When I am in the process of awakening to myself, in short, taking on the spiritual path, every relationship that comes my way becomes a spiritual relationship. The difference between a normal relationship of what I experience in the past, and a spiritual relationship of which I experience now is that the former was unconscious, and the latter, conscious. Spiritual relationship constantly brings me to face myself, eventhough it seems there is someone out there that I need to face. Ultimately, both of it is actually one – me with myself.
In relationship, I am constantly being tossed left and right, to and fro, or up and down, like a ship on a rough sea. And my work is to make sure that I am not drowned by it. But most of the time it is not a pleasant ride, as “to relate” as in a relationship, is to mean relating my idea with another coming up my way. Rarely my idea is in synchronicity with the world, as the world itself too is not in sync. What I am to mean is that majority of the time, we come from the space of ego, or ignorance, rather than from wisdom, or spirit. There is always intrusion into what is natural, of wanting to get in the way, or pushing and rushing in. Impatience and eagerness make us scheme and manipulate what is flowing, having its own natural course interrupted, hence creating discordance and disharmony.
I am constantly over-extending or under-extending myself in a relationship. It is more obvious when a new relationship comes into the picture compared to one that is already deeply ingrained in guilt. I catch myself many a time where there is a tendency of manipulating my speech to escape my own pain or to make the other small so as to entice them into my own need. For one who is not conscious of how the mind works, he or she may not be aware that the result of a loving state can arise from manipulation. In reality the loving state we constantly experience is conditional and not unconditional, and as such it is pretty obvious that it has attachment to it, deriving from satisfaction of certain causes that each has the same root mentality of “what’s in for me”. With that in mind, scheming is already at play, probably so deeply rooted in us that we are not conscious at all about its presence in our thought, speech or action and thus thought we are holy in a loving state.
Many will attest that when we become spiritual, we start to find how evil or crooked our intentions can be. As the saying goes the road to hell is paved with good intentions. There is a certain level of truth to that statement as the good intention we think it is, is actually frequently tainted with ill-intent. Look at most of the good deeds we do – seldom is it from the space of unconditional love, but what’s in for me.
It is a calling for vigilance in spiritual relationship so that the wholesome purpose of mental purification does not fall back into its old pattern of co-dependency of deception. It is so easy to fall and difficult to be awakened to that pattern. And it takes another conscious spirit to spar to awaken another to this journey. In fact, when both are intended towards spirituality, acceleration of the path is unavoidable. But be forewarned, it is a journey of discomfort in the beginning and joy and freedom in the end, constantly in process as and when relationship of ideas comes into picture. That’s the bane and boon of spiritual relationship.