GETTING YOUR RELATIONSHIPS TO PURPOSE
Generally speaking, the quality of our lives is directly connected to the quality of our relationships to the people in our lives. And, to add to the equation, our relationships reflect how we relate to ourselves. That’s right, to ourselves. Let me explain by way of a brief review of what I have already written in this book.
You have a constant, ongoing relationship with your mind and your body. When you say the words, “I said to myself,” you are referring to two beings: The “I” refers to your invisible self (the thought); “myself” refers to your physical being that has a name, address and Social Security number. When “you” call “yourself a jerk, that is your invisible “you” judging your visible “self.” This is the ongoing relationship you have throughout all of your days here on earth.
Your objective is to see yourself as a spiritual being having a human experience and to develop a mind-set that creates real magic in your life. You want to attempt to eliminate the dichotomy between your invisible self and your physical self, between the “I” and the “self in “I said to myself.” If you think of yourself as a jerk, you must act in jerky ways. There is no other way. If you think of yourself as powerful, loving, sensitive, divine, and capable of making mistakes, you will act in those ways.
When you cultivate the awareness of your body, mind and soul as one, and experience unity within yourself, you are then ready to share this sense of wholeness and holiness with others, and this is where your relationships come in. When you have love for yourself, that is what you have to give away. Regardless of how another person interacts with you, you can give away only what you have inside to give. Just like the proverbial orange, when you squeeze it, you get what is inside—it has nothing to do with who does the squeezing, or the circumstances surrounding the squeeze. What comes out is what is inside.
What is inside you gets there by way of your thoughts; there simply is no other entry mechanism. If you harbor hate, hate is what you give away. If you harbor self-contempt, contempt is what you give away. If you harbor love and compassion, love and compassion are what you give away.
Your relationships travel the same course that you travel. If your way is through suffering and questioning why things are not working out, as I discussed in chapter 1, then your relationships also suffer. If you follow the path of outcome and begin to see that there are lessons to learn in life, then your relationships also reflect this pattern. And, if you go to purpose, and have your life on purpose, your relationships also reflect this position in your life. Remember, purpose is about giving. You acquire and keep nothing for your whole life. All you can do with your life is to give it away in the service of others. It is in this domain of purpose that miracles begin to occur in relationships.
When you are past the need to suffer and dominate others, when you are past a what’s-in-it-for-me attitude toward relationships, and when you are focused on giving, serving and being nonjudgmental, then real magic begins to manifest itself in your life every day. George Washington Carver describes what I am writing about: “How far you go in life depends on your being tender with the young, compassionate with the aged, sympathetic with the striving and tolerant of the weak and the strong. Because someday in life you will have been all of these.”
This is the definition of purpose in your relationships: treating others in the various stages of their lives as you would like to be treated in those stages of life yourself. These are all words about giving. Purpose is giving yourself away and refusing to ask, “What’s in it for me?” Purpose is about relating with love rather than judgment. Purpose is all about giving yourself to others unconditionally and accepting what comes back with love, even if what comes back is not what you anticipated.
If you respond to hate with hate, or anger with anger, it is not because of what was directed your way, it is because that’s what’s inside you. You can’t get prune juice from an orange no matter how hard you squeeze it. You can’t give hate if you have only love inside, no matter how much squeezing comes your way.
Once you are on purpose, you will see yourself acting toward others in totally new ways—ways, incidentally, that will bring others closer to you than you ever experienced before when you were trying so hard to have them behave the way you wanted them to. It is such a paradox. The more you give away, the more you get; the more you try to force something for your own benefit, the less you seem to enjoy what you seek so desperately.
Let’s take a look at the core ingredient of a relationship that is on purpose, and then examine some specific methods for getting there.
LOVE: THE CENTRAL INGREDIENT OF A RELATIONSHIP AT PURPOSE
At the center of purposeful relationships is love. But it is more than simply being able to say the words “I love you,” for these words are used by people who also berate and harm each other on a daily basis. Love is giving and it has nothing to do with what you receive. Love is an inner process that you bring to a relationship. A relationship that is at purpose has love in the giving sense as its cornerstone. The best discussion I have ever read of this kind of spiritual love is expressed by J. Krishnamurti in Think on These Things:
To love is the most important thing in life. But what do we mean by love? When you love someone because that person loves you in return, surely that is not love. To love is to have that extraordinary feeling of affection without asking anything in return. You may be very clever, you may pass all your examinations, get a doctorate and achieve a high position, but if you have not this sensitivity, this feeling of simple love, your heart will be empty and you will be miserable for the rest of your life.
This ingredient of love at the level of giving is how purpose is defined, and it is the ultimate in creating miraculous relationships. Even in the act of sex, the most exciting and fulfilling sexual encounters are those in which you know you are giving and asking for nothing in return. To know you are satisfying your partner truly and authentically is all it takes to have a perfect sexual encounter. When you begin to think only of yourself and how good a lover you are or how excited you feel, you have shifted off of purpose and retreated back to outcome in your sexual activity. It is perfect when you are giving; it lacks something magical when your mind is on receiving.
This ingredient of giving extends way beyond the sexual part of your relationships. It goes to all levels, and even to those relationships in which sex plays no role whatsoever Like getting only what’s inside the orange when you squeeze it, if you have love inside of you that is all you will have available to give away. And when you are giving away love, you have a different kind of sensitivity, one that allows you to see all people not in terms of their form, but in terms of the soul that is in back of the form. You begin to see the fullness of God in everyone you encounter, and the level of your relationships to others takes on the glow of real magic.
You see your children and all children not in terms of what they are doing, or how they are behaving or misbehaving, but beyond to the invisible part of them, the soul that is in that young body. If you meet that soul with love and radiate it outward to them, they will in turn respond with love. You have loving relationships with others because you bring love, rather than because you seek it from others.
Members of your family with whom you may have had a difficult time relating are no longer the source of your disdain. Your anger and negativity is gone, replaced by nonjudgmental love. This does not require long years of therapy or the assistance of support groups, drugs or special herbs. It requires only that you shift to being a spiritual being first, and a physical being second. This can be an experience of satori, an instant awakening to fill yourself with love, to ask nothing of anyone you encounter in all of your relationships, and to give that love away without asking what is in it for you.
Ironically, once you are on purpose in this manner, you will receive a great deal that has largely been missing from your life. Parents that seemed so impossible only yesterday, suddenly are no longer jud
ged by you. Satori. You send them love, forgiving them for all that you have harbored in your invisible memory, reminding yourself that they did only what they knew how to do given the conditions of their lives at the time, and no one can ask any more of anyone than that. You send them love, looking past that which you once judged, and miraculously, your relationship with your parents is transformed. You have created a miracle!
Your friendships and business relationships can also improve dramatically with this new giving approach. When a conflict arises you suspend your negative thoughts and instead send out love. In so doing you change the actual environment from hostility to serenity. This is how conflicts begin to disappear and solutions begin to surface. A conscious loving person who refuses to use his mind to have negative hateful thoughts can literally affect his physical environment. When you respond in an unthreatened manner, and instead communicate an inner knowing in a peaceful loving way, you are incapable of being rattled by challenges. You have created a miracle in that relationship.
I can remember having some gigantic disagreements with my colleagues when I was a college professor. These colleagues often were involved in ongoing disagreeable relationships with other faculty members. There was an unwillingness to compromise and a stronger unwillingness to even discuss their differences. They were “difficult” or “impossible to get along with” unless you shared their point of view, which few did.
Yet I discovered I was always able to get my way with these “impossible” colleagues. I was experiencing real magic where others were experiencing exasperation. The secret? I sent them love and asked nothing of them. Just have love in your heart, even though you disagree, and let everything else take care of itself. The colleagues always came around, and found it impossible to be nasty or confrontational with me. I never made a big deal about it, nor did I brag to others about how I was able to have my way with these difficult people. I simply sent them the love that I had inside and then surrendered.
This approach to relationships is basically my approach to life. Stay on purpose. Know that you are here to serve. If you get off course, simply ask, “How may I serve in this situation?” and listen quietly for the solution. Get off of having to prove yourself, remove your ego from the encounter and send out love.
Many times I have stood in line at an airport counter watching an irate customer berating a clerk, and I’ve said to myself, “If only he could send them love he would probably get his way.” The irate customer invariably leaves the encounter angry and unsatisfied, having gotten only an increase in his blood pressure. I generally say something nice to the airline representative. I give him or her a loving look and say, “Whatever you have will be fine.” I get treated nicely, and more than once I’ve been bumped up to first class.
This is such a basic thing that I am surprised that more people don’t catch on. It is the golden rule in action. Send out love, even to the stranger you pass while out for a walk. Surely it is how you would want to be treated.
FOUR ADDITIONAL INGREDIENTS OF RELATIONSHIPS AT PURPOSE
Giving love with no expectations is the cornerstone of your relationships when you are on purpose. There really is very little else that you need to know. Practice this giving of love, without conditions, and you will find yourself feeling full rather than empty, and blissful rather than miserable. Here are the four ancillary qualities that go into this real magic in your relationships.
1. Relinquish your need to be right. This is the single greatest cause of difficulties and deterioration in relationships—the need to make the other person wrong, or to make yourself right. To win the argument. To prove they don’t know what they are talking about. To show that you are superior. The spiritual partnership is a relationship of equals. No one needs to be proven wrong. There is no “right” way or “winning” argument. Each person has the right to his or her own point of view. If you want to see miracles begin to take place in your life, simply let go of the need to make anyone else wrong for a few days and watch how differently things go for you.
You are capable of having a conversation with yourself before you open your mouth to make someone else wrong. A simple reminder to yourself that goes like this: “I know how I feel about this and I know that it doesn’t match how she feels, but so what. It is enough that I know it in my mind, I have no need to make her feel wrong.” Then stifle yourself and you have created a miracle right there. You have replaced a potential conflict with a loving response. Remember, no one, including yourself, wants to be proven wrong. You know you dislike it, so honor that place in others as well, and give up the need to take the credit or to show how superior you are. In a spiritual partnership there is no superior or inferior, both are equal and this equality is respected. Practice this and you will see love replacing anger between you.
This is also true in your relationships with all others. Your children need to be guided, not to be made wrong. There is always a way to teach young people without making them feel wrong. The embarrassment that goes with being proved “stupid” leads to a self-image of stupidity. You can replace those statements designed to prove how superior you are with loving responses designed to help your children and others examine their own point of view. Or you can quietly respond with, “I see it differently. I wonder how you came up with that conclusion?” The key is not to memorize statements to say at the right time, but to keep in mind that no one likes to be proved wrong, particularly publicly.
When you have that spiritual knowing within, that is enough, and your goal is to help others to have it as well. This can be applied in business, with strangers that you meet, in disputes with your neighbors, in virtually all human relationships. Confident people have no need to make others look bad. They know inside how they feel, they trust their own mind, and they allow others to interact with them in dignity rather than embarrassment.
2. Allow space. Let there be space in your togetherness. Again, it is back to loving unconditionally and giving rather than taking. When you love someone for what they are, rather than what you think they should be, or for how they please you, then allowing for privacy and space comes automatically. The loving thing to do is to allow everyone the option of being themselves. If being themselves involves time away from you, then that is not only allowed, it is lovingly facilitated on your part. The clinging relationships racked with jealousy and fear come from individuals who believe they have a right to dictate what the other person ought to be. Remember Robert Frost’s line: “We love the things we love for what they are.” So simple, yet so difficult for so many people to follow on a daily basis.
All of us need some time for quiet meditation, contemplation, making contact with our higher selves, self-examination, reading, listening, thinking, walking and so on. Solitude can become your most meaningful companion and it can assist you in being a more giving person in your spiritual partnerships. Rather than regarding your partner’s need for time alone as a threat, see it as a time for renewal that you celebrate. Make every effort to help each other have that space. Treat that space as sacred. Keep in mind that your relationship to all others is in your own mind, not in what they think or do. Your need for privacy will be nonthreatening and loving when you become a spiritual being. You will treasure your time alone and be thankful for being with someone who encourages you in this regard, and you will do all that you can to ensure that your partner has plenty of that same space, without any judgment or threat from you.
Privacy and space are things you can give as wonderful gifts to your partner. If you refuse to give them, you will find your relationship deteriorating and all of your efforts to maintain it will be frustrated. The irony is, the more space you allow and encourage within the relationship, the more the relationship will flourish. The more you try to limit someone’s space by keeping track of them or by insisting all their time be spent with you, the more you are contributing to the end of that loving relationship.
3. Eliminate the idea of ownership. Seek to enjoy each other, not to pos
sess each other. You can never experience the miraculousness of a magical relationship if you feel you own the other person or in any way have a right to dominate or control them. No one wants to feel owned. No one wants to feel like a possession. No one wants to be dominated or controlled. We all show up here with a purpose, and that purpose gets thwarted when any other human being attempts to interfere with our heroic mission. Your relationship can either be the vehicle allowing your purpose to flourish, or it can inhibit your feeling purposeful. Ownership is the greatest inhibitor to feeling a sense of purpose and mission in one’s life.
You do not have the right to tell the people with whom you are in a relationship what they ought to be doing while they are here on earth. That is only between each person and their soul. You may succeed in imprisoning another, and you may have a marriage that lasts for sixty years, but you do not have a loving relationship if either partner feels owned or like a possession.
This is a lesson I had to learn the hard way. At one time I felt I could dictate how my partner should think and behave. It cost me dearly—a painful divorce, many unpleasant hours in hostile conflict and so much frustration and stress because of my unrealistic demands. Today, I have learned the lesson. I can’t even conceive of the idea that I could own my wife. She is her own person and my relationship to her is based upon acknowledging that in her. It is indeed reciprocal. She encourages me to have the space and privacy that I need in order to write and speak and fulfill my own purpose. I in turn feel that she too must have the same privilege. Although it is tougher on her since we have so many small children, I am working each and every day on helping her to be able to have the same thing for herself. But both of us know within our hearts that we do not own each other. That is impossible. Our mutual love and respect for each other allows us to experience miracles in our relationship, whereas at one time they simply didn’t exist. When we tried to own each other or dictate to each other even in small ways, we were driven apart. Now, each moment together is a treasure and we seem to be closer than ever, along with actually having more intimate, loving moments now that we grant each other unconditional space, love and respect. This is a miracle for us. At one time it appeared to be impossible. It came about through giving, not demanding. Through respect, not criticism.
Real Magic Page 14