Male and Female Relationships

Dearest Students,
Here is a copy of an interchange I had with a student. I have removed identifying information, as well as asked her permission to share. Perhaps you will find it helpful in your own life and relationships. She was concerned that her husband was not willing to listen to her feelings, or talk about his own. We exchanged a few emails, and here is my last email to her:

Dear Student,
If you are working on yourself in ways that your husband is not, you can’t expect him to be at the same place you are. Keep working on yourself and asking that the light keep growing within you. In a male-female relationship, there are times when all the woman can do is hold the light for the man — which she can do when the man is loving and supportive towards her in other ways (as your husband is) even if they aren’t the ways she wants.

As you hold the light, you give him the possibility to come closer to that light. Remember that ego (the false self) never wants to come closer to the light. It wants to avoid the light. Ego thrives in darkness.

As you grow in the light, you grow in consciousness. You begin to see what you could not see before. This means you feel more deeply. You sense more deeply. You begin to see what was already there. what you could not see before.

Everything is happening inside you. The sadness in you is the sadness in you.

In a completely free and independent relationship, you would never get down or depressed about how your partner is acting towards you. You would see it, sense it, feel it — but the bright light inside you would have no room to identify with those feelings, take ownership of them, and decide that you should feel sad. You’d realize you have the right, the permission, even the obligation (to your own precious self) to be supremely radiantly happy, no matter what is happening outside you. You'd realize that your happiness is not dependent upon what another person does, even if that person is your mate.

You are human, becoming divine. You have feelings. Meet your human feelings with understanding. Try to understand what it is that causes you to suffer. Say to yourself, “Pain, I do not understand you.” Then continue to work towards understanding. Work towards healing. Understanding — awareness — dissolves the pain. Pain that is understood finds a home in your own heart and dissolves into love.

The problem is that when we are in pain, we often look for a home in someone else's heart. We have the idea that our pain comes from outside and can be healed from outside. This is just not true. It is the false idea that all human beings live with. This false idea leads to more suffering.

You are on a path of wholeness. Do your best to hold the light. This is what a spiritual woman does. She holds the light. Particularly with a man. Because the man is a man, different from a woman. The human man does not want to follow a woman. The male ego resists being told what to do by a woman. At the psychological or human life level, this has to do with the mother and son relationship. The better the relationship the man has with his mother, and the better his father treated his mother, the more healthy the man is.

But if you hold the light — just hold it — without trying to get the man to do something, without trying to change him (you can't!) he has the opportunity, all by himself, to get curious - to wonder - what does she have? How is she so happy? What is the secret smile I see on her face? Why isn’t she following me around, demanding and insisting that I come closer? How can she be there without me? What is going on with her?

Remember that the ego loves resistance. Ego also loves attention. So ego loves it when you demand and resist. This makes ego stronger. The man doesn’t know that unconsciously he loves this also, nevertheless; he does. 

So do something different. Hold the light. Hold your own pain. Give the pain to God. Tell God that you are tired of seeking release from your pain through old habits that do not work. Open yourself to a new way. Consciously endure the pain. Do nothing from your old self to heal the pain. Leave space for Higher Consciousness, for angels, for Divine Help — to come in and heal the pain for you.