Dear Tanya,
Very nice to hear from you. I'm glad
you enjoyed your vacation and that you have finally processed your relationship
with Michael. When you get rid of problems you return to your natural state of
radiant joy. I'm happy for you that you are through this period and that you
have grown so much spiritually from it. Men and sex are fine but the man/woman
thing doesn't really work until you have the right understanding about it.
In Maya karma is always a problem because one never
knows what the results of one's actions will bring. Relationships are the
ultimate problem because they are so fraught with anxiety about results. When a
worldly person invests so much of his or her self in something over which there
is no control he or she is naturally filled with anxiety. A spiritual person in
relationship has an additional anxiety. On one hand he or she wants to give and
receive love…which is very natural…and on the other hand there is always the
worry about how the relationship is going to affect one's spiritual path, the
purity of one's intention to know the Self.
In Maya there is always an upside and a downside to
everything. So, for example, you lose intimacy when you are out of a
relationship but you gain freedom. When you are in one you gain intimacy but lose freedom. If you take the Self's position
you won't value intimacy more than freedom or freedom more than intimacy so you
will be happy when you are in one and happy when you are out of one.
Perhaps this is not exactly addressing your
question, which is whether relationships are an obstacle to enlightenment or
not. My guru used to say, “sin intelligently' which
was his clever formulation of the Buddha's ‘middle way' teaching. According to
this idea you need to respect your vasanas to some degree or you become repressed , frustrated , dry and loveless. On the other hand
you don't want to become a relationship pig and get yourself completely
attached to sensations and pleasures. So you pick and choose the person
carefully, making sure that she is not too tamasic or rajasic. And you do the
relationship as sadhana. You watch your mind/emotions and use your knowledge of
yourself as non-dual to manage the mind. It can work.
On the other hand one doesn't tend to want
relationships when one is whole and complete so you have to ask yourself why
you think you need love from outside when you are an ocean of love yourself.
This is the argument against them. You don't give up looking for love, you just look to yourself for it.
Tanya: Very wise words on the relationship issue, Ram. I get your general idea as, "there
are no do's and don'ts about this, with the exception of staying focused on
what's most important, whether one is in relationship or not." I'm
in agreement with you that treating relationship as sadhana is the key and that
when you are in one you gain certain things and lose certain other things.
It seems that there are cycles in the relationship game. Now that I've been
involved in the intimacy side the desire for freedom has captured my mind. I
won't say I won't have other relationships just that your words bring to
consciousness something that I have known but not been able to accept. Now, it
is much easier to accept that relationship is not a spiritual solution. It is
something that should fit into my spiritual life but not something other than
my sadhana. Thank you very much for these words; they are so liberating.
Love,
Tanya