1. WHY DID YOU WRITE YOUR BOOK?
It came through as a full idea one day after a Devi Bhava event the previous night at which we had stayed up all night in meditation. The following day we were sitting in India Sweets & Spices in Los Angeles communing in Spirit together. We were in the high vibration of Joy and suddenly there was a whole book which seemed to be insisting on being written.
We birthed an outline including all of the Fourteen Agreements of the Esoteric Path of Marriage. The book is like a blueprint of our relationship, a culmination of all of the trials and tribulations, triumphs and lessons of a relationship devoted since ‘day one’ to spiritual self-realization. After all, we had met in an ashram in India. Our sharing serves the purpose of widening the path of relationship for any feeling that call. Every one of us as unique emanations of consciousness holds a key within us, a piece of the New Paradigm. Together we can birth an Enlightened Civilization by taking our Hero’s Journey and feeding the understanding back into the community, closing the loop, so to speak.
2. HOW CAN MARRIAGE OR RELATIONSHIP LEAD TO SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT IF SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT IS SUCH AN INDIVIDUAL PURSUIT?
As anyone who’s Heart has been ignited for a spiritual quest will discover, the unfolding of your Soul affects everything in your life to which you have been connected: your work, your relationships, your understanding of who you are and how you relate to your environment. Those who delve deeper may come to understand something more, something not often talked about: that one can only be as enlightened as the relationship dynamics in one’s life allow one to be; or at least in as much as one is able to be their highest self in those dynamics. Traditionally, this is one of the reasons the yogi or monk often leaves his home and may seek solitude. But today we may not all be afforded the ‘luxury’ of retreat into ‘caves’ (at least not all of the time) and we may be called upon to undertake this heroic journey of self-renewal and self-rediscovery, at least in part, amid the world. For our precious Light/Presence and perspective may be needed in the world. Thus our relationship dynamics must shift along with us, to empower Spirit, if they are to remain healthy, that is, if they are to serve our spiritual growth. Many of our relationships may fall away entirely or just for the time being as a new frontier opens up within us, a frontier those around us are not yet equipped to explore. Yet, if we learn how to enlighten our relationships, particularly an intimate relationship, it can be a most potent tool for our Spiritual Liberation/Enlightenment.
3. HOW DO YOU BALANCE PURSUING YOUR OWN SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTENMENT AND STILL BEING ATTENTIVE TO YOUR PARTNERS NEEDS WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF A RELATIONSHIP?
If one is in an intimate relationship that calls one to ask the question: “What about my Spiritual Enlightenment?” then perhaps one needs to turn within and enquire: what is the purpose of this relationship? What is this relationship giving me? What is it *for*? If the answer is not, “to grow and deepen spiritually” then as a person seeking Spiritual Enlightenment one has to ask of one self, *why this relationship?* Is it serving me? Or am I serving it? And what is the ‘it’ I am serving? In addition, there may be a split inside of one, a compartmentalization to explore.
4. HOW CAN YOU CREATE A RELATIONSHIP THAT LEADS OR SUPPORTS SPIRITUAL ENLIGHTNEMENT?
The first thing to acknowledge is that forging a relationship that focuses on Spiritual Liberation is a quantum leap away from the kind of relationships fostered in the Old Paradigm.
First step is to know and agree what your relationship is for. We have to come to new agreements within the relationship, and use the precious intimacy of it, as an opportunity to create a micro-society, if you will, in which our Spirits can flourish. Why the new agreements? The entire understanding of an intimate relationship needs to be completely re-imagined otherwise we will unconsciously default to the programming of the Old Paradigm, which is encoded within us as conditioning; agreements that are reinforced all around us in the world.
Often, in a relationship/marriage, just as in the dynamics of the world, the wrong energies are running the show (due to millennia of patriarchy). The dynamics aren’t healthy or balanced and these dynamics don’t serve anyone or anything, they just propagate more suffering.
*The Esoteric Path of Marriage* is a book to help people to forge a relationship that serves and empowers Spirit. A relationship focused on Absolute Truth; a relationship that nurtures purity and dismantles blame; that supports the couple in speaking their Truth no matter what; a relationship that allows itself to drop deeply into the dimension of *feeling* at the first sign of a emotions reaching critical mass; that holds non-judging space when our partner is taken over by old programming; a relationship that knows how to heal the totality of itself – mentally, emotionally, sexually and spiritually. That does not give Time and Story precedence over all else, nor demand words from one who is processing on the inside; that is not offended by silence in reply to a question but gives space for each to be Whole, Holy and naturally, effortlessly themselves.
5. WHY DO YOU THINK SO MANY RELATIONSHIPS FAIL OR END IN DIVORCE OR SEPARATION AND HOW CAN PEOPLE AVOID THOSE MISTAKES?
If the Spirit of a person is not growing, not expanding, not sufficiently supported by the relationship, the relationship will not be fulfilling, no matter how much the couple may have in common or how attracted physically to each other they might be.
Yet, potentially no relationship is actually a mistake or a failure from a divine perspective. Growth happens through experiences that are fully felt and this expansion entails a shift in our understanding; the lessons of experience are reaching us. Separation does not have to mean failure, it can be an opening for major growth.
We can release ourselves from the burden of guilt, shame and blame around having difficulties in our relationships. The suffering and the difficulties are built into the structure, into what we may call the Old Paradigm, which is a mind-structure born out of inherited, hind-brain programming that is the struggle to survive. It is a paradigm of separation from God, Nature, our fellow human beings and we are born into these challenges. Eventually we find a way out when we cease looking for our salvation on the outside of us and begin to discover that we can dismantle all pain and separation through ‘going in’. We can raise our vibration through inner arts practices and meditation and discover what we really Are. And in this way as we heal ourselves, and our natural gifts can begin to overflow as healing for the world. We begin to forge relationships that support this, support our continued spiritual growth and expansion.
6. HOW SHOULD COUPLES ADDRESS CONFLICT OR DISAGREEMENT IN A RELATIONSHIP IF THEY CAN NOT REACH A COMPROMISE?
In our book we talk in detail about how to work together to transcend ego and dis-identify from and transmute emotions. Once emotions are transmuted we can have communication instead of conflict. In our own relationship we do not identify one another *as* the emotional charge, *as* our pain bodies and in this way we are free to heal ourselves again and again from all and any conflict that may arise as we reclaim every single lost piece of ourselves from negative thoughts and dark emotions.
There are also many beautiful ways to support each other in relationship, to promote harmony and healing on all levels of oneself – mental, emotional, sexual and spiritual – and these we share in our book. They include various meditations, techniques, games and play, as well as introducing a sexual *sadhana* in which we may, with compassion and courage, free ourselves from our sexual conditioning and enjoy more Unconditional Love and Unity in our love-making.