A real relationship is, by definition, open, which means that it is open to further developments. When a relationship is open and real, we have a better opportunity to discover deeper dimensions of reality, sometimes more powerfully than just when we are by ourselves. This is one reason why having a teacher is more powerful than working by oneself. A relationship with another person—whether in a friendship, an intimate relationship, or a marriage—can be powerful for our inner journey if it is real and open to new possibilities. An energizing dynamic can occur when two forces are interacting with each other—two souls, two vortexes of consciousness, blending their energies together. You are not simply adding one to the other—it’s not like one plus one equals two. It is more powerful than that. This is due to what we call mutuality, where there is not only interaction but also mutual interest—a common interest in the truth and a mutual desire to know one another. This shared interest in the discovery of the truth becomes a mutual love for discovering each other at the same time as we discover ourselves. – The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life, ch. 7
When it is part of a true relationship, inquiry brings out our experience of vulnerability and openness, which tends to bring our true nature, the depth of who we are, into the interaction. At the depth of who we are, there are beautiful qualities: kindness, sweetness, appreciation, gratitude, clarity, brightness, depth, peacefulness, energy, dynamism, power, and so on. Imagine a dynamic in which both of you have a degree of empathy and are open to feel and be affected by each other, and where the relational field includes enjoyment of one another. You are enjoying the other person, you are just enjoying who he is. And if he is sensitive to you, he begins to feel your joy and begins to laugh with you, to become happy with you. That makes you enjoy him even more . . . and the interaction keeps deepening and expanding. After a while you can’t stop laughing together, giggling, bubbling. – The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life, ch. 7
The beautiful thing about human beings is that we can face each other and have the kind of connection that echoes the connection with our inner nature. We are a species that can consciously know ourselves and engage in relationship as two sides of the same thing in a way that allows our inner world, our inner universe, to touch and to blend with another universe. The possibility of two consciousnesses creating an inimitable configuration while remaining authentically themselves is part of an intelligent creative potential for us. To be two as one field, grounded in the deep vastness of eternity, is a special and wonderful possibility. – The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life, ch.8
We want to learn how to be with each other in a way that will deepen and expand the relationship, give it the freedom, the opportunity, to develop its potential. We are implying here that just as our soul can develop, our relationships can develop. A relationship between two people is a kind of soul, a type of field of consciousness; it can either be opaque to its true nature or else it can be transparent to it, allowing the luminosity of true nature to manifest within and through it. Such transparency requires both people to be sincere in their interaction, caring about what happens in and to the field. They recognize that “In the same way that I care about my soul and how it is going to manifest, I care about the soul of my interaction with you. I have the opportunity here to discover and experience your truth, and mine, and to learn how we can both develop further through our relationship. The more I come to know you, the more I come to know myself. – The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life, Ch. 5
A relationship between two people can be more or less real. Not only can we both be personally real, our relationship can be real. For that to happen, however, a relationship will need to express the qualities of true nature. You may notice in all of our explorations the implicit principle that our spiritual essence has a sense of perfection, goodness, and purity that is beyond who we are as individuals and is the source of all the beautiful, positive qualities that we think are most human—in the sense of being most expressive of the human heart. It is the generous love, the selfless compassion, the courage, the clear discernment of a situation, the exercise of intelligence, that all lead to the discovery and arising of new knowledge, new insight. These are human qualities, but more fundamentally they are our spiritual qualities.
If we are to learn about divine eros, we need to see that it arises mostly between two in interaction. It can arise between the soul and her true nature, as love that has a pleasurable, enjoyable, erotic quality—in the sense that it is an energy with desire and pleasure and sensuousness in it. But when divine eros arises between two people, we understand how human relationship is a form in which those qualities can arise most fully and completely. – The Power of Divine Eros: The Illuminating Force of Love in Everyday Life, Ch. 5
In the real love situation, all the windows are opened—there are no protections, no attempt at protection, there is no holding back. It is not a question of being fully present; you’re so present that you’re gone. You are just a sweetness. The windows and the doors are so opened that there is no you and other. There is just one; the one is sweetness, love and appreciation. There’s a playfulness; two hearts are singing in one voice. – Diamond Heart Book Two: The Freedom to Be, Ch. 11
Today I will talk about a question that is difficult to talk about, something most people look for without knowing exactly what it is they are seeking. It is something normal, nothing out of the ordinary for human beings. The question is: What is a real relationship? What is a real relationship between one human being and another? The exact answer is very simple and straightforward: The real relationship you have between you and another human being is exactly the relationship you have between you and that human being. The real relationship is the relationship that is actually there. Now, saying that the real relationship is the relationship that is really there is not necessarily the same thing as saying it is the relationship that you perceive to be there. That is the crux of the problem. The relationship that is actually there is very rarely perceived as it is. In fact, most people tend to do everything possible not to perceive or acknowledge the real relationship. We always try to make it something that fits with our mind or our ideas. – A. H. Almaas, Diamond Heart Book Four: Indestructible Innocence, pg. 186