Which came first: the problem or the failed solution? The mind doesn't care as long as the loop of compulsive thinking continues.

The Evolution of Enlightenment:

Soul Mates & Prince(ss) Charming

Nowhere has mind attachment produced more confusion and irrational behavior than in relationships. People earnestly search for someone compatible, their soul mate or just someone who's not like the last person they were with. And who do they get? To paraphrase The Rolling Stones, "not what they want, but what they need."

In relationships, one of the most frequently replayed concerns is: "I just don't know if 'so and so' is right for me?" It's a question that I had long considered valid, personally as well as professionally and as a counselor I had helped many a client and friend to explore this nagging doubt. I don't do that anymore, because if pressed with the question I would have to say, "Why yes, I am sure that they're perfect for you." I wouldn't need to meet or know anything about the other person to stand on this statement, for relationships, like people, don't need to be fixed. They're fine just the way they are. Trying to change them would be like teaching cats to bark - an ill-conceived intention, a ludicrous task.

"Your reasoning is excellent - it's only your basic assumptions that are wrong." . . . Ashleigh Brilliant

To base reality on what one thinks is insane and that certainly includes attempts to define who I am, who my partner is and what our relationship is about. It's a grand mystery. When we supply our will's need for control with intel from the limits of our understanding, the results are predictable. Reactive, habitual opinions and actions that support the same tired storiesthe premises of how to deal with our thoughts and emotions (suffering) through memories, manipulations and other society acceptable norms.

In relationships it sounds like this: "I won't accept what is (my partner, their habits, how I am with my partner, etc.). I want it (them, or me or us) to be different, something else." This thought or some form of it is how the mind draws attention and life energy away from the present (what is), and into the past and future (what ought have, could or should be). It doesn't lead to harmony and it's insane.

What's sane is accepting that relationships, as with the principals engaged, are always in position to experience love, balance and harmony (even and especially within upset and tumultuousness). It's our affirmation of the perception of flaw or defectiveness in self, others and relationship that gets in the way, giving foundation to problems, generating support for story-making and causing suffering. As couples, we may say "we're stuck" and that's fairly accurate, but not in the relationship. We're stuck in our minds, oblivious to the immediate possibilities, obsessed (mostly unconsciously) with thinking that scours the past to project remedies into the future for the problems the same mind has shaped. Which came first: the problem or the failed solution? The mind doesn't care as long as the loop of compulsive thinking continues.

The primary, human archetype of relationship is marriage and it is rooted in the concept of commitment. Through sloppy observation, commitment has become associated with the person or the legal act, however this is a gross view of it. The clear intention is the commitment to acceptance within oneself - an unconditional agreement to accept the other (idiosyncrasies, warts, et al) as intimately as one is willing to accept oneself (and your own idiosyncrasies, warts, et al). It transcends forgiveness for in the purity of this act, no fault is given.

NOTE: Our mind attached thinking doesn't really want the perfect partner it is obsessed with anyway. That would put it out of work - and worse - into inactivity. The compulsive monologue is the whole point. Even if it were possible for the utter fantasy of a "perfect match" to walk into our lives, we could be certain that our thinking would find plenty of reasons to send him or her packing.

This next part may be a bit touchy. By far, and I mean almost to always, the purpose of most relationships is to not to love, but to medicate pain. We call it love because of how it feels in the beginning - incredibly freeing and beautiful, but as the relationship continues, the high starts to wane as the pain increases. This is a typical pattern of drug usage. Even the seemingly mystical experience of "falling in love", mostly results from attracting and interlocking, mutual compulsivity. "I want to be needed. And I want to need someone." "I want to be taken care of. And I need someone to take care of." "I want to be sexually dominant. And I want someone to take charge sexually." And so on and so on. When these needs connect: "Sky rockets in flight!" We feel we've finally found the one person in all the world who is right for us. And in a way we have, because even when the medication of our attraction wears thin, there still stands before us a clear mirror in which we can see ourselves.

"The only truth we know is that which we practice in relationships." . . . Jane Waddington

What about toxic or violent relationships? Well, enlightenment or Being is not for the feint of heart. These types of relationships can be powerfully transforming because of the intense experience of suffering possible by continuing the futility of denial and insane thinking as to solutions. Passive relationships by contrast, often take more time to build up the pressure of discontent to the release state. I would caution anyone, however, in such a relationship to be clear with themselves as to the cost they are prepared to pay. Jesus, Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. felt safe in themselves and did not fear or resist violence. They were also murdered through their surrendering to love, authenticity. Am I saying "stay in or leave a violent relationship"? No. What I am saying is if you are in one, the clearest and safest thing you can do is to be present and observe yourself, your partner and the relationship. It's a rich view. You can find restitution, forgiveness, and clear, peaceful inspiration that keeps you in or pushes you out of a relationship.

Remember also that beauty is never selective. When we can't see it on the surface or within another's behavior, it's because within all the noise and confusion of our thinking, we (not the other) have lost touch with it in ourselves. Every person, like us - no matter what we say, think or do, is the most exquisitely, beautiful person we will ever meet. When I'm present, I witness the beauty, the innocence I am. I look upon my beloved and I witness the same. My beloved looks upon me, into the clarity of my witness reflecting back all the beauty and innocence that is her, me, and us together. This is how we can love.

So here are just a few tips for staying conscious in relationship:

1. Don't try to fix anything or anyone. Think of it as attempting brain surgery with a bulldozer. And you haven't got a permit.


2. Throw out the norms. Trust in Higher purpose and support. As if Providence after seeing everything, especially your suspect issues, is excited and shouting, "Yea, I can work with this!"


3. Be, observe and love everything first. Sit with reality before turning it into fantasy. Try it, you just might like it.


4. Begin, continue or end relationships in the moment only. No plotting or conspiracies to do so.


5. Repeat after me: "Patterns are my friends." If you break up to make up to break up to make up, hooray for you. It's more chances to accept what is.


6. Be like a child and accept what is before you. Let your Spirit, not your thinking, do all the sorting.

Relationships can be multiple-choice decisions or just the one beautiful opportunity right before us. It all depends on how attached we are to thinking about it.

Editor's Note: This article is Part Four of a five-part series. Next issue: How Being empowers and affects world change, harmonizing divisions, sensitizing incivility, and dissolving compulsive, collective self-consciousness.

The Reverend Warren Dale Blackford is an author, speaker, teacher and Spiritual guide.