The greatest struggle for human beings is between their desire to overcome isolation and loneliness and their simultaneous fear of close, intimate contact with another being. Often the desire and the fear are equally strong, so that people are pulled and pushed in opposite directions. This causes a tremendous strain. The pain of isolation will always push people into attempts to escape from it. When such attempts look like succeeding, the fear of closeness induces them to pull back again and push away the other. And so the cycle goes on with human beings first erecting and then destroying the barriers between themselves and others. All individuals who find themselves on a path such as this must sooner or later see their own predicament from this perspective. All their disturbances, disharmonies, and sufferings can finally be brought down to the struggle between the desire and the fear of closeness as the simple common denominator. Your destructiveness and your insistence on holding on to both feelings are the barriers which keep you separated from others. Your relationship to another person can be successful only when you are motivated by your innermost being. If the relationship is determined solely by the outer intellect and will, these faculties cannot find the delicate balance of allowing your self-expression and also receiving the other's self-expression. Since no rule can be made about the rhythm of this mutual interchange, the outer brain is unable to effect the balance. Nor can the ego-mind find the balance between self-assertion and giving in, between giving and receiving, or between active and passive participation. These delicate balances cannot possibly be determined in a prescribed way. Yet the intellect is an instrument that prescribes, predetermines, and thinks mechanically; it determines rules and laws. By itself it is not sufficiently intuitive and flexible to meet each moment as it comes and to respond to it adequately. For such a flexible response the core of your being must be activated. Then relationship with another can be spontaneous and mutually satisfying. Not in contact with your innermost being, you can neither function properly where life requires creative responses, nor can you contact another person's innermost being. But this, after all, is the real relating, the closeness which eliminates isolation. Intimate self--expression and relating flows with the life-stream and brings dynamic peace. Everything else is strain, effort, and difficult discipline, which is not conducive to the great freedom and joy of intimacy. As you already know, human beings are terrified of themselves. They do everything possible to avoid looking at themselves. When you have overcome a specific difficulty and resistance, you find that your fears were not justified. You feel relief, along with moments of aliveness, because at one particular moment you have contacted your innermost being. When this inner you is evaded, real contact with others is impossible. You also know that evasion can exist in many forms. If you have not contacted your true self first, you cannot allow yourself the freedom and lack of control necessary for responding from within. Why is the fear of self and the fear of contacting others so great? Basically the fear is due to people's destructive aims, and specifically to your aim of refusing to give yourselves over to life. Doing the work on such a path as this, many of my friends have encountered exactly this kind of attitude deep within themselves. If all people were truly willing to give what they are, both their potential and their already realized selves, if they were to willingly offer their best to life and deliberately held this as their goal, they could not be in conflict with themselves or with life. For each one of you has so many wonderful assets which you neglect or only vaguely sense. And even when you do sense them, it does not occur to you to offer these assets to life. Once you deliberately do that, something must begin to happen. A great inner movement takes place which you have no reason to fear, for it must all happen in beautiful order and harmony. You as an individual can change from being an isolated creature keeping your assets for yourself, sometimes leaving them completely unused, never intending to give these assets for the benefit of life and evolution, except perhaps in a vague way. The moment you change to the new state of deliberately dedicating the best of who you are to life, the change within you and in your outer life experience will be so drastic that words cannot describe it. What was difficult, laborious, fearful, bleak, strained, and lonely will become easy, self-perpetuating, relaxed, safe, and bright. You will feel a deep sense of oneness with the world, with others, with the entire process of creation.
soulsearcher said
Oct 15, 2005
Dear Phil,
Have you ever known such a person who actually was able to obtain such a state of exsistance? I often wonder how much capacity we as human eings truly have and yet cant seem to push to the next level. Unless I my self have not been receptive enough to notice it does exsist. Sometimes I think were we are at at any given moment determines what and how we see. This is not a sacarastic question. I'd really like to know if someone has ever made it there or if someone knows of someone who has. It would certainly be encouraging to know that it is possibe to become that mentally well.
thanks
Soulsearcher
rosie light shines said
Oct 16, 2005
WOW!!! phil, i gotta print AND save this.......thank you, i can SO relate......hugs/ rosie
All individuals who find themselves on a path such as this must sooner or later see their own predicament from this perspective. All their disturbances, disharmonies, and sufferings can finally be brought down to the struggle between the desire and the fear of closeness as the simple common denominator. Your destructiveness and your insistence on holding on to both feelings are the barriers which keep you separated from others.
Your relationship to another person can be successful only when you are motivated by your innermost being. If the relationship is determined solely by the outer intellect and will, these faculties cannot find the delicate balance of allowing your self-expression and also receiving the other's self-expression. Since no rule can be made about the rhythm of this mutual interchange, the outer brain is unable to effect the balance. Nor can the ego-mind find the balance between self-assertion and giving in, between giving and receiving, or between active and passive participation. These delicate balances cannot possibly be determined in a prescribed way. Yet the intellect is an instrument that prescribes, predetermines, and thinks mechanically; it determines rules and laws. By itself it is not sufficiently intuitive and flexible to meet each moment as it comes and to respond to it adequately. For such a flexible response the core of your being must be activated. Then relationship with another can be spontaneous and mutually satisfying.
Not in contact with your innermost being, you can neither function properly where life requires creative responses, nor can you contact another person's innermost being. But this, after all, is the real relating, the closeness which eliminates isolation. Intimate self--expression and relating flows with the life-stream and brings dynamic peace. Everything else is strain, effort, and difficult discipline, which is not conducive to the great freedom and joy of intimacy.
As you already know, human beings are terrified of themselves. They do everything possible to avoid looking at themselves. When you have overcome a specific difficulty and resistance, you find that your fears were not justified. You feel relief, along with moments of aliveness, because at one particular moment you have contacted your innermost being. When this inner you is evaded, real contact with others is impossible. You also know that evasion can exist in many forms. If you have not contacted your true self first, you cannot allow yourself the freedom and lack of control necessary for responding from within.
Why is the fear of self and the fear of contacting others so great? Basically the fear is due to people's destructive aims, and specifically to your aim of refusing to give yourselves over to life. Doing the work on such a path as this, many of my friends have encountered exactly this kind of attitude deep within themselves. If all people were truly willing to give what they are, both their potential and their already realized selves, if they were to willingly offer their best to life and deliberately held this as their goal, they could not be in conflict with themselves or with life. For each one of you has so many wonderful assets which you neglect or only vaguely sense. And even when you do sense them, it does not occur to you to offer these assets to life. Once you deliberately do that, something must begin to happen. A great inner movement takes place which you have no reason to fear, for it must all happen in beautiful order and harmony.
You as an individual can change from being an isolated creature keeping your assets for yourself, sometimes leaving them completely unused, never intending to give these assets for the benefit of life and evolution, except perhaps in a vague way. The moment you change to the new state of deliberately dedicating the best of who you are to life, the change within you and in your outer life experience will be so drastic that words cannot describe it. What was difficult, laborious, fearful, bleak, strained, and lonely will become easy, self-perpetuating, relaxed, safe, and bright. You will feel a deep sense of oneness with the world, with others, with the entire process of creation.
Dear Phil,
Have you ever known such a person who actually was able to obtain such a state of exsistance? I often wonder how much capacity we as human eings truly have and yet cant seem to push to the next level. Unless I my self have not been receptive enough to notice it does exsist. Sometimes I think were we are at at any given moment determines what and how we see. This is not a sacarastic question. I'd really like to know if someone has ever made it there or if someone knows of someone who has. It would certainly be encouraging to know that it is possibe to become that mentally well.
thanks
Soulsearcher