Theos-Talk Archives (January 1997 Message tl00040)

On Fri, 3 Jan 1997, Murray Stentiford wrote:
> > Mark wrote
> >I can't tell you how many times I've met someone who was on the
> >"spiritual path" and after getting to know them a while and hearing them
> >spout all this great book philosophy find myself wanting to say "yeah,
> >that's really great, but how are your relationships? Everything OK at
> >home? Are you healthy? Are the finances in order? 
> >How's the anger management? The desire management?"
> 
> Ha ....  Touche!
> The touchstone indeed.
> Well said, throughout that post.

Add another "yeah" vote to that. IMO the most fundamental relationship on
earth-plane is the one between partners - the decision of which partner to
choose being perhaps the most significant single *spiritual* decision one
makes in life ... even more so than what particular brand of religion or
philosophy one professes ... and the nature of the relationship is a
virtually unerring testimony to what one *really* believes, what stature
one's character has *actually* achieved ... the way a person relates to,
and expresses love with, one's partner *is* (IMO) the articulation of the
person's *actual* philosophy (as opposed to the fine words - so easy to
speak ...). 

The relationship winds up being a screen upon which almost every trait,
positive and negative, reflects itself. Every glitch, every density, every
blind-spot, every imbalance in one's growth inevitably causes turbulence,
and every achievement, every glow, every refinement of character or
expansion of awareness also, just as inevitably, enhances the relationship
and causes it to sing. 

Sometimes I wonder what would happen if every religion on earth decided to
issue a proclamation - saying that for the course of but one single year,
everyone ought to completely forget about loving "God", or "Humanity", and
focus instead completely on attempting - for that one single year - to
love just *one* other person ... but to love that person as well and
completely as was humanly possible. I wonder if perhaps at the end of that
year an enormous number of our worst social, political and economic
problems would suddenly seem to have easy solutions, whether all sorts of
social turmoil would seem to have - almost as though by magic - smoothed
itself out - whether most of the virtues religions attempt (mostly
unsuccessfully) to inculcate in their followers wouldn't wind up - without
even delibrately trying - being developed quite naturally and of their own
accord. 
						Ah well, -JRC