is done!
Unfortunately, very many times we have the tendency to look upon the tensions or differences which appear as something almost irremediable. From the very beginning, in the moment a misunderstanding appears, or a fight, a disagreement, we tend towards final, definitive positions. “No. I won’t leave until you tell me why you did this or that, until you explain to me. If you don’t agree with me, it is over, I finished with you!”
The disappointment that, obviously, things are not as we imagined, overwhelms the wish to make things work. This reaction shows that the perspective upon the relationship is not constructive, it is not evolutionary. Still, no one who practices yoga and feels a sudden pain in the knee will say to her or himself: “Well, no, such thing is impossible! Either you succeed in doing the asana, or I don’t talk to you any more! It is intolerable that you do such a thing to me!” Normally, we look upon the thing with optimism. We will say: “Well, my knee hurts now, but I will take it easy and it will be solved. I will use a lotion and it will be fine. Or I will try again tonight, when I am even more flexible…”
We have another strategy when it is about what we consider that is part of ourselves. We are tolerant and we accept the dialogue, we cooperate, we understand, often we become too merciful. We do not give definitive verdicts, instead we look for solutions. We have in mind all the time, even if at the subconscious level, that we’ll continue together until the end. When we are in love, the other one is one with us and everything is wonderful. But with the first disharmony that appears, when we take a radical position (either you do like me, or we’re through!), this is a certain indicator that the ardent love from the beginning has cooled down a little and we are out of the state of unison. Giving up instantly, out of fear for difficulties, shows lack of trust in the transforming potential of the being through love. In fact, it shows that the comitement in that couple was not “entirely”. In this way, the relationship is not fulfilling its mission of leading us all the way.
Make space for spontaneity
The couple relationship evolves as a child of the two. It grows and it has a development of its own, many times in an unforeseeable manner. That is why each relationship is unique. The child is not only his or hers. It is both his and hers to an equal extent and to an equal … responsibility. The relationship is somewhere in the middle, it has its own needs and aspirations – which is a wise mediation, through the perspective of love, of the needs and aspirations of the two beings.
Exactly as the parents educate their child, but still they cannot impose their way in life, the couple relationship grows according to its own reasoning. It will take out into the light all that is necessary for the souls of the two beings to flourish. Maybe the mother wants a pianist and the father wants to make him a formula one pilot. But the child will follow his own way. She or he will become, let’s say, a good mechanic engineer singing the organ in his spare time. The demand that the relationship should develop only in a certain way and not otherwise is counterproductive, and it kills it: “It is either as I say or I leave”. But as the wise ones say: “it doesn’t matter who is right, what matters is who loves”.
Unfortunately many couples do not resist to the first crisis, to the first serious awareness. What is the point in talking about the child’s future career, if at the first flue or the first fever attack the child dies?! If our concern is that our spiritual life integrates the couple relationship, we have a more responsible attitude. And we become aware that we must understand the message of this love, we must go all the way and let it fulfill its mission of transforming us.
Nourish the relationship with spiritual aspiration
Axiom: a true couple relationship transforms us. If it does not transform us, it means it died as infant. Unfortunately, some people do not realize this and, indeed, “they live with the corpse in the house”.
We all had the opportunity to see funeral… couple relationships. And this, because many people behave exactly like some parents who play irresponsibly with their child, until he succumbs because they forgot to feed him! God offers us love, but its longevity depends on us. We must take care of it, give it that portion of daily attention, that dose of transfiguration, nourish it from inside and in this way love will grow, it will blossom, it will resist all odds.
We met people who were telling the same thing about five, six relationships in a row. If they looked back, they saw nothing but a long row of crosses. And all relationships – premature death! This happens when we do not look upon the couple as a divine gift which we have to take care of, together with the necessary sacrifices, but as a good bought from a shelf; when we have the consumer’s attitude. We break the wrapping paper – this is always attractive, we look non-attentively to the content and, before even reading the “instruction manual”, we rush to break the wrapping paper of the next gift.
The couple relationship is about much more then this. It is also about responsibility when the lovers have an intense aspiration and a well delineated spiritual goal. This way they are prepared for transformation. Even if there appear crisis, they overcome them together using, among other things, that which each of them achieves in the process of their inner becoming.
In addition, any relationship wears the hall-mark of the predominant level where our consciousness is situated. We always treat or even look at the others according to the respective level. As objects which ensure our survival, in the case of the first energetic center, MULADHARA CHAKRA; as objects of our pleasure, when we are mostly situated at SWADISTHANA CHAKRA; or as some objects to be exploited, upon whom we impose our authority – in the case of the third energetic center, MANIPURA CHAKRA. Only ANAHATA CHAKRA opens for us the perspective of true love, based on self-giving and altruism. Only then we discover that the other one is also… human; And she or he has her or his needs and aspirations. That is why we cannot say that we really love, as long as our consciousness is not focused most of the time at least at the level of the energetic center of affection.
Choose love-making with continence
The sexual, creative energy is the foundation of life. We are, all of us, here because of it. We appeared in the world through this power. It is manifesting in a couple, more than anywhere else, in an active way and it produces the dynamism of the relationship.
In the Tantric vision the very control of the erotic energy, while making love, the practice of sexual continence helps us to better understand polarization in the couple and to fully enjoy all the advantages it brings. The choice of alchemizing sexuality instead of giving up on it, making it sacred, instead of condemning it, can make of our relationship a wonderful perpetuum mobile: love and sexual continence ensure transformation, spiritual expansion, and this generates even more love and so on. You continually fall in love with the other one because, through this transformation, she or he is all the time another person, unique, more special, more different… Thus, we escape the danger of stagnation, of boredom in the couple and we ensure our evolution in a dizzying ascendant beatific spiral.
It is more correct to say “the maintaining in the state of love” than “more love”, because in the couple it is not a quantitative, but a qualitative aspect which matters. The energy of love is infinite, we are or we are not in resonance with this energy. Thus, we automatically obtain “more love” by maintaining ourselves enough time in resonance with the state of love! In the beginning, being freshly in love, we easily maintain this. But in time and together with all sorts of trials we risk to slide out of it.
The empathic quest of the other one’s soul brings us closer to our own soul
How to still remain in unison with the energy of love? If you have ever been biking, you know that you can keep yourself in balance only when you are dynamic. The moment you stop, you fall! But when you continue to bike, even if the surface of the wheels is very narrow, it is easy to stay on the saddle.
Do you remember? In order to learn biking, you intuitively make left-right movements in order to balance yourself; in the same way, you keep yourself in the state of love. We make readjustments in the attitude of the couple, we make small transformations each time is needed. When we love and we practice the transmutation and sublimation of the love-making energy through continence, this very energy maintains alive the transformation processes at all the levels, and we fall in love again and again, permanently.
Falling in love was given to us by God. Falling in love again and and again and maintaining ourselves in love is our task. If we succeed, the couple relationship becomes an engine of the spiritual evolution. That is exactly why we must offer to love, to our couple relationship the right place in our life, the place from where it is able to engage all the “horse-powers” and to propels us with energy, with enthusiasm, and rapidly to the level of evolution we wish for. And here, we must never worry that we exceed the legal speed, but to be happy that we attain the speed of light.
All these can be achieved through a common spiritual practice, through the SADHANA of the couple, of the “child” of the two lovers. We will come back with another article and give some details about this essential ingredient in a true relationship.
Article taken from YOGA MAGAZINE, 61
yogaesoteric
January 2011
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