Beloved Students:

This month I greet you in the joy of relationship, and I celebrate all the ways you are discovering union with the Whole in all your relational opportunities. May what you are learning sustain you now and throughout all eternity. May you come to know the full Presence of the One in all your connections with each other.

When you consider the relationships you enjoy with those close to you, have you ever stopped to ask yourself, “Who or What is doing the relating here?” If you are a parent, Who or What relates with your child? If you are a child, Who or What relates (through you, perhaps) to the parent? When you consider your friendships, Who or What connects between the two of you? When you think of all the ways in which you and your beloved share life, Who or What is it that meets Itself through your shared experiences? Who or What accounts for the magic that can flow between two people?

This type of consideration can lead to a profound acknowledgment of the dual realities in which you experience. First, of course, there is the conventional reality, wherein you meet person to person, personality to personality, ego to ego, self to other. Secondly, there is another reality that goes beyond conventionality, and speaks deeply to “the heart of the matter,” in all relationships. It is this second level that I want to address with you today, for it holds much more spiritual potential than is possible for your conventional connections. Why is that? This second level taps a reality that is beyond the reach of the ego, the self, the personality. It reaches beyond the conventions of mind, time and space.

This second level, though it has no name, is actually the level of Essence. While it cannot be described with denotative certainty, it surely can be experienced. This level of connecting and experiencing draws from the Ultimate in degrees varying with the degree to which one is accomplished, spiritually speaking. It draws from the profound depths of uniting with the Divine, and offers in return the ability to secure the Divine in all personal relationships. Truly, this is the most provocative level of connection, a level that bespeaks of the Divine incarnate relating to humanity.

While most of you yearn for this kind of connection with your loved ones, such is (sadly enough) often perceived to be beyond your reach. Or, it may be idealized and romanticized, which - while it may provide interesting daydreams and fantasies – actually removes you further from the experience you seek and leaves you with some sort of idealized “if only . . . .” Such actually increases your suffering and your inability to create what you want in your relationships.

Ah, yes, suffering! It is interesting to note here that many people believe suffering to be inherent in loving. However, such a notion can be held only at the conventional level of being and experiencing. The love/suffer/love/suffer/love syndrome can arise only at the level of the personality, not the level of Essence. Perhaps the problem here is that most do not recognize Essence – even when It is “hitting them in the face.” Even though Essence is present in virtually every moment, one must, indeed, search it out. The pull of the ego is very strong in conventional reality. Yet, Essence cannot be observed through the eyes of ego. Thus, each is confronted with the power of egoseeing, and must come to understand the distorted interpretation ego gives of what is going on in every relational experience. One is left with the question of “Who or What can I trust in relational matters?” “Through Whose or What eyes can I view this relationship?” And, “How can I see beyond the obvious level of egoic expression?”

I suppose the real question is, “How can I see the Divine in the person with whom I am relating?” Actually, most of you already know that such is what you are trying to do with all your relationships. However, from the conventional level, this “other” may not always look/feel like your designation of the Divine. This seems particularly true when you are experiencing those moments of “growth opportunity” with the other. After all, if that other were really Essence, he/she would love me unconditionally, right?

As we explore deeply, each must come to understand that the problem is not so much the other person, as how one sees the other person. Ultimately, one must ask oneself. “Do I see that other as a Buddha or a Jesus coming to help me see beyond my egoic self?” Or, “Is that other trying to draw me off my spiritual path? Is he/she attempting to weaken my relationship to the Divine?” If you can see the other as a Buddha or a Christ having come into your life to teach you the hard lessons, then you can feel only deep appreciation for the difficult points along the way.

Ultimately, you must come back to the initial question of “Who or What moves through me, seeking loving, creative interaction with another?” This is, of course, the real question. At times, if you are like most people, you only allow your ego to “come through” you to connect with the other person. Yet if you look honestly and deeply at your connections, you will also see that there were times when something vaster, and deeper than a personal self was able to come through you and deeply affect that other. Likely, you were also affected by that Presence. You may have even wondered how It was able to come through you. Perhaps you even walked away from the incident vowing to “take your own advice” in the future. You may have been so astounded at What came through, that it left you pondering on who you really are, and Who or What was actually coming through you.

When you get to this point, it is very important that you not let the ego take credit for the seeming magic that has manifest. Know that ego will want you to feel compelled to take credit for any positive thing that comes from the “moment of being” you experienced. This is a good time to ask, “Who or What thinks it is having this experience, anyway?” When you are left with only the ego's tentacles reaching to claim the prize, this is the time to go soft with even the presence of ego; to turn loose of the need to have any special outcome from the event, or any special outcome for the ego. As you might expect, this feat is more easily described than actualized!

As much as is possible, try not to react emotionally to whatever may arise. Just try to see how it is that your mind determines how you think about and how you respond within each specific relationship you hold. To a greater or lesser degree, how you hold your relationships determines how you feel about yourself. When you have the experience of No Self, No Other, then you are on your way to discovering how it is when Essence meets Itself at the human, karmic, level.

Please join me this month in listening to a recent teaching I gave in Denver, Essence Meeting Essence. As you incorporate the teaching, let yourself wisely review your relationships. Ask honestly what you have sought out in relationships. Only you can provide the deep answers needed to move more completely into Essence, which holds your true potentiality. It is my hope that this teaching will help you see through some of the traditional “pitfalls” that people experience in their relationships. Of course, all that is really required of you is to learn to see differently. You learn to see both yourself and that “other” person through the eyes of Essence, rather than through the eyes of personality.

Please continue the meditation practices I have set out for you. Establish yourself in gratitude for all the multitudinous avenues for learning available to you. Have confidence in your path, and in the paths of those who have gone before you, recognizing that because they achieved liberation, so can you. Show particular gratitude for your precious life, and cherish the goodness that is ever before you, behind you, above you, beneath you and beside you. Walk in grace.

Djwhal Khul