Magdi:
If there is anything you would like to discuss, any questions, anything you are looking at that you would like to explore?

Question:

On Facebook you were quoting somebody. You spoke about relationship. You said that you are in relationship with yourself and that there is no other person.

And it was like “duh”. I unconsciously had been holding the other as a separate person.

Yeah, it was like Wow!

Do you mind discussing that some more? I thought that was really profound. Something so simple could slip by and yet it can be profoundly changing.

Reply:

Yes, conventionally there is the impression that relationship is between 2 people, between 2 parties, between 2 persons.

It all starts with the assumption that what I truly am is a person. What follows is the feeling that what I truly am is a limited person.

Q: Yes it is the feeling quality that interests me.

R: What follows that assumption is a sense of lack. The feeling of incompleteness accompanies that feeling and belief.

A sense of incompleteness is unhappiness and leads to pursuit.

That is because a part has been pulled out of the whole and made it incomplete. A separate mortal self, a me, a person has been pulled out of the divine wholeness, has been separated from consciousness, and it yearns to return to wholeness. That yearning to go back to wholeness is experienced as a pull and push at the feeling level.

As a child is missing her mother, is yearning to reconnect with their mother. Yearning to be with mother again.

This entire impression is a dream impression. Meaning they are images on the seamless screen of consciousness.

The screen of consciousness being right now, right here, whatever it is that hears these words, undivided, whole. The presence. It is not a thing. Not a mind object. Formless awareness that hears these words. That perceives this perception. Out of which the perception arises and out of which the perception is made.

You could refer to it as the screen of consciousness. The screen upon which and from which images arise … out of consciousness itself. As a me impression and an other impression. As a thought sensation. A me that has lost its wholeness and that is yearning to return to wholeness. It looks out onto the world, imagining its wholeness is out there, attainable via certain activities, via certain events, relationships.

And looks for objects and situations in the world that can help it recoup its wholeness. That can bring it back to its natural state of wholeness and completeness.

Through the senses, we perceive a seeming external world. We look out via the senses. There is a sensory element to perception, to the auditory sense of hearing, to the sensory sense of feeling, to the tactile sense of touching, to the olfaction sense of smelling…

Smelling, tasting, touching give the impression of an outward direction, an external world, an external reality.

It is because we have separated ourselves via physical identification that we are guided by the senses. The senses guide us outward.

They guide us through the visual, through the auditory and through the tactile senses.

And through the feeling states. So, through the senses, through perception we focus on external objects, seeking wholeness in external objects, situations and experiences.

In spite of this impression, our real experience is non-dual. Our real experience is intimate, void of any real separation. The experience of sensing, perceiving, touching, smelling arises and dissolves in the consciousness that is its source.

We experience our experience and not an external world. Look right now. Are you not sensing your sensation? You are sensing your sensation, smelling your smell, perceiving your perception, tasting your taste. Perception is not external. We are experiencing ourselves and not of an external object out there. Ask yourself: Where is your perception occurring?

Imagine there is a smell out there in the distance. For example, consider the smell of a rose. In order to smell the rose, there has to be a meeting, a sort of merging between the rose and the smelling. The two have to become one in the experience of smelling. Right? In smelling the rose, there is no distance between smelling and the rose. There is oneness of the rose and smelling. And you are the one smelling, correct? You are one with the smelling as well.

You are smelling yourself as a rose.

You are experiencing yourself as a rose.

You are experiencing your experience. You are never experiencing an object out there.

If separate objects are indeed separate, they cannot experience each other due to the fact of their separatness.

You see, it is consciousness , undivided, whole, maintaining its seamlessness that appears as a rose, as the perfume of the rose.

When you look at what your experience is, when you look carefully at an object, you may start by perceiving an object out there. But as you pay closer attention you will notice that you are perceiving your perception right here and not out there.

Meaning you are aware of your awareness. Awareness awaring itself as a perception.

As a cup.

Awareness awaring itself as hearing these words.

As understanding these words.

Awareness awaring this perception. This perception occurring within awareness, intimately made of awareness. Not as something out there that you are travelling towards, to experience out there.

That is the mystery. The mind does not get. The mind operates through the separation paradigm.

The mind perceives a me here and a world out there. That is an assumption and a belief.

We can assist the mind by asking the following question: If the world is out there, then how do you perceive it? If you are indeed apart from it, if it is indeed separate and out there, apart from you, separate from consciousness, then could you, while standing apart from the object that is out there, perceive it?

If they are separate, how could the ‘over here’ perceive the ‘over there’?

The mind cannot answer, but from your direct experience you will notice that whatever you are perceiving, you perceive intimately right here right now at zero distance. Your perception is made out of yourself. It is intimately yourself taking on this form. While remaining formless.

Perception is made out of yourself.

So in relationship, which boils down to a set of perceptions, sensations, mentations, observations, comments, thoughts and perceptions… you are experiencing yourself and not an ‘other’ out there.

When you recognize the intimacy of experience, when you recognize you are experiencing yourself, where is the sense of lack? You are whole and undivided and in this realization, there is union and peace.

The realization of our undivided pure intimacy, our wholeness, dissolves the sense of lack.

So when you experience yourself in true relationship, the experience is contemplative and sweet. In time, that sweetness spreads and permeates the dream. That is the sweetness of wholeness, of oneness.

Your entire experience becomes sweet, tender. It is void of the sense of lack.

Void of expectation and conditions.

Not in time.

But when you are imagining a me and of course another, there is evaluation, measurement, confrontation and judgement. The feeling is that this is not working for me.

And, yes this sort of relationship is not going to work. And why?

Because the you is a shifting target.

The dream character keeps changing.

Desires, moods, feelings, thoughts, beliefs… dissatisfaction… keep changing. We are seeking happiness, wholeness in a limited object, in the relationship, in the situation, in a temporary experience, in the external world.

So we say: the relationship should be like this and not like that. The other is disappointing me. We see the problem out there.

You cannot be fulfilled with an object. No matter how big the object is, it is still limited.

The infinite can not be fulfilled by the finite.

Limited form will only provide limited satisfaction … that is pleasure but not happiness.

It is not fulfillment.

Fulfillment that is in time and space is impermanent.

It is not the eternal happiness.

So you are not experiencing eternity in a relationship. You are in the temporal and conditional. You are experiencing discontinuity.

Incompleteness.

And so you are toggling between happiness and unhappiness and there is no peace in that.

The terms keep changing and shifting.

So in a relationship where there are terms being imposed and negotiated and keep shifting, you don’t know what card you are being handed from moment to moment.

And what card you are dealing from moment to moment.

You flip the card over and you don’t know if it is an ace or a queen of hearts or a Six of Spade.

It is a bumpy ride.

A true relationship starts with love for truth. It is guided by love for truth and the recognition of your wholeness and the wholeness of the other.

Not dependent on a situation or on conditions that dictate how the relationship should unfold. It starts at the ending point.

It starts with the happiness.

With freedom.

First you have to recognize the freedom that you are. You as consciousness, not you the mortal body mind identity.

The same freedom as your partner.

You instantaneously recognize the freedom that is. Because the freedom that you are is borderless freedom and is not limited to you. Is not limited period.

The freedom that is limited to you, the freedom that is personal is not real freedom.

Freedom is not limited or personal.

So over and over in relationship you go to Source. You go to the recognition of wholeness, meaning you go to the recognition that the separate me is a dream, is not real and is not the path to freedom.

And that type of inquiry occurs in your own space, in your own direct experience. Meaning whatever arises that triggers a you … that is exactly where you inquire.

Is that what I am?

Am I this person?

Is the other actually another?

So, yes, relationship is relationship with oneself when one is a truth lover that is the path in relationship.

Not a relationship with oneself as a person, but with oneself and everyone as universal consciousness.

Meaning it is a universal relationship.

It is a consciousness relationship. Meaning consciousness relating with itself.

Meaning the other is yourself.

Is your very self.

Of course then the mind comes into the picture with all the conditioning, with all the stories, the belief systems, but don’t buy them. You cannot buy the I-thought and be happy.

Because the I-thought says that consciousness is personal and separates you from wholeness.

When you look directly at your experience, you will find that there is no personal experience. Person is just a belief… and looking is always in this moment.

In this moment there is total absence of person.

A belief doesn’t create.

Reality is presence. Pure borderless infinite impersonal presence. Just this aware presence, this very moment, not in time… that is borderless.

Not the image itself. The image says: yes there is a limit. There is a wall here and another wall there.

But consciousness, awareness… THAT is not limited.

THAT is not a form.

It is whatever hears and perceives.

It is not a form, not an object.

It is not perceived. And yet you cannot deny its reality. You cannot deny presence, beingness, the I-amness. I AM.

You cannot deny that there are NO borders to presence. Where do you find any border?

Which direction do you go?

What direction?

What is a direction?

What picks a direction?

Is it not an arising thought?

Thought says: this direction, that direction

So you rest as THAT.

As the presence, as the peace, as beingness.

Relationship is from That.

Relationship is That.

Resting Presence.

That is open and available, intelligent

There are relationships also that are based on common interests.

You might like the theatre and have a partner who shares your passion and interest, and you have a relationship around a common interest, a shared passion.

Or you might like travelling. A shared passion for travelling, exploring, discovering the world.

But in all cases as soon as you separate yourself there is the yearning to come back home, to return to wholeness.

And home is not a place, not an experience.

It is the peace, the consciousness, the awareness.

It is the peace. Unmoved, unperturbed by events. Untouched by whatever is unfolding. It is the happiness. Causeless. You follow?

In the other, in the relationship we are seeking happiness. We are always seeking love and happiness.

Peace, love and happiness. Understanding, tranquility, sweetness, beauty. All these are divine qualities. The qualities of the source. Qualities of consciousness.

So what we love is that. The divine qualities. The freedom. The love. The openness. Not some object.

You recognize that THAT is truly what you love. THAT is not an object.

Not a man or a woman. Not some experience. It is the love, the freedom, the joy.

The peace, the tranquility. The infinity. The eternity. That does not depend on anything unfolding in time and space.

So, that is what you say YES to.

That is what you are open to.

That is what you offer and that is what you live.

You live this love, this freedom.

It is a recognition. You are that borderless presence. Infinite. Formless. You are the love. So badly needed.

The heart yearns for the beauty, for the love and joy.

You are that.

You are that that speaks these words. That hears these words.

That is the heart.

That is home.

That is the love that you seek. That is the light that draws all hearts to it.

You are that.

The source.

The core.

The world comes to you to find peace, to drink from the source. Not some lacking me.

The spring, the fresh spring. The source. So the entire world can travel and hydrate themselves from the source.

Fulfill their thirst.

Not some body mind experience.

They are a dime a dozen.

And they are okay. Not a problem.

But that is not what you are. That’s not what you are.