God in Relationship
“I don’t care about people” I realized a while ago. we were walking dogs at night, my husband and I. We talked about something relationship-related. There was trouble in our relationship for a while, we talked a lot about it, and I was pondering and considering. And I realized that I don’t care about people.
I do care about them with my mind, I am interested in their affairs, I like talking about what happens in their life, having conversations about them … but I don’t care with my heart.
I don’t open and allow myself to be with people, I realized. I don’t allow the space, the connection, where there is no “me”. I don’t allow my mind to go away and simply be with another human, as fully and completely as I am with myself or with trees. Be present with them, feel with them, sense with them, relate with them.
“I” am always in the relationship. There is always “me” that observes, calculates, thinks, decides, acts … there never is a simple experience of another person. Well, maybe not never, but very, very rarely.
And so I decided to “practice” on my husband. I thought that it would be a good way to learn to allow myself to open to being with people, relate with people. I decided to be with my husband without putting myself in the way. To experience him. After few hours, after a day, the feeling begun to emerge, very slowly but unmistakably, the feeling of an absolute contentment. A feeling of being whole, complete in a very normal, very ordinary way. A feeling of being perfectly happy, perfectly at peace with my life, perfectly satisfied with myself, even though “myself” was not there.
“I” was gone, fear was gone, need was gone. My husband seemed to enjoy the results of my experiment, of my letting go of me, and I … I was perfect. I was complete, whole … perfect … once I let go of “myself”, as my mind would have it.
I heard the “All you need is love” song on a radio today and thought that it is true. All we need is love, but not the sort of love that we are used to. Not the love that provides support, safety, care, admiration, company. Not the love that fulfills needs, that solves problems, that remedies loneliness. Not the love that fills holes and gives what is missing.
All we need is love that is present when we are with another so fully and completely, that there is nothing but the experience of them. There is no thinking, no wanting, no needing, but simply relating, simply being. All we need is love that is a complete opening, that is in the space where mind is gone.
In this love, in this space, where there is no mind, where there is no needs, wants or lack, we are truly ourselves. In this love, in this space, there is no fear, no need to fight or defend, no need to do anything at all. In this love, in this space, we can relate with everyone, with everything – humans, animals, plants, trees, rivers and rocks. In this love, in this space, we are who we are, and so is everyone and everything we relate with.
Last night I walked down the street by my house. The moon is half full now and the black trees stand out distinctly against the luminous night sky. I stopped by a tall eucalyptus tree for a moment. I stood looking, opening, feeling, and then I sung. It came to me that I could hold a certain sound, a certain note, that the tree would respond to. We could talk to each other.
I opened my mouth and the sound came out and the tree responded. I could feel the tree’s awareness so much clearer, so much stronger. I could feel the tree relating with me as I spoke to it with the sound I made. There was nothing there but the sound, and the feelings it carried, and the presence and experience of another life, of another awareness, of another being. Presence growing stronger and more distinct.
I was not there, I only experienced, as I was experienced.
Have you seen the movie “Avatar” yet? Do you think that we need fiber optics cables that blend with trees and animals to be able to be with them, relate with them, communicate with them? Or to communicate, to be, to relate with each other?
Well, think again.
All we need is love.
A man came to my house today. He works with my husband, I’ve met him a time or two before. We don’t know each other at all, not really, our conversations are always brief, never go beyond a polite chitchat. It hasn’t today, either. And yet during the few minutes I spent talking to him I could feel something definite, something subtle, something very different.
He is a man with quite a remarkable life. He lives in London, has a job that hardly deserves that name, being way too much fun. He travels around the world while doing this “job”, and makes quite an insane amount of money.
He is very sweet, quiet, polite. And there is something more about him, something that is different from how other people feel. It took me a while trying to narrow it down, to pinpoint it. It is not so much about who he is, it is about who I am, how I feel, when I am in his company.
While talking to him I feel, I felt today, full and complete. I feel that I don’t need anything from him, I don’t need anything from anyone, I don’t need anything at all, because I am present and complete in my life.
I realized, as I was pondering this feeling today, that this man is not only fully and completely responsible for his reality, fully and completely present in his life, but that this is how he relates to others. This is how he related to me – as a peer, as a partner, as present and complete as himself.
There is a sense about this man of “having arrived” in life. True, he is very wealthy, true, he is very well connected, true, he has an amazing carrier, incredible life, but none of that is a factor here, it doesn’t feel like any of it matters.
It is a deeper shift that must have happened at some point … or maybe he’s always been this way … a shift from surviving life, striving, needing, fighting, defending, protecting to being, creating, experiencing. Because of who he is, because of how he relates, because of how present he is, how completely responsible, he has opened to and created for himself the life he has.
I like this man a lot. Even in a brief polite, meaningless exchange with him I feel met, I feel supported. Not supported in the usual understanding of the world, which is having someone else take care of some aspect of my life.
I feel supported because of the way this man relates with me, as a complete, absolutely present and ultimately responsible being. As who I am.
“Imagine that a mountain is not a mountain. Not what we see as a mountain, what we call a mountain. Imagine that a mountain is a spirit being, without physical form. Imagine that this being is bigger than the mountain you see, bigger than the Earth, bigger than the Universe. Imagine that this being is boundless, endless. Now imagine that this endless being chose to manifest itself as a mountain here, on Earth.
The being is not a mountain, it simply chooses to manifest a shape of the mountain as a way of relating, as a way of being present here, on Earth. This is how mountains are, this is how we are” , I said to my husband yesterday, as I was trying to explain to him how mountains teach me about being human.
“The mountain relates to me the way it relates to itself, as who I really am. It holds space for me to be the being that I am, manifesting itself as a human woman. The mountain shows me how to be present this way, just like Brooks does.”
I’ve needed the mountain’s teachings lately. After my family’s visit, which was long, heavy and intense, all the stress and reaction begun to surface and I found it hard to be here, to be in relationship with my husband, as stressed out as I was, to hold space for someone when I needed someone to hold space for me. I wanted to leave. I wanted to go deep into the mountains and stay there, I wanted to be alone.
There is such peace when I wander up and down the mountain trails, there is such space and such presence when I sit on boulders, looking over the distant ocean. Late in the evening, after the sun sets and there is only enough light to see the trail, there is silence in the mountains. Human minds withdraw into homes, into brightly lit spaces, and the mountains become wild. It never takes long for my mind to choke on it’s own rapid thoughts and become silent. It never takes long for me to come back to myself, to be myself. It never takes long for me to see that all the problems, all the drama, all the feelings, emotions, pain, confusion, frustration, are only trauma. Trauma from my childhood, from when I was growing up, from where I wasn’t present, from where I got lost.
It all comes up and my mind grabs onto it and starts spinning, and twirling, and twisting, faster and faster, to create more pain, more fear, more confusion. Spinning stories, constructing solutions and explanations, moving this pain here, explaining this fear there as this or that, taking an old story to create a whole new one … my mind calls it “solving the problem”.
In the mountains there is no space for “solving problems”. There is no space for mind’s antics. There is only me, who I am, what I am. My mind is only a story. It has nothing to do with me.
But then I have to go back. Back to where the darkness is chased away by lights.
Back at home, late at night, Christopher and I sat in bed, talking. We haven’t said much to each other for the last few days … I didn’t say much. I didn’t see any point in having a conversation. We could have talked about what happened, analyze it, spin stories, construct solutions and come up with explanations. Move this pain here, explain this fear as this or that, take an old story to create a whole new one … it seemed pointless to me. “What will change?” I asked myself. ” I can take the pieces of my life and rearrange them, I can move somewhere else, do something else, with someone else, but what will change? Will I change? Will I be any different?”.
There was nothing I could think of doing that would change anything, nothing that would make any difference at all, and yet something had to be done. We were tense, angry, resentful, and something had to be done.
As I sat on the bed, saying little, looking inside, it came to me. It took me a moment to acknowledge what I saw because it was not the answer I would prefer, and yet I could not deny it. It came to me that there is nothing to do, to solve, to fix or to change. I don’t need to move, divorce, change my profession, read relationship books, attend workshops. All I need to do is relax and step into the situation. I need to come back to myself, be myself right in the middle of the anger, the frustration, right in a center of the trauma. And it will heal, open, transform, by itself, spontaneously.
Right there, in my bedroom, it came to me that I can become as wild and present as I am in the mountains, and there will be no space for my mind’s antics.
“I have learned to create a space for myself to be who I am by separating from other people” it occurred to me at the very last day of my family visiting me. They came here for three weeks, all the way from Poland. It was the first time I spent three weeks with my family since 2000, since I moved to USA.
I never considered my move to America to be an escape. It was a great opportunity at first, then I was in love. I didn’t really want to move here all that much, I did not come here for the sake of the place itself. It was to be with a great Zen master, then to be with my husband. And yet I had nightmares, for years I would wake up terrified from the same dream of being stuck in Poland, unable to leave, unable to come back here. I would sit in bed, cold with sweat, and I would repeat to myself that I’m here, that I’m safe, that I’m here.
I did not feel that I was escaping my family when I moved here. There was nothing to escape. Technically I lived with those people in the same apartment but there was no relationship, I thought. I always had my life and they had no place in it, they had nothing to do with me. Once I moved here a phone call, or an email, once every half a year, or once a year, seemed perfectly sufficient to “keep up the appearances” of being connected, and to keep them at a comfortable distance. And yet I remember the first time I went back to Poland after coming to America. I only spent one night in my old home, in my old room. I was pacing the room back and forth like a tiger in a cage. I felt trapped, snared, terrified that something could happen, that I would have to stay there, that I would not be able to leave.
It took me 6 years to screw up my courage and go back to visit again.
There was really nothing to be afraid of. My family has plenty of issues, God knows, but I wasn’t terribly abused. I was not tortured, raped, starved, locked in dark cupboards, I did not have to live on bread and water. My parents are not evil monsters nor heartless psychopaths. And yet I could not be there, I could not be with them.
And then they came, my mother, my sister and her son. They came to stay with Chris and me for three weeks. They brought Poland with them, they brought my childhood back, threw it in my face and I realized that I have to look at it, face it this time, or those three weeks will be a torture indeed. So I looked.
As I watched my mother, as I interacted with her and my sister, I could see, one after another, the source of my traumas. I could see my fears and the defenses I put up to protect myself against them. All the my problems that, in themselves, seemed inexplicable, were put into context and I could see where they came from. My defenses now made perfect sense to me. And I realized, at the end of the very last day of my family’s visit, that I have learned to create a space for myself to be who I am by separating myself from them.
Once I decided that I don’t want to be like my parents, that I don’t want to be like my sister, I removed myself from them. I was myself, as I wanted to be, because I didn’t belong to the family anymore. On the very last day of my family visit I realized that I am myself, as I want to be, by removing myself from a relationship with everyone else. I am who I am by separating myself from others. And if I can’t maintain the separation, if I can’t remove myself, then I am gone. Who I am, myself, unique and original, is gone, as I merge with whomever I am with. And the possibility of this happening is terrifying. Terrifying enough to hunt me with nightmares.
Those last three weeks were very intense. My relatives just left a couple of days ago. I’ve been sitting in my office, which now is my office again (not the guest bedroom), in the wonderful peace and quietness of a house occupied only by Chris and me. I’ve been sitting here, in silence, after three weeks of speaking nearly constantly, in two languages at the same time, and I could feel my body relax. I could feel my head open, I could feel my mind slowing down and expanding. My body is resting.
My body is resting not only because the stress of being a hostess, and a tour-guide, and a translator, is now gone. As I realized that I am who I am by separating myself, I also realized that I don’t have to do that. I don’t need to be always on my guard, I don’t need to be always careful about where I am, and with whom. I realized that I am who I am, in any place, with anyone. I realized that I don’t have to remove myself from any situation, from any person or company of people, that are not just like me, that don’t support being me. I am who I am. I can be who I am. In any place, with anyone. I can simply be me with everyone and everything, always, if I choose to.
Is there a point of me being who I am otherwise? I can enjoy being God all I want, I can revel in my uniqueness by myself or with the select few I feel safe with, but what good does it do to anyone? What good does my being here, on earth, right now do to anyone, if I can not be myself with others? What good is there of my being compassionate only with compassionate people? What good is my being enlightened only with enlightened people? What good is there in me be being open and tolerant only with open and tolerant people?
I can have a nice, pleasant life, being who I am by myself, within the limits of the world I created for myself, admitting only those select few who “fit in”. By being who I am with others, with anyone, at any time, I can change the world.
question: are we really all the same? I can’t think of a time that I lied to, manipulated, robbed or poisoned another person in order to gain/provide protection, support or safety for myself or my children. I can’t think of a time when I felt so empty that I craved bigger houses, better or more cars, more technology and an endless cash flow and would stop at nothing to obtain these things.
These are the ways of the greedy and corrupt. And nothing in nature exhibits the greed and corruption of humans. I for one have a difficult time justifying this type of behavior by telling myself that these people are simply seeking protection, support or safety.
answer: I was reminded of a story, as I read your comment. I would like to share it with you, if I may.
In my early twenties, when I lived in Poland and practiced Zen, I used to attend Auschwitz-Birkenau Bearing Witness Retreats. They happened every year. For five days people from all over the world, from all religions and spiritual traditions, would gather in the Concentration Camp to meditate, pray, sing, feel.
Being Polish, having grown up about an hour and a half away from the concentration camp, I wasn’t moved to tears just by being there. People would stare at photographs in horror, people would walk around crying, I wasn’t. I’ve been there before, a couple of times with school trips. Reading books, diaries, memories of the war survivors was a significant part of my school curriculum, I knew all of it already. I knew the stories.
I shared how I felt with another participant after a day or two. She told me that I am not doing this right. She said I should make myself cry, she said I should look at the photographs and imagine that it is me, my family. What she said didn’t make much sense to me and yet I was so firmly convinced of not being good enough, of being broken, wrong, insensitive, that her suggestion fitted right in and I believed it.
Every night, at the end of the day, all the participants would gather together to share their stories. That night I decided to listen very hard, to try to feel the pain, to make myself cry. I was going to do it right. I stared fixedly at each speaker. I was willing myself, forcing myself to feel, to experience their pain. After a while my eyes begun to hurt, but I kept pushing. But the more I pushed the less I could feel. It seemed that the more I strained my whole being to listen, the less I could hear. Gradually all the feelings receded and there was nothing in me, just a blank emptiness. I could feel nothing, I was moved by nothing, I cared about nothing. There was no pain, there was no being right or wrong, there was no striving or trying, there was nothing. I was absolutely empty.
As I walked to the hotel that night I thought about killing people. It seemed such a normal, ordinary thing to do. I couldn’t see why I would have any problem doing it. “If someone handed me a gun right now I would kill this person on the other side of the street” I thought. Why not?
The next morning I woke up utterly miserable, without having the least idea why. I went to my small group, about ten people, that would meet each morning. When my turn to share came I started telling them about last night, about how I wanted to feel, to do it right, about how I was pushing myself, trying as hard as I could. I started crying sometime in a middle of the story. Then I couldn’t stop crying, I was sobbing uncontrollably and words were coming out of my mouth that I didn’t know where there, that I had no intention of saying.
Those words said that we have to pray for the nazi, we have to pray for the SS-men and we have to pray for all the capos, because they were in such incredible pain. They were in so much pain that they couldn’t feel it anymore, they couldn’t feel anything anymore. They were dead, empty, and it hurts so much. I knew exactly how much it hurts.
I have learned that day that there is no justifying the greed and corruption. There is no justifying the horrendous suffering that people inflict upon people. There is no justifying the atrocious crimes that people commit against people.
I also learned that day that there can be an understanding. I learned that there can be a relationship. I learned that, ultimately, we are not so very different.
