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While most people would like to have healthy, satisfying [[relationships]] in their lives, the [[truth]] is that everyone has a hard time with [[intimate]] [[partnerships]]. The poet [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rilke Rilke] understood just how challenging they could be when he penned his classic statement, “For one person to [[love]] another, this is the most [[difficult]] of all our tasks.”

While most people would like to have healthy, satisfying [[relationships]] in their lives, the [[truth]] is that everyone has a hard time with [[intimate]] [[partnerships]]. The poet [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rilke Rilke] understood just how challenging they could be when he penned his classic statement, “For one person to [[love]] another, this is the most [[difficult]] of all our tasks.”

Rilke isn’t suggesting it’s hard to love or to have loving-[[kindness]]. Rather, he is speaking about how hard it is to keep loving someone we live with, day by day, year after year. After numerous hardships and [[failures]], many people have given up on [[intimate]] relationship, regarding the relational terrain as so fraught with [[romantic]] [[illusion]] and emotional hazards that it is no longer worth the energy.

Rilke isn’t suggesting it’s hard to love or to have loving-[[kindness]]. Rather, he is speaking about how hard it is to keep loving someone we live with, day by day, year after year. After numerous hardships and [[failures]], many people have given up on [[intimate]] relationship, regarding the relational terrain as so fraught with [[romantic]] [[illusion]] and emotional hazards that it is no longer worth the energy.

Rudy suggests that we have to acknowledge and [[embrace]] our imperfections as spiritual [[path]]; therefore grand spiritual [[pretensions]] miss the point. In his words, “A man who thinks he has a spiritual life is really an [[idiot]].” The same is true of [[relationships]]: beware of thinking you have a “spiritual relationship.” While loving connection provides a glimpse of the gold that lies within, we continually corrupt it by turning it into a [[commodity]], a magical charm to make us feel okay. All the [[delusions]] of [[romantic]] love follow from there. Focusing on relationship as a spiritual or emotional “fix” actually destroys the possibility of finding deep joy, true ease, or honest connection with another.

Rudy suggests that we have to acknowledge and [[embrace]] our imperfections as spiritual [[path]]; therefore grand spiritual [[pretensions]] miss the point. In his words, “A man who thinks he has a spiritual life is really an [[idiot]].” The same is true of [[relationships]]: beware of thinking you have a “spiritual relationship.” While loving connection provides a glimpse of the gold that lies within, we continually corrupt it by turning it into a [[commodity]], a magical charm to make us feel okay. All the [[delusions]] of [[romantic]] love follow from there. Focusing on relationship as a spiritual or emotional “fix” actually destroys the possibility of finding deep joy, true ease, or honest connection with another.

Sooner or later relationship brings us to our knees, forcing us to confront the raw and rugged mess of our mental and emotional life. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell George Orwell] points to this devastating quality of [[human]] [[love]] in a sentence that also has a charnel ground flavor to it: “The [[essence]] of being human is that one does not seek [[perfection]], and that one is [[prepared]], in the end, to be [[defeated]], and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human [[individuals]].”

Sooner or later relationship brings us to our knees, forcing us to confront the raw and rugged mess of our mental and emotional life. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell George Orwell] points to this devastating quality of [[human]] [[love]] in a sentence that also has a charnel ground flavor to it: “The [[essence]] of being human is that one does not seek [[perfection]], and that one is [[prepared]], in the end, to be [[defeated]], and broken up by life, which is the inevitable price of fastening one’s love upon other human [[individuals]].”

This then is the meaning of the charnel ground: we have to be willing to come apart at the seams, to be dismantled, to let our old [[ego]] structures fall apart before we can begin to embody sparks of the essential perfection at the core of our nature. To evolve spiritually, we have to allow these unworked, hidden, messy parts of ourselves to come to the [[surface]]. It’s not that the strategic, controlling ego is something bad or some unnecessary, horrible [[mistake]]. Rather, it provides the indispensable grist that makes alchemical [[transformation]] possible.

This then is the meaning of the charnel ground: we have to be willing to come apart at the seams, to be dismantled, to let our old [[ego]] structures fall apart before we can begin to embody sparks of the essential perfection at the core of our nature. To evolve spiritually, we have to allow these unworked, hidden, messy parts of ourselves to come to the [[surface]]. It’s not that the strategic, controlling ego is something bad or some unnecessary, horrible [[mistake]]. Rather, it provides the indispensable grist that makes alchemical [[transformation]] possible.

Advaita-speak can be very tricky, for it uses [[absolute]] truth to disparage [[relative]] truth, [[emptiness]] to devalue [[form]], and oneness to belittle [[individuality]]. The following quotes from two popular contemporary teachers illustrate this tendency: “Know that what appears to be love for another is really love of [[Self]], because other doesn’t exist,” and “The other’s ‘otherness’ stands [[revealed]] as an [[illusion]] pertaining to the purely human realm, the realm of form.” Notice the devaluation of form and the human realm in the latter statement. By suggesting that only absolute love or being-to-being [[union]] is real, these teachers equate the person-to-person element necessary for a transformative love bond with mere ego or illusion.

Advaita-speak can be very tricky, for it uses [[absolute]] truth to disparage [[relative]] truth, [[emptiness]] to devalue [[form]], and oneness to belittle [[individuality]]. The following quotes from two popular contemporary teachers illustrate this tendency: “Know that what appears to be love for another is really love of [[Self]], because other doesn’t exist,” and “The other’s ‘otherness’ stands [[revealed]] as an [[illusion]] pertaining to the purely human realm, the realm of form.” Notice the devaluation of form and the human realm in the latter statement. By suggesting that only absolute love or being-to-being [[union]] is real, these teachers equate the person-to-person element necessary for a transformative love bond with mere ego or illusion.

Yet personal [[intimacy]] is a spark flashing out across the divide between self and other. It depends on strong [[individuals]] making warm, personal contact, mutually sparking and enriching each other with complementary [[qualities]] and energies. This is the meeting of I and Thou, which [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber Martin Buber] understood not as an [[impersonal]] spiritual union but as a personal [[communion]] rooted in deep [[appreciation]] of the other’s otherness.

Yet personal [[intimacy]] is a spark flashing out across the divide between self and other. It depends on strong [[individuals]] making warm, personal contact, mutually sparking and enriching each other with complementary [[qualities]] and energies. This is the meeting of I and Thou, which [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Buber Martin Buber] understood not as an [[impersonal]] spiritual union but as a personal [[communion]] rooted in deep [[appreciation]] of the other’s otherness.

A deep, [[intimate]] [[connection]] inevitably brings up all our love [[wounds]] from the [[past]]. This is why many spiritual practitioners try to remain above the fray and impersonal in their relationships—so as not to face and deal with their own unhealed relational wounds. But this keeps the wounding [[unconscious]], causing it to emerge as compulsive shadowy [[behavior]] or to dry up [[passion]] and juice. Intimate personal connecting cannot evolve unless the old love wounds that block it are faced, acknowledged, and freed up.

A deep, [[intimate]] [[connection]] inevitably brings up all our love [[wounds]] from the [[past]]. This is why many spiritual practitioners try to remain above the fray and impersonal in their relationships—so as not to face and deal with their own unhealed relational wounds. But this keeps the wounding [[unconscious]], causing it to emerge as compulsive shadowy [[behavior]] or to dry up [[passion]] and juice. Intimate personal connecting cannot evolve unless the old love wounds that block it are faced, acknowledged, and freed up.

Relating to the full [[spectrum]] of our [[experience]] in the relational charnel ground leads to a self-[[acceptance]] that expands our capacity to embrace and accept others as well. Usually our view of our [[partners]] is colored by what they do for us—how they make us look or [[feel]] good, or not—and shaped by our internal movie about what we want them to be. This of course makes it hard to see them for who they are in their own right.

Relating to the full [[spectrum]] of our [[experience]] in the relational charnel ground leads to a self-[[acceptance]] that expands our capacity to embrace and accept others as well. Usually our view of our [[partners]] is colored by what they do for us—how they make us look or [[feel]] good, or not—and shaped by our internal movie about what we want them to be. This of course makes it hard to see them for who they are in their own right.

Beyond our movie of the other is a much larger field of personal and spiritual possibilities, what [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman Walt Whitman] referred to when he said, “I contain multitudes.” These “multitudes” are what keep a [[relationship]] fresh and interesting, but they can only do that if we can accept the ways that those we love are [[different]] from us—in their background, [[values]], [[perspectives]], qualities, [[sensitivities]], preferences, ways of doing things, and, finally, their [[destiny]]. In the words of Swami Prajnanpad, standing advaita-speak on its head: “To see fully that the other is not you is the way to realizing oneness … Nothing is separate, everything is different … Love is the [[appreciation]] of [[difference]].”

Beyond our movie of the other is a much larger field of personal and spiritual possibilities, what [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walt_Whitman Walt Whitman] referred to when he said, “I contain multitudes.” These “multitudes” are what keep a [[relationship]] fresh and interesting, but they can only do that if we can accept the ways that those we love are [[different]] from us—in their background, [[values]], [[perspectives]], qualities, [[sensitivities]], preferences, ways of doing things, and, finally, their [[destiny]]. In the words of Swami Prajnanpad, standing advaita-speak on its head: “To see fully that the other is not you is the way to realizing oneness … Nothing is separate, everything is different … Love is the [[appreciation]] of [[difference]].”

Two [[partners]] not holding themselves separate, while remaining totally distinct—“not two, not one”—may seem like an impossible [[challenge]] in a relationship. Bernard Phillips, an early student of East/West psychology, likens this impossibility of relationship to a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan Zen koan], a riddle that cannot be solved with the conceptual [[mind]]. After continually trying and failing to figure out the answer, Zen students arrive at a genuine solution only in the moment of finally giving up and giving in. In Phillips’ words:

Two [[partners]] not holding themselves separate, while remaining totally distinct—“not two, not one”—may seem like an impossible [[challenge]] in a relationship. Bernard Phillips, an early student of East/West psychology, likens this impossibility of relationship to a [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C5%8Dan Zen koan], a riddle that cannot be solved with the conceptual [[mind]]. After continually trying and failing to figure out the answer, Zen students arrive at a genuine solution only in the moment of finally giving up and giving in. In Phillips’ words: