Relationship Difficulties
The illusion is always backwards from the truth. Once we’re lost in it, we can’t see the truth. We’re filled with emotions; and we just want someone, anyone, to fix them.
Most arguments happen because one person or group wants others to eliminate their emotions or fulfill their false needs and wants. However, if we meet another’s need or want, they aren’t likely to fix the cause. They’ll just expected us to fulfill it again and again. Inspirational speakers and clergy, advertising, drug companies, and traditional medicine and therapy all prey upon this aspect of the illusion. We will come back again and again for a fix, and they will gladly continue to bill us.
Initiation saved me from this trap. From the initiate’s perspective, relationship exposes the places that our false self still holds beliefs. If someone can upset us, or we fear them, our false self is afraid of losing power to them. They’re playing a masculine role in an illusion where we’re feminine. If we feel we must control or fix others, we’re playing the masculine role. In the illusion, of course, the masculine role appears to have all the power.
As we travel the path of initiation, we find it increasingly difficult to meet another’s false needs or wants. We want authentic relationships. Even money isn’t enough incentive to play a permanent false role in another’s life. We want others to join us in freedom. And often, we’ll try to convince them to let go.
We can look rude or uncaring when we suggest letting go or won’t do what they believe they want or need. But once we see the world’s suffering as an illusion created by FALSE beliefs, we can’t pretend it’s true anymore. We can’t feel good about fixing effects. This is one of those awkward stages. We find it hard to sympathize with their false problems. We can’t condone their disempowering labels. We often feel bad about this because we do care.
They think their beliefs, needs, and wants are real and won’t go away. They believe what their mind tells them; they refuse to let go. Usually, we can see that their problems have a payoff; they manipulate others to fill their deeper false need or want, such as loneliness, insecurity, or lack of love. They create a false connection to others, which appears to sooth their separation from their own True Self.
A Simple Example
Your partner asks you to spend time with them. You say, “No, I want to be alone tonight.” So partner says, “So I’m not important. You’re so hurtful. You don’t care about me.” Those are three imaginary false self statements. Your partner is giving you reasons for why you said “No.” But none of them are true; you know that. Your partner, however, has deep loneliness at the core of their false self. They don’t want to feel that loneliness and let it go; they want you to take it away.
Often our social brainwashing kicks in. We fix their need; and we feel obligated to fix it. Then we’ll get entangled in their illusive reality. In time, we’ll resent them.
Who’s Hurting Whom?
Nothing has caused me more confusion and pain in my life than this confusing issue. I can see the beliefs that keep others stuck, and I simply refuse to condone them. But I’ve often been seen as rude and uncaring for exposing others’ beliefs. Their false self would think I was trying to hurt them.
I lived in a world of people who were addicted to the illusion and wished me to grant them a moment of comfort rather than a life of freedom. I simply didn’t belong. My gift for freeing people was a curse in their illusion. Beliefs are sacred in the illusion. One who tries to change or eliminate them is evil.
I know I’m not alone. Many people now see that freedom is the most loving thing we can give another. And they, too, often feel like strangers in a strange world.
From the perspective of initiation, the general rule to see who hurt whom is to look at who’s generating emotions. But people with giant false selves have become masters of the illusion. They can often say something like our partner above without displaying any emotion. That’s because they truly believe they’re entitled to our attention. Their loneliness feels real, even infinite. They have pride or rightness about their beliefs. If we don’t see what they’re doing, we’ll drown with them.
If our partner was paying attention to their own emotions, they’d notice that none of their statements felt good. They aren’t the truth. They’re meaningless mind recordings from their past. They’d let them go. We wouldn’t have to fill their false need; they’d now understand us. They wouldn’t attach false meaning to our words. They’d thank us for helping them get closer to their True Self.
Our social customs are confusing because they focus on physical actions and not mental clearing. Being there for another doesn’t mean listening to them dump baggage on us, soothing their emotions, or filling their false needs. Our normal social customs create codependence, possession, and bondage; they don’t support truly loving relationship. Gone too far, they can even lead to physical, emotional, and mental abuse. Besides, our social customs are really expensive.
The ancient teachers taught that our false self wasn’t meant to be connected to others. It was devised as an individual container so that we could create individually. When someone says they need us, they’re trying to link false minds. They want us to fix the effect of their beliefs. They’re actually hurting us while saying we’re hurting them. They want us to be half of an illusory whole.
Initiation is about undoing all of our false self connections and finding our true wholeness. When we’re no longer linked to others via beliefs, needs, and wants, we’re free, and they’re free too.
